*Stephen Bell (Stop the War coalition)
**Dr Aly El Kabbany (writer and political analyst)
***Syed Mohsin Abbas (Broadcaster, journalist and political analyst)
Tuesday 8th February 2022
For the past four decades relations between the West and Iran have been marred by suspicion, distrust and often hostility. Since 1979 the Islamic Republic has endured economic sanctions that have inflicted severe blows to its economy and caused enormous hardship to its people. Yet the two sides have tolerated the existence of each other and continued their diplomatic relations. Apart from America Western countries continue to support the nuclear accord signed with Iran in 2015. What are the underpinning factors of this abnormal situation? What is the ideology of this protracted conflict and how does it impact on the balance of power in the Middle East? What has enabled Iran to stand on its feet and achieve great technological advances despite the crippling sanctions?
Stephen Bell: The current hostility of the Western powers towards the Islamic Republic of Iran is in direct line with the treatment Iran has been subjected to whenever it asserted its sovereignty.
Throughout the nineteenth century, Russia and Britain competed for domination in Iran. The result was a weak state and central government represented by the Qajar dynasty – a dynasty that was forced to allow preferential trading for foreign merchants. Iran’s resources were given over as foreign concessions. Nor did the imperialist powers ‘develop’ the country – as in colonial mythology. The Russian and British governments vetoed railway development in Iran – by the First World War, the only railway in Iran was a six mile track from Tehran to a shrine.
In the 20th century, the imperialist powers, first Britain, and then the US, intervened whenever the Iranian people organised as an independent power. So the first, Constitutional Revolution was blocked and reversed by co-ordinated action from Britain and Czarist Russia, including by military occupation.
After 1918, when popular movements began to re-emerge, British imperialism supported the rise to power of Reza Shah. His government guaranteed the monopoly control of Iranian oil by the British government through its Anglo-Iranian Oil Company.
In 1941, occupying the country, the British government ousted Reza Shah, and turned the Iranian economy into a support mechanism for the allied war effort. This was a process it had also engaged in during the First World War. On both occasions the result was a major famine with millions of Iranians dying.
After the Second World War the growing assertiveness of the Iranian people fuelled the movement to nationalise Iranian oil. President Mussadeq was elected to carry through this act of national liberation.
The coup against Iranian democracy was begun by the Labour government in 1951 when it froze Iranian assets in London, stopped royalty payments from oil extracted, introduced sanctions against importing or exporting to Iran, and imposed a siege against tankers exporting Iranian oil. The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company instructed 2000 expatriate staff to resign, leaving Iran in haste.
This process was continued by the incoming Tory government, and was supported by the US government. The culmination was reached in 1953 with the CIA/MI6 coup that toppled Mussadeq. The usurper, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, integrated the Iranian state into US key strategic alliances for controlling the region. Iranian oil was turned over to an international consortium with US companies now having the prominent stake.
The hostility of successive US governments since 1979 is then continuing this pattern of trying to prevent the rise of an independent Iran. The revolution of 1979 overthrew not just the last Shah, but also the alliances of the Iranian state in support of US hegemony. Under the Shah, Iran had been the twin pillar with Saudi Arabia against Arab nationalism, communism and any genuinely progressive development of the region. Under the Shah, Iran had also been a restraining voice in OPEC.
But what has exacerbated the tension with Iran has been the decline in the US economy’s relative weight in the world. Average US growth had reached 4.4% in 1969 – by 2002 this had fallen to 3.5% – by 2012 to 2.7% – and by 2019, immediately before covid, it had fallen to 2%.
Such a long-term decline in growth meant that the US’s proportion of world product also fell, from 34.8% in 1971 to 24.7% in 2020. So average growth in the US has more than halved, while its world share declined from a third to a quarter.
In 1978, as the Iranian Revolution was building to its climax, Deng Tsiao Ping launched the reform of the Chinese economy. In 1980, China represented 1.27% of the world product. By 2020, China represented 18.33% of the world product.
For the US, its decline in its relative weight means that it is no longer able to fund allies to the degree it did in the long boom after World War Two. Nor can it simply outproduce its rivals – as the EU, Japan and China were all expanding autonomously.
Consequently, the US has increasingly relied upon its undisputed military superiority. US diplomacy has taken a back seat in an era of never-ending wars and sanctions. Consequently, in its response to the Iranian revolution, the US has promoted regime change, by open and covert means, over dialogue and respect.
From the start, the US sanctuary to the Shah was an affront to the Iranian people’s demand for justice. The hostage crisis arising from the US embassy takeover hardened the stance. However, the long-lasting damage to US/Iranian relations was largely a result of US support for Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Iran in 1980. The US government provided Saddam with intelligence on the location of Iranian forces. Rumsfeld visited Baghdad on behalf of President Reagan to assure Saddam of US support. US allies in the Gulf bankrolled Iraq’s war – $60 billion from Saudi Arabia, and $18 billion from Kuwait.
The US and other western governments did not condemn Iraq’s use of chemical weapons with 63 separate gas attacks recorded between December 1980 and March 1984. Weapons grade chemicals were supplied to Saddam under licence from the US and German governments.
The US supported the Iraqis in the so called “tanker war” from 1986, attacking Iranian warships and patrol boats. And on 3rd July 1988, the USS Vincennes shot down a civilian air flight, Iran Air 655. All 290 on board were killed, including 66 children. There was no apology – although the US government later paid compensation. The Vincennes crew received medals.
Throughout subsequent years, the US did little to change its hostility to the Iranian people. Sanctions were the primary weapon of pressure, but the constant refrain was the lack of legitimacy of the Islamic Republic, and the hope for a pro-imperialist regime.
Any hope of improvement after the horror of 9/11 quickly disappeared. At the start of the NATO invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 the Iranian government provided the US with valuable intelligence on the disposition of the Taliban and Al Qaeda forces. Yet within weeks of this friendly gesture, President Bush made his “axis of evil” speech, including Iran as a potential target for US power.
Successive US governments have offered Iran isolation, subversion, sanctions, threats and lessons in morality. None of which has included any respect for Iran’s sovereignty and independence. Yet despite this, the Iranian people have been able to use their national resources, including complete control of their oil, for their own benefit. Since 1979 there has been substantial economic and social progress.
In 1980, life expectancy in Iran was 51.1 years, by 2018 this had reached 76.2 years. Much of this was because of a notable decline in infant and maternal mortality, thanks to the extension of public health provision. In 1983, less than 30% of the rural population had access to primary healthcare. By 2010, nearly 100% healthcare coverage had been achieved in the countryside.
In 1976, female literacy stood at 42.3% – by 2012, female literacy stood at 97.7%. The improvement in women’s position was also reflected in the fact that in 1979 there was an average of seven children per household – by the end of the 1990’s the average was two children per household.
Despite the attempts to isolate Iran, the work of successive governments resulted in economic growth despite terrible difficulties. In 1985 the Iranian economy was performing at 56% of the average in the Middle East and North Africa. By 2014, the Iranian economy was performing at 126% of the average. In less than 20 years – Iran went from around half the regional average to become a regional powerhouse in the economy.
Of course, I am not saying Iran has solved all its problems – just that the Iranian people have demonstrated they can use their independence to advance their living conditions and standards.
There is no doubt that the signing of the JCPOA (the nuclear agreement) represented a turn in US diplomacy. Obama’s administration recognised, firstly, that the Iranian state was surviving and relatively stable despite sanctions. And secondly, that as Iran would not be intimidated out of its development, Obama’s administration agreed that Iran had the right to develop a nuclear industry for peaceful purposes – and that it had a right to enrich uranium for its own use.
Obama told Congress: “There really are only two alternatives here: either the issue of Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon is resolved diplomatically through negotiations, or it’s resolved through force, through war. Those are the options”.
The experience of sanctions since 1979, including the experience of Trump’s “maximum pressure”, confirm that the Iranian people will not yield to this method of punishing civil society. Consequently, we see the real chance of a return to the deal.
But really there is nothing new in this. In his “Memoirs”, Mussadeq explains how under the siege and sanctions imposed by Britain, the Iranian people were able to survive. He demonstrates how through state support, Iranian industry had continued to operate, and was even able to create a surplus in the balance of trade. This was while it was impossible to export oil, which had previously funded government expenditure. And this included having to cover the oil company liabilities after the withdrawal of expatriate labour. This was the first clear lesson in Iran’s use of “resilience economics”.
The “maximum pressure campaign has had a big impact. After the US withdrew from the JCPOA and imposed sanctions, the Iranian economy contracted by 9.5% in 2019. Oil exports fell from 2.8 million barrels per day, to an average of 300,000 to 500,000 barrels per day. In 2012, government annual revenues from oil amounted to $210 billion – by 2020 this revenue had fallen to less than $10 billion.
In such circumstances, the government’s ability to fund industry and social programmes is gravely constrained. And, sanctions have seriously interfered with the Iranian government’s ability to respond to the pandemic.
So the needs of the Iranian people are clearly served by an agreement which reduces and ends sanctions. This is true even if the JCPOA now has a limited life span up to 2025. After all, currently there are $100 billion of Iranian assets frozen abroad.
Further, one estimate is that the damage to the Iranian economy caused by sanctions is around $250 billion. This is probably an underestimate. But in context, Iran’s gross Domestic Product in 2020 was $203 billion. The effect of sanctions is then to remove a year and a quarter’s total product.
To finish, the signs from the Vienna negotiations are encouraging. But we must continue to press for an end to all sanctions, and for the unfreezing of Iranian assets abroad. Stop the War has long opposed sanctions, and threats of war against Iran. We believe that it is up to us to show the Iranian people the respect and justice they deserve.
**Dr Aly El Kabbany: Thank you to Stephen Bell for his summary of the historic relationship between Iran and West which he did very well. I will start from the day of the revolution. Iran had a historic relationship
which played a great role in the revolution. Leaders in history shape countries. Imam Khomeni in Iran and Nelson Mandela in South Africa were real leaders who refused to negotiate with the old regime. Nelson Mandela was offered to get of jail and form a government. No he said we get rid of the apartheid regime first and have a real democracy of one man one vote. He was a historic leader who refused his own freedom to ensure the freedom of his own people and his own country.
Imam Khomeini at the same time did the same thing. The revolution erupted in Iran and the army of the shah failed to control the revolution of the people. He invited Imam Khomeini to come to Iran and form a government. He refused to come back to his own country until the old regime goes away and he comes to his country, to his family and a new democratic Islamic regime. Like any revolution in history always the counter revolution plays a part to abort that revolution with its own evil elements and international elements.
At the time of the revolution I was working in Al Hawedth a socio political magazine which was very important in the Middle East at the time and I suggested to the chief editor that we go to America to see what is the American position towards the revolution. We went and we interviewed the ex CIA director and the last American ambassador in Iran.
We asked him how can you fail to protect the shah of Iran? He said if you thought we were going to keep the shah you are naïve my friend because the Islamic regime of Khomeini is the best regime for the time being to protect the whole Gulf area from the communist invasion and to protect all these Gulf states from the communist invasion.
I was surprised that they were saying that an Islamist regime in Iran would serve their interests in the end. How wrong they were. They thought they would control the new regime. They had relations with all the Islamic movements. So, they thought wrongly that they would control the new Islamic state in Iran.
And then they realised that the arrival of Imam Khomeini made Iran an independent sovereign state for the first time, not a client state to the east. The Iranians took the American diplomats hostage. Imam Khomeini cut diplomatic relations with Israel and the handed over of the Israeli embassy to the Palestinians. They realised that here is a new independent sovereign state that we cannot control as they used to control the Shah before.
Iran for the West is really important politically because they are on the border with Russia. In the 20th century they could not have a client regime in Iran. They realised that they would not transform the regime in Iran.
First, they learned that the local elements of the counter revolution tried to create problems inside. The rulers of the Arab states played the important role of attacking the Islamic regime in Iran. The Iranian revolution moved the whole Arab street. The Arab people were strong
supporters of the Iranian revolution and of the Islamic state in Iran.
So the counter revolutionary powers used the sectarian issue to create a rift between the Sunni regimes in the Gulf and the Shia regime in Iran. But they forgot, and I wrote many times, that this is the sectarian issue or the sectarian card in a political card. We all remember when Nasser came and he called for nationalism Faisal of Saudi Arabia was not happy with the Sunni regime in Egypt. So, he went to the shia regime of Iran and formed the Muslim Union organisation to confront Abdul Nasser.
So, I told the Saudis in Jeddah do not tell me there is a sectarian issue or that the conflict between you and Iran is sectarian. So, it was political and used all the media locally to attack the Iranian regime.
The biggest crime in my opinion was the Iran-Iraq war when the Americans pushed Saddam Hussein for military action against Iran and the Gulf states bankrolled this unjustified, illegal, criminal war against Iran.
Sanctions were imposed on Iran and they could not get any spare parts for their tanks or aeroplanes and they really resisted the invasion of Saddam Hussein who had all the bank accounts of the Gulf sheikhdoms and all the intelligence and military support from Israel, the USA and the West.
All that failed to defeat the regime in Iran. Iran was strengthened and the economic sanctions are the best example because Iran started its industry and its know how and building security and relying on themselves rather than on imported goods. Rather than having an import based economy it now has a self-producing economy.
The nuclear surfaced issue in the file of Iran. The nuclear programme actually started at the time of the Shah with the help of the French. So there was nothing new. But the Islamic Republic of Iran started that programme seriously relying on themselves.
I remember I read an article in the Times by one of Mrs Thatcher’s ministers. He asked why are we afraid of the nuclear weapons of Iran? If we want a Middle East free of nuclear weapons talk to Israel because they have got a big nuclear arsenal. If you don’t want an Islamic bomb talk to Pakistan because it has nuclear weapons. So he said rightly in my opinion we should go along with the freedom of Iran to be a nuclear power and we have to think about Iran being a member of the nuclear club. But nobody listened to him.
And they started this stage of the nuclear file again to attack Iran and to put further pressure on Iran. And the Obama regime and the West reached an agreement with regard to Iran. We were not opposed to the nuclear programme. What we did not like was for the state of Iran to have the know how to reach the level of the big powers who have the knowledge and the Iranians proved they were up to the job, and they made great achievements in the nuclear programme.
Regarding other military equipment, rockets and submarines they really have the brains and know-how and that is the reason the Americans want to get rid of the Iranian regime. If it is any other country in the Middle East they are happy but when a sovereign and independent regime becomes a threat to them and transforms Iran from a consumer market to a self- producing country this regime is a danger to them and in their terms they have to get rid of it.
The Iranian revolution was a spark for the Arab spring because it moved the people against the regimes who made their countries client states to the Western powers. Again the Arab street was aborted because they did not have the criteria of the Iranian revolution. They did not have the historic leadership, they did not have a plan, they did not have leaders to build a new society. So we all know what happened to the Muslim Brother hood in Egypt, how they were jailed. The democratic movement in Tunisia was again aborted by the counter revolution in the region represented by the Gulf states once again.
They know quite well the democratic regime in Iran and the new democratic regimes in the new Arab countries will remove the corrupt leaders form their thrones. They are all afraid of the success of the Iranian example. They are still supporting the Palestinians and Arab resistance movements in the Arab and Muslim world.
So regardless of the war against Iran, Iran is moving day by day and know they are getting strong. And on the 43rd anniversary of the revolution they know this is the best road for them to follow.
***Syed Mohsin Abbas: My thanks to the previous speakers for covering such a vast scope of Iran’s relations with the West. Of course there is so much more to cover so I don’t want to go over the same ground. I am going to change my own talk to make sure I am not just being repetitive – I am going to focus a bit more on the spiritual psychology of Islamic governance. I am going to look at the morality and the ethics and the politics that underpin and underline what the Republic of Iran does. I would also like to look at why the resistance economy that has been spoken about has emerged rather than necessity. I am going to try and look at the cultural, spiritual, political underpinnings of policy in Iran.
First of all, the Islamic republic has a political system which emerged with Imam Khomeini and it was called vilayet al faki – the leadership of jurisprudence. For the first time in a very long while if not uniquely so Islamic jurisprudence actually had a major say if not the final way the governance of a Muslim country was implemented.
Of course, Islam and Muslims generally have been ruled by kings, sultans and caliphs. They had the same sort of experience as any other force may have had. The Islamic Republic and what happened in 1979 is possibly unique in history and it needs to be looked at a little more thoroughly particularly by those in the West who try to understand it from the lens of capitalism, or Marxism or from the lens of neo liberalism which is the over whelming narrative we get in the West from the mainstream media and the politicians. It is neo liberalism and neo conservatism which has largely created an unnecessarily antagonistic and almost violent relationship with the Islamic Republish of Iran.
As Iman Khomeini says himself the deep US enmity towards the Islamic Republic of Iran can be understood from this point of view. It is the embodiment of the people’s religious beliefs, and it originates from a revolutionary religious outlook towards the issues in the world.
Imam Khomeini says that the nature or arrogance is such that it is opposed to a phenomenon called the Islamic republic and its revolution which is completely indebted to religion and which originates from a religious movement and from religious thoughts. Now that is one of the points which Ayatollah Khomeini emphasises very emphatically .
I want to develop that. The word religion scared a lot people in the West. We have a secular outlook which usually purports not to be antagonistic towards religion. Arguably that is not the case and I have evidence for that.
But certainly when it comes to the Republic of Iran it seems that Iman Khomeini was certainly convinced the West’s enmity is not just an economic and political one. There is something more fundamentally ideologically which they find uncomfortable in the higher echelons .
In the West we are talking about the establishment elites targeting what he calls global arrogance. It is another way of talking about the new neo conservative, neo elitist establishment which he would argue, and I think we would all argue oppresses people in the West. A lot of the east manifests in the differences of the world view that different civilizations have.
He talked very clearly about a new Islamic civilisation. What is a new Islamic civilization? What is new is what Iran brings to the global party and previous movements and existing ideology. Iran itself may well be in discussion and in constant debate about where the revolution is going given the leader’s perspective. It is very clear that they find moral politics, moral economics, moral culture, moral diplomacy, and moral military behaviour as well. These are all fundamental in what they bring to the world.
Once you use the word morality you then have to ask which morality is Ayatollah Khomeini talking of or relating to Iran. The morality which he is talking about is prophetic morality, Ibrahamic morality, the morality of the Holy Quran of the Prophet Mohammed. The politics of Iran, whether it is to do with their regional strategy with their neighbours or whether it is their strategy towards the imperialist powers or whether it is the strategy towards the oppressed in the world, the strategy towards the tyrants of the world. Then you have to ask yourself how does Iran help the oppressed, how did they stick to Islamic moral politics and you could go through Yemen, you could go to their actions in Syria in support of the Syrian people, you could look at their support for the Lebanese people after their invasion by Israel, you could look at Iran and the invasion of Iraq, the occupation of Iraq.
One could very easily make the case that Iran within its limited resources and under huge pressure economic has rather well and rather successful stuck to the idea of trying to help the oppressed whenever possible. They have done it by prioritising those neighbours which is in their own national interest. They have put their resources there. Iraq is on their borders so they are defending themselves against Israeli intervention. Saddam’s invasion was a testament to how Iran is in need of defending its borders. Their prime enemies Israel and America are very much involved and using those neighbours very often for their own purposes. Azerbaijan is an example. Iraq has been occupied for virtually 20 years and you never know.
My narrative is that Iran brings to the party the idea of helping the oppressed has been maintained since the start of the revolution. It has been successful in this and it has maintained this through the global environment where they are not just using the economy as the only driver of how they operate on the world stage.
Compare that to America and to Israel and you will see a very very different scenario. They seem to be operating primarily to suppress, the plunder, and pillage of oil resources in terms of practically everything they do to the Asian region. There is nothing moral or ethical about that even though they talk about human rights, democracy and women’s rights. These are the favourite things they like to beat Iran with. So I think that in their political culture there is a morality clash. Iran is doing pretty well in terms of sticking to the ideals and principles of the revolution.
Let us look at their position in terms of the broader issues around the economy and the way the world is run. Let us look at the great reset. Let us look at the world economic forum and agenda 20/30 which the UN rolls out very proudly across the world and let us look at the morality and the politics behind those kind of agendas which need to be stopped. Agenda 20/30 was something that the UN wanted to roll out in Iran and some of the Iranian establishment accepted it. It was going to be implemented in the education systems and agendas like the green agenda and the population control agenda.
All of this was analysed by Ayatollah Khomeini and his close aids, and they rejected it for a reason because it clashes with the rights and the morality and the actual future of the Iranian people and also the world. Whether it is do with gender, or women’s rights which was rolled out. There were huge debates and questions which need to be had around such issues which the UN and America and the West roll out as if biblically they have to concern themselves with these issues. Some speak about medical terrorism because of the way in which some of the vaccines have been rolled out and the technology which is involved in the vaccines. Again, this was rejected by Ayatollah Khameini.
What they did instead was the barakat vaccine which was produced internally in Iran and won the day. It is being well used. So you can see that there is a moral and ethical issue here about anything that is rolled out to the public. It must have some ethical grounding in Islam which is what I began the conversation with.
These are just a couple of examples of how I think the Islamic Republic of Iran can play a role in showing the world that you do not just have to bow to neo liberalism and neo conservatism. You can have your own mind.
The resistance economy isn’t just a question of sanctions. The idea that we have an economy which is not based on greed and usury and exploitation and an interest system and creating fake money, one that is not linking itself to the dollar in such a way that it ensures the poor stay poorer and the rich get richer. It is again a moral and ethical issue.
Ayatollah Khameini has taken a step on this. He is rightly winning the day because if there was a criticism there is somebody within the Islamic establishment which could have been trained in neo liberal medical science, or in the neo liberal Western banking world. They could have been trained by the establishment. They can’t just follow what the international levers of power dictate to them be they from the East or from the West.
So there you can see again that Iran can play a huge role by being an independent thinking Islamic civilisation. I have touched on a few areas because I do not want to talk for too long but you can see that there are huge discussions.
Now family. What does Iran do about family? In the West the family has been totally decimated and destroyed. We are doing it through all the gender confusion. We are doing it through the whole sexual revolution that supposedly was rolled out throughout the 50s and 60s and continues to be rolled out across the world.
It is not that we all have to follow neo liberal gender politics. Families have been demonstrably destroyed. They are saying that in Britain they are going to do something about porn. So you can see that neo liberal policy exported or rolled out by transnational corporations largely based in the West have a huge impact on the way families operate – marriages, divorces, marriage breakdowns, the way in which people engage in their relationships.
In Iran you see now a very wholesome family outlook. People like community. This is encouraged by the establishment. So here again the morality of having a civilization based on wholesome family which has some kind of a moral fabric seems a no brainer for someone who comes from the Islamic civilisation perspective.
In the West there seems to be a great deal of confusion. In America you see the Christian right you see huge discussions about abortion and all such things. Islam does have something to say. I would say that all this business about what Islam offers in the shape of the Islamic revolution and the Islamic republic and the more sophisticated manifestation of 21st Muslim society. It is not perfect. Ayatollah Khameini himself said it is not perfect. We have things which we need to sort out and develop but there is a completely new kind of project which has gone completely over the heads of the Western public.
The Western elites do not want it because most if goes against their consumer producer and the new AI surveillance capitalism orientated new world order that they want to bring about. The reset that everyone seems to be talking about.
So I say that Iran is not just a revolution which happened in the past. It is now going into a second phase. The second phase builds on what the likes of what Dr Ali Shiarati, Dr Bahashti and others the early intellectuals and thinkers came up with as a solution. Their ideas have never been built upon. Their ideas provide details of an alternative civilisation reality.
I want to look at the kind of fault lines which naturally create political tension between Iran and the West. Beyond the nuclear weapons issue, beyond the sabre rattling, beyond the need for control of Iran’s oil. The question now is that if Iran possesses large military capabilities caution will be exercised on both sides. I will not go into the geopolitical shenanigans which are going on with Bahrain Israel and the Arab monarchies that are siding with them.
On the other hand, you see that Iran has successfully maintained influence in Iraq, influence in Syria, influence in Lebanon and they have successfully got decent relations with neighbours like Pakistan and others, even Azerbaijan. They have managed to create a reasonably helpful relationship there. They have not been exercising violence. They have constantly been telling them we are your regional neighbours – it is not America and Israel. It is a kind of periphery ideology or doctrine as they call it. It is all about paranoia and aggression and the fear of being destroyed. Israel is Iran’s real protagonist in the region in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is most threatened by Iran’s stability and scientific and medical advances. It is also the most tyrannical in the region. Saudi Arabia and other despotic monarchies.
Right from the outset Iran opposed South African apartheid and Israel’s apartheid. It stuck to those principles. This is a major reason why Israel and the western powers are investing in vilifying Iran. The politicians that want to maintain good relations are put off from doing so.
It is also fascinating that there are extra judicial killings going on, threats from the Mossad. You could suffer from assassinations. You could be boycotted economically. Although there is an ongoing struggle the future is that it has leverage and it has a moral political project in the region because this is its identity, and it will continue to be targeted by the Americans and the Israelis and it really needs to get to grips with the idea that those who live in the region will prevail because you cannot keep an imperialist imposed order on a scale without falling into debt. I think it is trillions now.
So for how long will they sustain the likes of Israel.? For how long will they sustain their industrial complex and for how long will they continue to bully that region. They have showed that if you go to war with Iran you are going to make your own coffin. They are not going to let you go away without substantial damage to yourselves.
I see the future of Iran as very bright. I see the Islamic Republic as an alternative to neo conservative imperialism. They will stand up to that. They are not opposing capitalism. The real clash is morality and the ethics of the revolution which is genuine, and which is genuinely saying something which is different to the West. It is inevitable that the Islamic Republic of Iran creates a huge sphere of influence in its back yard. It is the traditional empire that has dominated that region apart from the Ottomans and the Turks. They have something very powerful and very awesome to bring to human civilisation. They have given civilisation and knowledge to the world and I think they will do it again. I see a new age for that region.
*Stephen Bell is a life-long unionist, human rights and political campaigner. He is currently Treasurer of Stop the War Coalition; Campaign Officer for Palestine Solidarity Campaign. He was Head of Policy for Communication Workers Union 2002-2015. He is a also a member of Coventry North West Labour Party. He appears on TV screens for analysis and comments.
**Dr Aly El Kabbany is Journalist, religious and political analyst on Middle East affairs. He was working from 1978 to 1981 Journalist with Al-Hawadess magazine. A weekly socio-political Pan-Arab magazine. From January 1982 to June 1983 he was working with ”2000 Magazine”, a monthly futuristic magazine. From July 1983 to 1990 he was the general manager of the Islamic Press Agency (IPA), publishing 5 different magazines. He had working relations with Khashoggi at the IPA. From 1991 to date: freelance journalist and Political analyst on the Middle East affairs in TV and Radio.
***Syed Mohsin Abbas was trained as a radio and television Journalist at Westminster University and the BBC. He has worked extensively with broadcasters around the world including Channel 4, and he appears regularly as a socio-political analyst on Press TV and many other channels. He now produces independent documentaries with Avantgarde Film Productions and presents a number of weekly religious and current affairs programmes for Ahlebait TV on the Sky network. He has also worked as a broadcaster and reporter for the Al Ehtejah English News channel and Hadi TV. In 2015 he launched the Muslim Manifesto at the House of Lords and co-founded a fledgling think tank called the Initiative for Muslim Community Development and remains active in exploring faith-based solutions to 21st century challenges globally.
