Reagan's adventures in the Gulf

Labour Briefing no. 50, 28 October 1987, p. 15

Transcribed or corrected by hand from the printed page.

By-line as printed: Phil Hearse, Islington North CLP.

The attack by the United States on two Iranian oil platforms in the Gulf is the outcome of a wildly adventurist policy by Reagan which is drawing the US closer and closer to open intervention in the Gulf war.

Such a policy lacks any rationality even from the viewpoint of the interests of US capitalism itself; it is based on quite grotesque and ridiculous arguments, which of course the Thatcher government has tamely gone along with.

The formal reason for the huge Western naval presence in the Gulf is to defend shipping from air and sea attacks. But of course the US is concerned exclusively with defending reflagged shipping against Iranian attacks. Iraqi attacks on tankers going to Iranian ports continue unabated — and unchallenged by the US and other Western navies.

Only two weeks ago an Australian ship was attacked by the Iraqis, its captain and other crew members killed, while the US maintained a total silence. Indeed, over the past three years, the Iraqis have attacked far more ships than have the Iranians.

Even more bizarre, the main event which really provoked large-scale US intervention in the Gulf was the air attack on the US Stark, which killed more than 30 sailors, carried out by an Iraqi fighter plane. Naturally, the Iranians were blamed by the United States.

Not much more than a year ago, the United States were secretly opening up political talks with Iran, selling them arms, and even sending bizarre gifts of cakes and revolvers to the ayatollahs. Now they are on the edge of war with the same people.

The key to this turnaround is of course the public exposure of the secret arms sales, and the whole Iran-Contragate scandal. This scandal put the Reagan administration on the defensive; they appeared to have gone soft on the "terrorism" of the "mad ayatollahs".

In the aftermath of the Irangate scandal, the tentative opening of relations between the Reagan administration and the Iranian regime were quickly terminated. Very quickly the Soviet Union, whose relations with Tehran have been very bad in recent years, has moved to fill the diplomatic vacuum and shift its political "tilt" in favour of Iran.

There is now talk of an oil pipeline from Iran to the Soviet Union being constructed, and of a new rail link between the two countries.

The new thaw between Moscow and Tehran should not be taken as implying that the USSR is abandoning its diplomatic investment with Iraq. The USSR remains, like France, a substantial supplier of arms and other logistical support to Iraq.

But the Soviet Union is quite prepared to make opportunistic diplomatic manoeuvres at Reagan's expense, without definitively choosing one or other side in the war.

Strategists

Before the recent events in the Gulf, rational strategists of US foreign policy have been reluctant to see either Iran or Iraq win the Gulf war; a clear victory of either side would create a strong Gulf power, which could challenge the reactionary Arab sheikdoms, especially Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, which are close allies of the US.

But now the US seems to be charging headlong towards an all-out confrontation with Iran, and by default taking Iraq's side.

Backlash

If this whole business started as a backlash to Irangate, it now appears to be generating a logic of its own. The experience of the last twenty years should show us that imperialism does not always act rationally, even in its own interests. The conflict with Iran has acquired its own deadly logic, and maybe outside rational political control. On-the-spot decisions by gung-ho naval commanders could determine whether a much wider conflict between Iran and the US takes place.

The shipping war in the Gulf was started by the Iraqis as a desperate tactic to counter Iranian successes on the battlefield. While the Iraqis have an overland pipeline to export their oil, the Iranians have no pipeline and depend on oil tankers. If the Iranians have joined in the shipping war, it has only been, primarily to retaliate for Iraqi attacks.

Both Iran and Iraq are reactionary anti-working class dictatorships. In Iran there is the bloody dictatorship of the ayatollahs and mullahs; in Iraq the military-Ba'athist dictatorship of Saddam Hussein.

Socialists

Socialists and the labour movement have no business taking sides or inventing weird and wonderful theories to show that one side is more "progressive" than the other. But we do defend the national self-determination of these countries from attack by US imperialism.

So far over 30 Iranians have been killed in US military attacks for no justifiable reason whatever. Socialists must now raise the demand for the US to get out of the Gulf; for the British and French navies to get out as well; and for the defence of Iran in the event of future US attacks.

transcribed from the page image, 4 Nov 2026 (Hearse/Lloyd follow-up); spelling as printed. Under the 'International Briefing' section head; by-line 'By Phil Hearse / Islington North CLP' set in a ruled box in the third column. The two opening paragraphs are set in bold and are given in bold. A stray speck after 'expense,' is not reproduced; the comma in 'has only been, primarily to' is as printed. Left out: the photo 'Military forces "guarding" the Gulf', the 'Anti-war poster in Teheran' illustration and their captions, and Geoff Bell's 'Thatcher turns a deeper shade of Orange' and the 'Ireland: the cause of Labour?' conference box in the lower half of the page. Fully legible.