On April 18, Bush said that "all options are on the table" in trying to curb Iran's nuclear program. The U.N. Security Council voted a few weeks ago that Iran must stop enriching uranium by April 28. Currently, the U.S. is gearing up for a diplomatic offensive to get U.N. sanctions on Iran in an attempt to pressure the Iranian regime and create a diplomatic crisis that will serve as a pretext for war. Essentially, the Bush administration is using the same script they used for Iraq in late 2002-early 2003, although the war would be one of major air strikes, not regime change through ground invasion.

Bush's talk of diplomacy is a smokescreen for an impending war with Iran. On April 8, journalist Seymour Hersh published an article in New Yorker magazine that exposed that the U.S. military has already put commandos on the ground in Iran to help target sites for bombing and that the Pentagon is drawing up plans to attack Iran, some of which include the use of bunker-buster nuclear weapons.1

The ruling classes of Iran and the U.S. are on a direct collision course with each other over Iran's nuclear power program. The logic of the situation has made a U.S. (or U.S./Israeli) attack on Iran a question of when and how, not if.
Why Iran Isn't Backing Down

Iran's President Ahmadinejad has dug in his heels and insisted that nuclear power is Iran's right. His stance, portrayed in the U.S. as being "hard-line," is based on a number of factors. First of all, he won the presidential election on a populist program of fighting government corruption and stopping cuts to social services carried out by his reformist-neoliberal predecessor, Khatami. Yet even after his election, 40% of Iran's population still live below the poverty line. The confrontation with the U.S. over nuclear power helps him maintain popular support through nationalism.

But short-term political calculations are only a small factor in Iran's stance. If present consumption trends continue, Iran -- today the world's third largest oil exporter -- will become an oil importer in the next 15 years.2 Nuclear power would cut down on domestic oil consumption and allow Iran to sell more oil and to increase its revenue by billions. Increasing government revenue is extremely important; in 1998, fuel and food subsidies for Iran's growing population used up virtually all of the country's $16 billion of oil income for that year. That is why developing nuclear power is imperative for Iran's ruling class and why backing down in the face of U.S. intransigence is not a viable option.

While the U.S. media are trying to whip up racist fears about "crazy" anti-U.S. Muslims armed with A-bombs, the fact of the matter is that having a nuclear weapons program makes strategic sense for Iran's ruling class. The country's neighbors, Iraq and Afghanistan, are being occupied by U.S. troops, and Israel, Russia, Pakistan, and India all have nuclear weapons. In fact, it would be insane for them not to have nuclear ambitions in this situation.
What's Driving the U.S. to Attack

But Iran is not driving the crisis -- the U.S. is. Under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran does have the right to nuclear power as long as it is for peaceful purposes, and neither the U.S. nor Israel has produced a shred of evidence that Iran's program has any military dimension. But the real issue is not nuclear power or even nuclear weapons.

The real issue is Iran's growing regional power, of which its nuclear program is but one part. The Shi'ite parties that control the Iraqi government have close ties to Iran. Iran also has recently made major deals with China to supply it with energy, and it is a big buyer of Chinese and Russian weaponry. What the American ruling class fears is an alliance of nations that could challenge U.S. dominance in Central Asia and the Middle East, home to most of the world's oil and natural gas supplies. A European diplomat put it this way to Hersh: "This is about more than just a nuclear issues. That's just a rallying point. . . . The real issue is who is going to control the Middle East and its oil in the next 10 years."3 If Iran gets nuclear weapons, it will be able to counterbalance Israel and make U.S. military attacks on Middle Eastern countries difficult, if not impossible, because the U.S. will have to constantly worry about what Iran will do in response to American aggression. As a Pentagon adviser told Seymour Hersh, "ninety-nine per cent of them [the Iranian targets in U.S. air strike plans] have nothing to do with proliferation."4

Dick Cheney has already declared that the U.S. will never accept a nuclear Iran, and the American ruling class is 100% behind the Bush administration in this aim. In May 2004, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a resolution authorizing Bush to use "any and all appropriate means" to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.5 The administration has already held important meetings with select members of Congress on the issue, and, according to Hersh's article, no one is objecting to military strikes on Iran. Instead, the questions are, how can the U.S. hit all the targets at once? Will the bombs be able to destroy the underground facilities?6

The debate at the top in the ruling class is over the question of how and when to attack Iran, not if. Nonetheless, the divisions at the top could develop into an embarrassing split, depending on what happens. Hersh's article claims that members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who are the highest-ranking members of the U.S. armed forces, have threatened to resign if the Bush administration uses any nuclear weapons on Iran. This isn't because they have moral qualms about mass murder -- it's because they realize how catastrophic the consequences will be for U.S. imperialism and for the military in particular. Opposition to the use of nuclear weapons is a big reason why six retired generals came out within the last week publicly calling for Rumsfeld's resignation -- it's a way of pressuring the administration.

An attack on Iran would have major consequences, even if nuclear weapons aren't used. Iran would retaliate, possibly launching missiles at Israel, Saudi Arabia, or other U.S. allies in the region, cutting off oil production to raise world oil prices, and calling on its Shi'ite allies in Iraq to launch major attacks on U.S. troops. Hezbollah in Lebanon would probably attack Israel, and there would probably be huge anti-U.S. demonstrations and uprisings throughout the region. And there is no guarantee that major air strikes, even using nuclear bunker busters, would achieve their aim of destroying Iran's nuclear program since most of the important facilities are hidden and buried under eighty feet of earth and reinforced concrete.

But the American ruling class is willing to run these risks because the U.S. faces no major rival in the world that could challenge its economic or political supremacy and is not terribly concerned about the prospect of mass struggle that might challenge its dominance on the home front. As Senator John McCain put it: "There is only one thing worse than the United States exercising a military option. That is a nuclear-armed Iran."7
Prospects

It is unclear when the U.S. will launch major air strikes on Iran for a few reasons. So far, the U.S. has been able to put together a united front calling for Iran to abandon its uranium enrichment, consisting of the ruling classes of Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and China. But this coalition could fracture -- like it did with Iraq three years ago -- if the U.S. pushes for a U.N. resolution that includes harsh sanctions or opens the possibility for a military strike. Each of these ruling classes has different, competing interests that sometimes converge with the others'. They all have an interest in keeping the balance of power in the Middle East the way it is, which is why they voted at the U.N. Security Council that Iran must stop enrichment by April 28. But it's precisely because they want to maintain stability in the region that they might oppose a U.S. attack, especially Russia and China, the two countries that have the strongest economic and political ties to the Iranian regime. This is why diplomatic maneuvering is likely to continue for at least a few months as the U.S. attempts to build the broadest coalition that it can while preparing to use military force.

Then, there is the question of the mid-term Congressional elections in the U.S. While both parties wholeheartedly support clamping down on Iran, if Bush launches an attack that severely destabilizes the region, voters will take it out on the Republican Party. Thus an attack will probably take place either well before the elections or immediately after the polls close (the U.S. launched an offensive to take back Fallujah, Iraq from the control of the resistance within twenty-four hours after the polls closed in November 2004).

Regardless of the timing, our job here at home is to raise the costs of attacking Iran and fight against our ruling class's attempt to dominate the oil-rich Middle East. We should not be surprised if some sections of the anti-war movement tail the Democratic Party and accept the U.S.'s right to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons -- even by military force. We also should not be surprised if people who are against the Iraq war are either confused or partially support the attack on Iran, given that no major social force in the U.S. is actively and openly opposed to it.

Fortunately, there is a major anti-war demonstration the day after the U.N. Security Council's deadline for Iran to stop enriching uranium, on Saturday, April 29th. This is an opportunity both to make the case against an attack on Iran within the broader anti-war movement and to win more people to the understanding that capitalism’s competitive drive is what is leading to yet another war for oil in the Middle East.