In moves to sideline any criticism of the Iranian regime within the anti-war movement, Communist Students and Hands Off the People Of Iran (Hopi) have been barred from the Stop the War Coalition. Benjamin Klein calls for all principled anti-imperialists and democrats to fight this exclusion and to raise the banner of genuine internationalism

Andrew Murray, Lindsey German and John Rees, the misleaders of the purportedly ‘broad’ and ‘inclusive’ Stop the War Coalition, have drawn a clear line in relation to the threat of war on Iran – if you are critical of the Iranian theocratic regime and look to build active links with the burgeoning Iranian students’, workers’ or women’s movement, then you are not welcome in the movement. According to the twisted logic of these apologists, any criticism of Tehran merely provides ammunition for the plans of Bush and his cronies.

At the STWC annual conference on October 27, these crassly bureaucratic moves to exclude Communist Students and Hopi were confirmed by the majority of the Socialist Workers Party’s automaton voting fodder, with proceedings keenly filmed by the Iranian regime’s TV cameras. The informed analysis and principled stance of exiled Iranian anti-imperialists like Yassamine Mather of Hopi did not fit the dogmatically apologetic line of Murray and co.

Let us be clear here. Despite the feeble and desperate attempts to pass us off as social imperialists or being soft on imperialism, both Communist Students and Hopi insist that the biggest danger is precisely imperialism – we not only reject war, sanctions and other forms of US-UK bullying, but call for the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of troops from the Gulf; troops that have killed thousands and brought chaos to Iraq in the name of ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom.’ We are for the defeat of imperialism.

However, imperialism cannot be defeated through lies and any anti-war campaign worth its salt must be based on the truth. The Iranian regime, despite what the pro-Tehran apologists from Campaign Iran claimed at the STWC conference, is not a ‘democratic’ society where elections are freely contested and over 80% vote for the president; where opportunities for women are so extensive they can become leading racing drivers; and where, although homosexuality is banned, people are free to have a sex change (!). It is a brutally oppressive theocratic dictatorship that regards women as second-class citizens, brutally oppresses minority nationalities and publicly executes gays.

The idea that the Iranian regime is somehow anti-imperialist has no basis in reality. It not only imposes the International Monetary Fund’s neoliberal agenda of cuts and privatisation, often forcing workers to wait months on end for unpaid wages; it also applauded the US-UK invasion of Iraq, banning any anti-war protests, and supports the US-puppet occupation government in Afghanistan. True, it may now oppose the occupation of Iraq, but only on the basis that it wants even more influence on today’s Iraqi government. Many leading mullahs have already moved their wealth out of the country, leaving nobody in any doubt that they are preparing to flee should the bombs start falling.

The question then raises itself: what forces are consistently anti-imperialist? The name of our campaign, Hands Off the People of Iran, which Communist Students supports so enthusiastically, alludes to the answer. While Stop the War implies our brothers and sisters in Iran should suspend their struggles for freedom and equality, at least until the war threat is over, we support and champion those same struggles. International solidarity is not merely a nice gesture, but a recognition of the fact that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the imperialist pressure on Iran, are features of the international struggle of class forces within the framework of capitalism in decline – imperialism. That international solidarity is extended not to regimes that happen to have fallen foul of imperialism, but to the genuine anti-war forces of working people across the world.

Obviously, in Britain our main task must be to stop any involvement of the British state in intervention against Iran – the main enemy is at home. We do not draw an equals sign between an economically declining yet militarily hegemonic US imperialism and the counterrevolutionary theocratic regime. Yet we recognise that to ally ourselves with the theocratic regime would be not only to undermine the anti-war movement, allowing us to be portrayed as stooges of Tehran, but actually to scab on our Iranian brothers and sisters who are crying out for their struggles to be supported.

For the benefit of those unthinking SWP comrades who say that Hopi is a bunch of “white people telling the Iranian people what to do”, we had better explain what solidarity, a basic principle for any socialist, actually is. On one level, of course, it does involve offering advice to the Iranian people we come into contact with – although they hardly need convincing, we would advise them to organise independently of the regime that is using the pretext of war to clamp down even more. Not only is there nothing wrong with this. Genuine solidarity demands friendly criticism.

On the other hand, the Iranian comrades we work with also give us advice. For example, in the summer of 2005, when they urged us not to back slogans like ‘We are all Hezbollah’ – which in Iran means ‘We are all strike-breakers and attack women on demonstrations.’ They ask us not only to oppose the war, but to provide a voice for the working class struggles, student mobilisations and women’s demonstrations in Iran.

The position of the STWC leadership is the opposite of genuine solidarity. By promoting Campaign Iran and excluding Hopi, Murray, Rees and co are demonstrating their contempt for it. That is what they are doing when they cheer and clap Abbas Edalat of Campaign Iran, who claims that there are “no forces in Iran who are fighting against both the threat of an imperialist invasion and the regime”. Even if there were, though, according to what he said at the STWC conference, we should refrain from supporting their struggles against the regime, since to simultaneously oppose imperialism and the regime would ‘confuse’ people – a position that is as pathetic as it is patronising. What the average person on the street will probably find more confusing is that those who reject an attack on Iran as a violation of the rights of the Iranian people say nothing about the repression that those people face on a daily basis.

We will not waver in ensuring that the voice of genuine internationalism is heard in the anti-war movement. Through our daily contacts in Iran and our study of the contradictions in Iranian society we will look to avoid the mistakes that our movement has made in the past. We encourage all our members and supporters to join the STWC as individuals in order to take our arguments to the membership and force the coalition to drop these rotten politics – politics that only discredit the anti-war movement, while alienating many who would otherwise to get involved, particularly the large number of Iranian exiles in Britain.

What you can do to support Hopi:

• Distribute Hopi materials at the Stop the War student actions on November 22
• Join our contingent at the STWC day of action in London on November 24
• Publicise Hopi at your university or college
• Ask for a Hopi speaker to address a meeting where you study
• Join the Hopi Facebook group: www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5362934167
• Build ad hoc student committees for Hopi’s December 8 founding conference in central London
• If you speak Farsi, help translate discussions, interviews and documents from Iran.