Tracing from ashes to wildfire
Embers of Iran’s long history of struggle against foreign interventions are now reignited as the United States (US) killed the most powerful military commander of Iran, Major General Qassem Soleimani*.
For the US president, Donald Trump, it was a move to deter future attacks from the opposing power. Little did he know that this move will only flare up another inferno that might expand greater, knowing that both countries were driving forces of the proxy war in the Middle East.
Starting fire
For a long time, the people of Iran have always been a target of the United States for its imperialist exploitation. In an attempt of Iran’s government to briefly naturalize its oil resources, the United States pressured Iran by putting on economic sanctions. When the US perceived that Iran’s halt was nowhere near, they secretly orchestrated a coup on 1953, removing the people’s prime minister Mohammed Mosaddegh. Hence, installing Mohammad Reza Shah, who had enabled foreign interventions and perceived westernization of Iran; and bringing back the foreign oil firms under the Consortium Agreement of 1954.
However, the people of Iran had struggled against the Shah’s regime and in response, they overthrew him and that was known today as the Iranian Revolution of 1979. The next administrations pushed through, once again, the naturalization of their resources. But the US’ imperialist voyage did not stop the regime of the Shah.
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) published reports stating that Iran was helping the neighboring countries to overthrow their governments such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, and the Gulf States. This rekindled the fury of Saudi Arabia, which aimed to preserve the status quo not only of their country but those that settled around them. As result, they forged an alliance with the United States, creating the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), an alliance with other Gulf monarchies, to minimize their perceived threats with the Iran government.
Into the Wildfire
The wildfire began to catch lives from the 1980s to early 2000s, when the US-Saudi Arabia alliance started supporting neighboring countries’ attacks, particularly Iraq, with deaths of nearly a million people. In 2003, the US invaded Iraq and ousted Saddam Hussein, and for years, the US struggled to replace Saddam causing the rise of armed militias in the country.
Afterward, the US-Saudi Arabia and Iran seized each of their own opportunities of taking control of Iraq. Both of their governments were sending money to the militias: US-Saudi’s government to Sunni militias while Iran’s government was aiding Shia militias. This flared the decades-long proxy war conflict of these countries up until today: with two opposing powers indirectly at war while the casualties were the people trapped in the battleground country.
From March 2003 to April 2019, there were 183, 535–206, 101 civilian deaths in Iraq was documented. The deaths came from the coalition, counter-insurgency military action, sectarian violence, and criminal violence. This was separate from the impending development that they were suffering: with children who don’t go to schools anymore, with people who were juggling their lives every day trying to deter from being swallowed by the wildfire.
Breathing the smolders of the proxy war in the poor countries of the Middle East, of the growing wildfires, the people of Iran was long-suffering from the severe economic sanctions.
Extinguishing the people’s fire
The economic sanctions started when the US saw the Iranian Revolution of 1979. For decades, the economy of Iran was burned out due to the economic sanctions that the United States has been imposing on the country. One particular example of this was the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions Accountability and Divestment Act under former US President Barrack Obama. It is the extended version of the past administrations under Bill Clinton and George Bush, which states new restrictions for financial institutions and the elimination of exemptions of Iranian imports.
Richard Nephew, one of the minds of the US-Iran strategy from 2011–2013 said that the sanctions aim to start at the nuclear weapons and missiles program. They developed it by focusing the sanctions on what would cripple the basic lives of the people of Iran: transportation, insurance, and so forth. In 2018, President Donald Trump reinstated sanctions on Iran’s most notable modes of transformation, energy, and shipping.
For the people, their fire was constantly being extinguished as the economic effects of these sanctions scourged on their daily lives. There comes a shortage of food and medicine, denoting the correlation between the US’ exportation of medicine with no restrictions. Iran’s GDP shrinks to 6% in 2019, while its GDP per capita, $5,037, was ten times less than the US, $62,641.
Burning and Saving
From this history, we have seen that the agenda of these big countries, particularly the US, was to clinch countries to quench their thirst for opportunities for greater profit. They are waging war from their ivory towers and it is the people below who suffer the most from their decisions. Through constant inquiry of history, it will be not hard to see a simple truth: the governments were detached from the plight of their people.
War and violence were already rotten in these parts of the world — the Middle East. But there is a particular manifestation of war transforming in this stage, wherein capitalism is more developed: a shortage of raw materials that intensifies the competition between the imperialist forces; driving them to a more desperate struggle for the acquisition of colonies.
The people who were trapped in these countries that are looming to be a battleground need not suffer from the voyage of the imperialist countries towards profit and exploitation.
*This article was first published in January 2020, a week after the death of Major General Qassem Soleimani.
