People’s Resistance in Iran: Against National Tyranny and Regional Expansionism

TRANSLATED FROM FRENCH BY CHANELLE ADAMS

Ways of reading the role of the Islamic Republic of Iran within the internationalist Left often lead to strongly opposed perspectives, and the recent intensification of Israeli attacks may not help with this. The crucial question remains: who gets sacrificed from any opportunistic compromising with the Iranian regime? In this text, Somayeh Rostampour provides a few answers to this question: Syrians, Balochs, Kurds, as well as Iranian women, queer people, and the country’s working class.

Iran’s history is set in a particular context of anti-imperialist struggle, culminating in the 1979 Islamic Revolution. However, the leaders of this revolution emptied the struggle of popular and emancipatory content, transforming it into an instrument for the imposition of a policy which is semi-imperialist, capitalist, militarized, and bloody. I use the term “semi-imperialist” in this text to designate a strategy through which Iran seeks to extend influence and control over other countries, without, however, reaching levels of more classical imperialism practiced by historical colonial powers such as the United States and France.

This strategy comprises several aspects: regional influence, indirect intervention, proxy warfare, ideological expansion, and economic pressure.

By following this strategy, Iran avoids the costs and risks associated with direct occupation and formal colonization. Yet, it is important to note that for ethnic minorities living within its national territory, such as the Kurds and Balochs, the Iranian regime is often referred to as an internal colonizing state. For years, the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) has succeeded in masking the repressive realities of its internal workings behind the mythical discourse of a foreign policy based on an “axis of resistance against imperialism.” This text aims to demonstrate that the IRI, contrary to what its national and international supporters believe, is not simply a victim of imperialism, but also an offensive and militaristic regional empire, as well as a nation-state built through and on violence against its population – ethnic minorities and women in particular.

Repressive tyranny under the cloak of resistance ///
On September 20, 2022, during the night of a revolutionary uprising in Iran, a young 16-year-old girl was abducted from a street in central Tehran for shouting out slogans against the regime without wearing a headscarf. Video footage of the incident released later showed that she had been abducted by security forces, having been identified as one of the leaders of that day’s demonstration. Transported by the police in a refrigerated milk transport car, she was beaten and raped by three policemen as she continued to sing and resist. Nika Shakarami was killed in this van and her body was abandoned on a highway in Tehran that night. Following media coverage of her death, which provoked a wave of national anger, the regime announced that “Nika committed suicide” by throwing herself from her apartment, a classic excuse often used by the authorities following their murderous actions. Nika was killed because she courageously resisted until her last breath, standing up and fighting, like many children in Iran, who have developed a militant conscience at a very young age in the face of the daily pressure of a repressive, hyper-masculinist, and violent police state.

What happened to Nika is not an isolated incident, but rather reveals the model of oppressive governance led by the Islamic Republic of Iran. Since its consolidation in 1979 under Khomeini, the regime has employed a ruthless strategy against Kurdistan, including a “fatwa of jihad against the Kurds” aimed at crushing all forms of resistance. This brutal campaign resulted in a devastating massacre, with some 10,000 Kurds killed and thousands more summarily executed. The first eight years of the revolution saw massive massacres of political prisoners, resulting in the deaths of at least 11,000 people, mainly left-wing activists. The regime also set up a machine of repression that included imprisonment, torture, executions, and assassinations abroad. In 2019, during a nationwide uprising, this machine killed over 1,500 people in one week. This pattern of violence was repeated during the 2022 uprising when Iranian authorities opened fire on protesters. In Balochistan, this resulted in the death of 100 people in a single day and 300 more injured.

Known as “the republic of execution” in Kurdistan since 1979, and “the republic of crime” or “the republic of massacre” elsewhere, the IRI is deeply despised by its population, particularly ethnic minorities who make up a significant proportion of those executed. It is a theocratic regime in which the supreme leader proclaims himself God’s representative on earth, exercising absolute control over the destinies of 80 million people while reducing the parliament and judiciary to mere ornaments. Thus, Iran’s anti-imperialist rhetoric serves mainly as a cover for repressing its own population with impunity, in a context where the regime lacks legitimacy. The same rhetoric is also used to justify its violent military interventions in the region as acts of resistance.

The Axis of Resistance through the prism of gender dynamics ///
The anti-imperialists of the so-called “Axis of Resistance” often ignore the autonomous struggles of women and queer people against regional militarized regimes, attributing it to imperialism and reducing activists to pawns manipulated by Israel and the US. This perspective has led some to justify their unconditional support for the Iranian dictatorship, going so far as to describe the Iranian revolutionary uprising of 2022, which set off after the murder of Jina Mahsa Amini, as the “woman, life, freedom, Zionism” uprising. They have demonstrated the capacity to deny the powerful struggle of Kurdish women for decades, from Rojava to Iran, because for these “idiot anti-imperialists” as Syrian author Leila Al-Shami calls them, all struggles are warped through a prism of US anti-imperialism.

Ironically, this approach reinforces Eurocentric thinking, which deprives people across the Middle East of any form of subjectivity and reduces them to mere manipulated and primitive entities.

The Iranian regime skilfully exploits this rhetoric, playing a marginal role in global confrontations against the imperialists while profiting considerably on the national level. Last April, during the regime’s attacks on the apartheid state of Israel, it simultaneously intensified the repression of women in Iran under the pretext of an alleged “state of war” with Israel. This repression was aimed at stifling the 2022 revolutionary movement in Iran, which strongly challenged the “compulsory” hijab – an obligation that differs from the choice to wear the hijab – and also the entire ruling regime. Faced with a growing loss of internal legitimacy, the theocratic and misogynist regime exploits world events to maintain its tyrannical policies. For example, it uses the rise of racism and Islamophobia in the West to legitimize the compulsory hijab as a form of Islamic cultural resistance against Western imperialism.

From national atrocity to regional destabilization ///
The IRI’s expansionist interventions and policies encompass a wide range of ideological, political, and economic influence. In the first instance, it actively propagates a radical conservative religious trend by erecting mosques and religious schools around the world to spread ideology and influence communities, a parallel to the actions of Christian European colonial forces in the 19th and 20th centuries. However, when it comes to politico-military intervention, the Iranian regime is generally more selective. Iran exerts its greatest influence in Lebanon and Syria, and more recently in Iraq, and it is here that there is always the great risk of the phantom conflict degenerating into a full-blown regional war, according to Iranian public opinion. These countries mentioned here have always represented critical arenas for Teheran’s strategic ambitions, considering that since October 2023, Iranian-backed militias have launched more than 170 attacks against US bases in Syria and Iraq, which have often resulted in a military response.

Following its interventions in Syria and Iraq, the Iranian regime has exploited these new economic markets in construction, energy, and food by maintaining influence over political regimes. On the military front, every year Iran sends weapons and various services, such as electronic warfare in Lebanon, to destabilize entire regions, thus consolidating the power of its allies. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), in particular its Quds branch, was specially created to carry out military operations abroad, bypassing diplomacy and international cooperation. Qasem Soleimani, criminal commander of the Quds Force, at times glorified as a hero by the “idiotic anti-imperialists,” has played a central role in these operations in collaboration with Russian imperialism and the Assad regime.

Together, they perpetuated atrocities in Syria such as the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Syrians and displacing millions more, all while undermining the country’s democratic prospects.

In addition, it has exploited vulnerable Afghan migrants in Iran, recruiting them to serve on the front lines in Syria under false promises while exposing them to mortal danger without any recognition of their sacrifices.

Iran’s leaders justify expansionism on the grounds that it is crucial for national security. Since the war in Syria, they have extended Iran’s borders beyond its traditional political boundaries, now encompassing Iraqi Kurdistan [ask South Kurdistan], Syria, Yemen, and Bahrain, where large military budgets are allocated and military forces deployed. At the same time, protest movements against the Islamic Republic have crossed Iran’s borders in recent years, as evidenced by events in Iraq and Lebanon. In 2019, during the takeover of Iraq’s tallest skyscraper, demonstrators held up a banner displaying the names of the enemies of the Iraqi people, which included the Islamic Republic. Slogans such as “Iran, leave and disappear,” the flag of the Islamic Republic burned and the portraits of Khamenei and Qassem Soleimani mark protests against Iran’s interference in Iraq.

These events are linked to the fact that the methods of protest repression in Iran in 2017, 2019, and 2022 are a continuation of repressive techniques tested by Iran throughout the region since the Khomeini era, first in Lebanon, then in Syria and Iraq. In Syria, with Iranian support, the Assad regime used brutal tactics such as mass arrests, torture, and extrajudicial executions. After the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, Iran supported Shiite militias integrated into Iraqi security forces, which violently repressed protests in 2019. In Iran, extensive surveillance, infiltration of protest groups, mass arrests and torture of detainees are common methods, reinforced by media narratives discrediting protesters as foreign agents.

These techniques reflect a strategy honed over decades of regional involvement, aimed at consolidating power through force and intimidation.

Today, these methods are sufficiently developed enough to be deployed effectively within the country and exported beyond its borders.

What’s more, they are often accompanied by alarmist rhetoric about imminent war on the country’s doorstep, which seeks to unify the voices of the oppressors and oppressed while sowing discord within the opposition. As Khomeini often declared: “War is a blessing”, a phrase that has become emblematic in the collective memory of Iranians since the war between Iran and Iraq.

The devastating impact of Iran’s semi-imperialist policies on the racialized working classes ///
There is a myth that Iran’s authoritarian political system presents itself as an entity independent of global capitalism, isolated and impermeable to its influences. This vision, promoted by the tyrannical rulers, does not correspond to current reality. The Iranian left has recently shown how deeply integrated this regime is into global political and economic relations, acting as a machine of internal exploitation, colonialism, and cross-border warmongering. The Islamic Republic effectively follows the directives of the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization. Tangible examples include the abolition of subsidies that penalize the lower classes, opaque and anti-national privatizations, draconian changes to the labor code unfavorable to workers, and the closure of domestic factories in favor of massive imports of foreign products into the domestic market. It is logical, then, that Iran has become fertile ground for capitalists and rentiers, with over 96% of employment contracts being short term (CDD or temporary labor). In reality, the IRI is actively pursuing its integration into global capitalism, seeking to adopt a specific form of exploitation and domination, following a trend similar to that of “Turkification.”

The Islamic Republic’s semi-imperialist, cross-border expansionist politics in the region, intensified since the era of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009, has been disastrous for the Iranian population. It has financed the Houthis in Yemen, extended its political and military influence in Iraq, and spent exorbitant sums to keep Assad in power in Syria. During this period, considerable oil revenues have enabled the Iranian authorities to finance extravagant military interventions, to the detriment of resources intended for the well-being of the people. This policy advocates war and supports the establishment of reactionary regimes. Thus, a country endowed with immense oil wealth and high incomes, even under sanctions (often circumvented with the help of other imperialists such as China and Russia), finds itself unable to provide for the basic needs of its citizens. Faced with deep-seated problems such as inflation and over 40% unemployment in racialized outlying regions like Balochistan, Iran spends massively on regional military interventions and grandiose ambitions. In reality, the costs of the Islamic Republic’s international support and ineffective military interventions in the region are borne by the Iranian people, especially the country’s exploited classes and most oppressed populations.

Significant increases in the Quds Force budget for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in recent years, designed to reinforce regional military interventions as part of the axis of resistance, together with the corruption and rentier system of the ruling minority oligarchy, have led to further impoverishment of society, particularly for women, queer people, and minority ethnic groups. What’s more, Iran’s attack on Israel in April this year only resulted in the devaluation of the national currency for the Iranian working classes, leading to even more pronounced impoverishment. With prices rising with the dollar, the minimum monthly wage fell to 8,820,000 Iranian Rials or just under 200 Euros. The first victims of this situation were the country’s exploited classes, particularly those living in Iran’s peripheral regions, whose survival depended on transporting contraband (to Kurdistan) or fuel (to Balochistan).

In this way, the Islamic Republic’s regional interventions and the conditions of social reproduction and people’s lives within the country are intrinsically linked and directly impact each other. This excessive emphasis on expansionism sacrifices the living conditions of the exploited classes, and the authorities continue to attribute all the country’s problems to external elements without bothering to improve the lives of their own people.

In reality, in a context where the working classes are under severe economic pressure and abandoned by the ruling oligarchy, the rulers know that their survival depends on an expansionist, semi-imperialist policy of military intervention, to externalize internal crises and keep the country in a permanent state of emergency.

In so doing, they can justify their authoritarian governance, as Putin does in Russia.
In reality, the Islamic Republic’s official alliance with regional dictators like Assad, reactionary Islamic forces like Hezbollah and the Taliban, and global imperialist powers like Russia and China, does nothing to benefit most people and especially does not benefit those most marginalized and exploited. On the contrary, this alliance exposes them to the whirlwind of military conflicts arising from the competition between global and regional imperialisms, imposing enormous human and material costs. The revisionist Russia-Iran-China axis is dragging the country into imperialist conflicts, of which the brutal US sanctions are also a consequence. While Iran’s ruling oligarchy has not necessarily been impacted by these violent and harmful sanctions – as they and their rich children accumulate more and more capital despite the restrictions – the rest of the population, particularly the less privileged, have paid a huge social and economic price, both in medical terms and in terms of purchasing power, for example.

It seems to me that we must fight global imperialism and regional semi-imperialist dictatorial regimes simultaneously, without any hierarchy, without getting trapped by either or becoming complicit with these violent political forces. ■