Iran’s workers to U.S.: hands off

With the Bush administration threatening war on Iran, that country’s presidential election got world attention, more than any election since the 1979 revolution that overthrew the shah and ousted the U.S. neocolonial regime.

The U.S. media reports all claimed surprise over the victory of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the mayor of Tehran. The real surprise was the emergence of the Iranian workers, whose votes gave Ahmadinejad his victory.

Iran is in a deep economic recession, with unemployment estimated at between 15 and 20 percent. There have been widespread protests by workers, unlike anything seen for two decades.

The presidential candidate the U.S. expected to win, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, is a wealthy business owner. His economic program was to accelerate privatization and encourage more foreign investment. He invited in the World Bank and its neoliberal policies. As for the threats from the U.S., Rafsanjani was seen as someone friendly to the European imperialist powers who could also be accommodating to the U.S.

After all, he was one of the principal operators in the “Iran-Contra” affair, when Ronald Reagan and Oliver North secretly sold arms to Iran, while it was at war with Iraq, in return for Iran’s help in securing the release of U.S. hostages in Lebanon.

Ahmadinejad, on the other hand, comes out of the revolutionary movement that overthrew the U.S. puppet regime of the shah.

Ahmadinejad, the son of an ironworker, ran a populist campaign, blaming the emergence of private banks and the privatization program for the deepening unemployment and poverty. Some even describe him as an Islamic socialist. That probably better describes what many workers hope they’ll get through this election. Ahmadinejad promises he’ll bring more jobs, higher wages, better housing, expanded health insurance and more social benefits for women. He also promises a fairer distribution of Iran’s vast oil wealth—instead of by “one powerful family,” as he put it.

Iran’s workers and poor came out and voted in numbers big enough to send a message. The vote was for jobs, not the World Bank. And the vote told the U.S.: hands off.