Mousavi's "movement" is a hodge-podge of student-mandarins & borgeois soap opera addicts pining for the Pax Americana

by: Andrew Taylor

Mousavi is a 'holy fool' and a demagogue, that is, a politician who woos power by appealing to the prejudices, emotions, fears and expectations of the people via impassioned rhetoric and propaganda using populist themes. If he prevails...you won't need to hold your breath long waiting for US imperialist penetration. Think again.

If anyone thinks the Iranian struggle is headed for woman's emancipation, democracy, or socialism, they ought to think seriously about how middle and even working class mass movements are co-opted into US satellite status. I was in the Parti Communiste du Quebec during the "Solidarity" struggles in Poland in mid-late 80s. The Trotskyists said over and over again at that time that the Polish revolution was headed for socialism. I pointed out that given the counter-revolutionary tide in E Europe and the so-called "Third World" - it was much more likely that Poland was headed for full incorporation into the imperialist camp and a perilous decline in living standards for the Working Class.

If there is one lesson I have learned on the left over decades, it is that the ultra-left is detached from the mass movements and yet misleads many in proportion to its numbers. Mass marchers do not of necessity equal a left turn. The EU electorate has just swung right. Think again about the social-location of populist 'reformers' before assenting to an illusory "mass line". Why is Mousavi both 'favored' and shunned by the US and Israeli governments? It is because he is a dupe, a toy, who usefully demonizes Iranian anti-imperialism, while remaining garbage in the estimate of Imperialist ambitions. If he prevails in Iran, he will assent to the US Script or be trashed for a real imperial puppet.

It is Iran's anti-imperialist foreign policy that is and will remain the enemy of Israel and the US and EU. Mousavi is a useful strutting puppet character in their drama - whether or not his subjective intentions are patriotic or egoistical.