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By Mina Khanlarzadeh 

The US-led economic sanctions have caused a great deal of death and destruction in Iranian society, and the IMF policies in Iran, similar to other developing countries, have resulted in a widening of the class gap, poverty, severe marginalization of the peripheries, and a lowering of living standards. Yet, the US sanctions together with IMF policies do not result in a comprehensive understanding of the current situation in Iran. The anti-imperialist camp, in an attempt to highlight the global war against Iran, is focusing on external factors to the point of sacrificing historical-political analysis, thereby avoiding the particularities of Iran’s case by reducing it to transnational narratives.

The petition, “Letter Against US Imperialism”, on the recent protests in Iran, currently in circulation, is illustrative of this problem. It’s important to examine its foundational concerns, as they sound superficially similar to anti-imperialist progressive ideas. The petition completely disregards the particularities of the economic and political circumstances Iranians have been struggling against for many decades. Despite the petition’s old-fashioned claims of standing with “the oppressed of the world” whom they would like to unite, it ends up exonerating the IRI (Islamic Republic of Iran) from its corruption and politics of killing and impoverishment, and supporting the status quo until further notice. According to the petition, under current global circumstances the downfall of the IRI would lead to “catastrophic losses” for the Iranian people, and the regime replacing the current one would be “far more violent and destructive.” Who are these Iranian people that the petition is saving from catastrophic losses by protecting their status quo from any meaningful transformation? Surely not Nikta Esfandani, the 14-year-old girl murdered during the street protests, and her family and many others like them. 

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