by HAMID DABASHI
President Donald Trump PHOTO/Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
Are nations entirely helpless in the face of blatant warmongering targeting their homeland? What can ordinary people do, independent of the state that is ruling them, to prevent, or at least make it difficult, for US militarism, now under the command of a mentally unstable “commander-in-chief”, first to demonise before starting to bomb them?
For those of us who still actively remember the preparatory stage of the United States-led invasion, destruction, and occupation of first Afghanistan in 2001 and then Iraq in 2003, we know how demonising entire nations was and remains the indispensable first step before starting to bomb a country.
That history has now assumed an added urgency. Donald Trump needs a war and all the indications point to Iran as what seems like the easiest target in his crosshairs. He will never pick a fight with China, or Russia, or even North Korea. Like all bullies, he picks a fight he thinks (falsely) he can easily win.
A war with Iran will “justify” his Muslim ban, drum up his xenophobic base, distract people from his terrifying domestic atrocities, create a state of emergency in which no resistance is tolerated, critical thinking and civic opposition will be equated with treason, Muslim registry and even internment will not be too off their marks.
In what follows, I enumerate 10 things Iranians, as a people, can do to preempt a war on their country. Although I will be specific to Iran – for I think it is the most obvious target of Trump’s warmongering – the same ideas can be extended to any other potential target of US militarism, which predates and will outlast Trump.
Reclaim the nation
First and foremost reclaim the term “Iran” for the nation and away from “the state” that rules over it.
In the current diplomatic and journalistic parlance, “Iran” summons both the “nation” and the “state” that claims it together. This is a false coupling.
As a signifier, “Iran” belongs to the Iranian people. The state, the current or any other, is an appendix to it.
Like all other states around it, “the Islamic Republic” is today integral to a geopolitics of the region with almost all their soft and hard powers active in each other’s territories.
From Turkey to Iran to Saudi Arabia – at the head of an eleven Arab nation coalition – are militarily engaged outside their own borders.
Turkish, Iranian, and Arab nations are trapped inside their states and have little to no control over their diplomatic and military operations.
States seek to survive their hostilities, while nations pay the unfathomable price of suffering their leaders’ decisions. Reclaim the name of the country and do not allow it abused as the first political move towards a military attack.
Second, denounce those treacherous forces among the expat opposition – now led by the cultic People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK), and Reza Pahlavi, the son of the former Shah – that demand “regime change” in Iran.
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