MPs. We think the positions they have taken on the miners democracy in the Labour Party, and on other issues have been important in defending the interests of the working class. Nor are we interested in the nit-picking, or straightforward ultra-left, type of criticism of them that appears in much of the left press.
But that is why, when they are wrong on a big issue, it is necessary to say so clearly. On this, both in the latest issue of Campaign Group News, and in the bulletin they issued at Labour Party conference, the Campaign Group called for an arms embargo against Iraq and Iran (see page 4).
But what is the concrete situation in the Gulf today? The US and British fleets, aided to their allies, are massing in order to 'deal with' Iran. There is no 'arms embargo' being applied by them. The demand for an arms embargo today is simply a demand that Iran be disarmed exactly at the moment when the US and British fleets are threatening to attack it.
Socialists rightly reject the anti-working class character of the Khomeini regime - and those that know a little more should equally reject the no less anu-working class character or we mussel regime in Iraq. But the idea that Britain and the US, of all powers, would introduce anything more progressive in any country in the 'Middle East' is ridiculous. The US and Britain prop up every reactionary regime and group in the world — including apartheid in South Africa and the contras in Central America.
Britain and the US's objection is not to the anti-working regime but that, for its own purposes, it is forced to take some actions which collide with their interests in the region. They would like installed in Iran an equally anti-working class regime which was simply LUTC pliant Socialists have to demand the withdrawl of the US and British fleets from the Gulf -paign Group members do. Exactly for that reason they also have to oppose an arms embargo against Iran. Anything else deprives Iran of the ability to defend itself against Britain and the US. on