About this episode

Dr. Arya Zahedi discusses the Iranian regime's use of anti-imperialism to suppress leftist movements and the complexities of Iranian-leftist history.

The Iranian regime has mobilized the language of “anti-imperialism” in an effort to crush leftist movements, as well as worker and student struggles for decades now. Dr. Arya Zahedi joins the PG team to discuss Iranian-leftist history, the revolution, idealism, and what is to be done. In this episode we talk about a text called The Anti-Imperialist Imperialism Club: On Left Internationalism and Iran , which can be found in Heatwave Magazine Issue two. “Despite the anti-imperialist demagoguery, the Islamic Republic has always been willing to be integrated into the international bourgeois community. The idea that the United States is intransigent in its opposition to the Islamic Republic, and vice versa-that the current Iranian regime is intransigent in its “resistance”-is the stuff of comic books and bad spy movies. Iran has a bourgeoisie, and like all bourgeoisies, it is first and foremost concerned with preserving its interests; this supersedes ideological loyalty to any political power. … Decades of IMF restructuring, liberalization, and austerity have demonstrated the current Iranian administration’s desire to join the global economic order. The capitalist class will work to…

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