Khomeini calls Carter's bluff

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dollars who have reason to suspect that they may come into sharp conflict with US imperialism.

They have been given a clear warning to transfer their funds, or face a situation where they are held to ransom by the dictate of the US government.

These fears lead to the prospect of a massive withdrawal of investment in the US by, particfurther bo A to states he US ATAD states At the same time, immediate pressures on the oil market are almost certain to be reflected in further price rises at the OPEC conference in December, while an increasing proportion of world supplies is traded through the 'spot market, where prices are already rising once more.

Every move that the imperialists have made to attack the Khomeini regime has brought painful consequences for themselves.

Beni Sadı-rapidly emerging as the most important figure in Khomeini's government-expressed this aspect of the situation quite clearly: "If the Americans want economic war, then they can have it!"

But thinew situation does not only reveal even mole vividly than before how far the US imperialists have been weakened by the struggles of the working class and the oppressed masses internationally since the defeat of US imperialism in Vietnam.

What has also been exposed is how near Khomeini has come to the utter bankruptcy of his counter-revolutionary policies.

Reports from Iran suggest that Khomeini's central authority is now effectively confined to Tehran, Qom and two other cities, with other areas variously under the control of the Kurdish nationalists, the Fedayeen and local religious leaders.

The new government appointed by the revolutionary council has already been divided in public arguments over the tactics to employ around the occupation and the strategy to adopt towards US imperialism. 'Islamic Republic' to meet the material needs of the exploited masses is producing a reaction against Khomeini's rule by the Koran.

Last week, the Ministry of Labour was the target for a demonstration by hundreds of unemployed workers, who raised the slogan 'America and reaction are the source of our unemployment'.

Dire Straits On Saturday, the 'Revolutionary Council proclaimed that henceforth all occupations and 'unjustified' strikes would be treated as 'counter-revolutionary' acts.

Khomeini's reactionary regime is clearly in dire straits, and frantically clutching at desperate remedies.

But the disintegration of this jerry-built dictatorship will not simply in itself be a gain for the workers and peasants of Iran.

Such a collapse may open the way for US imperialism to intervene again, as it did in 1953 and restore the cancerous Shah to his throne.

Khomeini's radical bigotry can provide no serious answer to this danger. It is only the Irànian proletariat which can secure and develop the gains made with the overthrow of the Shah, and threatened ever since by both imperialism without, geois nationalism within.

But that revolutionary potential will never be realised without the building of Trotskyist party committed to the Marxist programme of permanent revolution and fighting to win the other oppressed classes behind the banner of socialism in the struggle to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat.

*Defend the Iranian revolution against imperialism and reaction!

*Seize all the banks and major capitalist holdings. No compensation-for workers' management and a planned socialist economy.

*Build workers militias and factory committees. For soviets to replace the committee and tribunals of Islamic reaction.

*Against unemploymentfor a massive programme of public works.

*Against national oppression -for the rights of self-determination of the Kurds and all other oppressed nations.

*Against sexual oppressionfull democratic rights for all women and homosexual men.

*For proletarian internationalism-every possible assistance to the international struggles against imperialism.

*Down with Khomeini and the Revolutionary Council'-for a workers and peasants government in Iran.

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FRANCISCO AGESINADE A late night protest against the police killing Ortuella is a small town in the mining district close to the Basque industrial centre of Bilbao. • It is a town with strong traditions of working class organisation.

1979 « Lo POLÍCIA dourners gather for the funer The working class remains, more clearly than in any part of the Spanish state, ready to resist repression and the mounting economic attacks which are coming in the wake of the crisis.

Francisco Caballero after massive publicity and a good deal of electoral fraud.

The forces of the pro-ETA coalition are now publicly divided over whether to participate in the Basque parliament