Durham Miners’ Association chair STEPHEN GUY speaks to Ben Chacko about the Reform threat, what’s needed from Labour and why the Big Meeting will never lose its politics
A DEGREE of tension between the elected President of Iran and the country’s Supreme Leader, currently Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has been built into the system ever since the establishment of the Islamic Republic 40 years ago.
That tension has focused around the degree of emphasis in Iranian foreign policy upon engagement with the US and to a lesser extent the European Union.
The Western press have tended to simplify this tension as one between “conservative hardliners” and “reformists” within the Iranian political system, seeing hope in the presidencies of Khatami (1997-2005) and Rouhani (2013-2021), while despairing at the two terms of Ahmadinejad (2005-2013).
The ceasefire may have halted the fighting for now, but years of economic warfare and recent military attacks have left millions of Iranians facing hardship and uncertainty, says Codir’s RUBEN BRETT
Tehran retaliates with attacks on Israel, the Gulf Arab states and crude oil flows
MOHAMMAD OMIDVAR, a senior figure in the Tudeh Party of Iran, tells the Morning Star that mass protests are rooted in poverty, corruption and neoliberal rule and warns against monarchist revival and US-engineered regime change
Payam Solhtalab talks to GAWAIN LITTLE, general secretary of Codir, about the connection between the struggle for peace, against banking and economic sanctions, and the threat of a further military attack by the US/Israel axis on Iran


