What's at Stake for Iran in Syria? /Professor Cyrus Bini Explains....

What's at Stake for Iran in Syria?

Prof. Cyrus Bina says during the Iran-Iraq war, Assad's Syria was the only Arab state that supported Iran

Bio

Cyrus Bina is a Professor of Economics at the University of Minnesota, and a Fellow with the Economists for Peace and Security.

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Bio

Cyrus Bina is a Professor of Economics at the University of Minnesota, and a Fellow with the Economists for Peace and Security.

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PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to Reality Asserts Itself on the Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay.It's a very complicated and very dangerous world we live in. And perhaps the fight or conflict that's most complicated right now is emblematic of how difficult it is to come to terms with the current balance of forces in the world is what's going on in Syria. Just about everybody in the planet that has any real geopolitical power has their finger in that pie. Of course, the people who are paying the consequences in their tens and hundreds of thousands are the Syrian people.But we're going to try to get more of a handle on what's happening, and we're going to do it through the prism of understanding Iran and their interests in the region. And through that, looking at the issue of oil and U.S. foreign policy. And now joining us to talk about all of this in the studio is Cyrus Bina.

Cyrus was born in Tehran. He was an activist against the Shah. He left during the Shah regime for the United States in 1971. He continued his activism against the Shah while he was here. He's now a Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Minnesota Morris. He's the author of several books, including the latest: A Prelude to the Foundation of Political Economy: Oil, War, and Global Polity.


CYRUS BINA: Thank you very much.JAY: So it's a rather complicated story. Rather. It's crazily complicated, really. I suppose maybe pre-World War I when people were trying to figure out whether there was going to be a world war, and all the various interests colluding. I mean, in retrospect decades later, you know, we can kind of understand the big picture of the uneven development of these big countries and how they started to conflict coming out of colonialism and so on. When you're in the middle of it maybe it wasn't quite so clear.But certainly now we're in a period of transition, as you've described, from a time when the United States could control the world. We really were a kind of hegemon where many, many governments were virtually puppets, to a time where it's a more complex relationship between American dominant power, but perhaps as you've described not hegemonic power. Far more rivalries. And very much being expressed in Syria.


But if one looks at Iran and their role in this, talk a little bit about the Iranian interest and why they have decided for quite some time to stay entrenched in their support for Assad in Syria. What really is in it for them?BINA: Yes, this is a very great question. Actually, we have to refresh our memories. When the Iran-Iraq war was going on right after the revolution, and there were so many factors which made the Islamic Republic as we know it, established the Islamic Republic. Taking the embassy for instance is one of them, which of course created the sanctions. And then of course the image of anti-imperialist, of the regime, as a populist element to be used to re-establish or establish the Islamic Republic. Because the revolution was not about, you know, Khomeini for instance. It was a revolution and there was a counter-revolution, in my judgment.

JAY: So this is the revolution in 1979, which was a broad front of the Iranian people, which included Islamists but also leftists and communists, socialists, nationalists. Except in the end the Islamists win and actually kill off many of the leftists that there was.

BINA: Exactly. And then the question was the deal, if you will, of the [Guadalupe] Conference between the people who really handled Khomeini, even though Khomeini was not preferred to the Shah. Then the loss of the Shah, which was very unique, the very important [son] of Pax Americana, if you will. Then there was no alternative. You know, they--the United States shifted to the other elements of the National Front, which of course they couldn't really handle that [inaud.] moved to really go with the Shah, as you remember, probably. And then the other side of the National Front moved to Khomeini. So there was division. Total division between that.This is a secular movement, division. And in that fundamental sense the taking over of the embassy, and then Iran-Iraq war, established the counter-revolutionary forces of Khomeini. That was a so-called new revolution if you will. So that's the regime.

If you accept this premise, then Iran-Iraq war is extremely important. And Iran-Iraq war actually created a condition in the region that every Arab country, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, all these [shipdoms] of the Persian Gulf went against Iran. And of course, Iraq was there at the very head of it. And then the only regime which supported Iran was Bashar al-Assad of Syria. So this is payback time, if you will.

JAY: Now you've, you've talked a lot in your work about the importance of understanding oil to understand everything else. So how does oil--.

BINA: Yes. Because oil was globalized first. This is the first sector of the economy to be globalized, trans-nationalized, beyond the border of the nation-state. That's why.

JAY: So how does oil play into this alliance where almost all the Arab regimes back the Iraq war against Iran? What's the underlying economics of that vis-a-vis oil?

BINA: Yes. To know that we have to go back to the oil crisis of 1973-74, which led to the de-cartelization of oil. International petroleum cartel was imploded, gone, 1972. And then the crisis set in, and then oil was globalized--


.JAY: And by that you mean the American-controlled cartel.

BINA: The American-controlled--exactly. Because there was the umbilical cord of the U.S. foreign policy to the cartelized oil. Not all oil. Cartelized oil was caught. So in that fundamental sense this direct dial was gone.

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