Non-Alignment in the 21st Century

Whether or not Iran can resist the US-led multinational empire depends a lot on whether it can gain and keep allies -- Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and so on -- and get other countries that are neither full members of the empire nor allies of Iran -- Russia, China, India, Turkey, etc. -- to resist economic and other sanctions on Iran as much as possible.¹

Iran should also continue to work on driving wedges between the USA on one hand and Japan and European states on the other hand, so the latter won't fully sign on to the US campaign to economically isolate Iran.

Conversely, the fall of Iran would embolden the empire and make it easier for it to intensify attacks on Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and others. Survival of Iran would weaken US hegemony further, a favorable outcome for all who are or may become Washington's targets.²

Condoleezza Rice claims that Non-Alignment "has lost its meaning":

. . . I know that there are some who still talk about non-alignment in foreign policy. But maybe that made sense during the Cold War when the world really was divided into rival camps. Now the question that I would ask is, as fellow democracies with so many interests and principles in common at a time when people of every culture, every race, and every religion are embracing political and economic liberty, what is the meaning of non-alignment?

It has lost its meaning. (Condoleezza Rice, "Remarks at the U.S.-India Business Council 32nd Anniversary 'Global India' Summit," U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Washington, DC, 27 June 2007)

Not true. Non-Alignment in the 21st Century means non-alignment with the US power elite, consciously building new military alliances (away from the NATO and other multilateral and bilateral military cooperation with the USA), financial networks (away from the dollar), cultural connections (away from the American media), and so on to roll back the empire.

1 InternetActivist.org has created a useful list of where other nations stand in their relations to Iran and the US campaign to isolate it: "So How Have the US/Israeli Efforts to Isolate Iran Fared around the World?" (27 September 2007).

2 Those leftists who try to isolate Iran from Latin socialist leaders are silly sectarians who have no mass following on the ground and care little about what will become of the Iranian people. The "Iranian Revolutionary Socialists' League," which says it is "highly critical of the Chavez government's extraordinarily close and fraternal relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran" in its open letter (17 September 2006), is a case in point.