Why is Trump bombing Syria

Well, there we have it. The liberal chickenhawks should be cheering Trump's airstrikes against the Syrian regime. They've finally got what they wanted. The Donald has just done what Obama wanted to do back in 2013, though the administration dropped the idea of 'punitive strikes' because it lacked a clear strategy and the support of major allies. By contrast, Trump has no such restraint and has gone ahead anyway. This is a senseless display of state violence and no good will come of it.

Not that this signals a major change in US policy, the Trump administration has made clear it does not support regime change in Syria and the US has been bombing Syria for three years now. What changed last night was the target of the bombing. It was the first time the bombing campaign directly targeted the regime as part of official policy. It may reflect a shift in the struggles over policy in the US government, but not a break with history.

In fact, it is a sign of continuity after Steve Bannon was kicked off of the National Security Council. This is the end result of Michael Flynn being booted out of the administration for not disclosing his meetings with the Russian ambassador. The deviation from the traditional leadership of the Pentagon was not meant to last. Intelligence leaks and a media hysteria have allowed the old order to reassert itself. These 'punitive strikes' are not a humanitarian intervention. Rather the strikes represent the consolidation of Pentagon aims.

It's been apparent for some time now that the US has no coherent strategy in Syria. Obama may have pledged political support for the Syrian opposition. This support was translated into limited supplies of arms and funds. However, the US and its allies could have moved against Assad much earlier. If the Israelis had mobilied forces on the Syrian border, the armed forces would have been split and thus left vulnerable to a rebel offensive. But this never happened.

There is evidence that the Russians floated the idea of Assad stepping down in 2012, but the Americans threw cold water on the idea. The US government was waiting for the regime to cave to the rebel opposition, so it could control the outcome of the war. The problem may have been that the US wanted to see Assad go and keep the Ba'ath regime in place. This is quite similar to the US position on Saddam Hussein after the Gulf War.

Eventually the American ruling class decided it was better to invade and dismantle the entire regime and replace it with a new client state. Al Gore was calling for a US invasion of Iraq in 1998, and in 2003 the Bush administration finally toppled Saddam. It's possible to imagine that the Syrian civil war will conclude with the defeat of revolutionary forces and the emergence of a weak, broken state dominated by Assad and Islamist groups.

Western Hypocrisy Over St. Petersburg Attacks

It was a welcome change to hear the Western media acknowledge that the St. Petersburg bombing might have something to do with Russian foreign policy: the interventions in Afghanistan, Chechnya and Syria. Yet you will never hear such an angle raised when its an atrocity carried out in an American or a Western European city. In such cases any attempt to explain terrorism would be dismissed as making excuses for violence.

This moral blackmail was not deployed over St. Petersburg. What do we know about the attack? The main suspect Akbarzhon Jalilov, a Kyrgyz national, is accused of killing 14 people and injured 50 others in detonating a bomb in the St. Petersburg underground. Six people have now been arrested. They have been accused of recruiting for ISIS. The suspects are all from Central Asian states. This would fit with the analysis that the bombing was staged in reaction to Russian aggression.

Not only was Central Asia dominated by the Soviet Union, the region was on the frontline in the war in Afghanistan. Once the USSR had invaded Afghanistan, the war aims quickly changed to building a new society and occupying the country for the time being. The United States and its regional allies - particularly Saudi Arabia and Pakistan - established a network of jihadists to fuel the Afghan resistance to the Red Army.

The Soviet occupation of Afghanistan would come to a close by 1989. Gorbachev oversaw the withdrawal and warned the West that the forces they had mobilised in Afghanistan would come back to haunt them. Of course, the network behind Osama bin Laden and the attacks on the World Trade Centre had their origins in the Afghan struggle. The war itself would create a space for Eastern European dissidents to challenge regimes backed by the USSR. This combined with economic factors would bring down the Eastern bloc.

Events in Chechnya would be even more crucial for the terror factor in Russia. As the USSR was dismantled in 1991, Chechen Ichkeria declared independence under the nationalist leadership of Dzhokhar Dudayev. Growing instability and tension in the region would lead to the eruption of armed conflict in North Ossetia, the Chechens feared the presence of the Russian armed forces would be the first stage of mission creep. Dudayev imposed a state of emergency after Russia deployed troops to the border.

At the same time, Dudayev was facing a groundswell of opposition in the fledgling state. This opposition would turn to armed force in 1994. Boris Yeltsin pledged Russian support for the attempt to overthrow the Dudayev government. Yeltsin was desperate to bolster his domestic support in the midst of his disastrous economic reforms. The instability in the Chechen region offered an opportunity. The Russians backed the opposition in order to overthrow Dudayev and crush the example of independence.

However, Dudayev held his own from October to November against the forces Yeltsin had mobilised. Russian armed forces would play a clandestine role, but the Battle of Grozny left the Russian government humiliated after the Chechen independence forces captured a large number of military vehicles and personnel. It was meant to be a swift operation to topple the government. Faced with this, Yeltsin sanctioned the invasion of Ichkeria ostensibly to restore the territorial integrity of Russia.

The Russian army began bombing the Chechen air capabilities and within ten days the invasion was underway. Just as Brezhnev had mistakenly thought the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan would be successful within weeks the Russians now thought the Grozny government could be toppled. The war would rage for two years before a ceasefire was signed on Russian terms. Dudayev was assassinated in an 1996 airstrike.

With American help, Yeltsin would survive the Presidential elections of 1996. Estimates of the people killed in the first Chechen war range up to 100,000, along with 500,000 people displaced, in just two years of fighting. A new war would start in 1999 following the apartment bombings in Moscow and the rise of Vladimir Putin. The second war was waged by Russia and its Chechen allies to kill off independent Ichkeria and snuff out the emergent Islamist movement in the Northern Caucasus.

The first aim was secured, but an insurgency continues to this day. Russia has been struck by numerous bombings by Chechen Islamist fighters, and a key reason for the Russian intervention in Syria has been partly to extent the war against those same Chechens - now fighting in Syria alongside the mainstream rebels and an array of jihadist groups. Of course, the main reason has been to back the Assad regime - the only Russian ally in the region.

An honest look at the situation finds that the Russian government relies upon the Islamist threat to  justify its aggression in Syria. Even though Russia has been motivated partly by counter-insurgency in Chechnya, the main targets of Russian bombing have been the Syrian opposition and the civilians living in their territory, not Islamic State or al-Nusra. This in turn is a key factor in the continued threat of terrorism in Russia.

American Africa: Obama's Imperial Wars.

Remember the funeral of Nelson Mandela, Barack Obama stood before the South African people to pay tribute to Madiba. “He makes me want to be a better man”, the American president confided with his audience. It felt like he had just wandered astray from the official script. But really it was very well choreographed.

By this point, Africa has become a major focus of American counter-terror efforts. At the same time, US dominance has not gone unchallenged, Chinese competition has meant African governments have more than one economic titan to do business with. In some ways this takes Africa back to the Cold War struggles, when the Soviet Union and Cuba often vied with the US and China for influence.

In the years since the Cold War ended, the politics of Africa has been dominated by the ‘war on terror’, neoliberal globalisation and Chinese state capitalism. These factors remain key for understanding US policy towards the continent today. The Obama administration has built on the existing pretexts for war in Africa and extended the Western scope of military operations.

One of the key events of the Obama era was the NATO intervention in Libya. The Libyan uprising against Colonel Gaddafi created an opening for the Western powers to intervene. Yet the Libyan rebel leaders opposed greater Western interference. The country has since slipped into a strange limbo, with no one power able to hold the state. And this laid the groundwork for new conflicts.

Africa’s War on Terror

Let’s look at Mali in 2012. Returning from the Libyan civil war, heavily armed Tuareg fighters waged a new rebellion in the West African Muslim state. The aim was to establish Azawad as an independent country for the Tuareg people. As the insurgency progressed, radical Islamist groups like Ansar Dine rushed in to take advantage of the conflict. Once Azawad declared independence, the Malian government was ousted in a coup d’etat by US-trained army officers.

With US-backing, France invaded Mali in 2013 to defeat the Islamists and secure the nation-state, however, the problem manifested by the destruction of Timbuktu was not contained to one area. The French soon found themselves expanding their operations across the region. The jihadi groups began targeting hotels in Burkina Faso and Cote d’Ivoire – especially those frequented by Westerners – to stretch the operation further and eventually break its back.

To this day, the US is backing the French intervention in West Africa and the Sahel to stamp out the rise of jihadi groups. Of course, the less convenient story is that the French can secure their economic presence in the region by extending a ‘defensive umbrella’ through West Africa. France is heavily dependent on nuclear power, and the Sahel region is rich with uranium. It’s also the case that the French want to fend-off Chinese mining interests.

The US is happy to see France beat China for Niger’s uranium. This is where counter-terrorism meets US and Chinese competition. In the past, French Africa was in competition with Anglophone Africa, but this changed in the last couple of decades. France and Britain are now on the same side in Africa, namely the American side. Thus, the NATO bombing of Libya was a joint operation.

Today Libya has no government, while three governments claim this status real power is held by armed groups. African refugees pass through in hope of making the perilous journey from the Libyan coast to the shores of Italy. This is the situation that concerns the EU and the US. Obama has acknowledged the NATO bombing failed. He placed the blame on Britain and France for their lack of “follow-up”.

Great Power Play

Although it is sometimes claimed that the Gaddafi regime was ousted because it was opposed to AFRICOM, the Libyan regime was open with AFRICOM. This was long before the American military force established relations with almost every African state. The idea of hosting US troops on Libyan soil was anathema, as it remains for most Africans. By contrast, the rebels in Benghazi opposed AFRICOM as Louis Proyect pointed out some years ago.

Since then the Obama administration has continued to expand AFRICOM and deepen its reach on the continent. In 2015, Obama planted a new US base in Cameroon to launch drones and station 300 troops. Note Cameroon is just next door to Nigeria and faces incursions from the Boko Haram insurgency. Obviously, the US wants to contain the Islamist insurgency in northeastern Nigeria and stand behind its regional allies.

Yet the US would rather not arm Nigerian soldiers directly. Instead, the conflict in northeastern Nigeria is used as a pretext to extend the US reach in West Africa. The US and its allies provide funding for the regional task force. Economically, the US remains close to Nigeria and the Gulf of Guinea for oil, as do the other Western powers, though these interests fall out of sight through the counter-terror prism.

This is no coincidence. The Bush administration created AFRICOM after having established a major base in Djibouti as part of its ‘war on terror’. From Djibouti, 10,000 American troops can oversee world trade flows through the Bab-el-Mandeb heading up to the Suez Canal. The Horn of Africa, the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Peninsula are all within reach from this vantage point. But even here the US is not unchallenged.

China is opening a massive base in Djibouti. It will station 10,000 Chinese troops in the tiny country, rivaling the American presence at its height. The Chinese government also wants to open a base in Namibia on the over side of the continent. This would give China a great strategic advantage. Just as China is challenging the US in Africa, the Americans are encircling China in the Pacific. These may be the dark clouds coming over the horizon, as the real storm approaches.

The US in Somalia

All of this is going on as the US continues to try to create a client government in Somalia. The official pretext is, once again, fighting the terror of al-Shabaab. The AU-backed government in Mogadishu is treated as the only legitimate authority in the country. But there is a problem with this. Regions like Galmudug, Puntland and Somaliland, basically govern themselves. The Somali federal government was established by southern warlords and an Ethiopian invasion.

On Obama’s watch, the US has repeatedly bombed Somali targets with drones. Key US allies Rwanda and Uganda were providing ground troops to mop up resistance. Much to its own detriment, Kenya joined the occupation of Somalia in 2011. Al-Shabaab has struck back at Uganda with the Kampala bombings of 2010 and Kenya with the Westgate mall siege in 2013 and the 2015 massacre of Garissa University students.

None of this has seen the Kenyan government to question its role in Somalia. For example, when al-Shabaab attacked a Kenyan AU base possibly killing more than 200 soldiers, the Kenyan government refused to publish the official body count. In response, US drones targeted al-Shabaab and killed over 150 people in one operation. This pattern will likely continue for years to come.

Ten years of AMISOM has not left Somalia with a stable, federal government. The US needs a reliable ally on the Horn of Africa, while Ethiopia and Kenya have an interest in keeping Somalia fragmented. Both countries have restive Muslim populations and contested borders with Somalia. In the 1960s, Somali bandits rampaged across the Kenyan border and later General Said Barre would wage war on Ethiopia laying claim to the Ogaden desert.

Fast forward to 2006, Ethiopia invades Somalia with US approval to smash the Islamic Courts Union. AMISOM is set up to foster a new government in Mogadishu, backed by warlords and composed of former Puntland rebels. Al-Shabaab emerges soon after to challenge the AU forces occupying the country. Much like Afghanistan, Obama passes Somalia on to his successor. This saga looks set to continue with no end in sight.

This article was originally published at Souciant.

Catastroika: Are the Russians Leaving?

Apparently, the Russians are leaving. Seemingly out of nowhere, Vladimir Putin declared that the operation had “largely achieved” the desired aims and Russian forces would be winding down operations in Syria. Not that this means the Russian military base will be dismantled. Far from it, the Russian invasion (yes, we shouldn’t mince words here) has entrenched the influence over the Assad regime, which it has strengthened. Out of 60 aircraft, the Russians have withdrawn 30. The picture is more mixed than the announcement of the mission’s ‘success’.

Of course, it’s not true that Islamic State has been decimated by Russian actions, however, the real aim was to defend the Assad regime and crush rebel groups. This may have meant bombing Islamic State’s positions, but it mainly meant striking at groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra, the Army of Conquest and the Free Syrian Army. These efforts gave the Syrian regime an advantage over the rebels. While it left Islamic State as a more distant foe. Keep in mind Bashar al-Assad can use ISIS to justify his own position.

If it is a choice between Islamism and Ba’athism, many would turn to Assad for order and security over chaos and terror. This falls apart when you look at the record. Assad has far more blood on his hands than anyone else in Syria. Many liberal and even leftist commentators have turned to argue for tactical and critical support for the Ba’athists. But this means, as long as the regime remains intact, the Arab Awakening will not have reached its conclusion.

Meanwhile the problem for liberal interventionists is precisely the lack of any credible force in Syria. Who do we need to defeat more? If we bomb ISIS, we help Assad and vice versa. Can we defeat both simultaneously and birth a secular democracy? Unlikely, as it may be, the only just outcome would be a democratic opening. Western intervention has served prolonged the conflict, whereas Russian involvement has consolidated the gains of the Assad regime.

At the same time, the Russian withdrawal sends a clear message to Assad. There are no blank cheques, or free passes, for the Syrian regime and Russian support may not be unconditional. Putin cannot do everything for Assad. The Russian army obviously cannot sustain a long-term occupation in Syria. Even the Soviet Union could not occupy Afghanistan for as long as the US has done. In fact, the Soviet experience in Afghanistan is particularly relevant to the Syrian intervention.

Defeated in slow-motion

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan came in 1979 after Hafizullah Amin organised the death of Muhammad Taraki and seized the reins in Kabul. Officially, the Soviet army intervened to aid the leftists in their struggle with the Mujahideen. Yet the true purpose of the intervention was take control of the country and restore order.

The People's Democratic Party came to power in 1978 with the violent overthrow of President Daoud. Once at the helm, Muhammad Taraki and Hafizullah Amin declared a revolution and proceeded to try and transform the country by breaking apart the remaining feudal structures. They declared women equal, abolished shariah, criminalised arranged marriages and began redistributing land. The new regime began converting opium production towards agricultural development. But these reforms would bring unforeseen consequences.

Prior to this upheaval, the Soviet Union was more than comfortable with the Afghan monarchy, which guaranteed stability, even as it pursued modernisation programmes. Afghanistan itself is valuable as a source of natural gas, but also as a route for pipelines. The revolution threw them off and provoked rebellion in the countryside, where the leftists were carving up the land. This would be the beginning of the Islamist revolt. What the Soviet leaders feared most was that this instability would engulf Central Asia.

After all, the region was predominantly Muslim and a valuable cluster of buffer-states between Russia and China, Iran and Pakistan. Much like the Eastern bloc, the hold on energy-rich Central Asia helped the USSR stand tall as a superpower. This is exactly why the US moved to back the insurgents. The day Soviet forces crossed the border, officially, national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote to President Carter: “We now have the opportunity of giving the USSR its Vietnam War”.

It's not that the Soviet leadership was ignorant of this factor. Alexei Kosygin was opposed to sending troops to Afghanistan precisely because of the example of Vietnam. In Kosygin’s view, the new regime should be able to hold its own against the rebellion, as North Vietnam had triumphed over the South and even against American aggression. Yet the balance of forces in the Soviet leadership still favoured intervention. In the end, Leonid Brezhnev was persuaded to back the intervention after Hafizullah Amin had Taraki smothered with a pillow.

Of course, financial support for the Mujahideen was already under way even before the invasion was launched. The CIA, with the help of Pakistan and Saudi, had set out to built a vast network of Islamist militants. This gave Arab regimes the opportunity to rid themselves of these troublesome elements. Far from harbouring any regrets, Zbigniew Brzezinski says he would do it again if he could go back. As Brzezinski personally told Islamists in the mountains: “Your fight will prevail... because your cause is right and God is on your side.”

Without any institutional framework for government, the country descended into civil war as the informal networks of power, both communal and tribal, were easily fractured and broke apart. This process would destroy the fabric of Afghan society. The US considered the reversal of social progress in Afghanistan as a necessary part of the efforts to defeat the Soviet-backed regime. Later the journalist Alexander Cockburn would read out a portion of a document seized during the Iran Hostage Crisis on the eve of the NATO-ISAF war in 2001:

The United States’ larger interest would be served by the demise of the Taraki-Amin regime despite whatever setbacks this might mean for future social and economic reform in Afghanistan. The overthrow of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan would show the rest of the world, particularly the Third World, that the Soviet’s view of the socialist course of history being inevitable is not accurate.

Although the Soviet intervention came with few humanitarian illusions, the occupation would soon take the shape of the civilising missions launched by European empires. Babrak Karmal, the leader of the Parcham faction, was installed as leader, while the USSR set about shaping the country in its image as it waged a brutal counter-insurgency campaign. The new narrative would be that the occupation was necessary to defend the rights of women from the reactionary forces mobilising against the regime.

Realpolitik was not enough in the end. The brutality of the Soviet occupation had to be dressed up as an expression of solidarity justified by socialist internationalism. As the years passed it became more and more evident that the occupation could not be sustained. Gorbachev would initiate an exit strategy concluding in total withdrawal in 1989. Just as the US would invade Afghanistan in 2001 in an act of vengeance - against the same network it helped to establish years earlier - only to discover the cause of women's rights. In both cases, the invaders were defeated in slow-motion.

Life after defeat

Members of the CIA would later claim the Soviet collapse was a result of endogenous factors. It fell apart like a house of cards because it was a house of cards. The political system was bankrupt and no longer functioned. So this had little to do with US policy. If anything, observers like Archie Brown have argued the Cold War helped preserve the USSR and not bring it down. But this was not the view taken by the Mujahideen. Many of the Islamists believed that they helped to bring down the USSR. They are not alone either.

Journalist Robert Fisk takes this view. It can be argued that the defeat of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan became so costly, it opened up a space for dissidents to win major battles in Eastern Europe. This was clear by 1981 when KGB chief Yuri Andropov (Putin’s hero, incidentally) persuaded Brezhnev not to intervene in Poland. It was evident that the system could not sustain such adventurism. In other words, the USSR could not repeat the actions it took in Czechoslovakia in 1968 and in Hungary in 1956.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russian foreign policy has been primarily concerned with national sovereignty. This was the basis of Boris Yeltsin’s postures over Serbia and Chechnya. The brief war with Georgia, and the conflict in eastern Ukraine, also fits this pattern. Although Syria shares no borders with Russia, the civil war could well have implications for Chechen jihadists. It’s easy to sell the intervention as ‘defensive’ within Russia. Despite the economic problems Putin can still bolster support through jingoism.

The key question for Putin is how long can this last? Oil prices remain low and the sanctions are hitting the government and its oligarchs. Putin’s credibility is at stake. He is widely credited with ending the economic chaos of the 1990s. The military adventures are incidental, whether it’s Chechnya or Syria. If the economic problems facing the country cannot be resolved, there may be more trouble on the horizon.

This article was originally published at Souciant.

Catastroika: Putin's Syria Policy

So Russia is now an active participant in the Syrian civil war. The pretext is standard: Islamic State must be defeated at any cost to the Syrian people. Yet the bombs are falling on other rebel targets - al-Qaeda's Jubhat al-Nusra, no doubt - and civilian targets are not out of bounds. Russian bombs have already hit hospitals and medical centres. These incidents will only increase as the bombing continues and the war continues to hurtle onward.

As I wrote before the Russian army began bombing Syria, Vladimir Putin has a more coherent strategy than the Western powers - which still cling to the hope that Islamic State and Assad can be defeated at once. Putin begins from a different premise: Assad's regime is the most legitimate force in the war. This may be a key strength, but it doesn't guarantee victory - nor does it justify itself. Four years of war have left 250,000 people dead, maybe more, and displaced millions.

No one power seems capable of destroying the other. But this could quickly change. Bashar al-Assad could be ousted by his generals. Islamic State could takeover a major city and declare a new capital, which would be a tremendous blow. That's why Assad has been so desperate to cling onto Aleppo. If the Alawite-Sunni alliance, on which the Syrian regime depends, collapses then there will be a strong power vacuum.

The endless war

In this case, Syria will fall into the abyss, as if the conflict wasn't already bad enough, imagine total chaos. It's plausible external powers would back whichever factions they can to try and regain control over the situation. There are a hand full of countries where this has happened: Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya and now Syria possibly. It's not pretty, to put it mildly.

Russia has been here before. In December 1979 the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, first to topple Hafizullah Amin, who it found untrustworthy and unstable, then it set about trying to turn the Parcham wing of the People's Democratic Party into the centre of power in the country. Babral Karmal was its Menshevik front man. The Mujahideen, backed by the US and Pakistan, was its adversary. In the end, the Soviet Union was humiliated.

Today Russia cannot afford to reenact this catastrophe. Despite this historical lesson, the Putin government has not been deterred from de facto invading Syria on the side of the Assad regime. Up to now, Putin was playing the distant game. In early 2013 Putin made his stance clear at the UN Security Council and stood in unanimity with China. When it looked like the US was getting ready for 'punitive bombing' in August 2013 Putin was sending arms to Assad.

Now Putin has 'little green men' flying over Syria to dump explosives on the rebels. There has been a dramatic shift since 2013 and it may come down to one country: Ukraine. The Russian invasion and annexation of Crimea provoked outrage in the West and led the US and the EU to impose sanctions on the Russian Federation. As wrong as it was for Russian troops to march into a sovereign nation-state, the most outraged squeals came from war criminals.

As the Russian economy faces bleak prospects - thanks to the collapse of oil prices, never mind the sanctions - the Ukrainian crisis is being felt in the homes of ordinary Russians. If Putin cannot stabilise the economy he could face serious domestic opposition. The boost in popularity over Ukraine could easily disappear. The end of the Yeltsin years left Putin with a great deal of credibility. He appeared as a necessary force providing order and stability.

High-risk strategy

According to financial journalist Andrew Critchlow, Putin is playing a high-risk strategy to drive oil prices up. To undermine the Russian economy, the US and Saudi Arabia have repeatedly slashed oil prices. This has hit Russia hard, but it also threatens to destabilise the Saudi dictatorship. Rather than back down Putin has moved to confront his enemies via the Syrian civil war. He has moved to strengthen the Syrian regime and the Iranian government, which pose serious obstacles to Saudi Arabia.

By invading Syria, Russia can throttle the jihadi rebels mobilised by Saudi and Qatari petro-dollars. It might be the means to exhaust the Saudi royal family. King Salman can't afford to face chaos at home either. If the House of Saud feels its position threatened by the Syrian civil war it may back down. In this case, King Salman may cut oil production to allow prices to rise. This would help ease the strain of the Russian economy.

Along these lines, as Critchlow's theory goes, the Syrian civil war could threaten the ruling order in the Saudi Kingdom and the Russian Federation. If Putin's gamble leads all sides to push harder, then it's possible everyone would lose out. Even in that case, it's likely oil prices will have to stabilise in the end. In the meantime, as the civil war reaches new suicidal heights, the Syrian people are the real losers.

If the Russian air strikes can weaken the rebels, the Syrian regime can hold onto its gains and may be even expand its reach. This could force the Western powers to accept new terms of negotiation. In this scenario, Putin will have won and the US will have been humiliated. If Putin can do this and force the Saudis to raise oil prices this victory will be twofold. But the stakes are high and the war is far from cold.

This article was originally published at Souciant.

The real substance.

The real substance of Obama's state of the union address was in the positions he has already taken and merely reaffirmed yesterday. The truth of his government can be read in these statements. Below, I've included excerpts here and underlined particularly important sentences:

First, we stand united with people around the world who have been targeted by terrorists -- from a school in Pakistan to the streets of Paris. (Applause.) We will continue to hunt down terrorists and dismantle their networks, and we reserve the right to act unilaterally, as we have done relentlessly since I took office to take out terrorists who pose a direct threat to us and our allies. (Applause.)  

At the same time, we’ve learned some costly lessons over the last 13 years. Instead of Americans patrolling the valleys of Afghanistan, we’ve trained their security forces, who have now taken the lead, and we’ve honored our troops’ sacrifice by supporting that country’s first democratic transition. Instead of sending large ground forces overseas, we’re partnering with nations from South Asia to North Africa to deny safe haven to terrorists who threaten America.  

In Iraq and Syria, American leadership -- including our military power -- is stopping ISIL’s advance. Instead of getting dragged into another ground war in the Middle East, we are leading a broad coalition, including Arab nations, to degrade and ultimately destroy this terrorist group. (Applause.) We’re also supporting a moderate opposition in Syria that can help us in this effort, and assisting people everywhere who stand up to the bankrupt ideology of violent extremism.  

Now, this effort will take time. It will require focus. But we will succeed. And tonight, I call on this Congress to show the world that we are united in this mission by passing a resolution to authorize the use of force against ISIL. We need that authority. (Applause.)

Of course, it goes without saying that the Islamic State emerged out of an array of conditions which the US helped to create - not only in its destabilisation of the whole region, but in its encouragement of Saudi Arabia and Qatar to back Syria's Islamist rebels. The fact that the President has done this and reserves the right to act unilaterally against such 'terrorists' would have been noted by any serious observer. Instead the media was largely silent on these points and preferred to focus on 'middle-class economics'. But wait, it gets better.

Second, we’re demonstrating the power of American strength and diplomacy. We’re upholding the principle that bigger nations can’t bully the small -- by opposing Russian aggression, and supporting Ukraine’s democracy, and reassuring our NATO allies. (Applause.)  

Last year, as we were doing the hard work of imposing sanctions along with our allies, as we were reinforcing our presence with frontline states, Mr. Putin’s aggression it was suggested was a masterful display of strategy and strength. That’s what I heard from some folks. Well, today, it is America that stands strong and united with our allies, while Russia is isolated with its economy in tatters. That’s how America leads -- not with bluster, but with persistent, steady resolve. (Applause.)

What's missing from this picture? Well, the coup which threw out Viktor Yanukovych was supported by NATO and the EU to bring Ukraine within the US-EU orbit of influence. The US opposes Russian aggression, but only as a response to its own unilateralism. Don't just take my word for it. Here's what Mikhail Gorbachev said in a recent interview with Der Spiegel.

NATO's eastward expansion has destroyed the European security architecture as it was defined in the Helsinki Final Act in 1975. The eastern expansion was a 180-degree reversal, a departure from the decision of the Paris Charter in 1990 taken together by all the European states to put the Cold War behind us for good. Russian proposals, like the one by former President Dmitri Medvedev that we should sit down together to work on a new security architecture, were arrogantly ignored by the West. We are now seeing the results.

NATO was founded to counter Soviet aggression. It makes little sense, if we accept its initial claims, why it would continue to exist after the fall of the Soviet Union. Not only does it exist, but it has been expanded. Now Obama brags about the economic sanctions he has imposed on Russia as a punishment. It's a clear message: the US will not accept the standards it applies to others.

Libya slips into a new civil war

In the midst of the ongoing civil strife, Libya’s Parliament fled to Tobruk in August and now resides aboard the Elyros, a Greek car ferry, on the eastern coast of Libya. Tobruk is a stronghold for the coalition of forces behind Operation Dignity, a counter-terror offensive launched in May by General Khalifa Haftar. Since the offensive was launched there has been sporadic fighting and instability as nationalist forces collided with Islamist militias in Benghazi.

The Islamist takeover of Tripoli and Benghazi may be understood as a reaction to this campaign. In July, Ansar al-Sharia declared an Islamic emirate in Benghazi, while fighting continues in Tripoli. Major foreign powers such as the US, the UK and France have withdrawn their diplomatic staff from the country. All of less than three years since the Libyan uprising turned into a revolution and then a civil war in which NATO intervened on the side of the Benghazi rebels.

An important factor could be the fear of a repeat of General Sisi’s coup in Egypt last year. The Sisi government has set out to repress the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) in Egypt and similarly the secular nationalists of Libya oppose the influence of the MB in their country. General Haftar has attempted to overthrow civilian rule on more than one occasion in the recent past. As such, the possibility of a coup in Libya is not at all far-fetched given the country’s history and the fragility of its civil institutions.

Libya’s body politic is dislocated as the General National Council (GNC) was disbanded last month in favour of the Council of Deputies, the latter being dominated by liberals and federalists, the former remaining predominantly Islamist. The GNC has continued to act as a power centre in spite of the fact that it has been officially disbanded and lacks UN recognition. The elections to the Council of Deputies left Islamists isolated and this may be an important factor leading up to their takeover of Tripoli.

Voter turnout in the Council of Deputies election in July 2014 came to just 18%, down from 60% turnout in the 2012 elections. "I didn't bother to register this time around, and that should tell you everything," said Mohammed Abu Baker, a Libyan student. "My friends were killed in the revolution, we paid in blood for this democracy, but what was the result of the election?"

In early August, Libya appointed its sixth post-Gadaffi head of state, Aguila Saleh Issa, and by the end of the month Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thani resigned in a bid to quell the power struggle. The recognised legislative body of Libya moved its proceedings to Tobruk as it became untenable to remain within reach of the Islamists. Meanwhile the GNC claims its own President Nouri Abusahmain and Prime Minister Omar al-Hasi. Neither claims are recognised internationally, but the centre of power remains contested.

Last week, Sheikh Sadiq al-Ghariani, the Grand Mufti of Libya, fled the UK amidst accusations that he had influenced the Islamist takeover of Tripoli International Airport from his home in Devon via his website. He had been appointed Grand Mufti in 2011 for the religious support he had lent to the revolution against the Gaddafi regime. He has since taken the side of the Islamist militias, in particular the Libya Dawn coalition, against the civilian government and competing factions.

This seems to signify a common problem facing the Maghreb in particular and the Arab world more generally. Arab nationalism has ceased to be the leading political force, leaving the ground clear for alternatives such as political Islam. The revolutionary wave of 2011 has as yet brought little in the way of new politics to the region, instead creating a vacuum where nationalism once was. Now that vacuum has opened the door for another civil war.

This article was originally published at The World Weekly on September 11, 2014.

What's at stake in the Mali negotiations?

Peace talks between the Malian government and the Tuareg nationalists have entered the next round. But what is behind this conflict and what’s at stake in the negotiations?

Last week, the latest round of negotiations opened between the Malian government and Tuareg rebels. The Tuareg groups are primarily nationalist. They include the Movement for the National Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), the Arab Movement for Azawad (MAA) and the High Council for the Unity of Azawad (HCUA). The Mali government has to consider how best to achieve a peaceful settlement in a conflict that has gone on for more than two years.

Since early 2012, Mali has been the setting of ongoing battles after Tuareg insurgents initiated a rebellion and began taking over northern Mali. In Bamako, General Amadou Sanogo overthrew President Amadou Toumani Touré in March 2012 on the pretext that the Touré government was incapable of resolving the crisis. Touré played a major part in Mali’s transition to democracy in holding back the military from firing on demonstrations and, ultimately, overthrowing the dictatorship of Moussa Traoré. He was later elected President in 2002 and held office until being overthrown in 2012.

General Sanogo received his military education and training in the US. Once Sanogo overthrew the elected government he suspended the constitution and imposed a curfew across the country. Mali was faced by economic sanctions from its neighbours. To overcome these sanctions Sanogo stepped aside in 2013 to make way for an interim government until an election could be held. Once an election was held and Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta was elected president Amadou Sanogo was promoted to four-star general. Soon after the inauguration Sanogo was dismissed and later arrested. He is currently awaiting trial for complicity in the kidnapping and disappearing of military rivals.

The coup did not prevent what would happen next. Within a month, Mali had an interim government in Bamako and the Tuareg rebellion had taken control of northern Mali and unilaterally declared the independence of the state of Azawad. Not long after, Reuters reported that “the coup has turned into a spectacular own-goal, emboldening the rebels to take further ground”. It’s important to bear in mind that the Tuareg people were amalgamated into French Sudan when the French Empire conquered Mali in 1898. The multitude of tribes found themselves divided by the new borders imposed on them.

Northern Mali makes up a major portion of the Tuareg ancestral lands, which extend from parts of Algeria and Libya to Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger. As a Berber people the Tuaregs have a distinct language and culture from the rest of Mali. The French wouldn’t relinquish control of Mali until 1960 when the country became an independent state with a socialist government. Soon after independence came the first major rebellion of the Tuaregs against the Bamako government.

NOTE: The MNLA's 2012 bid for Tuareg independence was not the first time that the country has been witness to insurrections. The earliest uprising was under French colonial rule in 1916. Ag Mohammed Koacen led a revolt which wasn't quashed for a year. He was later captured and executed in 1919.

The French government launched Operation Serval to provide armed support for the Malian military. Now seeing the Islamists as a common enemy, the MNLA provided logistical support to the French intervention while officially remaining neutral. Joint efforts by the French and the Malian military drove the Islamists out of Konna after a week of fighting. In June last year, the MNLA and the Malian government signed a preliminary agreement in which a ceasefire would be guaranteed and civilian rule restored to rebel-controlled areas, such as Kidal, in order to hold elections. Since then there has been an election in Mali and the MNLA has resumed its offensive after government forces fired on a Tuareg protest.

4,000 French troops worked as part of Operation Serval in 2013 with an African force of 2,900 troops. Up to 1,500 people have been killed. As of January 2013, around 230,000 people had been internally displaced and 144,000 had fled abroad.

The latest round of negotiations is being held in Algeria, a country with significant experience of civil strife. As the French are winding down their military operation and moving to a counter-terrorism operation, the UN will take over day-to-day security in Mali.

DATA POINT: The UN will take over the day-to-day security detail of Mali with a stabilisation force composed of 6,500 troops.

The focus of the talks is on the cantonment of areas under rebel control in exchange for disarmament. The cantonment plan was initially proposed and supported as part of the Ouagadougou Agreement signed in June 2013. The plan has not been implemented in full because the MNLA has yet to take part in the process.

This article was originally published at The World Weekly on July 24, 2014.

Update on Lockerbie.

In the latest Al-Jazeera documentary on the Lockerbie bombing a former Iranian intelligence officer was interviewed. Abolghassem Mesbahi claims that Tehran decided to retaliate against the US after the USS Vincennes shot down Iran Air Flight 655 in July 1988.  As an intelligence officer Mesbahi answered to President Rafsanjani and claimed Ayatollah Khomeini backed the plan to avenge Flight 655. The civilian airliner was mistaken for an F14 Tomcat about to attack and shot down over the Persian Gulf and 290 people died. Alexander Cockburn and Ken Silverstein reported back in 1988: "A pair of binoculars could have told the officers of the Vincennes what was flying overhead. But binoculars don’t cost half a billion dollars. The more complex the weaponry, the deeper the pork barrel and the more swollen the bottom line." It was in December 1988 that Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people.

It seems plausible. In 1996 the Clinton administration cut a deal with President Rafsanjani to compensate the families of the victims with payments of over $200,000 per passenger amounting to more than $60 million. A part of the deal was that the US government did not apologise nor admit any responsibility for what it maintains was a 'mistake'. The Iranian government has consistently disputed this claim. Al-Jazeera interviewed Robert Baer, a former CIA agent, who claims that the Iranians turned to a free-lance Palestinian group to take down five planes. The group in question has been named by various sources as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command (PFLP-GC for short). The main problem is that we may never know the full truth as the trial of al-Megrahi was clearly so flawed. It's doubtful that there will be any retrospective investigation.

Al-Jazeera has covered this subject before. In 2011 the channel gave a platform to Scottish defence investigator George Thomson, who claims that the forensic evidence against al-Megrahi was "inaccurate" and may have been contaminated. In 2012 Al-Jazeera interviewed al-Megrahi on his deathbed and revealed that the Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission had re-examined the case and had recommended it be referred back to the courts. I've covered this story myself on and off since 2009 when al-Megrahi was released on compassionate grounds to the outrage of the US hawks and their British sycophants. I first came across the claims in an article by John Pilger, which I drew heavily on in my early writing on this subject. Since then a lot has transpired in Libya, the Gaddafi regime disintegrated before a NATO onslaught and the country now seems to be rapidly descending into anarchy.

After Al-Jazeera released its documentary the BBC, the Independent, the Daily Mail, and the Telegraph, have given the claims coverage. With both Gaddafi and al-Megrahi in the ground it may be time for a serious reflection on what went on in 1988 and how the Lockerbie case was handled in the British legal system. It certainly seems that the UK media has opened itself to the possibility that Iran retaliated and that in turn opens up all kinds of troubling questions.

Creates the World in its Image.

In what I hoped would be the positive culmination of my BA Philosophy degree I wrote my dissertation on the Marxist theory of history in its relevance to international relations. It's the extent to which the historicism in Marx holds a normative element given that the Marxist tradition actually lacks a theory of international relations, just as it traditionally lacked a theory of government. In both instances there is a need, in international relations it is an evaluative criterion which is necessary. Below I have reproduced the introduction and linked the following chapters.

Over the last decade or more the question of military interventionism has been raised time and time again. Most recently in the form of newfound humanitarian pretext we have seen interventions justified in South-Eastern Europe, parts of Africa and West Asia. Given that the proponents of interventionism often rely on arguments going back to the classical liberal writers and thinkers of the 19^th Century it is imperative that the radical critics of interventionism look to the same period. Karl Marx is by far the most obvious and important figure for leftists to look at in the 19^th Century. In Marx’s writings we may well find a field of presuppositions into which we can ground a critique of doctrines of intervention.

The Marxist tradition of the Left as a critical engagement of capitalism has offered an oppositional standpoint to imperialism since at least the beginning of the 20^th Century. Yet it is the precepts developed in the work of Lenin and in response to Leninism that has led to the emergence of an anti-imperialist movement. Before that time the Marxist Left was not principally non-interventionist, in its critique of political economy its opposition to imperial adventures would come in relation to its revolutionary commitment to socialism. The central aspect of the Marxist corpus has long been the materialist conception of history, its origin lying in Marx’s time as a left-Hegelian. In its centrality it is not just a description of the world-historical situation, it carries its own normative weight as its critical analysis demands an active engagement with the particular conditions of that situation.

In the first section I will consider historical materialism as an extension of Hegel's influence on Marx, especially with regard to how this is interrelated with the Enlightenment notion of history as progress. Capitalism as a particular mode of development that tends towards the universalisation of a set of conditions in turn setting the wheels turning towards socialism and ultimately communism. We will see how this led Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels to support in writing the Union in the American Civil War over the Confederacy. The theory of history taking on the role of a presupposed framework, its evaluative criteria holding industrial capitalism as an advance upon the pre-capitalist relations of slavery. With the ultimate aim of human emancipation in sight after much more modest forms of political emancipation devised in turning slaves into citizens by bestowing upon them rights and freedoms. The creation of a free citizenry is an advance on the oppression of the past while at the same time it is deficient and only transient in the teleological terms of Marx's framework.

To follow on from this in the second section we will look at how this teleological framework may well fall short in its practical applications. I will look at the more troubling example of the position Marx took on British colonialism in India. There Marx accepted colonial rule as a necessary step in the transformation of the country and creating the pre-conditions for Indian emancipation. At the same time that the case of India has a great degree of difficulty attached to it, in its justification of empire, overestimation of the revolutionary potential of capitalism, these writings seem to suggest that there has to be a move beyond imperialism and capitalism. It holds consistent with Marx's position on the emancipatory potential of rights, but only as deficient to human emancipation. By this point I will explore whether or not this is a non-moral position on the part of Marx. We will look at the argument presented by Sayers that the objectivity of Marx's moral position may be implicitly grounded in his theory of history. If so we may reconsider the framework in terms of a multilinear conception that Marx seemed to have taken on in his later years.

You can read the rest below:
1: Progress under Capitalism
2: Moral Objectivity in History

No doubt as this is not a settled topic in my mind I will be returning to this matter in other forms in the coming months and years.

The Resurgent Right?

 

Since the Crash of 2008 we have witnessed the resurgence of free-market libertarianism on the American Right. The bailouts of the banks may have kept the cogs turning in the capitalist system, but it was a violation of everything held most often by free-market libertarians. It didn’t take long and the Tea Party movement emerged as the basis for a renewed Republican opposition to the Obama administration. Backed by Fox News and associated nut-hatch Republicans the Tea Parties flourished at city halls where they fought for health-care to remain privately run for profit and not on the basis of need. It seemed peculiar for liberals and radicals that the conservatives had managed to mobilise protests across the crisis-riddled body of America. Even for conservative Republicans it was an odd sight, right-wingers taking to the streets like anti-war protestors. The parallels reached an apogee of high farce with Glenn Beck leading demonstrators to Washington in an obscene satire on the March for Jobs and Freedom. In a way these farcical scenes are nothing new.

 

It may be a surprise for some, but there is a long history of this on the American Right. It was Christian rightist Paul Weyrich who infiltrated the activist circles of the New Left in the 1970s. He would set out to use these same methods to mobilise the conservative evangelical community as an electoral bloc for the Republican Party. The right-wing televangelists were easily organised once it looked like the churches might lose their tax-exempt status. The spiritual leader of a hippie commune Francis Shaeffer snapped at the landmark decision of Roe v Wade on abortion. He had been a figure of the 1960s cultural revolution and yet Shaeffer flipped and became a major fundamentalist leader on the issue of abortion. He would lobby the Ford administration and even advocate terrorism as a necessary method in the battle to defend the sacred foetus and its right to life. By the time Shaeffer died the Moral Majority had taken over with much more reactionary agenda of rolling back advances in women’s rights and gay rights (causes that he had actually supported).

 

Developments on the Right are not to be separated from the circumstances of the time. The revival of a Protestant Right came in the 1980s in reaction to the dramatic cultural changes of the 1960s when a greater sphere of freedom was attained for African-Americans, as well as homosexuals and women. Feminism had emerged from the failure of the Commune movement in its descent into patriarchal forms of domination. The increased accessibility to contraceptives and abortion had liberated individuals from the old sexual morays of the past. There was a burgeoning opening for civil liberties and rights, as well as some economic opportunities, for African-Americans. The Right did not need so much an economic reaction as a cultural reaction to try and slow these developments. And so the Christian Right swooped in to elect Ronald Reagan in a coalition with the anti-Communists, the neoconservatives and the libertarians.

 

We find the same when we look into the history of the anti-Communist Right. The cause of anti-Communism had belonged to the liberal wing of the Democratic Party in the 1940s originally before it was absorbed by the Republican Party with the demagoguery of Joe McCarthy and the ‘Red Scare’ of the 50s. The best way to support a rightward shift in the Democrats was to co-opt the means by which the Truman administration had sought to justify the military-industrial complex.  The Republicans had found a way to outmuscle the Democrats. This was later made further evident by the Democratic administrations which launched the war in Vietnam. The Republican administration of Nixon intensified the war to win not just one term but two terms in office. So anti-Communism became a solid pillar of American conservatism until 1989 when the Berlin Wall, unexpectedly, collapsed when faced with the might of the German people.

 

After that the anti-Communist Right largely lost its purpose as its mission seemed to have been fulfilled, and not by American hegemony but by forces endogenous to the Soviet system. Significantly, old Cold War conservatives such as Pat Buchanan have moved to a non-interventionist position on foreign policy since the Berlin Wall fell. The CIA agent Chalmers Johnson and army man Lawrence Wilkerson have made similar ideological shifts. It is consistent because if one believes that the American hegemon was necessary to safeguard the free world from the tentacles of the Soviet conspiracy for world domination then once the threat is gone the US should retreat and become a normal country. This has opened up a space for other rival tendencies on the American Right: such as the neoconservatives who updated the rational for American military aggression. Yet it also created greater space for scepticism of the military establishment from such sectors as the free-market libertarian Right.

 

By the end of the first decade of the 21^st Century the prevailing forces of reaction would have largely discredited themselves and opened up a space for the Tea Party movement. The Bush administration was a lot like the Reagan administration in that it was an alliance of the Christian Right with the neoconservatives. Bush had posed as a ‘compassionate conservative’ pledging a prudent foreign policy of staying out of other peoples’ business. Before the election of 2000 was successfully stolen Bush had found an ally in Dick Cheney, a hawk of unbelievable proportions. Once in office the Bushites jumped at the opportunity to crackdown on civil liberties and engage in multiple wars. The Protestant and Catholic Right were mobilised to support the Bush administration in its support for abstinence promotion in Africa, its opposition to abortion, gay marriage, as well as euthanasia and stem-cell research. The neoconservatives moved in to provide the rationalisation for the bloodbath in Iraq. By the election of 2008 both the Christian Right and the neoconservatives were left largely discredited just by association with the crimes of Bush.

 

With the incoming Obama administration the Republicans had to open up a new front as Obama was following a more hawkish position in foreign affairs than Bush. The prospect of economic reform had to be fought because the country was in a deep recession and the Left might win greater ground in such desperate times. What is called ‘Obama-care’ really comes out of the conservative searches for an alternative to serious health-care reform in the 1990s. It was supported by Newt Gingrich. The individual mandate was a means to safeguarding the state of affairs which denies the American citizen a fundamental right to adequate health-care. Reform is somewhat inevitable given the role that the health system has played in bankrupting American industry. But at the other end the pharmaceutical and health insurance industry will be pushing hard to make sure their interests are covered. As if this situation weren’t bad enough the Koch brothers moved in to finance a surge in libertarian protest. Faced with this the Obama administration had no reason to establish a national health service. Once again, serious and much needed reform was offset and America would remain the only advanced capitalist society – other than South Africa – without universal health-care.

So the space had been opened up for a resurgence of interest in Ron Paul, the Austrian economists and even the fiction of Ayn Rand. The paranoid rambling clown Glenn Beck rose to stardom. Significantly Mitt Romney picked Paul Ryan, a member of the Ayn Rand cult, as his running mate. It was a necessary front opened up by the bailouts of banks under Bush and Obama. The agenda of shrinking the state had newfound support given the new mission was austerity to destroy what little of the New Deal had survived the decades of erosion by Republican and Democratic administrations. It should also be noted that the space has been opened up to paleoconservatives who have positioned themselves against the military adventurism of the neoconservatives. Yet it has been the libertarians who have been able to muster a position in mainstream American politics. The Tea Party movement succeeded in providing the basis for a Republican victory in the midterm elections of 2010 and Ron Paul made it into the debate at the 2012 election. Even still this is more so a symptom of chaos on the American Right – to be compared with Barry Goldwater’s winning the Republican ticket in 1964 – than an emergent platform to see take office in 2016 or even 2020.

 

This article was originally written and posted at the Third Estate on September 12th 2013.