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By Martin Jacques

The upheaval sweeping Hong Kong is more complicated than on the surface it might appear. Protests have erupted over direct elections to be held in three years’ time; democracy activists claim that China’s plans will allow it to screen out the candidates it doesn’t want.

It should be remembered, however, that for 155 years until its handover to China in 1997, Hong Kong was a British colony, forcibly taken from China at the end of the first opium war. All its 28 subsequent governors were appointed by the British government. Although Hong Kong came, over time, to enjoy the rule of law and the right to protest, under the British it never enjoyed even a semblance of democracy. It was ruled from 6,000 miles away in London. The idea of any kind of democracy was first introduced by the Chinese government. In 1990 the latter adopted the Basic Law, which included the commitment that in 2017 the territory’s chief executive would be elected by universal suffrage; it also spelt out that the nomination of candidates would be a matter for a nominating committee.

This proposal should be seen in the context of what was a highly innovative – and, to westerners, completely unfamiliar – constitutional approach by the Chinese. The idea of “one country, two systems” under which Hong Kong would maintain its distinctive legal and political system for 50 years. Hong Kong would, in these respects, remain singularly different from the rest of China, while at the same time being subject to Chinese sovereignty. In contrast, the western view has always embraced the principle of “one country, one system” – as, for example, in German unification. But China is more a civilisation-state than a nation-state: historically it would have been impossible to hold together such a vast country without allowing much greater flexibility. Its thinking – “one civilisation, many systems” – was shaped by its very different history.

In the 17 years since the handover, China has, whatever the gainsayers might suggest, overwhelmingly honoured its commitment to the principle of one country, two systems. The legal system remains based on English law, the rule of law prevails, and the right to demonstrate, as we have seen so vividly in recent days, is still very much intact. The Chinese meant what they offered. Indeed, it can reasonably be argued that they went to extremes in their desire to be unobtrusive: sotto voce might be an apt way of describing China’s approach to Hong Kong. At the time of the handover, and in the three years I lived in Hong Kong from 1998, it was difficult to identify any visible signs of Chinese rule: I recall seeing just one Chinese flag.

Notwithstanding this, Hong Kong – and its relationship with China – was in fact changing rapidly. Herein lies a fundamental reason for the present unrest: the growing sense of dislocation among a section of Hong Kong’s population. During the 20 years or so prior to the handover, the territory enjoyed its golden era – not because of the British but because of the Chinese. In 1978 Deng Xiaoping embarked on his reform programme, and China began to grow rapidly. It was still, however, a relatively closed society. Hong Kong was the beneficiary – it became the entry point to China, and as a result attracted scores of multinational companies and banks that wanted to gain access to the Chinese market. Hong Kong got rich because of China. It also fed an attitude of hubris and arrogance. The Hong Kong Chinese came to enjoy a much higher standard of living than the mainlanders. They looked down on the latter as poor, ignorant and uncouth peasants, as greatly their inferior. They preferred – up to a point – to identify with westerners rather than mainlanders, not because of democracy (the British had never allowed them any) but primarily because of money and the status that went with it.

Much has changed since 1997. The Chinese economy has grown many times, the standard of living of the Chinese likewise. If you want to access the Chinese market nowadays, why move to Hong Kong when you can go straight to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu and a host of other major cities? Hong Kong has lost its role as the gateway to China. Where previously Hong Kong was China’s unrivalled financial centre, now it is increasingly dwarfed by Shanghai. Until recently, Hong Kong was by far China’s largest port: now it has been surpassed by Shanghai and Shenzhen, and Guangzhou will shortly overtake it.

Two decades ago westerners comprised the bulk of Hong Kong’s tourists, today mainlanders account for the overwhelming majority, many of them rather more wealthy than most Hong Kong Chinese. Likewise, an increasing number of mainlanders have moved to the territory – which is a growing source of resentment. If China needed Hong Kong in an earlier period, this is no longer nearly as true as it was. On the contrary, without China, Hong Kong would be in deep trouble.

Understandably, many Hong Kong Chinese are struggling to come to terms with these new realities. They are experiencing a crisis of identity and a sense of displacement. They know their future is inextricably bound up with China but that is very different from embracing the fact. Yet there is no alternative: China is the future of Hong Kong.

All these issues, in a most complex way, are being played out in the present arguments over universal suffrage. Hong Kong is divided. About half the population support China’s proposals on universal suffrage, either because they think they are a step forward or because they take the pragmatic view that they will happen anyway. The other half is opposed. A relatively small minority of these have never really accepted Chinese sovereignty. Anson Chan, the former head of the civil service under Chris Patten, and Jimmy Lai, a prominent businessman, fall into this category, and so do some of the Democrats. Then there is a much larger group, among them many students, who oppose Beijing’s plans for more idealistic reasons.

One scenario can be immediately discounted. China will not accept the election of a chief executive hostile to Chinese rule. If the present unrest continues, then a conceivable backstop might be to continue indefinitely with the status quo, which, from the point of view of democratic change, both in Hong Kong and China, would be a retrograde step. More likely is that the Chinese government will persist with its proposals, perhaps with minor concessions, and anticipate that the opposition will slowly abate. This remains the most likely scenario.

An underlying weakness of Chinese rule has nevertheless been revealed by these events. One of the most striking features of Hong Kong remains the relative absence of a mainland political presence. The Chinese have persisted with what can best be described as a hands-off approach. Their relationship to the administration is either indirect or behind the scenes. Strange as it may seem, the Chinese are not involved in the cut and thrust of political argument. They will need to find more effective ways of making their views clear and arguing their case – not in Beijing but in Hong Kong.

Martin Jacques is the author of When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order.

30 September 2014

 

By Nile Bowie

As the Occupy Central movement cries foul over electoral regulations imposed by Beijing, few acknowledge that the proposed reforms are far more representative than any previous electoral mechanism in Hong Kong’s history.

Tens of thousands of protestors have taken to the streets of Hong Kong in recent days, defying calls to disperse demanding the Chinese government agrees to allow residents to freely elect the city’s next leader.

The student-led demonstrations have sparked the worst unrest seen in the Asian financial hub since the 1997 handover which saw China regain sovereignty over the former British colony.

Demonstrations have expanded throughout the city calling for the resignation of chief executive Leung Chun-ying, bringing shopping and business districts to a standstill. Members of the protest movement, known as Occupy Central with Love and Peace, attempted to invade the city’s main government compound, prompting riot police to disperse crowds with tear gas and pepper spray.

The conduct of security forces galvanized sympathy for the movement, causing its ranks to swell over the weekend as the value of the Hong Kong dollar tumbled to a six-month low. Student leaders have vowed not to attend classes indefinitely until the city’s top leader steps down, while activists set up barricades and vow to continue their civil disobedience campaign.

Hong Kong operates with a high degree of autonomy under the framework of the “one country, two systems” model, which grants residents of the semi-autonomous island a higher degree of civil liberties, press freedom and political expression than citizens in mainland China. Activists believe the government in Beijing is intent on tightening control over the area to undermine existing freedoms.

China’s National People’s Congress (NPC), the country’s highest lawmaking body, unveiled a series of stipulations in August pertaining to the 2017 polls that will elect the island’s next chief executive. It requires all candidates to be vetted before a nominating committee controlled by Beijing to ensure Hong Kong’s political stability.

These provisions have enraged pro-democracy advocates who fear that candidates deemed unsuitable by the central government would be barred from standing in elections. The protestors appear to have placed a greater priority on the demand that the incumbent chief executive resign, realizing that coaxing the NPC to reverse its decision is an unlikely outcome.

Demonstrators and various Western commentators have accused Beijing of infringing upon previous agreements to allow universal suffrage. Some have raised concerns that China had breached the framework of the 1984 handover agreement, an international treaty signed by Beijing and London. The situation isn’t so black and white. The NPC did indeed agree to allow universal suffrage for chief executive elections in 2017 at the earliest, with Hong Kong’s Legislative Council elected by universal suffrage in 2020.

It must be noted that the interpretation of universal suffrage in the city’s Basic Law, which has served as Hong Kong’s constitution since 1997, stipulates the following: “The ultimate aim is the selection of the Chief Executive by universal suffrage upon nomination by a broadly representative nominating committee in accordance with democratic procedures.”

This effectively means that China cannot be accused of reneging on its commitments to allow Hong Kong residents full universal suffrage to vote because universal suffrage – as defined by the territory’s own laws – always required that candidates be vetted by a nominating committee. The Sino-British joint declaration of 1984 that paved the way for the handover made no mention of universal suffrage.

While activists may not be happy about accepting these legal stipulations, it should be acknowledged that the planned 2017 reforms would still allow the population to directly elect the chief executive through one-person-one-vote for the first time in history. Direct elections were never held at any point during the British colonial period, while a 1,200-member electoral college – made up of elite figures and tycoons – currently elects the chief executive.

Although there may be an unsavory caveat in the electoral process that requires a nominating committee to approve candidates, the new system is a far more democratic process than any previously practiced in Hong Kong’s history. Popular elections are undoubtedly a move toward a more representative framework.

It should be noted that no other part of China has been granted these kind of voting rights. Suffice it to say, an unreasonably high nomination threshold for election candidates wouldn’t be fair either. Beijing can diffuse tensions by setting broad standards for the nominating committee that wouldn’t rule out allowing moderate pan-democrats to stand in elections.

Statements made by Chinese officials indicate that national security factors have been key in shaping electoral reform in Hong Kong. Their concerns are that western countries would take advantage of any liberal legislation to help support parties and individuals in Hong Kong that would antagonize Beijing.

According to WikiLeaks, foreign intelligence agencies have a freer hand to operate in Hong Kong, while opposition figures regularly meet Western diplomats.

Martin Lee and Anson Chan, leaders of the opposition Democratic Party of Hong Kong, recently visited officials in Washington and London to request support from Western governments, which have championed the pro-democracy movement. Chinese state-media has accused those countries of meddling in its internal affairs by initiating inquiries into Beijing’s record of promoting electoral freedoms in Hong Kong.

The National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the notorious US government funded-foundation known for nurturing protest movements in Eastern Europe and Latin America, contributed nearly half-a-million dollars to programs intended to “develop the capacity of citizens – particularly university students – to more effectively participate in the public debate on political reform… allowing students and citizens to explore possible reforms leading to universal suffrage.” These programs are intended to mobilize popular discontent into demonstrations of the sort Hong Kong is now experiencing.

The Chinese media also reported that Joshua Wong the 17 year-old student leader who was arrested for directing protestors to storm the Hong Kong government headquarters, received donations and frequently met with US consulate personnel over the past three years. Jimmy Lai, the owner of the anti-Beijing Apple Daily newspapers in Taiwan and Hong Kong, also received funding from the US Republican Party for the purpose of aiding the Occupy Central movement.

Activists will write off Western support for pro-democracy movements in China as pro-Beijing spin, accusing the central government of using foreigners as scapegoats to avoid the wider issue of full universal suffrage, but the concerns of the Chinese government are legitimate and valid in any case. The state-owned Global Times newspaper cautioned against foreign support for the protests, saying, “Hong Kong is not Ukraine.”

It should be stressed that this movement should not be denied agency if it did receive foreign support. The protestors are well-meaning and non-violent youngsters who want more political representation. Action taken by security forces has been relatively restrained in contrast to crowd control methods in other countries, but the police should not have resorted to heavy-handed tactics that have so far spurred on greater public support for the movement.

While the pro-democracy movement commands a high degree of public support, Hong Kong society is highly polarized. Tens of thousands have also protested against the Occupy Central movement, on the basis that mass demonstrations will generate social discord and instability. There is no indication that the pro-democracy movement represents the majority opinion of Hong Kong residents.

Occupy Central activists held an unofficial referendum that saw the majority of 800,000 people support reform packages that would allow public nomination. The Alliance for Peace and Democracy, backed by pro-Beijing groups, collected close to 1.5 million signatures of residents opposed to the Occupy Central movement. The divide speaks volumes of the generation gap facing residents, as the majority view Beijing as a political anchor and guarantor of prosperity.

The pro-democracy movement should acknowledge that the proposed reforms are a shift in the right direction. Activists should know when to compromise and call attention to issues that will plague the city irrespective of whether democracy is achieved: Hong Kong’s obscene income disparity, the widest in Asia; the influence of wealthy tycoons and property developers who set pricing through short supplying; protecting the region’s unique historical and cultural identity. Democracy will never be an end-all solution.

Nile Bowie is a political analyst and photographer currently residing in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He can be reached on Twitter or at nilebowie@gmail.com

30 September 2014

 

By Shamus Cooke

Sometimes bad ideas die slowly. It was only one year ago that Obama announced he would bomb the Syrian government, only to change his mind at the last minute. Now the same fetid war talk is sprouting fresh roots in the ever-fertile U.S. military. Various media outlets reported that Obama might “enforce a no fly zone in Syria to protect civilians from the Syrian government.”

This just weeks after the U.S. public was told that ISIS was the reason the U.S. military was now in Syria. The 2014 media sound bites mimic the 2013 scare tactics, copying the “humanitarian motives” behind the push towards war with the Syrian government. For example, in 2013 The New York Times blandly discussed the “no fly zone” option:

“To establish buffer zones to protect parts of Turkey or Jordan to provide safe havens for Syrian rebels and a base for delivering humanitarian assistance would require imposing a limited no-fly zone and deploying thousands of American ground forces.”

Fast forward to September 27th 2014, where The New York Times published an article called, “U.S. Considers No Fly Zone to Protect Civilians,” where we read:

“The Obama administration has not ruled out establishing a no-fly zone over northeastern Syria to protect civilians from airstrikes by the Syrian government…Creating a buffer, or no-fly zone, would require warplanes to disable the Syrian government’s air defense system through airstrikes.”

A no-fly zone would also require that the U.S. prevent the Syrian air force from flying over Syrian airspace by destroying Syrian fighter jets, i.e., full scale war with the Syrian government and possibly its allies. This last part is always left out, so as to not anger the American public.

Under international law no country has any legal right to carve out a “buffer zone” within another country, even if the no-fly zone was actually well intended. For example, even Canada cannot legally create a buffer zone in Ferguson, Missouri to protect civilians from police violence.

The Syrian government is not bombing random civilians near the Turkish border; they are attacking ISIS and its ideological cousins. These are the same groups that Obama says that he’s waging a war on.

Do civilians die when Syria attacks with bombs? Yes, which is one reason that a lot of popular anger is channeled towards the government in these areas, the same way that anger is now mounting against the U.S. bombings that kill civilians in Syria.

If Obama truly wanted to target ISIS he would have included Syria, Iran, and Russia in his anti-ISIS “coalition.” These nations were excluded because Obama’s coalition is the exact same one that only months before was a U.S.-led coalition against the Syrian government. The grouping maintains its original purpose but puts on a new shirt to fool a media that’s content with surface explanations.

But as soon as the newly dressed U.S. coalition started bombing ISIS, various “partners” announced, unsurprisingly, that Assad was “the real problem.” Obama’s Gulf state monarchy partners never had the stomach to fight ISIS, because they and the U.S. are primarily responsible for its growth, as countries like Qatar dumped money and extremist fighters into the arms of ISIS. Qatar recently reiterated that the Syrian government was the “main problem,” not ISIS.

When Obama announced his strategy to fight ISIS, he snuck in a plan to further invest in the Syrian rebels, whom politicians claimed would be used against ISIS. But these rebels are rebelling against the Syrian government, not ISIS.

Obama even discussed his intent at the UN to use the Syrian rebels against the government:

“…America is training and equipping the Syrian opposition to be a counterweight to the terrorists of ISIL and the brutality of the Assad regime.”

The public talk of a no-fly zone is accompanied by no explanation as to the possible repercussions, including the real danger of an even larger regional war that would likely kill an additional hundreds of thousands and create millions more refugees.

Any U.S. attack on the Syrian government would likely happen sooner than later. The “coalition” of Arab monarchies has lost its patience. The members of this coalition blindly followed Obama into attacking Syria a year ago and were enraged that the president backed out. Saudi Arabia protested by refusing a seat at the UN Security Council.

Obama’s regional follower-allies have invested in an expensive war for three years and have taken on millions of Syrian refugees, creating a destabilizing effect across the region among nations already politically fragile. These shaky regimes cannot support — and would not survive — another three years of war as they wait for Obama to deliver the Syrian deathblow. They demand decisive action, and soon.

History is already condemning the U.S.-led destruction of multiple civilizations in the Middle East, reducing the once-functioning and modern nations of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria to dysfunction and chaos, where millions of people flee violence and lose their dignity to the hopelessness of refugee camps. Funding rebels or imposing no fly zones in an already-demolished region will inevitably create more war and backlash.

Shamus Cooke is a social service worker, trade unionist, and writer for Workers Action (www.workerscompass.org).

30 September 2014

By Ramzy Baroud

What if the so-called Islamic State (IS) didn’t exist?

In order to answer this question, one has to liberate the argument from its geopolitical and ideological confines.

Flexible Language

Many in the media (Western, Arab, etc) use the reference “Islamist” to brand any movement at all whether it be political, militant or even charity-focused. If it is dominated by men with beards or women with headscarves that make references to the Holy Koran and Islam as the motivator behind their ideas, violent tactics or even good deeds, then the word “Islamist” is the language of choice.

According to this overbearing logic, a Malaysia-based charity can be as ‘Islamist’ as the militant group Boko Haram in Nigeria. When the term “Islamist” was first introduced to the debate on Islam and politics, it carried mostly intellectual connotations. Even some “Islamists” used it in reference to their political thought. Now, it can be moulded to mean many things.

This is not the only convenient term that is being tossed around so deliberately in the discourse pertaining to Islam and politics. Many are already familiar with how the term “terrorism” manifested itself in the myriad of ways that fit any country’s national or foreign policy agenda – from the US’ George W. Bush to Russia’s Vladimir Putin. In fact, some of these leaders accused one another of practicing, encouraging or engendering terrorism while positioning themselves as the crusaders against terror. The American version of the “war on terror” gained much attention and bad repute because it was highly destructive. But many other governments launched their own wars to various degrees of violent outcomes.

The flexibility of the usage of language very much stands at the heart of this story, including that of IS. We are told the group is mostly made of foreign jihadists. This could have much truth to it, but this notion cannot be accepted without much contention.

Foreign Menace

Why does the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad insist on the ‘foreign jihadists’ claim and did so even when the civil war plaguing his country was still at the stage of infancy, teetering between a popular uprising and an armed insurgency? It is for the same reason that Israel insists on infusing the Iranian threat, and its supposedly “genocidal” intents towards Israel in every discussion about the Hamas-led resistance in Palestine, and Hezbollah’s in Lebanon. Of course, there is a Hamas-Iran connection, although it has been weakened in recent years by regional circumstances. But for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Iran has to be at the heart of the discourse.

There are ample examples of governments of the Middle East ingraining the “foreign menace” factor when dealing with solely international phenomena, violence or otherwise. The logic behind it is simple: if the Syrian civil war is fuelled by foreign fanatics, then al-Assad can exact his violence against rebelling Syrians in the name of fighting the foreigners/jihadists/terrorists. According to this logic, Bashar becomes a national hero, as opposed to a despotic dictator.

Netanyahu remains the master of political diversion. He vacillates between peace talks and Iran-backed Palestinian “terror” groups in whatever way he finds suitable. The desired outcome is placing Israel as a victim of and a crusader against foreign-inspired terrorism. Just days after Israel carried out what was described by many as a genocide in Gaza – killing over 2,200 and wounded over 11,000 – he once more tried to shift global attention by claiming that the so-called Islamic State was at the Israeli border.

The “foreign hordes on the border” notion is being utilized, although so far ineffectively, by Egypt’s Abdul-Fatah al-Sisi also. Desperate to gain access to this convenient discourse, he has made numerous claims of foreigners being at the border of Libya, Sudan and Sinai. Few have paid attention aside from the unintelligible Egyptian state-controlled media. However, one must not neglect the events that took place in Egypt when he himself overthrew the Muslim Brotherhood’s democratically-elected government of Mohamed Morsi last year.

When US President Barack Obama decided to launch his war on IS, Sisi lined up to enlist his country in a fight against the “Islamists” as he sees them as part and parcel of the war against the supporters of the deposed Muslim Brotherhood. After all, they are both “Islamists.”

US-Western Motives

For the US and their western allies, the logic behind the war is hardly removed from the war discourse engendered by previous US administrations, most notably that of W. Bush and his father. It is another chapter of the unfinished wars that the US had unleashed in Iraq over the last 25 years. In some way, IS, with its brutal tactics, is the worst possible manifestation of American interventionism.

In the first Iraq war (1990-91), the US-led coalition seemed determined to achieve the clear goal of driving the Iraqi army out of Kuwait, and to use that as a starting point to achieve complete US dominance over the Middle East. Back then, George Bush had feared that pushing beyond that goal could lead to the kind of consequences that would alter the entire region and empower Iran at the expense of America’s Arab allies. Instead of carrying out regime change in Iraq itself, the US opted to subject Iraq to a decade of economic torment – a suffocating blockade that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians. That was the golden age of America’s “containment” policy in the region.

However, US policy in the Middle East, under Bush’s son, W. Bush, was reinvigorated by new elements that somewhat altered the political landscape leading to the second Iraq war in 2003. Firstly, the attacks of September 11, 2001 were dubiously used to mislead the public into another war by linking Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to al-Qaeda; and secondly, there was the rise of the neoconservative political ideology that dominated Washington at the time. The neo-cons strongly believed in the regime-change doctrine that has since then proven to be a complete failure.

It was not just a failure, but rather, a calamity. Today’s rise of IS is in fact a mere bullet point in a tragic Iraq timeline which started the moment W. Bush began his “shock and awe campaign.” This was followed by the fall of Baghdad, the dismantling of the country’s institutions (the de-Baathification of Iraq) and the “missions accomplished” speech. Since then, it has been one adversity after another. The US strategy in Iraq was predicated on destroying Iraqi nationalism and replacing it with a dangerous form of sectarianism that used the proverbial “divide and conquer” stratagem. But neither the Shia remained united, nor did the Sunni accept their new lower status, or did the Kurds stay committed to being part of an untied Iraq.

Al-Qaeda Connection

The US has indeed succeeded in dividing Iraq, maybe not territorially, but certainly in every other way. Moreover, the war brought al-Qaeda to Iraq. The group used the atrocities inflicted by the US war and invasion to recruit fighters from Iraq and throughout the Middle East. And like a bull in a china shop, the US wrecked more havoc on Iraq, playing around with sectarian and tribal cards to lower the intensity of the resistance and to busy Iraqis with fighting each other.

When the US combat troops allegedly departed Iraq, they left behind a country in ruins, millions of refugees on the run, deep sectarian divides, a brutal government, and an army made mostly of loosely united Shia-militias with a blood-soaked past.

Al-Qaeda was supposedly weakened in Iraq by then. In actuality, while al-Qaeda didn’t exist in Iraq prior to the US invasion, at the eve of the US withdrawal, al-Qaeda had branched off into other militant manifestations. They were able to move with greater agility in the region, and when the Syrian uprising was intentionally-armed by regional and international powers, al-Qaeda resurfaced with incredible power, fighting with prowess and unparalleled influence. Despite the misinformation about the roots of IS, IS and al-Qaeda in Iraq are the same. They share the same ideology and had only branched off into various groupings in Syria. Their differences are an internal matter, but their objectives are ultimately identical.

The reason the above point is often ignored, is that such an assertion would be a clear indictment that the Iraq war created IS, and that the irresponsible handling of the Syria conflict empowered the group to actually form a sectarian state that extends from the north-east of Syria to the heart of Iraq.

IS Must Exist

US-Western and Arab motives in the war against IS might differ. But both sides have keen interest in partaking in the war and an even keener interest in refusing to accept that such violence is not created in a vacuum. The US and its western allies refuse to see the obvious link between IS, al-Qaeda and the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. Arab leaders insist that their countries are also victims of some “Islamist” terror, produced, not of their own anti-democratic and oppressive policies, but by Chechenia and other foreign fighters who are bringing dark-age violence to otherwise perfectly peaceable and stable political landscapes.

The lie is further cemented by most media when they highlight the horror of IS but refuse to speak of other horrors that preceded and accompanied the existence of the group. They insist on speaking of IS as if a fully independent phenomenon devoid of any contexts, meanings and representations.

For the US-led coalition, IS must exist, although every member of the coalition has their own self-serving reasoning to explain their involvement. And since IS mostly made of “foreign jihadists” from faraway lands, speaking languages that few Arabs and westerners understand, then, somehow, no one is guilty, and the current upheaval in the Middle East is someone else’s fault. Thus, there is no need to speak of Syrian massacres, or Egyptian massacres, or of Iraq wars and its massacres, for the problem is obviously foreign.

If the so-called Islamic State didn’t exist, many in the region would be keen on creating one.

Ramzy Baroud is a PhD scholar in People’s History at the University of Exeter. He is the Managing Editor of Middle East Eye.

2 October 2014

By Mairead Corrigan Maguire

USA/UK committed genocide against Iraq people between 1990/2012 killing 3.3 million including 750,000 children through sanctions and war.

On September 11, 2014 US President Obama, on the anniversary of 9/11, in his speech promised the world more war, and especially the people of Iraq and Syria when he promised that together with his coalition partners, they would kill every ISIS person in Iraq, Syria, or anywhere in the world they may be. He described ISIS as cancer cells and promised they would be all killed off. His Speech was chilling and had the desired effect of reminding us all just how low morally and intellectually the American administration, and their Coalition, has sunk.

For the President to ignore the fact that the USA/UK, NATO, have committed genocide against the Iraq people between 1990/2012 killing 3.3 million including 750,000 Iraqi children through sanctions and war, not including subsequent wars by USA/NATO, against Afghanistan, Libya, Sudan, and their attempted and well funded efforts through a proxy war to destroy Syria, is criminal. The Iraqi war (as indeed is the war against Gaza by Israel) is a classic definition of Genocide. These past and current foreign policies of military aggression break all International Laws, to which the President makes no reference, and will only result in more killings and more hatred of the West.

That the US Administration plans to escalate military attacks in Iraq and Syria and to increase funding and training of ‘moderate rebels’ in Syria, is a betrayal of all those people in these countries struggling through peaceful and nonviolent ways to solve their problems without guns and violence. If the US wants to stop ISIS, it can remove its funding and arms, which are coming from US allies Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and others and from the US itself, through intermediaries like the Syrian ‘rebels’. It is the USA and their allies that have created the conditions, funded and facilitated the growth of these reactionary Jihadist organizations. If USA/UK really want to stop ISIS they should work with the Syrian Government, support the people who have been the main victims of ISIS, and support the Syrian peace and reconciliation movement who are working to stop the violence and bring real change in their country.

The USA administration policy of air strikes against ISIS in Syria and increasing funding for the moderate rebels is illegal under international law, as it is illegal for the US to fund, train, weaponize and co-ordinate to overthrow the regime of a sovereign state. Also the airspace of any country is its own and USA must get Syrian authorization to fly over Syria. (Illegally Israel continues to fly over and bomb Syria). Having visited Iraq before the second war, and Syria in 2013 and 2014 and witnessed that the people of both countries were brave and courageous and trying to solve their problems ( in Syria, a proxy war with thousands of foreign Jihadists) through peace and reconciliation. In Syria, they asked that there be no outside interference and aggression on their country, as this would make things worse, not better. Under International Law the US Gov. NATO and any coalition forces should respect the wishes of the people of the Middle East and Syria, and recognize it is for the people of Syria to modify or change their government and not for the US or Saudi Arabia or NATO. Ending militarism and war is possible and restoring justice, human rights and dignity for all the people, will bring peace and we must each do all in our power to Resist and Stop this latest drive to war and demand our governments withdraw from this Coalition of war with USA.

Mairead Corrigan Maguire is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment. She won the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize for her work for peace in Northern Ireland.

22 September 2014

By Eric Zuesse

The leader of the Ukrainian separatists says that their efforts to get Russia’s President Vladimir Putin to accept their territory as being a part of Russia have been firmly rejected by Putin’s Government; and, so, “We will build our own country.” (This important statement from the rebel leader Andrei Purgin on Wednesday, September 17th, was inconspicuously buried halfway through an AP news story that focused instead on “East Ukraine Casualties.” It’s common for propagandistic news reports, such as characterize the U.S. media , to bury what’s important in the news story, and not even to headline that crucial information. So: this information was buried, and was not headlined.)

Russia’s Government has thus made clear that it is not seeking to add to its territory. While Russia has accepted the approximately million refugees who have fled to Russia from Ukraine’s civil war, Russia does not want any part of Ukraine’s territory. Crimea was traditionally part of Russia, throughout the period 1783-1954, until the leader of the Soviet Union gifted Crimea to Ukraine (the nation that was called the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic) in 1954, but the residents of Crimea never accepted that, and they overwhelmingly considered themselves still to be Russians . Furthermore, the Russian Navy’s lease on the Crimean port of Sebastopol for its Black Sea Fleet extended till 2042, and the February 2014 coup-installed Ukrainian Government wanted to cancel it, which threatened crucial Russian national defense. Furthermore, many of those new Ukrainian leaders wanted a nuclear war against Russia. So, Putin accepted Crimea back into Russia, but he will not admit more than that as being added to Russian territory.

Crimea is viewed as not being an addition to Russia, but instead as voluntarily rejoining Russia, irrespective of the new Ukrainian Government’s campaign to eliminate ethnic Russians from Ukraine’s southeast. No other part of post-1954 Ukraine had previously been part of Russia, and this includes the southeastern portion of Ukraine, whose residents ethnically descended from Russian immigrants who had settled there.

Consequently, the ethnic-cleansing campaign that has been going on by the new, Obama-installed, Ukrainian Government, against the residents in Ukraine’s southeast , will continue, at least until the surviving residents there become a small enough proportion of the Ukrainian national electorate so that a nationwide Ukrainian election — which hasn’t been held in Ukraine since the February 2014 coup — will choose leaders who are acceptable to the U.S. Government, which planned and financed that February coup . Only by killing and driving out enough of those people — the ones in the areas that overwhelmingly voted for the man whom Obama overthrew — will become possible a democratic Ukraine that allies itself with the U.S.

President Putin and President Obama have regularly been in direct contact with one-another ever since Obama’s coup occurred in February. Perhaps Putin’s declining to accept Ukrainian territory into Russia is part of an agreement between the two leaders in which Obama is, for his part, declining the urgings from congressional Republicans and conservative Democrats for the U.S. to provide weapons to the Ukrainian military to expedite their ethnic cleansing campaign .

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010 , and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity .

20 September, 2014
Countercurrents.org

By Garikai Chengu

Much like Al Qaeda, the Islamic State (ISIS) is made-in-the-USA, an instrument of terror designed to divide and conquer the oil-rich Middle East and to counter Iran’s growing influence in the region.

The fact that the United States has a long and torrid history of backing terrorist groups will surprise only those who watch the news and ignore history.

The CIA first aligned itself with extremist Islam during the Cold War era. Back then, America saw the world in rather simple terms: on one side, the Soviet Union and Third World nationalism, which America regarded as a Soviet tool; on the other side, Western nations and militant political Islam, which America considered an ally in the struggle against the Soviet Union.

The director of the National Security Agency under Ronald Reagan, General William Odom recently remarked, “by any measure the U.S. has long used terrorism. In 1978-79 the Senate was trying to pass a law against international terrorism – in every version they produced, the lawyers said the U.S. would be in violation.”

During the 1970’s the CIA used the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt as a barrier, both to thwart Soviet expansion and prevent the spread of Marxist ideology among the Arab masses. The United States also openly supported Sarekat Islam against Sukarno in Indonesia, and supported the Jamaat-e-Islami terror group against Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in Pakistan. Last but certainly not least, there is Al Qaeda.

Lest we forget, the CIA gave birth to Osama Bin Laden and breastfed his organization during the 1980’s. Former British Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, told the House of Commons that Al Qaeda was unquestionably a product of Western intelligence agencies. Mr. Cook explained that Al Qaeda, which literally means an abbreviation of “the database” in Arabic, was originally the computer database of the thousands of Islamist extremists, who were trained by the CIA and funded by the Saudis, in order to defeat the Russians in Afghanistan.

America’s relationship with Al Qaeda has always been a love-hate affair. Depending on whether a particular Al Qaeda terrorist group in a given region furthers American interests or not, the U.S. State Department either funds or aggressively targets that terrorist group. Even as American foreign policy makers claim to oppose Muslim extremism, they knowingly foment it as a weapon of foreign policy.

The Islamic State is its latest weapon that, much like Al Qaeda, is certainly backfiring. ISIS recently rose to international prominence after its thugs began beheading American journalists. Now the terrorist group controls an area the size of the United Kingdom.

In order to understand why the Islamic State has grown and flourished so quickly, one has to take a look at the organization’s American-backed roots. The 2003 American invasion and occupation of Iraq created the pre-conditions for radical Sunni groups, like ISIS, to take root. America, rather unwisely, destroyed Saddam Hussein’s secular state machinery and replaced it with a predominantly Shiite administration. The U.S. occupation caused vast unemployment in Sunni areas, by rejecting socialism and closing down factories in the naive hope that the magical hand of the free market would create jobs. Under the new U.S.-backed Shiite regime, working class Sunni’s lost hundreds of thousands of jobs. Unlike the white Afrikaners in South Africa, who were allowed to keep their wealth after regime change, upper class Sunni’s were systematically dispossessed of their assets and lost their political influence. Rather than promoting religious integration and unity, American policy in Iraq exacerbated sectarian divisions and created a fertile breading ground for Sunni discontent, from which Al Qaeda in Iraq took root.

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) used to have a different name: Al Qaeda in Iraq. After 2010 the group rebranded and refocused its efforts on Syria.

There are essentially three wars being waged in Syria: one between the government and the rebels, another between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and yet another between America and Russia. It is this third, neo-Cold War battle that made U.S. foreign policy makers decide to take the risk of arming Islamist rebels in Syria, because Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad, is a key Russian ally. Rather embarrassingly, many of these Syrian rebels have now turned out to be ISIS thugs, who are openly brandishing American-made M16 Assault rifles.

America’s Middle East policy revolves around oil and Israel. The invasion of Iraq has partially satisfied Washington’s thirst for oil, but ongoing air strikes in Syria and economic sanctions on Iran have everything to do with Israel. The goal is to deprive Israel’s neighboring enemies, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Palestine’s Hamas, of crucial Syrian and Iranian support.

ISIS is not merely an instrument of terror used by America to topple the Syrian government; it is also used to put pressure on Iran.

The last time Iran invaded another nation was in 1738. Since independence in 1776, the U.S. has been engaged in over 53 military invasions and expeditions. Despite what the Western media’s war cries would have you believe, Iran is clearly not the threat to regional security, Washington is. An Intelligence Report published in 2012, endorsed by all sixteen U.S. intelligence agencies, confirms that Iran ended its nuclear weapons program in 2003. Truth is, any Iranian nuclear ambition, real or imagined, is as a result of American hostility towards Iran, and not the other way around.

America is using ISIS in three ways: to attack its enemies in the Middle East, to serve as a pretext for U.S. military intervention abroad, and at home to foment a manufactured domestic threat, used to justify the unprecedented expansion of invasive domestic surveillance.

By rapidly increasing both government secrecy and surveillance, Mr. Obama’s government is increasing its power to watch its citizens, while diminishing its citizens’ power to watch their government. Terrorism is an excuse to justify mass surveillance, in preparation for mass revolt.

The so-called “War on Terror” should be seen for what it really is: a pretext for maintaining a dangerously oversized U.S. military. The two most powerful groups in the U.S. foreign policy establishment are the Israel lobby, which directs U.S. Middle East policy, and the Military-Industrial-Complex, which profits from the former group’s actions. Since George W. Bush declared the “War on Terror” in October 2001, it has cost the American taxpayer approximately 6.6 trillion dollars and thousands of fallen sons and daughters; but, the wars have also raked in billions of dollars for Washington’s military elite.

In fact, more than seventy American companies and individuals have won up to $27 billion in contracts for work in postwar Iraq and Afghanistan over the last three years, according to a recent study by the Center for Public Integrity. According to the study, nearly 75 per cent of these private companies had employees or board members, who either served in, or had close ties to, the executive branch of the Republican and Democratic administrations, members of Congress, or the highest levels of the military.

In 1997, a U.S. Department of Defense report stated, “the data show a strong correlation between U.S. involvement abroad and an increase in terrorist attacks against the U.S.” Truth is, the only way America can win the “War On Terror” is if it stops giving terrorists the motivation and the resources to attack America. Terrorism is the symptom; American imperialism in the Middle East is the cancer. Put simply, the War on Terror is terrorism; only, it is conducted on a much larger scale by people with jets and missiles.

Garikai Chengu is a research scholar at Harvard University.
19 September, 2014
Countercurrents.org

 

By Peter Symonds
US Secretary of State John Kerry yesterday laid fresh allegations of chemical weapons use against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, thereby establishing another pretext for turning the imminent US air war in Syria against the regime in Damascus.

A year ago, the Obama administration exploited the now discredited claims that the Syrian military had carried out a gas attack on the Damascus suburb of Ghouta, in order to prepare a devastating aerial assault on the country’s armed forces, infrastructure and industry. While the attacks were called off at the last minute, the US has never relinquished its aim of regime-change and has seized on Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) atrocities to justify a new, illegal war of aggression.

Speaking in the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Kerry renewed the claim that the Syrian military was using chemical weapons in the country’s civil war. “We believe there is evidence of Assad’s use of chlorine, which when you use it—despite it not being on the list—it is prohibited under the Chemical Weapons Convention,” he said.

Last September, the Syrian government agreed to the destruction of its stockpiles of chemical weapons and the facilities used to manufacture and store them. The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) announced last month that it had completed the task of supervising the destruction of the materials and facilities. Yet, at the time, Kerry continued to press the issue, claiming that “much more work must be done” to deal with “discrepancies and omissions” in Syria’s chemical weapons’ declaration last year.

Now, as the US is about to launch air strikes on ISIS militias in Syria, Kerry has publicly revived the issue. Chlorine was never part of last year’s agreement because it is a basic chemical with many industrial applications. As such it also provides a convenient device for making further lurid allegations against the Assad regime.

Claims that the Syrian military used chlorine against opposition-held villages can be traced to an “independent investigation” carried out by the right-wing British newspaper, the Telegraph, in April. The Telegraph, which has links to the British military and intelligence establishment, passed on soil samples from the villages to the OPCW, which issued a report last week confirming strong traces of chlorine and ammonia. The UN body could not and did not, however, determine who used the gas.

Just as the US exploited the Ghouta gas attack last year as a casus belli for war on Syria, so Kerry used the latest chemical weapons claims to make clear that the US is still gunning for Assad. He declared that there was no “long-term future” for Assad in power, adding: “The Syrian opposition is not going to stop fighting Assad. We recognise that reality.”

Kerry’s comments underline the real purpose of Washington’s plans to train and arm at least 5,000 “moderate” Syrian opposition fighters. While nominally aimed against ISIS, these militias would form the core of armed forces to oust Assad and establish a pro-Western regime in Damascus. Yesterday the US Senate, following a vote in the House of Representatives on Wednesday, overwhelmingly approved—78 to 22—the Obama administration’s plan to build up anti-Assad forces in Syria.

US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel told the House Armed Services Committee that he and Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Martin Dempsey had signed off on detailed plans for air strikes on ISIS targets inside Syria. Referring to the US Central Command, Hagel said: “CENTCOM’s plan includes targeted actions against ISIL [ISIS] safe havens in Syria, including its command and control, logistics capabilities and infrastructure.” He added: “Our actions will not be restrained by a border that exists in name only.” All that is now required is Obama’s approval.

According to a SyriaDeeply report this week, civilians in the Syrian city of Raqqa, currently held by ISIS, are already fleeing. Abu Ahmad, who left with his family, said: “We will not stay in our homes waiting for death to find us because of some targeting error.” A shop keeper inside Raqqa told the Guardian: “I believe most of the casualties will be civilian. The majority will be from Raqqa and very few from ISIS.”

The timing of the stepped-up war inside Iraq and air strikes in Syria is likely to be determined during next week’s UN General Assembly meeting. The Australian Financial Review reported today: “The final plans to wage war against Islamic State will be co-ordinated in private meetings between world leaders in New York… clearing the way for action to start.” Obama is due to address the General Assembly and chair a meeting of the UN Security Council.

The Obama administration is still trying to consolidate its “coalition of the willing” to wage war in the Middle East. President Francois Hollande announced yesterday that France was prepared to carry out air strikes in Iraq, but not in Syria, citing concerns that extending the air war would strengthen the Assad regime. The British government has held off making detailed commitments until the results of the Scottish referendum are finalised.

Kerry declared on Wednesday that some Arab countries were committed to military action, saying: “We have significant levels of support to conduct military operations.” He did not name specific nations, however. Turkey has refused to allow US war planes to operate from its military bases but this week revived plans to establish a buffer zone along its border with Syria as a possible staging area for pro-Western, anti-Assad militias.

Obama has repeatedly declared that the US will not commit ground troops to combat in Iraq and Syria. Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who has sent war planes and 600 military personnel to Iraq, including 150 SAS special forces, repeats the same mantra.

The worthlessness of such statements was underscored by an Australian “retired senior defence insider” who commented in yesterday’s Sydney Morning Herald: “You don’t send in the SAS to run seminars and give white-board presentations back at headquarters. These guys are our most highly trained killers, and that’s what they will be doing.”

The determination of the US and its allies to play down their involvement in a war in the Middle East stems from real fears of the emergence of anti-war opposition on a scale beyond that which erupted against the criminal US-led invasion on Iraq in 2003.

19 September, 2014
WSWS.org

 

On 11th of September this year, the Deputy Foreign Minister Abelardo Moreno presented Cuba’s report regarding United Nations General Assembly Resolution 68/8, entitled “The necessity of putting an end to the economic, commercial, financial blockade of Cuba by the United States”.

In his speech Deputy Foreign Minister Abelardo Moreno reporting on hostile U.S. policy and stressed that the blockade has become a financial war. “The U.S. blockade of Cuba is increasingly damaging. It has become a financial war,” asserted Cuba’s Deputy Foreign Minister Abelardo Moreno, during a meeting with the press to present the country’s report regarding United Nations General Assembly Resolution 68/8, entitled “The necessity of putting an end to the economic, commercial, financial blockade of Cuba by the United States.”

Moreno reported that the economic harm caused to the country “has reached more than a trillion, considering the depreciation of the dollar, as compared to the value of gold on the international market.” The exact total he presented: $1,112,534,000,000, despite a reduction in the price of gold last year.

“At current prices, over all of these years, the blockade has caused damages totaling more than 116.8 billion dollars,” Moreno added, speaking at the Solidaridad con Panamá Special Education School, attended by hundreds of physically disabled children.

The Deputy Minister recalled that, for example, Cuba’s Special Education system includes 982 educational workshops which serve to integrate these children into the social and productive lives of their communities.

Restrictions imposed by the blockade, however, impede the acquisition of materials, supplies and technology for these workshops, impacting 22,872 students with special needs.

He explained that, as a result of the hostile U.S. policy, Cuban children facing retinal cancer can not benefit from Brachytherapy radiation treatment, because the radioactive iodine plates needed are only produced by the U.S. corporation 3M.

Just as the report states, “The blockade, in addition to being illegal, is morally unjustifiable,” and “No similar system of unilateral sanctions exists, enforced against any other country in the world, for such a prolonged period of time.”

Moreno asserted, “Not a single aspect of the Cuban people’s social life exists, in which the destructive, destabilizing effects of the blockade have not had an impact.”

The Deputy Minister recalled that the blockade is not a single law, but rather a legislative package which has an extra-territorial reach, adding, “Not a single aspect of the country’s economic or social life exists which escapes the destabilizing effects of the hostile policy imposed on the island for more than half a century.”

He emphasized that the blockade dictates that Cuba can not import or export anything to or from U.S. territory, or use the U.S. dollar in transactions. Cuba can not access credit for any purchases, and according to the Helms Burton Law, any ship which docks in Cuba to do business must wait 180 days before returning to U.S. territory.

“It has a brutal impact on Cuba’s economy and society,” Moreno reiterated.

He emphasized that a fallacy has emerged with some analysts saying the blockade has become more “flexible,” but the facts clearly indicate on a daily basis that the hostile U.S. policy remains in full force. The U.S. government is currently focusing on sanctioning third countries which have relations with Cuba, enforcing the absurd pretension that U.S. law is universally applicable when it comes to the issue of Cuba.”

He presented, as an example of this strategy, the case of an Australian company with headquarters in the U.S. which was forced to comply with blockade regulations.

Moreno described the financial persecution of Cuba by quoting the UN report which states, “Since January of 2009 through June 2 of this year alone, the Obama administration has forced 36 U.S. and international entities to pay almost 2.6 billion dollars [in fines] for maintaining ties with Cuba.”

A relentless campaign to disrupt Cuba’s financial transactions is currently one of the most visible reflections of U.S. efforts to strangle the country’s economy. The Deputy Minister recalled, as an example, the exorbitant fine recently levied on the French bank Paribas for handling Cuban transactions, and those of other U.S. sanctioned countries.

To read full Report by Cuba regarding United Nations General Assembly Resolution 68/8, entitled “The necessity of putting an end to the economic, commercial, financial blockade of Cuba by the United States”, please visit http://www.cubavsbloqueo.cu/sites/default/files/informe_de_cuba_2014.pdf

23 September 2014

By Taj Hashmi

One may not subscribe to the conspiracy theories that imaginative Muslims have been circulating since 9/11 attacks, the latest being the portrayal of the ISIS “Caliph” as a Jewish, planted by Israel to further destabilize the region. One may, however, consider the formation of Obama’s “Coalition of the Willing” of more than 30 countries against the so-called Islamic State a ridiculous idea; or ominously, even a ploy to eventually invade Syria and Iran, as per the Pentagon Plan, leaked by retired General Wesley Clark in 2007.

Peace loving people everywhere heaved a sigh of relief at President Obama’s earlier declaration about not having a “strategy yet” to counter the ISIS threat, soon after this enigmatic terrorist group captured Mosul and parts of northern Iraq. They hoped Obama would not intervene in Iraq and Syria militarily. However, the hope was dashed. On the eve of the 13th anniversary of 9/11, Obama seemed to have succumbed to the pressure of U.S. warmongers, who consider the rise of ISIS as the prelude to another 9/11.

Obama ordered airstrikes on Syria to rout the ISIS militants. He allocated 500 additional military advisers to Iraq, and simultaneously rejected talks of an all-out war. As of mid-September, the U.S. allocated $500 million to train 5,000 fighters to fight against the ISIS. We were told, it could take three years or more to defeat the 30,000 ISIS fighters in Iraq and Syria (some sources give the figure of 100,000), who have less than 100 battle tanks and field guns and no air force.

One wonders, if the U.S. is going to spend billions of dollars over the years in just training Iraqis to fight the ISIS as it did in Afghanistan to train Afghans to fight the Taliban! What Thomas Friedman once told about the ridiculous idea of spending billions to train Afghans to fight is relevant to what America is going to repeat in Iraq: “Americans’ training Afghan to fight is like someone training Brazilians to play soccer ….Who are training the Taliban? …. American involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan may be compared with an unemployed couple’s adopting a child”. It seems “Who are training the ISIS fighters?” is another taboo of a question to the U.S. Administration.

We know the ISIS or IS (Ad-Dawlaht ul-Islamiyya) does not pose any security threat to the U.S. or Europe, let alone any existential threat to countries in the region, especially war-torn Syria and Iraq. We also know that as there are various geopolitical factors behind the enigmatic rise of this terror outfit as an “Islamic State”, and the “forerunner” of a transnational “Caliphate”; so are there vested interest groups across the region and in distant capitals – Washington, London, Ottawa and Canberra – who have hyped up the ISIS menace as a much bigger security threat than al Qaeda or its ilk ever posed to the West and its allies. The ISIS is no longer a “non-state actor” but a “state actor” in the military sense of the expressions. Since states cannot resort to unconventional methods of warfare, tiny Lebanon is capable of defeating the Islamic State in a conventional war.

America and its allies want the overthrow of the Syrian and Iranian regimes, and are paradoxically fighting the ISIS, which has also been fighting Assad, and all pro-Iranian elements in Syria and Iraq. One wonders why the enemy’s enemy is not a friend to the West! This “paradox” looks quite ominous. The American, British, Australian and other Western nations definitely want to go well beyond crushing the enigmatic and vulnerable ISIS, which Peter Baker thinks is nothing but “Extending a Legacy of War”. He believes by ordering a sustained military campaign against the ISIS, President Obama “ensured that he would pass his successor a volatile and incomplete war, much like the one he inherited when he took office”. As Baker considers the war against ISIS “the next chapter in a generational struggle”, his arguments corroborate this writer’s belief that the world is already witnessing another “Hundred-Year War” since the birth of Israel in 1948.

Despite his prior rejection of all-out war in Iraq and Syria, President Obama seems to have yielded to the pressure of the Military Industrial Complex, which wants to drag America to another long war. Apparently, Obama’s strategy is about authorizing air attacks on ISIS-held territories in Iraq and Syria without the Congress and UN approval. We do not agree with analysts who believe that Obama’s war on ISIS is a distraction from preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, which is still very important to America, and the first priority for Israel. Interestingly, the ISIS has not yet identified Israel as enemy, and ISIS fighters publicly set fire to the Palestinian flag.

All wars that America fought since the end of World War II, were without Congress approval, hence illegal. Obama’s strategy of launching air attacks on Syrian territory, without the permission of Syrian government – purportedly to defeat the ISIS – amounts to a violation of international law. Unfortunately, as terrorist outfits do not respect international law, so does the U.S., the second largest democracy in the world.

It seems, Obama Strategy is not going to accomplish what it purportedly aims at achieving: defeating the ISIS to restore peace, and good governance in Iraq, Syria and throughout the region. Obama’s open support for rebels and dissidents to overthrow the Syrian and Iranian regimes, and his unwillingness to collaborate with Syria and Iran to defeat the ISIS are bound to back fire. While Ayatollah Khameini believes the ISIS was “made-in-the-USA”, most Iraqi Sunnis consider their government as a bigger threat than the ISIS. As Syrian rebels are least interested to fight the ISIS, so is the ISIS uninterested in fighting them. Arab leaders’ tepid support for the war efforts will not give rich dividends either. They are nervous about domestic backlash from participation in America’s war efforts against ISIS.

Again, Obama does not want a replay of Bush’s Iraq War of 2003. His strategy is not about launching another “shock-and-awe” like 2003 as he does not want the war on ISIS look like another American war. If the Obama strategy is all about routing the ISIS with ineffective air attacks, it is bound to fail. However, if the real strategy is about regime change operations in Syria and Iran, then it is altogether a different matter.

The writer teaches security studies at Austin Peay State University in Tennessee, U.S.

17 September, 2014
Countercurrents.org