Harry Targ (originally posted June 20, 2013 in The Rag Blog)
In 2011 the grassroots revolts that spread all
across the Middle East caught the traditional imperial powers in the
region--the United States, Great Britain, and France-- by surprise. Even more
so, the Middle East theocracies and dictatorships--Saudi Arabia, Tunisia,
Egypt, Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar and others--were threatened by those
young people, workers, unemployed, and women, who took to the streets motivated
by the vision of another world. The United States watched the street
protests hoping against hope that the authoritarian regimes in Tunisia and
Egypt would weather the storm. The Obama administration did not move
publicly to aid these regimes to crush the protest but withheld its endorsement
of the grassroots democracy movement. The idea of
popular revolt spread to places all across the globe including Madison,
Wisconsin; Santiago, Chile; Athens, Greece; Madrid, Spain; and Quebec, Canada.
The Occupy Movements in the United States expanded.
Globally, movements
for a 21st century democratization seemed to be replicating
1968.
In this historic context, the imperial powers
needed to transform the Middle East narrative from demands for jobs, worker
rights, women’s rights, and democratization to the more traditional religious
and ethnic conflict model of Middle East politics. The United States organized
a United Nations/NATO coalition to intervene to encourage rebellion in Libya
coupled with a game-changing air war against the Libyan military. The result
was the overthrow of the government of Muammar Gaddafi and its replacement by a
quarrelsome ungovernable regime rife with ethnic strife. The UN/NATO war on
Libya was billed as the next phase of Arab Spring, while actually it imposed
religious and ethnic conflict on a relatively stable but authoritarian regime.
The anger over the US encouragement and
military intervention in the Libyan civil war was reflected in the killings by
Libyan terrorists of CIA operatives in Benghazi, Libya in September, 2012. What
intervention in Libya did was to destabilize that society and eliminate its
former dictator who was opposed to the growing US military expansion in North
Africa. Most important, it took off the front pages and the hearts and minds of
youth, the poor, women, and trade unionists the hope of mass movements to bring
about democratic change in the region. (Subsequently it opened the door for a growing US military presence via AFRICOM).
US covert and military intervention has
shifted now from Libya to Syria. Mobilization against the Bashar
al-Assad dictatorship in Syria was applauded by the United States. As the
protest escalated into civil war in that country with contestants including
secular and religious groups fighting against Assad’s army, the United States,
Sunni countries of the Arab League, and NATO countries escalated their support
to the rebels. Another Libya-style UN/NATO military operation was thwarted by
strong opposition from Russia and China and the threat of growing military
support for the Syrian regime by Iran.
Part of the ongoing story of Syria is the
following:
1.The United States launched its diplomatic
involvement in the Syrian civil war by insisting that Bashar al-Assad must step
down. This precluded any possibility of a diplomatic settlement of the civil
war and the eventual dismantling of the Assad regime. Most important, the
United States non-negotiable demand made diplomatic collaboration between the
United States and Russia all but impossible.
2.Support for various rebel factions,
diplomatic and presumably covert, has encouraged the escalation of opposition
violence which was matched by state violence.
3.Rebel factions, ironically, have included
groups with profiles that resemble the terrorists who were responsible for the
9/11 murders in the United States and terrorist attacks on various targets in
the Middle East and Afghanistan.
4.Violence and political instability have
begun to spread to Lebanon, Turkey, and Jordan, and have drawn Israel and Iran
closer into regional war.
5.As the Syrian civil war has escalated it has
become a “proxy” war between the United States and Russia and Sunni
and Shia Muslims.
6.In the United States, the civil war in Syria
has rekindled the war factions. These include the “neoconservatives” who were
responsible for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Using 9/11 and lies about
weapons of mass destruction the neoconservatives influenced the Bush
administration to pursue their agenda to use United States power to transform
the globe in its interests.
The neoconservatives,
advocates of United States military intervention in Syria, are now joined by
the “humanitarian interventionists” who in the Clinton Administration supported
bombing campaigns in Iraq, Serbia, and Bosnia and live by the ideology that the
United States must use its military power to promote human rights around the
world.
It is important to note that recent polling
data suggests that only a small percentage of the American people, about 20
percent, give any support to United States involvement in Syria. Most Americans
are suffering from declining jobs, income, and social safety nets, and reject
the war economy and militarism that has characterized the U.S. role in the
world since 1945.
7.The escalation of the civil war, the growing
military role of the United States, Russia, Iran, Turkey, NATO, Hezbollah from
Lebanon, and Israel has led to nearly 100,000 Syrian deaths and more than a
million refugees. As in most international wars, innocent people suffer and die
as military decisions are made in government capitals.
The case is clear that increasing the United
States military involvement in Syria has negative consequences for the Middle
East, international relations, the inspiration of Arab Spring, American
politics, and the people of Syria. The hope for a more just and peaceful future
requires support for the resumption of the spirit and vision of the original
Arab Spring that began in Tunisia and Egypt and spread all across the globe.
Otherwise the United States will once again be “waist deep in the big muddy” as
in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
Pete Seeger - Waist Deep in the Big Muddy - YouTube
www.youtube.com › watch
