Baghdad burningWhat on Earth is the real reason why the US and Britain are prolonging their stay in Afghanistan? They won't make it more governable by staying longer. Moreover, the Afghan government that they are supposed to be shoring up is discredited and biting the hand that feeds it. It is behaving obstructively towards NATO. It is infiltrated completely by the drug cartels.
Nevetheless, Obama's plans for a troop withdrawal are on hold. Why? Is this strategy really a response to the situation in Afghanistan? Isn't sending more troops to Afghanistan, as many Afghanis believe, not really about Afghanistan at all, but about the US is gearing up for war with Iran?
Iran's nuclear weapons' programme challenges US hegemony in the Middle East. But the question here is: Would it really matter if the government in Iran were secular and democratic and had nuclear weapons? Would that make the US hold back? It would not.
Iran is boxed between two massive US military encampments, encampments in Iraq and in Afghanistan. The threat of a US invasion of Iran is a direct response to the challenge of a Middle Eastern nation that is daring to try to break US hegemony in the region. A clash of civilisations is not the issue, democracy is not the issue, freedom is not the issue.
Tony Blair, one of the the canaries in the coal mine still tweeting for US imperialism, used the high profile given to him by the Iraq inquiry on 29th and 30th of January not to rebut accusations about fostering the Bush presidency's unilateral war, but to justify that invasion and to promote a new war with Iran. The Middle East Peace envoy comes straight from hell.
The former British Prime Minister, now deeply embedded in the US foreign policy establishment, (along with myriads of other well paid intellectual prostitutes), said that a future Prime Minister would face the same choice he did: whether to confront Iran, a hostile Middle Eastern power with weapons of mass destruction, or not.
But let's think. What has changed since the days when Britain played the "great game" and easily controlled the destinies of so many nations? What has changed since those times - when Britain was the kingmaker and created countries like Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Pakistan merely by cutting sharp lines with a ruler across a map.
Why should it be considered so unusual that the USA, a capitalist country with a vast economy and a GDP of 14.43 trillion (according to the CIA fact book) and the dominant superpower aspire to controlling the Middle East and its resources? That is simply what bourgeoisie imperialism does. Think of the giant vegetarian shark in Finding Nemo.
It doesn't matter if Bill Gates gives, or doesn't give some of his monopoly money back in the shape of vaccinations for African children. Gates' vaccinations don't offset imperialism. The rapaciousness of capitalism is not defeasable. Ask Standard Oil. Ask Rockerfeller. Ask Cuba.
What really is interesting, however, are the strengthening possibilities of effective opposition to what was once such a bread and butter imperial strategy - a pincer movement. Obama's fastidiousness, for example. There are forces that will try to prevent the US from invading Iran. And to paraphrase George Bush Jr. If these forces are not with the US, then perhaps they are against the US.
Opposition to US action against Iran might actually manage to stop the US from doing what it would naturally and easily have done before to defend its interests. Stop it from doing what it did in Iran in the 1950s, when the US replaced Mossadegh with the Shah?
It seems clear that rising nationalism in the whole region of the Middle East, and consequently the increasing possibility of the development of a more regional identity in the spirit of Ernst Gellner, threatens US interests.
In other words it is only by keeping the region in chaos and in an arrested state of development that the US will be able to maintain its strategic grip. The US is hardly a force for progress in the Middle East. To bet on the Shock doctrine is defeatist. It is a last resort.
Europe is another brake on the US simply because the Middle East actually is Europe's backyard. In fact the EU economy is $16.18 trillion according to the CIA fact book. $16.5 according to (ahem) Wikipedia. Not that this all means much. Europe is not quite joined up, yet. But the EU is the largest combined regional economy in the word, over-matching the USA and China. By rights the next century is not China's at all. It should be an integrated European century. Deja Vu.
And then there is the slowly democratising and increasingly vocal UN and its sister and daughter organisations. They are a brake on the US invasion of Iran. They won't be able to stop the US, the stench of opposition will be strong. The US will be in bad odour, so to speak.
In management they do one of those awful crappy management things called a "force field analysis". You work out what is stopping you from reaching your objectives. You identify the obstacles and then work out how to overcome them. You also work out who and what is in your favour and use that.
Clearly the 5th estate, the media barons and their journalistic minions will easily fall into line when it comes to finding pretexts for invading Iran. Watch the slow burn fuse of propaganda. Murdoch's empire, it goes without saying will support the invasion of Iran. But the truth is, so will all the rest. Even the so called "liberal" press in the US and the more craven parts of Europe like Britain. While the Guardian produces a supplement today telling us to:
"Calm down dears, crime is going down in Britain." ...
The paper also produces article after article to keep the anxiety about Iran bubbling away until eventually the injudiciously pragmatic Simon Jenkins, or some other such, someone with an incredibly accurate vision of everything within their own little horizon, will decide that the British government should plump for a "limited surgical intervention."
And then we will watch a re-run of the Iraq war. It's only after such an invasion, that the liberal press will get on its high horse again and recall the reservations of one or two of its columnists. The liberal press has its cake and eats it in the UK. It supports capitalism, but allows itself the luxury of havering a while before doing so.
Place your bets. The US will try to invade Iran. My guess is Early 2012. It's just what empires do - if you let them.
Phil Hall
Comments
I do hope you're wrong...