Ali said he would “be delighted” to see Bush defeated in November's
presidential election. He added that he did not have illusions in the US
Democratic Party's John Kerry, “who at best would put some clothes on the
empire”, but Bush's defeat “would be seen globally as a slap in the face for invading Iraq. I would be delighted to see Tony Blair defeated in Britain
for the same reason.”
This appears to be consistent with things I have heard recently from some other big-time Marxist academics and journalists, especially those connected with Verso/NLR.
For example, Peter Gowan told a conference on imperialism held at Columbia on Dec. 5th that a victory for Howard Dean (or Kucinich, as unlikely as that would be) would reverse the process of military/economic domination by the USA begun under Bush. It was a very odd comment coming from somebody who is supposed to be a big expert on the structural aspects of the imperialist system.
I have also heard that David Harvey has said something to this effect as well.
With respect to Tariq Ali, I can only say that I am delighted that he goes around making fiery speeches even though he might be confused about the elections. Only 5 years ago, he backed up fellow NLR editor Perry Anderson's statement that the mass movement was in permanent decline and that the freshest insights were coming from people like Fukuyama, Brzezinski and Huntington.
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