You did not have to believe that all the resistance in Libya were Islamist or tools of the fat boys in Libya to notice that the armed resistance almost entirely consisted godawful Islamists, far to the right of the Muslim Brotherhood, and Hamas (who are bad enough). The liberals and socialist and seekers of freedom were not the ones with the guns. Those who ignored that and supported the Libya bombing made a horrible mistake. None of us who opposed it predicted in any detail what would happen. But we guessed a failed state was possible and something horrible was likely. I don't think US and NATO support had a cunning plan. I think the war hawks had two aims:
1) They had gotten behind the curve in the Arab Spring, and here was a chance to support a revolt against someone who they still hated, even after he had pretty much become an ally and a servant. Gaddafi was someone who they were perfectly willing to throw under the bus, even though he had adapted a neo-liberal economic agenda and supported US and NATO foreign policy. 2) The odds were that Gaddafi was on his way out. And even if not, he was not going to live forever anyway. Why not take this opportunity to have a say in what succeeded him. I don't think the USA/NATO alliance particularly wanted to failed state that followed. But I think they were indifferent to that risk, did not expect that the anything like ISIL (which after all descended from AL Queda, even if they have now exceeded in barbarity) could be a result. ' In the same way, Saudi Arabia is responsible for a lot of this alongside the USA and NATO. Not deliberately in the sense of wanting this result but in the sense of seeing other choices as worse. Al Qaeda came of Jihadists jointly funded Saudi Arabia and the US as weapons against the Soviets - without either expecting those weapons to turn against them. But Al Qaeda and other jihadists also were a logical result of official Saudi ideology - just taken to its logical conclusion instead of stopped at the point where it supports the Saudi monarchy and not pushed beyond that. Saudi Arabia still tolerates billionaires within its borders funding groups that would destroy it if they could as a way to get militants out of Saudi Arabia killing people abroad instead of in their border. No conspiracy, just a government acting in its short term interests, and expecting they will be able to handle the long term fallout. When people sneer at the idea that idea that the USA, NATO and their allies are responsible for most of the trouble in the Middle East, that sneer makes sense if directed at claims that this is purposeful and well planned. All the big capitalist nations, and the dictatorships (and one theocratic semi-democracy) that are allied to them in the Middle East make comparable decisions to the Saudi example I gave above. They act in their own short term interest confident they can handle any fallout or blowback when it happens. So far that has not been wrong. The ISIL horror has built popular domestic support for the US military. The murder of cartoonists in France has become an excuse for more repression of French Muslims and increased surveillance powers for the French police and military. Endless war has strengthened the most reactionary domestic forces inside Israel. Saudi Arabia for the moment faces no serious domestic threat. I wish I could remember the well known Arab scholar who described how what we see in the middle east is the barbarity of capitalism and colonialism spawning counter-barbarisms that are as awful or worse in intent, if lacking the resource behind rich world barbarity. Often the rich nations will strengthen those counter-barbarisms to achieve short term goals without worry about them turning back against them once those shared goals are achieved. And I would add, those counter barbarisms strengthen the most barbaric aspects of capitalism and capitalist servant states in response. So the capitalists, and their servants, are to blame, but not in any conspiratorial sense. Rather what we see is structural. Horrors that are structural far more dangerous than either conspiracy or accident. When capitalism successfully suppresses most left resistance within the periphery, that does not stop resistance; it diverts it into barbaric forms, counter-barbarisms as the scholar whose name I wish I could remember says. And that strengthens barbarism that is always implicit within capitalism. Rosa Luxemburg said it more concisely: the choice, at least in the long run, is "socialism or barbarism". But the details matter. On Fri, Jul 3, 2015 at 1:31 PM, Louis Proyect <[email protected]> wrote: > Back in 2011, just around the time that the Arab Spring began, a section > of the left became convinced that the revolts in Libya and Syria were > not genuine. Instead they were attempts by the West and its allies in > the region, especially Saudi Arabia, to topple legitimate nationalist > and even radical governments as part of a strategy to isolate and then > destroy the Islamic Republic of Iran, which despite its flaws, was a key > member of the “Axis of Resistance” (AOR). Of course, once Iran fell into > the hands of the brie-eating and white wine-sipping Green Movement, that > would increase the pressure on Russia that was in the final analysis the > major obstacle to American imperialist designs. > > Somewhere along the line reality got in the way even though the AOR left > has not allowed that to get in its way. To some extent it is impossible > to ignore evidence that this schema did not and could not match up to > the byzantine geopolitics of the region. For example, in today’s > CounterPunch, there’s an article by Jason Hirthler titled “Going > Off-Script in St. Petersburg” that reprises AOR talking points such as a > reference to Putin being pressured to abandon Assad to step down, > something that reflects “the chief imperial aim of the West” even though > there are copious reports on America demanding that the rebels they > train take no action against the Baathists. > > full: > > http://louisproyect.org/2015/07/03/axis-of-resistance-or-axis-of-compliance/ > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > -- Facebook: Gar Lipow Twitter: GarLipow Solving the Climate Crisis web page: SolvingTheClimateCrisis.com Grist Blog: http://grist.org/author/gar-lipow/ Online technical reference: http://www.nohairshirts.com
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