On the Situation in the Middle East

EGYPT 2011: MILLIONS HAVE HEROICALLY STOOD UP... THE FUTURE REMAINS TO BE WRITTEN

G eopolitics, Political Economy, and "No Permanent Necessity"
Interview with Raymond Lotta About Events in Egypt

Three Observations on the Situation in the Middle East
by Bob Avakian, Chairman of the RCP,USA



Libya: Big powers need new monster


28 February 2011. A World to Win News Service. The Western powers may have turned against Muammar al-Gaddafi, declaring him mentally unstable after discovering his unexpected political instability, but he has been their man.
 
He has ruled not only in their political interests, but even more basically in the interests of their finance capital and world economic system, and in turn their interests have been his. If they are ready to dump him now, it is not because his nature has changed but because he is no longer able to do the job.
 
Even as the US, UK and France were pushing through a UN Security Council resolution imposing an arms embargo 26 February, the Libyan regime was using British-trained security forces and British-supplied armoured cars, CS tear gas, shotgun shells and mortars against demonstrators. French-built fighter aircraft were being sent to bomb rebel strongholds. Gaddafi's most trusted unit, Brigade 32 under the command of one of his sons, was using hi-tech military equipment supplied by the US arms manufacturer General Dynamics.
 
The world and the Libyan people are supposed to forget the sight of US President George W. Bush (and later President Barack Obama), UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, French President Nicholas Sarkozy and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi warmly embracing Gaddafi, welcoming him back into their fold as if they were long-lost friends.
 
In the UN resolution these powers vowed to track down and freeze Libya's financial assets, as if their location were a secret or not already under their control. The bulk of Libyan funds abroad, the country's sovereign wealth fund, are managed by the JP Morgan Bank, part of Wall Street's second biggest financial institution, JPMorganChase. Since 2008, Blair, who orchestrated Gaddafi's return, has been a senior consultant to Morgan. Among the investments made on behalf of this fund are shares in the London Financial Times. The parent company owns part of Facebook; JP Morgan is currently seeking to buy into Twitter.
 
(For a naked description of Blair's 5 million-dollars-a-year job, see JPMorganChase.com. Blair also currently works as the unpaid special envoy for the Quartet – US, the EU, the UN and Russia – for the Middle East, where he helps oversee Palestinian-Israeli negotiations.)
 
The fact is that the wealth produced in Libya has mainly enriched the imperialist powers, both through the enormous profits their oil companies have reaped from the exploitation of Libyans and workers there from other Third World countries, and through the recycling of the share of that oil revenue that went through the Gaddafi regime's hands but for the most part was invested in European and American banks and companies. The riches produced in Libya are so much a part of the world capitalist system that world stock exchanges and especially the Milan bourse fell at the prospect of an interruption in this flow of fresh blood to their vampire hearts.
 
The UN Security Council resolution set what might be a new world record for hypocrisy.
 
It was revolting enough to see the Chinese regime – responsible for the Tiananmen massacre and now straining to keep out the wind of revolt from the Arab world, a government that for years has supplied cheap labour for exploitation in Libya – voting to condemn Gaddafi for repression. It was even more disgusting to see the US pressuring China and other countries to endorse a threat to bring Gaddafi regime members before the International Criminal Court, even though Washington has refused to join the ICC for fear that past, present and future American officials might be charged with crimes against humanity for their illegal wars, coups, assassinations and other violations of international law.
 
But even worse than the hypocrisy, the purpose of the UN resolution is not to help the Libyan people in their just cause, but to interfere in events in pursuit of the same kind of imperialist advantages that led them to support Gaddafi in the first place. Although the measure may give the Gaddafi inner circle no choice but to fight to the end, it is also a call to other regime members to jump ship and seek US protection now or face the consequences. The US is "reaching out" to last-minute defectors like Gaddafi's Justice Minister and even current members such as his long-time Interior Minister. There is reason to fear that the US is seeking to pull together some kind of new/old regime from such criminals.
 
While the proposals being made for imposing a no-fly zone on Libya might sound like a way to save lives, it should be remembered how such zones worked out in Iraq. The US and its allies claimed that a UN resolution gave them the authority to impose a no-fly zone in northern Iraq in the wake of the first Gulf War in 1991. Along with economic sanctions, this no-fly zone was part of the attempt to re-establish US (and British) domination in Iraq that led to the 2003 invasion.
 
This is not meant to argue that the US is as eager to invade Libya as it was Iraq, although it is striking that Obama officials have repeatedly said that they do not rule out anything, including what Clinton called "possible bilateral actions" (in other words, a "coalition of the willing"). American warships in the Mediterranean have been repositioned off Libya's coast. But there are major reasons why the US might prefer to avoid direct military action, including the fact that its invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan have gone so badly, and the likelihood that today's newly aroused Arab people would become even further enraged by the sending of American or even European soldiers to Libya. So far, it has pretended to be above the fray.
 
The Iraq experience
 
The experience of Iraq shows that the imperialists are never concerned about anything but their own interests. In his recently-published autobiography, Blair repeated that his religion justified ignoring the opposition of the majority of the British people to participating in the US-led invasion, and stubbornly argued that even if Iraq's weapons of mass destruction turned out not to exist, still invading was the "right thing to do" because it got rid of Saddam Hussein. Yet he turned around and took personal charge of re-opening relations with Gaddafi not long after, even though Gaddafi was as much an enemy of the Libyan people then as he is now.
 
This is not a matter of inconsistency, but of consistently pursuing the same interests. The UK expected to benefit from the invasion of Iraq both by advancing its partnership with the US at the expense of other imperialist powers such as France, and also by reopening Iraq's oil fields for British companies, also at France's expense. In reopening relations with Libya, the UK was both acting within its overall "special relationship" with the US and also pursuing particular advantage for BP, Shell and other British companies, in competition with Italy and France.
 
The US UK and other powers inflicted seven years of horror on the Iraqi people in the name of establishing a "democracy", as if any government imposed by invasion and occupation could be considered democratic. Now, with all the ultimate power over Iraqi affairs that the continuing presence of 50,000 American soldiers implies, the government that occupation has produced is repressive and hated. It is a target of the people's upsurge just as much as other regimes in the region.
 
For instance, on 25 February large demonstrations against the Nouri Maliki government in Iraq took place from north to south, from mainly Shia Basra through the capital and north through the Sunni regions to Mosul and Kurdistan, despite the opposition of the Iranian-influenced Shia religious establishment and also despite the unprecedented level of intimidation by the US-backed regime. Just before the Iraqi "Day of Rage", modelled on the upsurge in Egypt and Tunisia, several demonstrators were murdered by the Kurdistan government that was set up under the protection of the US no-fly zone in the early 1990s.
 
The government responded to the planned protests by sending security forces to occupy the streets of Baghdad and other cities. Helicopters swooped down over the heads of the crowds in Baghdad's own Tahrir Square. At least 29 protesters were shot or beaten to death. Security forces attacked a TV station and burst into restaurants and other places looking for journalists. The next day they rounded up about 300 people, including prominent writers, artists, lawyers and other intellectuals. Many are known to have been tortured.
 
When the Islamic Republic of Iran does these things, the US condemns it. This time not only did the US stay silent, most major Western media did too. (One exception: Washington Post, 26 and 27 February)
 
How could whatever the US might resort to in Libya, with whatever coalition of allies and rivals it might pull together, be expected to do anything positive for the people there?
 
Italy and Libya: a history that's not really past
 
Here something has to be said about Italy: it is the power whose fangs have been sunk deepest and longest into the Libyan people's neck, and it is also the power whose prerogatives other imperialist powers would like to grab for themselves.
 
Italy's connections with the Gaddafi regime are so close that the two countries even signed a mutual defence pact, promising among other things to help each other maintain internal security. Berlusconi was the last Western leader to come out against Gaddafi. Then, worried that Italy might be left out of a post-Gaddafi Libya, Berlusconi suspended that pact and made it known that the US was welcome to use its naval and air bases in Italy against Libya.
 
Italy began extending its influence into Libya in the late nineteenth century with the connivance of France, which had pushed Italy aside in seizing Tunisia, which was then considered far more desirable booty. In 1911 Italy invaded and seized the country from the disintegrating Ottoman empire. During the war of resistance in the 1920s, the Italians are believed to have caused the deaths of a hundred thousand Libyans, about half the population of the eastern part of the country, through bombings and other military assaults and the herding of the population into desert concentration camps and penal colonies in Italy where many died.
 
In 1939 Italy declared its Libyan colony an integral part of Italy itself, its "fourth shore". It should be remembered that while this happened under the Fascist regime of Benito Mussolini, Italy's policy of taking over and colonizing Libya had begun long before and was in fact a point of consensus among Italy's ruling class. Among its goals was to relieve social pressures in the countryside by sending Italian peasants to settle on stolen Libyan land – 20,000 in one convoy alone in 1938. In all more than 110,000 Italians went, eventually making up a third of the population of the capital and almost 15 percent of the Libyan population as a whole.
 
In this context, the fears expressed by Italy's Defence Minister Ignazio La Russa that Italy might face an influx of Libyan refugees of "Biblical proportions" shows that even a secondary imperialist power can rival the others in hypocrisy. The Italian government is now complaining about the prospect that some of those whom Mussolini once labelled "Muslim Italians" might seek shelter in what was once declared their country, whether they liked it or not.
 
But this is not just a question of historical justice. Italian and in fact imperialist capital in general have continued to dominate Libya without interruption, although not smoothly and not always in the ways the imperialist powers might have preferred.
 
Gaddafi's "Green Revolution"
 
With the defeat of the Axis powers in World War 2, France and Britain took charge of Italy's former colony. Following Libya's formal independence in 1951, when power was passed to King Idris, the UK and US each set up strategic military bases.
 
The opening of enormous oil fields in the 1950s was to change the country completely. The 27-year-old army captain Gaddafi, along with a handful of other lightly armed officers, overthrew the king in 1969. While the history of what Gaddafi called his "Green (Islamic) Revolution" is complex and needs analysis in its own right, the basic plan was to build up a political structure that could oppose the imperialist powers by nationalising oil and selling it to them instead of just letting them take it on their own terms.
 
Instead of freeing the country from imperialist domination, however, this dependence on the imperialist world market generally limited Libya's ability to oppose imperialism to futile proclamations and reactionary gestures such as bombing airliners and other civilian targets.
 
The rising price of oil in the 1970s actually propelled Libya's further enslavement to imperialism in the economic realm. Plans for agrarian reform and other developmental measures took a back seat to the perceived need to funnel resources into increasing the country's oil and natural gas production instead. From an agricultural exporting country that had not needed to sell oil to feed itself from before Roman times to the late 1960s, Libya moved toward its situation today, where it is almost entirely dependent on imports for everything. (Whether or not Libya could sustain its present population without imported food is debatable, but the huge growth of the native population, along with the large presence of foreign workers, amounting to almost 20 percent of the country's residents, are almost entirely linked to oil, gas and related industries.)
 
Further, oil and gas are not one-off investments. Selling them competitively on the world market requires constant infusions of capital to expand production and improve productivity and infrastructure, even for a country like Libya with the natural advantage of pumping crude oil that is exceptionally cheap to refine.
 
The process through which Libya came back into the arms of the US and UK during the course of the 1990s was not a smooth one, and again deserves more analysis than possible here. Among the factors whose role needs to be better understood are the collapse of the Soviet bloc, the stepped-up US and British sanctions and falling oil prices. One decisive moment came in an outstanding  example of Gaddafi's signature combination of "anti-imperialist" rhetoric and reactionary deeds, when in 1995, supposedly as a punishment for the PLO's compromises with Israel in the Oslo Accords, he declared that all of Libya's large population of Palestinian refugees had to leave overnight and walk home if necessary. Although in the end some remained, many thousands were dumped over the Egyptian border or put aboard ships that spent weeks at sea because no country would take them in.
 
By 1999 Libya and the UK restored relations. It seems that Britain was especially anxious not to let Italy alone enjoy feasting off Libya. By 2004, Blair was making the first of several trips to shake Gaddafi's hand, sign trade deals and sell the Libyan regime the arms Gaddafi is using today.
 
Ongoing secret US-Libyan negotiations came out into the open after 11 September 2001, when Gaddafi publicly said that he wanted to enlist in the "war on terror" and put his intelligence (and torture) services at the disposal of the US. For Gaddafi, 9/11 represented both an opportunity and a confluence of interests with the US, since the kind of Sufi Islam on which his regime has drawn its authority is hated by Sunni fundamentalists of the Bin Laden (and Saudi) variety, who have threatened his regime. The years of talks and step by step rapprochement finally came to maturity in 2003, when the "Lion of the Desert" was said to be terrified by what the US did to Saddam Hussein.
 
It should be noted that for all Gaddafi's attempts to identify himself with the original "Lion of the Desert", the leader of the war against Italy Umar al-Mukhtar, he never broke with Italian capital. ENI, the Italian state oil and gas company, never ceased operations in Libya. In fact, the economies of the two countries became increasingly intertwined. Italy's dominant position in Libya was formalized at a 2008 meeting in Gaddafi's tent where Berlusconi and he signed a treaty purported to compensate Libya for the harm Italy had done to it.
 
This was another example of a Gaddafi gesture whose real content was the opposite of what it was said to be. Italy promised to pay Libya 5 billion dollars in reparations. But this money was actually to come from the exploitation of workers in Libya and further plundering of its resources, since its source was a tax on the (greatly increased) Italian share of Libyan hydrocarbons.  Further, all of it was to be spent on hiring Italian contractors and buying Italian machinery and other imports, exclusively for infrastructure projects to be defined by the two countries. This meant building and upgrading roads, pipelines, docks and so on to facilitate Libya's dependence on exports and imports – again, to the profit of Italy.
 
In short, these "reparations" were to be the kind of "tied aid" that the US, for example, uses to reap yet greater profits in the name of "foreign assistance" – tying Libya more tightly to Italy in the name of "anti-colonialism". (See "Assessing Italy's Gran Gesto to Libya", Claudia Gazzini, Merip.org)
 
This assignment of much of Libya's known oil and gas reserves to Italy for the next decades has undoubtedly been a factor in spurring the UK to make its own moves, especially by buying rights to exploration for new fields that promise far greater wealth – bait which of course has been irresistible to the Gaddafi regime.
 
It is extremely important to note the relationship between politics and economics here. The "Libyan model" of seeking to tweak the imperialists' nose politically while maintaining dependence on the imperialist world market eventually collapsed. In the end, Gaddafi was not able (and ceased to even try) to exercise political independence from imperialism. At the same time, the imperialist powers were obliged, because of their general and particular (rival) interests, to make do with the political superstructure Gaddafi had built and adopt it as their own instrument for the domination of Libya.
 
Ironically, despite Gaddafi's flaming rhetoric, it has been principally the Libyan people and not the imperialist powers that have brought him face to face with the same ignominious end as heads of historically client regimes like Egypt's Mubarak and Tunisia's Ben Ali.
 
Looking for advantage amidst turmoil
 
As British journalist Robert Fisk wrote, right now it is the people and not the US who are the "shock and awe" factor in the Middle East. But in Tunisia, the imperialists and probably the US were able to take advantage of the existence of an imperialist-trained and dependent army to pull the plug on Ben Ali in time to preserve some elements of the old regime. In Egypt, the army has long been the US's key asset. In both countries, the old tyrant did not need to make a last stand; he could just shuffle off to retirement. The absence of any imperialist "Plan B" in Libya helps explain why the struggle there has been so bloody from the start.
 
None of these factors ensure continued imperialist control against the newly aroused and increasingly politically sophisticated mass movements, as the forced resignation of the Tunisian prime minister and the continuing face-off between protesters and the security forces in both countries attest.
 
But the US has even less to work with in Libya. The US and other imperialists have had very little contact with the Libyan military, or any other sector of Libyan society. In fact, it seems that the military is very weak compared to the militias, special brigades and other security forces personally led by Gaddafi family members. There certainly seems to be a major section of the population whose loyalty has been bought with privileges. Gaddafi was not just raving when he declared that Libya is not Tunisia or Egypt.
 
There is also the factor of the broader situation: while the US has far fewer direct economic interests at play in Libya than elsewhere, the last thing it needs is escalating uncertainty and possibly popular upheaval in between Egypt and Tunisia. Especially not in the midst of a region whose present instability is matched only by its strategic importance to the whole US-dominated world order.
 
This is the light in which we should judge the big powers' reaction to the situation caused by the people's uprising, and their attempts to continue dominating Libya amidst this splendid turmoil.
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