[NYTr] Political Islam in the Service of Imperialism - Pt 2

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by MichaelP - Dec 3, 2007


Political Islam in the Service of Imperialism - (2 of 2) 

...continued from Part 1


Monthly Reveiw - Nov, 2007
http://monthlyreview.org/1207amin.htm

Political Islam in the Service of Imperialism

by Samir Amin

English translation from the French by James Membrez 


QUESTIONS RELATIVE TO THE FRONT LINE COUNTRIES 
(Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and Iran)

The project of the United States, supported to varying degrees by their 
subaltern allies in Europe and Japan, is to establish military control over the 
entire planet. With this prospect in mind, the Middle East was chosen as the 
"first strike" region for four reasons:

   (1) it holds the most abundant petroleum resources in the world and
its direct control by the armed forces of the United States would give
Washington a privileged position, placing its allies--Europe and
Japan--and possible rivals (China) in an uncomfortable position of
dependence for their energy supplies;

   (2) it is located at the crossroads of the Old World and makes it
easier to put in place a permanent military threat against China,
India, and Russia;

   (3) the region is experiencing a moment of weakness and confusion
that allows the aggressor to be assured of an easy victory, at least
for the moment; and

   (4) Israel's presence in the region, Washington's unconditional ally.

This aggression has placed the countries and nations located on the front line 
(Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, and Iran) in the particular situation of being 
destroyed (the first three) or threatened with destruction (Iran).

AFGHANISTAN

Afghanistan experienced the best period in its modern history during the 
so-called communist republic. This was a regime of modernist enlightened 
despotism that opened up the educational system to children of both sexes. It 
was an enemy of obscurantism and, for this reason, had decisive support within 
the society. The agrarian reform that it had undertaken was, for the most part, 
a group of measures intended to reduce the tyrannical powers of tribal leaders. 
The support--at least tacitly--of the majority of the peasantry guaranteed the 
probable success of this well-begun change. The propaganda conveyed by the 
Western media as well as by political Islam presented this experiment as 
communist and atheist totalitarianism rejected by the Afghan people. In 
reality, the regime was far from being unpopular, much like Ataturk in his 
time.

The fact that the leaders of this experiment, in both of the major factions 
(Khalq and Parcham), were self-described as communists is not surprising. The 
model of the progress accomplished by the neighboring peoples of Soviet Central 
Asia (despite everything that has been said on the subject and despite the 
autocratic practices of the system) in comparison with the ongoing social 
disasters of British imperialist management in other neighboring countries 
(India and Pakistan included) had the effect, here as in many other countries 
of the region, of encouraging patriots to assess the full extent of the 
obstacle formed by imperialism to any attempt at modernization. The invitation 
extended by one faction to the Soviets to intervene in order to rid themselves 
of the others certainly had a negative effect and mortgaged the possibilities 
of the modernist national populist project.

The United States in particular and its allies of the Triad in general have 
always been tenacious opponents of the Afghan modernizers, communists or not. 
It is they who mobilized the obscurantist forces of Pakistan-style political 
Islam (the Taliban) and the warlords (the tribal leaders successfully 
neutralized by the so-called communist regime), and they who trained and armed 
them. Even after the Soviet retreat, the Najibullah government demonstrated the 
capability for resistance. It probably would have gained the upper hand but for 
the Pakistani military offensive that came to the support of the Taliban, and 
then the offensive of the reconstituted forces of the warlords, which increased 
the chaos.

Afghanistan was devastated by the intervention of the United States and its 
allies and agents, the Islamists in particular. Afghanistan cannot be 
reconstructed under their authority, barely disguised behind a clown without 
roots in the country, who was parachuted there by the Texas transnational by 
whom he was employed. The supposed "democracy," in the name of which 
Washington, NATO, and the UN, called to the rescue, claim to justify the 
continuation of their presence (in fact, occupation), was a lie from the very 
beginning and has become a huge farce.

There is only one solution to the Afghan problem: all foreign forces should 
leave the country and all powers should be forced to refrain from financing and 
arming their allies. To those who are well-intended and express their fear that 
the Afghan people will then tolerate the dictatorship of the Taliban (or the 
warlords), I would respond that the foreign presence has been up until now and 
remains the best support for this dictatorship! The Afghan people had been 
moving in another direction--potentially the best possible--at a time when the 
West was forced to take less interest in its affairs. To the enlightened 
despotism of "communists," the civilized West has always preferred obscurantist 
despotism, infinitely less dangerous for its interests!

IRAQ

The armed diplomacy of the United States had the objective of literally 
destroying Iraq well before pretexts were actually given to it to do so on two 
different occasions: the invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and then after September 
11, 2001--exploited for this purpose by Bush with Goebbels-style cynicism and 
lies ("If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will 
eventually come to believe it"). The reason for this objective is simple and 
has nothing to do with the discourse calling for the liberation of the Iraqi 
people from the bloody dictatorship (real enough) of Saddam Hussein. Iraq 
possesses a large part of the best petroleum resources of the planet. But, what 
is more, Iraq had succeeded in training scientific and technical cadres that 
were capable, through their critical mass, of supporting a coherent and 
substantial national project. This danger had to be eliminated by a preventive 
war that the United States gave itself the right to carry out when and where it 
decided, without the least respect for international law.

Beyond this obvious observation, several serious questions should be examined:

   (1) How could Washington's plan appear--even for a brief historical 
moment--to be such a dazzling success so easily?

   (2) What new situation has been created and confronts the Iraqi
nation today?

   (3) What responses are the various elements of the Iraqi population
giving to this challenge? and

  (4) What solutions can the democratic and progressive Iraqi, Arab,
and international forces promote?

Saddam Hussein's defeat was predictable. Faced with an enemy whose main 
advantage lies in its capability to effect genocide with impunity by aerial 
bombardment (the use of nuclear weapons is to come), the people have only one 
possible effective response: carry out resistance on their invaded territory. 
Saddam's regime was devoted to eliminating every means of defense within reach 
of its people through the systematic destruction of any organization and every 
political party (beginning with the Communist Party) that had made the history 
of modern Iraq, including the Baath itself, which had been one of the major 
actors in this history. It is not surprising in these conditions that the Iraqi 
people allowed their country to be invaded without a struggle, nor even that 
some behaviors (such as apparent participation in elections organized by the 
invader or the outburst of fratricidal fighting among Kurds, Sunni Arabs, and 
Shia Arabs) seemed to be signs of a possible acceptance of defeat (on which 
Washington had based its calculations). But what is worthy of note is that the 
resistance on the ground grows stronger every day (despite all of the serious 
weaknesses displayed by the various resistance forces), that it has already 
made it impossible to establish a regime of lackeys capable of maintaining the 
appearance of order; in a way, that it has already demonstrated the failure of 
Washington's project.

A new situation has, nevertheless, been created by the foreign military 
occupation. The Iraqi nation is truly threatened. Washington is incapable of 
maintaining its control over the country (so as to pillage its petroleum 
resources, which is its number one objective) through the intermediary of a 
seeming national government. The only way it can continue its project, then, is 
to break the country apart. The division of the country into at least three 
states (Kurd, Sunni Arab, and Shia Arab) was, perhaps from the very beginning, 
Washington's objective, in alignment with Israel (the archives will reveal the 
truth of that in the future). Today, the "civil war" is the card that 
Washington plays to legitimize the continuation of its occupation. Clearly, 
permanent occupation was--and remains--the objective: it is the only means by 
which Washington can guarantee its control of the petroleum resources. 
Certainly, no credence can be given to Washington's declarations of intent, 
such as "we will leave the country as soon as order has been restored." It 
should be remembered that the British never said of their occupation of Egypt, 
beginning in 1882, that it was anything other than provisional (it lasted until 
1956!). Meanwhile, of course, the United States destroys the country, its 
schools, factories, and scientific capacities, a little more each day, using 
all means, including the most criminal.

The responses given by the Iraqi people to the challenge--so far, at least--do 
not appear to be up to facing the seriousness of the situation. That is the 
least that can be said. What are the reasons for this? The dominant Western 
media repeat ad nauseam that Iraq is an artificial country and that the 
oppressive domination of Saddam's "Sunni" regime over the Shia and Kurds is the 
origin of the inevitable civil war (which can only be suppressed, perhaps, by 
continuing the foreign occupation).The resistance, then, is limited to a few 
pro-Saddam hard-core Islamists from the Sunni triangle. It is surely difficult 
to string together so many falsehoods.

Following the First World War, the British had great difficulty in defeating 
the resistance of the Iraqi people. In complete harmony with their imperial 
tradition, the British imported a monarchy and created a class of large 
landowners to support their power, thereby giving a privileged position to the 
Sunnis. But, despite their systematic efforts, the British failed. The 
Communist Party and the Baath Party were the main organized political forces 
that defeated the power of the "Sunni" monarchy detested by everyone, Sunni, 
Shia, and Kurd. The violent competition between these two forces, which 
occupied center stage between 1958 and 1963, ended with the victory of the 
Baath Party, welcomed at the time by the Western powers as a relief. The 
Communist project carried in itself the possibility for a democratic evolution; 
this was not true of the Baath. The latter was nationalist and pan-Arab in 
principle, admired the Prussian model for constructing German unity, and 
recruited its members from the secular, modernist petite bourgeoisie, hostile 
to obscurantist expressions of religion. In power, the Baath evolved, in 
predictable fashion, into a dictatorship that was only half anti-imperialist, 
in the sense that, depending on conjunctures and circumstances, a compromise 
could be accepted by the two partners (Baathist power in Iraq and U.S. 
imperialism, dominant in the region).

This deal encouraged the megalomaniacal excesses of the leader, who imagined 
that Washington would accept making him its main ally in the region. 
Washington's support for Baghdad (the delivery of chemical weapons is proof of 
this) in the absurd and criminal war against Iran from 1980 to 1989 appeared to 
lend credence to this calculation. Saddam never imagined Washington's deceit, 
that modernization of Iraq was unacceptable to imperialism and that the 
decision to destroy the country had already been made. Saddam fell into the 
open trap when the green light was given to annex Kuwait (in fact attached in 
Ottoman times to the provinces that constitute Iraq, and detached by the 
British imperialists in order to make it one of their petroleum colonies). Iraq 
was then subjected to ten years of sanctions intended to bleed the country dry 
so as to facilitate the glorious conquest of the resulting vacuum by the armed 
forces of the United States.

The successive Baathist regimes, including the last one in its declining phase 
under Saddam's leadership, can be accused of everything, except for having 
stirred up the conflict between the Sunni and Shia. Who then is responsible for 
the bloody clashes between the two communities? One day, we will certainly 
learn how the CIA (and undoubtedly Mossad) organized many of these massacres. 
But, beyond that, it is true that the political desert created by the Saddam 
regime and the example that it provided of unprincipled opportunist methods 
encouraged succeeding aspirants to power of all kinds to follow this path, 
often protected by the occupier. Sometimes, perhaps, they were even nave to the 
point of believing that they could be of service to the occupying power. The 
aspirants in question, be they religious leaders (Shia or Sunni), supposed 
(para-tribal) "notables," or notoriously corrupt businessmen exported by the 
United States, never had any real political standing in the country. Even those 
religious leaders whom the believers respected had no political influence that 
was acceptable to the Iraqi people. Without the void created by Saddam, no one 
would know how to pronounce their names. Faced with the new political world 
created by the imperialism of liberal globalization, will other authentically 
popular and national, possibly even democratic, political forces have the means 
to reconstruct themselves?

There was a time when the Iraqi Communist Party was the focus for organizing 
the best of what Iraqi society could produce. The Communist Party was 
established in every region of the country and dominated the world of 
intellectuals, often of Shia origin (I note in passing that the Shia produced 
revolutionaries or religious leaders above all, rarely bureaucrats or 
compradors!). The Communist Party was authentically popular and 
anti-imperialist, little inclined to demagoguery and potentially democratic. 
After the massacre of thousands of its best militants by the Baathist 
dictatorships, the collapse of the Soviet Union (for which the Iraqi Communist 
Party was not prepared), and the behavior of those intellectuals who believed 
it acceptable to return from exile as camp followers of the armed forces of the 
United States, is the Iraqi Communist Party henceforth fated to disappear 
permanently from history? Unfortunately, this is all too possible, but not 
inevitable, far from it.

The Kurdish question is real, in Iraq as in Iran and Turkey. But on this 
subject also, it should be remembered that the Western powers have always 
practiced, with great cynicism, double standards. The repression of Kurdish 
demands has never attained in Iraq and Iran the level of police, military, 
political, and moral violence carried out by Ankara. Neither Iran nor Iraq has 
ever gone so far as to deny the very existence of the Kurds. However, Turkey 
must be pardoned for everything as a member of NATO, an organization of 
democratic nations, as the media remind us. Among the eminent democrats 
proclaimed by the West was Portugal's Salazar, one of NATO's founding members, 
and the no less ardent admirers of democracy, the Greek colonels and Turkish 
generals!

Each time that the Iraqi popular fronts, formed around the Communist Party and 
the Baath in the best moments of its turbulent history, exercised political 
power, they always found an area of agreement with the principal Kurdish 
parties. The latter, moreover, have always been their allies.

The anti-Shia and anti-Kurd excesses of the Saddam regime were certainly real: 
for example, the bombing of the Basra region by Saddam's army after its defeat 
in Kuwait in 1990 and the use of gas against the Kurds. These excesses came in 
response to the maneuvers of Washington's armed diplomacy, which had mobilized 
sorcerer's apprentices among Shia and Kurds. They remain no less criminal 
excesses, and stupid, moreover, since the success of Washington's appeals was 
quite limited. But can anything else be expected from dictators like Saddam?

The force of the resistance to foreign occupation, unexpected under these 
conditions, might seem to bemiraculous. This is not the case, since the basic 
reality is that the Iraqi people as a whole (Arab and Kurd, Sunni and Shia) 
detest the occupiers and are familiar with its crimes on a daily basis 
(assassinations, bombings, massacres, torture). Given this a united front of 
national resistance (call it what you want) might even be imagined, proclaiming 
itself as such, posting the names, lists of organizations, and parties 
composing it and their common program. This, however, is not actually the case 
up to the present for all of the reasons described above, including the 
destruction of the social and political fabric caused by the Saddam 
dictatorship and the occupation. Regardless of the reasons, this weakness is a 
serious handicap, which makes it easier to divide the population, encourage 
opportunists, even so far as making them collaborators, and throw confusion 
over the objectives of the liberation.

Who will succeed in overcoming these handicaps? The communists should be well 
placed to do so. Already, militants who are present on the ground are 
separating themselves from the leaders of the Communist Party (the only ones 
known by the dominant media) who, confused and embarrassed, are attempting to 
give a semblance of legitimacy to their rallying to the collaborationist 
government, even pretending that they are adding to the effectiveness of armed 
resistance by such action! But, under the circumstances, many other political 
forces could make decisive initiatives in the direction of forming this front. 
It remains the case that, despite its weaknesses, the Iraqi people's resistance 
has already defeated (politically if not yet militarily) Washington's project. 
It is precisely this that worries the Atlanticists in the European Union, 
faithful allies of the United States. Today, they fear a U.S. defeat, because 
this would strengthen the capacity of the peoples of the South to force 
globalized transnational capital of the imperialist triad to respect the 
interests of the nations and peoples of Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

The Iraqi resistance has offered proposals that would make it possible to get 
out of the impasse and aid the United States to withdraw from the trap. It 
proposes:

   (1) formation of a transitional administrative authority set up with
the support of the UN Security Council;

   (2) the immediate cessation of resistance actions and military and
police interventions by occupying forces;

   (3) the departure of all foreign military and civilian authorities
within six months.

  The details of these proposals have been published in the prestigious
Arab review Al Moustaqbal al Arabi (January 2006), published in Beirut.

The absolute silence with which the European media oppose the dissemination of 
this message is a testament to the solidarity of the imperialist partners. 
Democratic and progressive European forces have the duty to dissociate 
themselves from this policy of the imperialist triad and support the proposals 
of the Iraqi resistance. To leave the Iraqi people to confront its opponent 
alone is not an acceptable option: it reinforces the dangerous idea that 
nothing can be expected from the West and its peoples, and consequently 
encourages the unacceptable--even criminal--excesses in the activities of some 
of the resistance movements.

The sooner the foreign occupation troops leave the country and the stronger the 
support by democratic forces in the world and in Europe for the Iraqi people, 
the greater will be the possibilities for a better future for this martyred 
people. The longer the occupation lasts, the more dismal will be the aftermath 
of its inevitable end.

PALESTINE

The Palestinian people have, since the Balfour Declaration during the First 
World War, been the victim of a colonization project by a foreign population, 
who reserve for them the fate of the "redskins," whether one acknowledges it or 
pretends to be ignorant of it. This project has always had the unconditional 
support of the dominant imperialist power in the region (yesterday Great 
Britain, today the United States), because the foreign state in the region 
formed by that project can only be the unconditional ally, in turn, of the 
interventions required to force the Arab Middle East to submit to the 
domination of imperialist capitalism.

This is an obvious fact for all the peoples of Africa and Asia. Consequently, 
on both continents, they are spontaneously united on the assertion and defense 
of the rights of the Palestinian people. In Europe, however, the "Palestinian 
question" causes division, produced by the confusions kept alive by Zionist 
ideology, which is frequently echoed favorably.

Today more than ever, in conjunction with the implementation of the U.S. 
"Greater Middle East project," the rights of the Palestinian people have been 
abolished. All the same, the PLO accepted the Oslo and Madrid plans and the 
roadmap drafted by Washington. It is Israel that has openly gone back on its 
agreement, and implemented an even more ambitious expansion plan. The PLO has 
been undermined as a result: public opinion can justly reproach it with having 
naively believed in the sincerity of its adversaries. The support provided by 
the occupation authorities to its Islamist adversary (Hamas), in the beginning, 
at least, and the spread of corrupt practices in the Palestinian administration 
(on which the fund donors--the World Bank, Europe, and the NGOs--are silent, if 
they are not party to it) had to lead to the Hamas electoral victory (it was 
predictable). This then became an additional pretext immediately put forward to 
justify unconditional alignment with Israeli policies no matter what they may 
be.

The Zionist colonial project has always been a threat, beyond Palestine, for 
neighboring Arab peoples. Its ambitions to annex the Egyptian Sinai and its 
effective annexation of the Syrian Golan are testimony to that. In the Greater 
Middle East project, a particular place is granted to Israel, to its regional 
monopoly of nuclear military equipment and its role as "indispensable partner" 
(under the fallacious pretext that Israel has technological expertise of which 
the Arab people are incapable. What an indispensable racism!).

It is not the intention here to offer analyses concerning the complex 
interactions between the resistance struggles against Zionist colonial 
expansion and the political conflicts and choices in Lebanon and Syria. The 
Baathist regimes in Syria have resisted, in their own way, the demands of the 
imperialist powers and Israel. That this resistance has also served to 
legitimize more questionable ambitions (control of Lebanon) is certainly not 
debatable. Moreover, Syria has carefully chosen the least dangerous allies in 
Lebanon. It is well known that the Lebanese Communist Party had organized 
resistance to the Israeli incursions in South Lebanon (diversion of water 
included). The Syrian, Lebanese, and Iranian authorities closely cooperated to 
destroy this dangerous base and replace it with Hezbollah. The assassination of 
Rafiq al-Harriri (a still unresolved case) obviously gave the imperialist 
powers (the United States in front, France behind) the opportunity to intervene 
with two objectives in mind: (1) force Damascus to align itself permanently 
with the vassal Arab states (Egypt and Saudi Arabia)--or, failing that, 
eliminate the vestiges of a deteriorated Baathist power; and (2) demolish what 
remains of the capability to resist Israeli incursions (by demanding the 
disarmament of Hezbollah). Rhetoric about democracy can be invoked within this 
context, if useful.

Today to accept the implementation of the Israeli project in progress is to 
ratify the abolition of the primary right of peoples: the right to exist. This 
is the supreme crime against humanity. The accusation of "anti-Semitism" 
addressed to those who reject this crime is only a means for appalling 
blackmail.

IRAN

It is not our intention here to develop the analyses called for by the Islamic 
Revolution. Was it, as it has been proclaimed to be among supporters of 
political Islam as well as among foreign observers, the declaration of and 
point of departure for a change that ultimately must seize the entire region, 
perhaps even the whole Muslim world, renamed for the occasion the umma (the 
"nation," which has never been)? Or was it a singular event, particularly 
because it was a unique combination of the interpretations of Shia Islam and 
the expression of Iranian nationalism?

>From the perspective of what interests us here, I will only make two 
observations. The first is that the regime of political Islam in Iran is not by 
nature incompatible with integration of the country into the globalized 
capitalist system such as it is, since the regime is based on liberal 
principles for managing the economy. The second is that the Iranian nation as 
such is a "strong nation," one whose major components, if not all, of both 
popular classes and ruling classes, do not accept the integration of their 
country into the globalized system in a dominated position. There is, of 
course, a contradiction between these two dimensions of the Iranian reality. 
The second one accounts for Teheran's foreign policy tendencies, which bear 
witness to the will to resist foreign diktats.

It is precisely because Iran forms a critical mass capable of attempting to 
assert itself as a respected partner that the United States has decided to 
destroy the country by a new preventive war. As is well known, the conflict is 
taking place around the nuclear capabilities that Iran is developing. Why 
should not this country, just like others, have the right to pursue these 
capabilities, up to and including becoming a nuclear military power? By what 
right can the imperialist powers and their Israeli accomplice boast about 
granting themselves a monopoly over weapons of mass destruction? Can one give 
any credit to the discourse that argues that "democratic" nations will never 
make use of such weapons like "rogue states" could, when it is common knowledge 
that the democratic nations in question are responsible for the greatest 
genocides of modern times, including the one against the Jews, and that the 
United States has already used atomic weapons and still today rejects an 
absolute and general ban on their use?

Conclusion

Today, political conflicts in the region find three groups of forces opposed to 
one another: those that proclaim their nationalist past (but are, in reality, 
nothing more than the degenerate and corrupt inheritors of the bureaucracies of 
the national-populist era); those that proclaim political Islam; and those that 
are attempting to organize around "democratic" demands that are compatible with 
economic liberalism. The consolidation of power by any of these forces is not 
acceptable to a left that is attentive to the interests of the popular 
classes.In fact, the interests of the comprador classes affiliated with the 
current imperialist system are expressed through these three tendencies. U.S. 
diplomacy keeps all three irons in the fire, since it is focused on using the 
conflicts among them for its exclusive benefit. For the left to attempt to 
become involved in these conflicts solely through alliances with one or another 
of the tendencies (preferring the regimes in place to avoid the worst, i.e., 
political Islam, or else seeking to be allied with the latter in order to get 
rid of the regimes) is doomed to fail*( * Tactical alliances arising from the 
concrete situation are another matter, e.g., the joint action of the Lebanese 
Communist Party with Hezbollah in resisting the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 
the summer of 2006.--Ed.). The left must assert itself by undertaking struggles 
in areas where it finds its natural place: defense of the economic and social 
interests of the popular classes, democracy, and assertion of national 
sovereignty, all conceptualized together as inseparable.

The region of the Greater Middle East is today central in the conflict between 
the imperialist leader and the peoples of the entire world. To defeat the 
Washington establishment's project is the condition for providing the 
possibility of success for advances in any region of the world. Failing that, 
all these advances will remain vulnerable in the extreme. That does not mean 
that the importance of struggles carried out in other regions of the world, in 
Europe or Latin America or elsewhere, should be underestimated. It means only 
that they should be part of a comprehensive perspective that contributes to 
defeating Washington in the region that it has chosen for its first criminal 
strike of this century.


[Samir Amin is director of the Third World Forum in Dakar, Senegal.
His recent books include The Liberal Virus (Monthly Review Press,
2004), A Life Looking Forward (Zed Books, 2007), and The World We Wish
to See: Revolutionary Objectives in the Twenty-First Century,
forthcoming from Monthly Review Press. James Membrez translated this
essay from the original French.]