Tariq Ali's Blog, page 11

Ação dos EUA na Síria quer atingir Irã, trará instabilidade e não ajudará povo, diz Tariq Ali

Folha – O que vai acontecer na Síria?

Tariq Ali - Os EUA estão determinados a ir à guerra para tentar mudar o governo. Não tem nada a ver com considerações humanitárias. Os principais aliados dos EUA na região –Israel,

Arábia Saudita, Catar e Turquia– estão pedindo uma intervenção norte-americana há 18 meses. Porque eles não acham que podem ganhar a guerra civil. Os EUA vão agir para que a guerra civil seja ganha pelos seus aliados, derrubando o regime.

Quais são as razões para a guerra?

A guerra é sobre o Irã, o Hizbullah, o Líbano. Sobre assegurar que os que eles apoiam ganhem na Síria. A guerra tem três objetivos: o Irã, destruir um regime que tem ajudado o Hizbullah e colocar no poder na Síria a Irmandade Muçulmana. Com isso, mudar o balanço de poder na região, afastando o poder do Irã.

Obama está, assim, ficando do mesmo lado da Al Qaeda?

Sim, claro. Os norte-americanos lutaram com a Al Qaeda contra os russos no Afeganistão. Usaram a Al Qaeda para derrotar [Slobodan] Milosevic na Bósnia. Agora estão usando a Al Qaeda novamente para derrotar o governo secular na Síria. Eles fazem o que é melhor de acordo com os seus interesses.

Como avaliar a reação da opinião pública a um eventual ataque? No Reino Unido houve protestos e o parlamento rejeitou a possibilidade da guerra. Nos EUA também há resistências.

Há uma porção grande de americanos, creio que 48%, que estão contra a guerra. A opinião pública europeia é contra a guerra. Obama sabe disso. Está tentando construir um argumento para a guerra falando em caso humanitário. Mas, basicamente, ele não é melhor do que [George W.] Bush. Houve mais continuidade com a administração Bush do que descontinuidade.

Como se pode prever o futuro de uma intervenção como essa?

Se Obama intervier, se bombardear a Síria e remover Assad do poder, haverá guerra e instabilidade naquela região por mais dez anos. Quem se beneficiará disso? O povo é que não.

E quem se beneficiará com essa guerra?

As companhias europeias que investem em petróleo, o complexo industrial militar dos EUA, os comerciantes de armas, especialmente dos EUA e da Europa.

Essa também é uma guerra sobre petróleo?

Guerras são sempre a respeito de recursos naturais. Mas essa não é exclusivamente uma guerra sobre petróleo. É parte da campanha que fazem os EUA, desde o fim da Guerra Fria, para remodelar o mundo de acordo com os seus interesses. Essa foi a razão por trás da invasão do Iraque e é isso que ocorre agora na Síria. É preciso lembrar que quando Bagdá caiu, o embaixador israelense nos EUA parabenizou o governo norte-americano, mas disse que o trabalho não tinha terminado: que era preciso ir a Damasco e a Teerã. Essencialmente é isso que está acontece agora. Depois da Síria, vão querer enfraquecer Teerã. Há 20 anos, os israelenses tentam, sem sucesso, destruir o Hizbullah. Acreditam que, sem a ajuda da Síria, eles podem ter êxito. Seja o que for, não haverá paz no Oriente Médio.

Ninguém pode frear o governo dos EUA?

O povo dos EUA pode, e o Congresso norte-americano pode tentar. Fora dos EUA o que se pode fazer é isolá-lo e fazer críticas. Ninguém pode desafiá-lo militarmente. Mas politicamente ele pode ser desafiado e isolado. Leia mais

Tariq Ali: What Is A Revolution?

Ever since the beginning of the Arab Spring there has been much talk of revolutions. Not from me. I’ve argued against the position that mass uprisings on their own constitute a revolution, i.e., a transfer of power from one social class (or even a layer) to another that leads to fundamental change. The actual size of the crowd is not a determinant—members of a crowd become a revolution only when they have, in their majority, a clear set of social and political aims. If they do not, they will always be outflanked by those who do, or by the state that will recapture lost ground very rapidly.

Egypt is the clearest example in recent years. No organs of autonomous power ever emerged. The Muslim Brotherhood, a conservative social force, one that belatedly joined the struggle to overthrow Mubarak, emerged as the strongest political player in the conflict and, as such, won the elections that followed. The Brotherhood’s factionalism, stupidity, and a desire to reassure both Washington and the local security apparatuses that it would be business as usual led it to make several strategic and tactical errors from its own point of view. New mass mobilizations erupted, even larger than those that had led to the toppling of Mubarak. Once again they were devoid of politics, seeing the army as their savior and, in many cases, applauding the military’s brutality against the Muslim Brothers. The result was obvious. The ancient régime is back in charge with mass support. If the original was not a revolution, the latter is hardly a counter-revolution. Simply the military reasserting its role in politics. It was they who decided to dump Mubarak and Morsi. Who will dump them? Another mass mobilization? I doubt it very much. Social movements incapable of developing an independent politics are fated to disappear.

In Libya, the old state was destroyed by NATO after a six-month bombing spree. Nearly two years later, armed tribal gangs of one sort or another still roam the country, demanding their share of the loot. Hardly a revolution according to any criteria. Read more

Tariq Ali discusses Syria on Democracy Now!

 

Speaking on Demoncracy Now!, Tariq Ali discusses the Syrian situation with Steven Clemons.

The Vassal’s Revolt

Rejoice. Rejoice. The first chain of vassaldom has been broken. They will repair it, no doubt, but let’s celebrate independence while it lasts. For the first time in fifty years, the House of Commons has voted against participating in an imperial war. Aware of the deep and sustained opposition inside the country and within the military establishment, members of parliament decided to represent the will of the people. The speeches of all three leaders were pretty pathetic. Neither the opposition amendment nor the war resolution could muster enough support. That’s all we needed. The thirty odd Tory dissidents who made British participation impossible by voting against their leadership deserve our thanks. Perhaps now the BBC will start reflecting popular opinion instead of acting as the voice of the warmongers.

Given Britain’s status abroad as Washington’s bloodshot adjutant, this vote will have a global resonance. In the United States itself the vote in London will increase the disquiet, evident already in off-the-record briefings to the press saying there is no hard evidence linking the regime to the chemical weapons attack. ‘What?’ American citizens will ask each other. ‘Our most loyal follower, deserting us just before the strikes?’ What does it all mean and shouldn’t we be debating the issue? Obama’s language in interviews yesterday was no different from that of Bush. He actually said that the reason for the planned assault was that these chemical weapons ‘might be used against the United States’. By whom? By al-Qaida etc. Excuse me. Aren’t they on your side in this particular conflict and isn’t the real aim of the strikes to strengthen one side against another in this ugly civil war? Read more

On Intervening in Syria

The aim of the ‘limited war’ as set out by the United States and its European vassals is simple. The Syrian regime was slowly re-establishing its control over the country against the opposition armed by the West and its tributary states in the region (Saudi Arabia and Qatar). This situation required correction. The opposition in this depressing civil war needed to be strengthened militarily and psychologically.

Since Obama had said chemical weapons were the ‘red line’, the weapons were bound to come into play. Cui prodest? as the Romans used to inquire. Who profits? Clearly, not the Syrian regime.

Several weeks ago, two journalists from Le Monde had already discovered chemical weapons. The question is: if they were used, who used them? The Obama administration and its camp followers would like us to believe that Assad permitted UN chemical weapons inspectors into Syria, and then marked their arrival by launching a chemical weapon assault against women and children, about fifteen kilometres away from the hotel where the inspectors were lodged. It simply does not make sense. Who carried out this atrocity?

In Iraq we know it was the US that used white phosphorus in Fallujah in 2004 (there were no red lines there except those drawn in Iraqi blood), so the justification is as murky as it was in previous wars. Read more

A suicide note to Trotsky that displayed political passions we should not forget

Tariq Ali discusses “The Last Words of Adolf Abramovich Joffe” as part of the Guardian’s “A Book That Changed Me” series.

A year and a half ago Lucio Magri, one of Italy’s most respected leftwing intellectuals, flew to Switzerland, entered a clinic and drank the fatal hemlock; in his case it meant swallowing a death pill. For a few days most of Italy was in shock. Suddenly Magri was everywhere. Parliament observed a minute’s silence, newspaper comment was broadly sympathetic, but his closest friends were unhappy. His wife had died after a long illness two years earlier, and had discouraged Magri from following suit, insisting that he finish his book on the fate of Italian communism. With The Tailor of Ulm completed and published, he decided to say farewell to life. The loss of his wife was the trigger, but there were other reasons. He no longer felt contemporary.

This series, A book that changed me, will run throughout August

Italian communism and those on its left had committed political suicide. A bankers’ clique governed the country, with the staunch backing of an octogenarian, ex-communist president, the left intelligentsia had collapsed – so what was the point of living? Most of his friends were unconvinced, even angry. They tried to talk him out of it, but Magri was unmoved. “To be true, simply true,” Stendhal once wrote, “that is the only thing that matters.” For Magri, truth meant taking his own life. He was neither the first nor the last to depart in this fashion.

It reminded me of a short pamphlet I had read over four decades ago. The Last Words of Adolf Abramovich Joffe (published by the Lanka Sama Samaja Party, Ceylon, 1950). It was a suicide note dated 16 November 1927, and addressed to Leon Trotsky. After completing it, Joffe, one of the most trusted of Soviet diplomats, put a pistol to his head and pressed the trigger. What struck me at the time was not so much the suicide itself but the human qualities on display, visible in the first few paragraphs: “Dear Leon Davidovich: All my life I have thought that the man of politics ought to know how to go away at the right time, as an actor quits the stage, and that it is better to go too soon than too late. Read more

Tariq Ali in conversation with Owen Jones

Tariq Ali in conversation with Owen Jones at the Stoke Newington Literary Festival 2013

Feeling Good

Mercifully, I was in South India for two events that showed the English at their worst: a long-delayed sporting triumph and the arrival of George Alexander Louis. So I missed the response to Andy Murray’s win at Wimbledon and the eruption that greeted the birth of yet another royal. Before these there was the ‘multicultural triumph’ of the Olympics, followed recently by the ‘illegal immigrant’ buses and non-white citizens being stopped at railway stations. Even the UKIP leader denounced this as not being ‘the British way’.

‘Feel-good’ moments never last long; underneath the decay continues. Amazon is permitted to destroy the bookshops while Google, Yahoo et al hand over encrypted lists of their users to the intelligence services. Much simpler than paying taxes. The assault on education; the continuing privatisation of the NHS; the never-ending propaganda directed against benefit claimants; the youth unemployment levels (much higher in the North than in the South-eastern bubble); the vassal status in relation to the United States (how could the NSA-GCHQ links come as a surprise?); a supine state television network under the control of frightened men and women, scared of their own shadows; an utterly debased House of Lords packed with cronies of the most dubious variety. Read more

The United States: The First and Last Global Empire

Tariq Ali delivers a lecture in memory of writer, journalist and film critic K. Ravindran (Chintha Ravi) at the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Hall Trichur Kerala India on July 7.

Tariq Ali interviewed on Asianet News

 

Tariq Ali appearing on Asianet News, interviewed by Sasi Kumar.