The threat of wider wars in the Middle East and the responsibilities of socialists
By Frieda Afary
June 24, 2017 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Alliance of Middle East Socialists — On June fifth, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt suddenly cut off diplomatic and trade ties with Qatar and closed
their borders to it. The reason stated for this decision was Qatar’s
support for the Muslim Brotherhood movement as well as Qatar’s friendly
relations with the Iranian government. Donald Trump subsequently sent
out a tweet in which he took credit for this move: “So good to see the
Saudi Arabia visit with the king and 50 countries already paying off.”
Turkey immediately announced its support for Qatar and accelerated
legislation to send more troops to its military base in that
country. It also called on Saudi Arabia to end this crisis. The
Iranian government announced that its air space and land borders were
open to Qatar in order to prevent a blockade against it.
Subsequently, on June 11, the Iranian navy sent two battleships to
the coast of Oman.Analysts spoke of the possibility that the current proxy wars between Iran and Saudi Arabia would turn into a direct war. One Republican analyst, Ross Douthat, compared the situation in the Middle East to
Europe on the verge of World War I.The Trump administration has offered mixed messages concerning this crisis. Furthermore, the U.S. whose military base in Qatar has 10,000
American troops and acts as the center of U.S. operations in Syria,
Iraq and Afghanistan, is currently not willing to endanger its interests there. Thus on June 15, Qatar signed a $15 billion deal to buy F-15
fighter jets from the U.S. Two U.S. Navy warships also arrived in
Doha for a joint exercise with Qatar’s fleet.In order to restate some basic socialist anti-war principles, it is necessary to clarify some issues related to this crisis and two other important events that took place in the Middle East last week:1. The coming together of Qatar, Iran and Turkey against Saudi Arabia
and its allies, showed that coalitions now forming to compete with each
other are not strictly based on the Shi’a-Sunni divide. The alliances
currently confronting each other are fighting over the control of the
region, its capital, and aim to repress any movements for social
justice. Saudi Arabia and its allies count on the support which Donald Trump’s recent trip to the Middle East and a $110 billion U.S. arms
contract with Saudi Arabia has offered them. Iran and its allies are counting on support from Russia.
2. The June 7 simultaneous ISIS attacks on the Iranian parliament and Khomeini’s mausoleum in Tehran, which led to 17 deaths and 52 injuries and which took place a few day after ISIS attacked pedestrians on the
London Bridge, reveal that U.S., Russia and Iran’s military campaigns
against ISIS have not been able to stop this reactionary force or forces like it. The direct or indirect support of Iran, Russia, The U.S. and European nations for the Assad regime’s repression of the Syrian
revolution, and the strengthening of Shia Jihadi militias in Iraq, were important factors in the growth of Salafi-Jihadist forces such as
ISIS and Al Qaida. Some recent actions and words of the Trump
administration which express opposition to Bashar al-Assad do not and
cannot represent support for social justice struggles in Syria. Rather, these actions are aimed at eliminating ISIS and limiting the Iranian
government’s influence.3. The cooperation between U.S. military forces and the Kurdish Democratic Union Party in ousting ISIS from the city of Raqqa, does not mean that the U.S. will defend the Kurdish right to
self-determination. Last week, after Iraq’s Autonomous Kurdish Region announced that it had set a date for a referendum on Kurdish
independence, the U.S. did not support this planned referendum. The
Russian government which had claimed to support the Kurdish Democratic
Union Party (PYD) in Rojava, has started to use the word “terrorist”
to call the Kurdish PYD forces fighting ISIS in Raqqa.At this time, it is the responsibility of Middle Eastern socialists
not to fall into the trap of the nationalist and hate-mongering
propaganda of their states. Instead, we need to demonstrate that the
current changing alliances are an expression of the logic of capital, its racism, misogyny and homophobia. We need solidarity between labor
struggles, women’s emancipation struggles and those of oppressed
minorities, including oppressed sexual minorities, against this
destructive logic and for a humanist alternative.
