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The Militant (logo)
Vol. 80/No. 2 January 18, 2016
(lead article)
Washington war plans unravel
as conflicts surge in Middle East
Police in Diyarbakir, Turkey, attack Dec. 31 protest of thousands
against Turkish government's brutal assault on Kurdish population.
Several hundred thousand people have been displaced.
BY MAGGIE TROWE
The Barack Obama administration has suffered a series of setbacks in its
plans to forge a strategic bloc with Moscow and Tehran to bring about a
cease-fire in Syria, increase coordination of military moves against
Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, and bring stability to U.S. interests
in the region. Competing national interests have fueled growing
conflicts between Iran and Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Russia, and
stepped-up war moves by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan against
Kurds in the southeastern part of the country.
Plans are increasingly uncertain for a U.N.-sponsored Jan. 25
international conference to discuss steps toward forming a coalition
government in Syria.
At the same time, Washington continues to step up bombing and other
military moves in both Syria and Iraq.
Moscow and Tehran want to keep long-time ally Syrian dictator Bashar
al-Assad in power. Washington has no viable replacement it trusts among
opponents of Assad claiming to lead Syria’s Sunni majority. Zahran
Alloush, one of the most prominent Sunni militia leaders who has fought
both Assad’s regime and Islamic State and was expected to be one of the
opposition’s delegates to the U.N. conference, was killed in airstrikes
Dec. 25 by either Damascus or Moscow.
The Al Saud monarchy in Riyadh executed 47 prisoners Jan. 2, many by
beheadings. Included among them was Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, an imam who has
spoken out against the regime’s attacks on Shiites. The gruesome images
looked much like the brutal murders carried out by the reactionary
Islamic State in Syria.
The moves come as the regime has embarked on a radical austerity plan as
oil prices have plunged, wreaking havoc on the monarchy’s balance sheet.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei called for “divine revenge” against
Riyadh. Demonstrators in Tehran sacked and set fire to the Saudi
Embassy. In response, Riyadh broke diplomatic relations with the Iranian
government. Bahrain, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates also cut back
diplomatic ties.
The Saudi regime is locked in a prolonged proxy war against pro-Iranian
forces in Yemen.
Since Turkish fighter jets shot down a Russian warplane at Turkey’s
border with Syria Nov. 24, relations between the countries’ rulers
continue to deteriorate. Russian President Vladimir Putin called the
attack a “stab in the back” committed by “accomplices of terrorists.”
Moscow imposed a series of economic sanctions against Turkey.
Turkish assault on Kurds
Erdogan vowed Dec. 31 to continue the Turkish regime’s bloody assault on
the country’s oppressed Kurdish population in the southeast region and
bragged that Turkish forces killed 3,100 fighters of the Kurdistan
Workers Party (PKK) in 2015. Ankara launched a “synchronized war on
terror” in July, ostensibly aimed at both Islamic State and the PKK, but
in fact overwhelmingly targeting the Kurds.
Erdogan has sent bombers and thousands of Turkish troops with tanks to
put many Kurdish towns under siege, displacing hundreds of thousands of
civilians.
“People are dying in their own homes,” Nurettin Kurtay, a teacher in the
region’s Silopi district, told the New York Times. “Our schools and our
infrastructure has been destroyed. There is no difference between what
is going on here and next door in Iraq and Syria.”
Following World War I, the victorious imperialist rulers of France and
Britain, determined to prevent the establishment of an independent
Kurdistan as they dismantled the defeated Ottoman Empire, divided the
Kurds between Iran and the newly created countries of Turkey, Syria and
Iraq. Roughly half of the region’s 30 million Kurds live in Turkey today.
“There will be a Kurdistan reality in the next century,” Selahattin
Demirtas, leader of the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) in
Turkey, said Dec. 27. Erdogan branded the statement “treason” and called
for charges to be brought against him. The HDP is a threat to Erdogan
and his ruling Justice and Development Party because it has gained
support beyond the Kurdish population and surpassed the 10 percent
threshold to gain seats in the Turkish parliament in the last two
elections.
Kurdish fighters in Iraq and Syria are the only consistently effective
fighters against Islamic State, driving their forces out of sections of
the two countries.
Washington-backed Iraqi government forces, rebuilt after they crumbled
in the face of Islamic State assaults early last year, retook from IS
the city of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, Dec. 28. Their next
target is the key city of Mosul.
To accomplish this goal, however, is impossible without the aid of
Peshmerga forces from the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in northern
Iraq. “You cannot do Mosul without Peshmerga,” Iraqi Finance Minister
Hoshiyar Zebari, a Kurd, told Reuters Dec. 29.
Attacks on Muslims, mosques
As they step up war moves, Washington and other imperialist powers
sought to use the specter of Islamic State terror attacks during the
holiday season to justify increased military and police presence on city
streets and new restrictions on political rights. Amidst government
scapegoating and cries to limit immigration and rights of Muslims,
attacks on mosques increased across the country.
New York Police Commissioner William Bratton fielded 6,000 heavily armed
police officers around Times Square during the annual New Year’s Eve
celebration. Belgian authorities cancelled the annual holiday gathering
in Brussels entirely.
Cops in Pasadena, California, stationed armed cops and surveillance
cameras along the annual Rose Bowl football game parade route.
Officials in Munich, warning of terrorist threats Dec. 31, shut down
rail stations and deployed heavily armed cops throughout the city.
While liberal media have focused attention on calls by Republican
presidential candidates like Donald Trump and Ted Cruz to stop refugees
from Syria from coming to the U.S., the Obama administration has stepped
up attacks on travel by Muslims.
U.S. officials barred Pakistani-born British gym owner Mohammad Tariq
Mahmood and his family from boarding a flight from London to Los Angeles
Dec. 15 for a vacation at Disneyland. “They think every Muslim poses a
threat,” Mahmood told the press.
Two days later Ajmal Masroor, a British imam outspoken against Islamic
State terrorism, was prevented from boarding a flight at London’s
Heathrow Airport by a U.S. diplomatic official who refused to give any
explanation.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations reports a continued increase
in threats and assaults against Muslims and mosques across the country.
In Alameda, California, and elsewhere, a number of these attacks have
been met with broad solidarity and public protest (see article on page 3).
These attacks open the door to broader restrictions on political rights.
Department of Homeland Security officials say that beginning in 2016
they intend to deny U.S. citizens the ability to use state driver’s
licenses as proof of identity for air travel unless they are “enhanced”
with a Radio Frequency Identity chip in compliance with the 2005 Real ID
Act. The chip “will signal a secure system to pull up your biographic
and biometric data for the CBP [Customs and Border Protection] officer
as you approach the border inspection booth,” according to the Homeland
Security website.
People whose state governments do not issue such licenses will have to
produce a passport or other proof of identity or be turned away.
Related articles:
SWP campaigns against Washington’s war drive
Alameda, Calif., meeting protests attack on mosque
Vietnamese people, US anti-war fight stopped Washington’s war
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