By Joseph Kishore, wsws.org

A basic measure of the viability of a political and social system is the position of the youth. A society that holds out for the younger generation prospects that are worse than those held out to their parents and grandparents is a society that has ceased to progress and begun to regress—one that has lost any claim to historical legitimacy.

How does contemporary capitalism measure up to this standard? Five years after the economic collapse of 2008, young people have suffered a decline on a global level that in many ways is without historical precedent. By every measure—employment prospects, income, home ownership, indebtedness—conditions are far worse today than at any time since the 1930s. And there is no prospect of recovery.

This decline has the most far-reaching implications in the center of word capitalism, the United States. An article appearing in the Wall Street Journal over the weekend pointed to the impact of the jobs crisis in particular on what it called the “new lost generation.”

The Journal pointed to certain indices of the decline. The share of the population aged 16-24 in the US that is employed is 5.6 percentage points lower than it was before the crash, and has remained largely flat since 2008. The median weekly income of this group has fallen more than 5 percent since 2007, a product of both falling wages and declining hours.

“Little more than half [of young people] are working full time—compared with about 80 percent of the population at large—and 12 percent earn minimum wage or less,” the Journal noted.

The common experience for millions of young people is permanent economic insecurity. Many have moved back to live with their parents, lacking the financial resources to start a family or purchase a home.

College graduates leave school with a debt burden that is crippling both economically and psychologically. The banks and debt collectors suck up whatever income is left after outlays for basic necessities such as food, clothing and shelter. In households that carry student debt, the average amount of debt has tripled since 1989, to over $26,000.

Between 2000 and 2012, wages for recent college graduates fell by 8.0 percent, according to a recent study by the Economic Policy Institute, while wages for recent high school graduates have fallen a shocking 13 percent. The phenomenon of highly skilled graduates with advanced degrees working in low-wage, service-sector jobs has become commonplace.

These conditions are repeated in different forms on a global level. Europe, in particular, has seen a collapse in the living standards of the younger generation. Youth unemployment in the European Union stands at more than 23 percent, while in Spain it is 56.1 percent and in Greece 62.9 percent. There are 26 million young people in the “developed world” who are classified as not in employment, education or training (NEETS). Poverty and homelessness have become mass phenomena.

The political implications of these social transformations are far-reaching and are beginning to find more overt expression, and not only in relation to economic and social issues. The younger generation is “lost” not just in the sense that it has no future under capitalism, but also in the sense that it is increasingly “lost” to the ruling class and its political establishment. The forms through which the bourgeoisie seeks to maintain political control are losing their hold.

The enormous popular opposition to the war drive against Syria is one expression of this—an opposition that exists among all sections of the population, but is especially pronounced among younger and poorer Americans. The ruling class was caught off guard by the level of opposition. The lies and propaganda pumped out by the establishment media, and the “human rights” imperialism of the Democratic Party and its auxiliary organizations failed to shift popular opposition to another war based on lies.

The strongest support for National Security Agency (NSA) whistle-blower Edward Snowden has come from younger adults. By wide margins, young people in the US favor more spending on social programs, higher taxes on the wealthy and greater restrictions on corporations. A higher percentage has a favorable opinion of socialism than of capitalism—an extraordinary fact given that socialism cannot be mentioned in the establishment media except as a swear word.

These sentiments can be better understood if one considers the experiences of the younger generation. Those in their early 30s today would have graduated from high school around the turn of the century, contemporaneous with the theft of the 2000 elections, the coming to power of the Bush administration, the collapse of the dot-com bubble, and the launching of the “war on terror.” Their conscious political experience has been dominated by unending economic crisis, war, the dismantling of democratic rights, political gangsterism and corruption.

The election of Obama was a key experience. Those who are now in their early 20s may have voted for the first time in 2008, backing Obama in the hope of reversing the course of the Bush administration. The same year brought the 2008 financial collapse.

The past five years have demonstrated the impossibility of changing anything within the existing political system. Inequality has grown enormously. The stock market is booming, the Forbes 400 are richer than ever, yet the conditions for youth and workers are disastrous. War continues without end, and Obama has gone far beyond Bush in rendering the Bill of Rights a dead letter.

The more far-sighted representatives of the political establishment are worried about the implications for social stability and the preservation of their system. They look for some means of broadening their base of support. Identity politics has been adopted as an official part of bourgeois politics, utilizing the services of the pseudo-left representatives of the more privileged sections of the upper-middle class.

But the ruling class has nothing to offer the broad mass of the people. Its system, capitalism, has failed.

The historical bankruptcy of capitalism does not bring about its automatic collapse. Alienation from official politics does not itself produce a socialist revolution.

It is necessary for young people to make a serious study of the experiences through which they have passed and through which the working class as a whole has passed over the course of the 20th Century. Disappointment is increasingly turning into a more focused and determined opposition. This must be transformed into a conscious political struggle.

It is necessary to develop a probing critique of the existing society and draw the necessary political conclusions from this critique—that is, the need to build the revolutionary party of the working class to fight for socialism.

Joseph Kishore is a senior member of the Social Equality Party, publisher of wsws.org.

A Response to the 800 Pound Gorilla

by SHAMUS COOKE
Obama’s push for war in Syria seemed so deeply irrational, so crazed, that many people naturally asked, “Why is this happening?” And “who” wants it to happen? Few Americans actually believed that Nobel Peace Prizing winning Obama suddenly wanted to bomb Syria because “Assad gassed his own people” (especially when zero evidence was given to prove this).

Many commentators have correctly stated that geopolitics is a main motivation for Obama wanting to bomb Syria, acting as a gateway to Iran. Other commentators have also correctly discussed the specific economic (capitalistic) interests as a war motive. And others still have, again correctly, focused on the importance of Israel as a factor towards pushing for war in Syria and eventually Iran. All three answers are correct, and have an inter-dependence that is complicated and difficult to quantify, since much of the truth is hidden from public view.

Problems arise in analysis, however, when one of these issues is separated from the broader context, as was done in a recent article by Jean Bricmont and Diana Johnstone. Their article, “The People Against the 800 Pound Gorilla,” focuses on the importance of the U.S. Israeli lobby — “the 800 Pound Gorilla” — and its push for war, while minimizing or dismissing other crucial economic and political motives.

The article makes many excellent points, especially how the Israeli lobby in the U.S., American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), is fanatically pushing for war against Syria. Congress is also trying to be politically immune from ANY discussion about AIPAC activities, lest accusations of “anti-Semite” are indiscriminately flung at them.

The problem with the article, however, is that the authors elevate the Israeli gorilla to a weight class it doesn’t belong in; and in so doing the authors are forced to minimize the size of several other giant gorillas, whose combined weight overshadows the Israeli chimp.

One of the giant gorillas that the authors seek to shrink is the U.S. capitalist class. The following passage summarizes the author’s main point:

“People who think that capitalists want wars to make profits should spend time observing the board of directors of any big corporation: capitalists need stability, not chaos, and the recent wars only bring more chaos.”

This is, of course, true for many if not most U.S. corporations. The authors are also correct when they argue that the average writer who uses a capitalist-centered analysis to explain war wrongly “…sees capitalism as a unified actor issuing orders to obedient politicians on the basis of careful calculations.” The authors are correct that this type of clunky analysis lacks nuance and should be rejected.

But the authors also fail to give capitalism the nuance it deserves; they construct a capitalistic strawman so arid it spontaneously combusts.  For example, the authors limit the definition of capitalism to a sector-specific basis, mentioning specific types of capitalists that are blamed for pushing war and dismissing them as lesser gorillas than the Israeli lobby.

In naming corporate names the authors make some good points, but somehow skip over the 1,600 pound gorilla in the room — the big banks, the motor force of capitalism in the U.S. The authors might respond to this criticism by saying the banks were purposely omitted because they do not “directly benefit” from war and are, therefore, not at the forefront of advocating it.

This would be false. As the dominant corporate sector in U.S. capitalism, the banks are also the most internationalist in scope; the recent second quarter profits of U.S. banks were $42.2 billion (!), most of this money was made in overseas investing using cheap Federal Reserve printed dollars.

When there are overseas barriers to these types of profits, such as currency controls and other restrictions on foreign investment — as exist in Syria, Iran, and China — these nations are viewed as “enemies” by the banks who cheerlead their destruction. A submissive nation with an “open” economy is very good for the profits of U.S. corporations, and submissiveness is best taught by fear, i.e., the threat of military intervention.

Of course, the banks don’t act alone, but lead a pro-war coalition of corporations, such as the lesser gorillas the authors mention, like weapons manufacturers, the giant construction companies that “rebuild” a bombed nation, oil companies, and a gaggle of other companies — and there are many — who directly benefit from war profiteering; not to mention the fact that every U.S. multinational corporation has a stake in ensuring that their business is operating in a secure environment, with minimal chance of being nationalized by the host country. Corporations lobby via coalitions and through think tanks and other associations more effectively than they do as individual corporate sectors.

Thus, the U.S. pro-war coalition pushes U.S. foreign policy towards war, particularly against U.S.-capitalist hostile countries, with the AIPAC tail eagerly wagging behind — but not wagging the dog itself. It is this coalition of mega-corporations that the neoconservatives and other elite think tanks speak for when they endlessly discuss how to best project U.S. military power abroad.

These strategists — such as the Project For a New American Century — are the “vanguard” of American capitalism, and their geopolitical outlook is firmly rooted in the economic interests of the corporations that most benefit from overseas investing. This fanatic drive to maintain and expand the U.S. global empire of military bases — which help keep submissive nations in line — is a core ingredient to making the massive profits that are the motor force of U.S. capitalism.

Thus, this more abstract concept of “empire” was yet another 800 pound gorilla missing from the authors’ analysis, intertwined as it is to corporations whose interests are being expressed. And although the authors are correct when they say that U.S. capitalists would rather dominate foreign markets through the normal processes of trade, this peaceful kind of market domination has become more difficult as the U.S. has declined economically in relation to emerging economies like China, India, Brazil, etc. The U.S. military is consequently relied on to keep alliances together and opponents submissive, in addition to its more mundane function of keeping trade routes open and safe. This is why any empire in its declining phase — like the U.S. — is especially dangerous, as it logically falls back on its sharpest tool — bombing — no matter how ”illogical” these bombings may appear.

The international game of geopolitics mirrors the corporate competition for international markets.  With each country the U.S. dominates politically — through war — U.S. corporations profit as the primary lender, the primary military salesman, while also winning the tastiest natural resources “concessions,” and the biggest infrastructural contracts to build public works, not to mention many other privileges.

The authors also prematurely dismiss the role oil plays in U.S. foreign policy. It is not the individual oil companies that matter so much — as the authors suggest — but the role oil plays in broader geopolitics and as the motor of the U.S economy. Monopolizing this prized resource allows the U.S. massive deficit spending (war spending) via the “petro-dollar” trade, while ensuring that rival nations will be intimidated by the possibility of having the oil valve turned off. This is why the Middle East continues to be the prime objective for U.S. foreign policy. Of course, the giant oil corporations themselves play no small role in this process.

The authors also incorrectly minimize the ape of the military industrial complex (MIC), by arguing that the drawn-out military disasters of Afghanistan and Iraq have made the MIC gun shy, since “stupid wars” (as Obama put it) bring negative attention to the killing industry.

Yes, the military and its corporate parasites get better PR when “dumb wars” are avoided, but this superficial analysis ignores the “successful” bombing of Libya. It’s also not true, as the authors suggest, that the MIC only needs “the threat of war” — not actual war — to keep its profits high. Like any corporation, if the warehouses are full of inventory (bombs, in this case), then no new orders are needed, which of course drives down production and consequently profits.

To avoid the bad PR that “boots on the ground” brings, Obama has instead opted for illegal drone attacks, and Libya-style shock-and-awe bombing campaigns. Since a “no-boots-on-the-ground” policy makes classical regime change impossible, the U.S. foreign policy hawks seem to be shifting back to a balkanization policy (bomb and fragment) since the U.S. cannot tolerate strong independent nations anywhere which defend their own interests, though especially in the Middle East (Johnstone’s excellent book on the U.S.-NATO destruction of Yugoslavia, titled Fools Crusade, is a must-read on this policy). A country may be independent and strong — like Turkey and Israel — only if the nation is firmly welded behind U.S. economic and foreign policy.

Of course, the Israeli lobby, AIPAC, deserves a special place in any analysis of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, and the authors deserve credit for taking to task those who ignore this gorilla. But this primate expresses its power best as part of a coalition of pro-war powerhouses, not independently.

It’s true that AIPAC also has an independent power of politically influential lobbyists, with a limitless pocketbook — the nation of Israel —with which it can enact promises (bribes) of all kinds. And it’s true that Israel has a special place in U.S. geopolitics, essentially acting as a giant military base for U.S. foreign policy in the oil rich region.

But the bigger picture is that the infamous AIPAC lobbyists are connected in myriad ways to the banking industry, weapons manufacturers and other giant corporations, and therefore should be viewed as an important member of the pro-war coalition led by the big banks.

Ultimately, however, the U.S. empire existed before the nation of Israel was even born, and would continue if Israel no longer existed. Obama’s administration is not full of AIPAC lobbyists, but wealthy bankers.

The authors Bricmont and Johnstone deserve credit for bravely exposing the role of AIPAC in pushing the Syrian war drive, but by overstating AIPAC’s influence — while ignoring the power of the big banks and others — the real motive for war in U.S. foreign policy is shielded, protecting the super rich Americans who relentlessly warmonger for profit, and who are much more dangerous than the horde of lobbyists Israel sends into Congress.

Shamus Cooke is a social service worker and an elected officer of SEIU 503. He can be reached at shamuscooke@gmail.com

A Deconstruction (Part 2)

by MUSA al-GHARBI AND ST MCNEIL

Samantha Powers: “The White House has exhausted all non-military options”  Don’t be fooled by the skirts. Liars and accomplices of this criminal empire come in both genders.

In philosophy circles, bullshit is a technical term denoting a claim which is presented as “fact” although its veracity has not been established. The truth value of bullshit is largely irrelevant to its propagators. Bullshit is disseminated in the service of particular ends, typically opaque to the audience. There is no better description for the Obama Administration’s case for intervention in Syria.

What follows is the most direct and systematic refutation of the Administration’s case for war in Syria—deconstructing their justifications one by one. In order to accommodate its comprehensive nature, the essay will be published as a series of three pieces.  God willing, this information can be a wrench in the gears of the war machine:  print this essay and send it as a letter to your Congressmen, disperse these links across your social networks, deploy these arguments in debates one-on-one.  Resist.

If you missed it, read Part One in this series: ‘Flooding the Zone’ with Bullshit on Syria.

Justification #3: A Strike on Syria is Needed to Preserve US Credibility

The notion that a strike on Syria would “preserve US credibility” is severely undermined by its illegality and further damaged by Secretary of State John Kerry’s disingenuous promise future attacks will be “unbelievably small.”

In truth, it is Barack Obama’s credibility tottering on a red line—not that of the United States. And he put himself on this precipice with reckless language throughout the Syrian crisis.

Ego and reputation are not acceptable reasons to go to war.

Regrettably, as a nation, we don’t have much credibility to lose when it comes to weapons of mass destruction. Since the end of the World Wars, the United States has been among the primary actors to deploy these weapons—and on a scale others could scarcely imagine.

Consider the use of chemical agents Agent Orange and napalm during Vietnam, which killed not hundreds, but hundreds of thousands. To this day, Vietnamese are still plagued by birth defects and other health epidemicslinked to these American chemical weapons.

Washington once approved and supported another secular Arab dictator using chemical weapons: Saddam Hussein, then shaking hands with Donald Rumsfeld as a key point of stability in the Pentagon’s strategy, gassed Iran. The U.S. would later use depleted uranium shells and white phosphorous on Iraq during the Gulf Wars. The Pentagon only recently admitted to using these horrific chemical weapons,  which in terms of birth defects, cancer, and other long-term health outcomes were deadlier than the U.S. nuclear attacks on Japan.

And lest we forget, America’s top regional ally is an apartheid state  which exercises an unyielding disregard for international law. Israel, like Syria, is one of only a handful of nations which failed to ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention. The U.S. did not (re)act in the slightest when the Israel deployed chemical weapons in their 2006 invasion of Lebanon.

The international community, and in particular the Arab and Islamic worlds, are well-aware of these facts. After the euphoria of a post-Bush White House, the idea that our planet’s nations look to Washington for moral leadership in upholding humanitarian values is absurd.  Instead, as a result of decades of armed conflict, coups, invasions, and increasing drone strikes, there is widespread international skepticism of the U.S. and its intentions.  America’s credibility and standing around the world would be harmed much more by another unpopular, illegal, indefinite, and ill-fated campaign in the Middle East justified by sketchy intelligence on WMDs than by failing to follow through on words which should have never been spoken.

Do we really think people care more about consistency than hypocrisy?

Justification #4: The Strike on Syria Will Prevent Further Use and Proliferation of Chemical Weapons

On August 20, 2012, President Obama offered up the following fateful remark:

“We have been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus. That would change my equation.”

While social media erupted in red line jokes and bad math, please think about these “other players on the ground.” Most likely he was talking about and to the rebels. What, exactly, did Obama’s words about veiled promise of a strike mean to them?

Part of the problem with “red line” talk is that it creates moral hazards, possibly incentivizing “false flag attacks” where chemical weapons are used by the rebels but blamed on the government in the hopes of spurring Western intervention. The regime has repeatedly accused the rebels of attempting this.  We have previously explored evidence suggesting the rebels may have been behind the chemical attacks in April and August.  If they were, United States’ response in both cases would be tantamount to having rewarded the opposition for committing crimes against humanity—encouraging more frequent and more severe future episodes.

Let us side-step this concern momentarily in favor of another:

Al-Qaeda and its affiliates in Syria are desperately trying to get their hands on al-Asad’s vast chemical weapons stockpiles. It is likely that if the government infrastructure is severely weakened as a result of U.S. strikes, these agents would fall into the hands of al-Qaeda. In the aftermath of the Libya invasion, much of Moammar Gaddhafi’s chemical weapons arsenal was seized by militants during and after the NATO campaign (significantly, this included the delivery systems for deploying chemical weapons through artillery rounds, which is how sarin was deployed in Damascus, according to the White House account, perhaps proving the al-Qaeda-linked rebels do have the means to carry out the attack after all).  And despite the grave mismanagement of Gaddhafi’s arsenal, according to former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, the challenge of securing Syria’s chemical weapons would be ”100 times worse than what we dealt with in Libya.”

There is no way to secure Syria’s chemical weapons without “boots on the ground.”  In fact, according to Pentagon estimates, it would take more than 75,000 troops to neutralize these weapons. Such an operation would carry a high risk of allied casualties and mission-creep, would be extremely expensive, and would not enjoy a clear “exit strategy.”

Then there is the question of President al-Asad’s “red line.” He has been very clear from the beginning of the conflict that he would never use chemical weapons on his own people. However, he was also unambiguous in asserting that, in the event of direct foreign intervention, he would not hesitate to deploy them on invading and occupying forces.

Any way you slice it, U.S. intervention in Syria would make the proliferation and deployment of chemical weapons more, not less, likely.  Even the architect of the Obama Administration’s Syria war plan has stated that it was not designed for, and is not suitable for the objectives the White House has laid out. Which demands the question: is the U.S. primarily concerned with preventing the use or proliferation of chemical weapons?

On September 9th, Secretary Kerry said the U.S. strike could be canceled if al-Asad surrendered his chemical stockpiles within a week. The Russians and Syrians called the bluff: shortly after Kerry’s remarks, the regime agreed to relinquish its entire stockpile into international custody to be decommissioned, posthaste, potentially putting the Syrians ahead of America in chemical disarmament. Al-Asad further agreed to sign onto the Chemical Weapons Convention—something Benjamin Netanyahu won’t even joke about.

Considering that a military strike would dramatically increase the chances of chemical weapons being proliferated and deployed, why hasn’t the U.S. jumped at this deal? The United Nations did.

Instead, Secretary Kerry insisted his comment was “merely rhetorical” — a fancy way to say bullshit — and that he was not offering any serious policy proposal. Despite the option to achieve America’s supposed objective without violence, Kerry said he saw “no reason” to slow the war machine. Fortunately, the Senate disagreed and tabled the resolution on Syria. This forced the White House to take the proposal seriously: despite the President’s bluffs to the contrary, the War Powers Act does not negate the need for Congressional approval to start a war.

However, the Obama Administration’s bald determination to move forward with the attack despite the potential breakthrough speaks volumes about their intentions. Suddenly the emperor has no clothes.

Of course, it is likely that America will sabotage these disarmament negotiations in much the same way they continually interfere with a negotiated end to the broader crisis. And even if the agreement is successful, the Administration might rustle up another justification for war. After all, the U.S. deposed Gaddhafi even after he abandoned his nuclear program—in fact, sacrificing his nuclear arsenal likely made him an even more attractive target for regime change.

The plans to depose al-Asad have been in the works since 2004–they will not be abandoned so easily.

Sanity may prevail in this particular battle, but the war rages on. This is not the time to rest on one’s laurels, but to press one’s advantage. Perhaps the international community can leverage this moment into pushing America still further towards peace.

Justification #5: The Strike is Necessary to Push al-Asad to the Negotiating Table

Despite the ever-increasing financial, logistical, material and diplomatic assistance the U.S. and its allies have provided to sustain the rebellion over the last two years, the regime stands on the brink of a de facto victory.  It is thus reasonable to assume that had the U.S. not inserted itself into the crisis in Syria, it would have already been resolved.  Clearly, the big problem is al-Asad.

According to Secretary of State Kerry, the regime has refused to negotiate an end to the conflict because al-Asad assumes he can just “shoot his way out of this.” Military intervention is needed to “change Bashar’s calculus.”

Anyone who has followed President al-Asad’s rhetoric closely should know that he is much more willing to reach out to the opposition and to offer concessions when negotiating from a position of strength. As with any leader, when his back is to the wall, he is likely to dig in and become more rigid, more defiant, and more subversive. The US should know this by now, having just had their war plans deflated by al-Asad’s deft maneuvers. If certain international players wish for the Syrian President to resign, they would have been better offering guarantees and incentives rather than threats and coercion.

More importantly, it is simply false to claim that al-Asad has been unwilling to negotiate, or that his first instinct is to resort to force. While the security forces were brutally overzealous in attempting to maintain public order (a big factor in the protest movement’s initial growth), President al-Asad had initially hoped that he could reform his way out of the crisis—enacting >a number of significant measures which were met with wide popular support, including a new constitution which would have forced an end to his rule after one more presidential term. Since then, the government has dramatically reformed its security sector, subverting the loathed mukhabarat and prosecuting them if they step out of line or commit crimes against civilians.

As the crisis progressed, al-Asad has consistently endorsed, proposed, and complied with ceasefires. The primary reason these measures have failed is because the opposition’s “leadership” had no control over the disorganized militias. They can agree to ceasefires, but cannot get the rebel forces to comply; this remains the case.

Al-Asad has consistently been at the forefront of pushing for negotiations and dialogue, including recently calling on the BRICS nations to help end the bloodshed in Syria, because Western powers and their regional allies continue to exacerbate the violence. Looking at the casualties per month, there is a direct correlation between the rate of killings and the amount of arms, aid, and training being provided to the rebels.

The primary sticking point to negotiations remains the Syrian National Coalition’s insistence that al-Asad resign as a precondition to any settlement—a condition which is set in defiance of the Geneva Communique. While this insistence serves the geopolitical interests of the SNC’s patrons in the U.S. and the Gulf,  it does not reflect the will or interests of the Syrian people. Since the beginning of the protests, they have overwhelmingly and unambiguously sought a piecemeal, democratic, and then diplomatic solution to the crisis—not an armed revolution.

Why has the U.S. ignored these non-violent aspirations?

It is important to bear in mind that the armed opposition is not representative of the broader opposition movement. Among political forces, while Western media focuses primarily on the SNC, due primarily to their perceived friendliness to Western intentions, this group has never enjoyed legitimacy in Syria itself. They were and remain an expatriate movement stationed outside of Syria. In contrast, there are a number of indigenous civil opposition movements who have from the beginning rejected the armed struggle and continue to call for negotiations with the regime without preconditions. The most significant of these groups is the National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change (NCC).

In fact, despite the intransigence of the SNC, many of the armed militias have entering into direct negotiations with the regime and laying down their arms in exchange for amnesty and protection from the more malevolent rebel groups.

And even within the over-emphasized SNC, the issues of pressing for an advantage in negotiations through military means is a matter of contention. Shiekh Moaz al-Khatib (in)famously stated that there is no military solution to this conflict, calling upon the SNC to negotiate with the regime immediately, abandoning any preconditions. The fate of Syria, he argued, was far more important than the fate of one man.  Ultimately, the sheikh resigned in disgust from his post as president of the SNC, claiming that neither the opposition nor their international supporters were primarily concerned with saving Syria.

Rather than pushing anyone to the bargaining table, the U.S. strategy of “equalizing force” in Syria is likely to render a negotiated settlement impossible. It will do nothing to address the fact that the rebels have been hitherto unable to solidify into an interlocutor for the state capable of articulating a coherent vision or set of demands. It will do nothing to get the rebels to abandon their non-constructive precondition. Simultaneously, the strike will render the party that has been consistently eager to negotiate less willing and able to do so.

What the U.S. should be forcing peace by any diplomatic means necessary. That would be moral leadership. Working with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the EU, American freezing of arms, supplies, and training to the rebels would dramatically reduce civil strife in Syria just as diplomatic pressure keeps al-Asad at the negotiating table working through post-conflict reconciliation and, most likely, his early retirement.

Remember this as Samantha Power insists that the “White House has exhausted all non-military options” in Syria: the one thing they have never tried over the last two years is heeding the U.N.’s advice and working with the international community to de-escalate the conflict.  This does not seem to be on their agenda any time soon, either.

Musa al-Gharbi is a Research Fellow with the Southwest Initiative for the Study of Middle East Conflicts (SISMEC). He has a M.A. in philosophy from the University of Arizona. You can follow him on Twitter @Musa_alGharbi.

ST McNeil is an environmental convergence journalist. He is also a research assistant with the Institute of the Environment’s Strategic Environmental Research and Development grant, contributor and web editor of SISMEC, founder of Los Deportados multimedia hub, and a musician. You can follow him on Twitter @stmcneil.

Breaking From the Muslim Brotherhood
by REZA FIYOUZAT AND SHAMUS COOKE

When the Egyptian army first began its offensive against the Muslim Brotherhood many speculated that such an assault would likely be extended to the same revolutionaries who demanded — in massive demonstrations — that President Morsi be evicted from office.

There have been several signs that this has already begun, though most notably the government repression against striking workers at Suez Steel and the Scimitar Petroleum company, where the striking workers were accused of being influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood.

Two recent terrorist bombings in Cairo that targeted top government officials–as well as increased violence in the Sinai region — could portend a Syria scenario for Egypt, unless revolutionaries are able to assert themselves again with the intention of out maneuvering the Egyptian military and Muslim Brotherhood, saving Egypt in the process.

The power of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood (MB) has been weakened significantly, at least for the moment. The recent protests called by the MB after the break up of their sit-ins have been met with insufficient support in the streets, though especially from the broader population beyond the MB base.

A recent opinion poll showed that 67 percent of Egyptians approved of the brutal way that the MB sit-ins were broken up. The Brotherhood’s leadership is in jail, its rank and file fearful, and the much of the broader population apparently wants them out of public sight and mind.

The latest move by the military regime against the Brotherhood was an Egyptian judicial panel supporting the removal of the legal status of the organization as an NGO. This came in the aftermath of a bomb attack on a police station in central Cairo on Monday, September 2.

The still-chaotic happenings in Egypt make sense only in a broader context, requiring that we look back at recent events, at which point an understanding may emerge that can help shed light on what to do next.

Reducing politics to condemning violence explains very little, especially when one considers why most Egyptians didn’t feel the way the international community did about the internal battles raging in Egypt.  The revolutionary process in Egypt has been especially contradictory, requiring that a proper analysis untangle all of the political knots.

In 2011, the initial revolutionary wave of protests led to the removal — not the overthrow, but the removal by the military — of the dictator Mubarak. The social conditions that led to Mubarak’s downfall were a general sense of desperation about the conditions of daily life by the majority of the Egyptian people, most of them working class and poor, but including also the economically devastated middle classes.

The Egyptian people did not take to the streets with a clear platform that would address their abject misery. They thus expressed their frustration by denouncing their existing conditions in general terms. The complex system oppressing them thus became crystallized in the symbolic person of Mubarak — so the people in the streets demanded his removal. This, thought the masses, would address their many social-economic problems.

At this adolescent stage of the revolution anybody who had a large organization — and was out of power but wanted to be in power — could say, “YES! Mubarak should go, and our organization will do anything to make that happen.” The Brotherhood was such a group, and it used its vast organizational capabilities — in Egypt every mosque in every village is a de-facto organization — and belatedly joined the revolution under the “Mubarak must go!” slogan.

It was the youth section of the Brotherhood that forced their leadership to join the revolution, and after becoming “revolutionaries” the MB worked to limit the further deepening of the politics of the revolution, freezing the movement in its generalized, adolescent stage, which was too immature to question the regime behind Mubarak. “Islam is the answer” remained the MB’s slogan, which, after being put into government policy, offered Egyptians no answer at all.

After the fall of Mubarak, the MB hurried to join the regime that had propped up Mubarak — with all its policies, security apparatus linked to the U.S. government, with all its ties to the neoliberal agenda of the imperialists of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and western banks — in short, the MB completely immersed itself with the old regime, while slapping on a thick coat of Islamist veneer to make the surface seem “Islamic” to the MB rank and file. The rest of Egyptian society was completely ignored, revolution be damned.

Through a farce of an electoral system the MB joined the military regime — an alliance deemed necessary at the time by the ruling elites, though with clear internal contradictions — ensuring that the two maintained joint control while working to coerce the revolution into submission. All the while the broader social and economic discontent that led to the revolution would be — as it was under Mubarak — completely neglected, and even denied any legitimacy.

By most standards, real democracy is not merely having elections or some form of parliamentary rule. If any elected government refuses to govern in the interests of the population, it is by definition ”undemocratic.”

True democracy also involves the rights of the working class to organize and exact concessions from the employers and the elite in general, as well as to have a real say — through independent representative organizations — in the economic and political decisions that affect their lives. Based on these indicators, we can see that the political direction taken by the military-Muslim Brotherhood coalition was clearly anti-democratic, regardless of MB’s protestations to the contrary.

New independent labor unions started springing up immediately after the fall of Mubarak, quite naturally, as the working class saw the onset of the revolution as a perfect time to exercise their democratic rights to assert their power through the collective bargaining process for better working and living conditions. The number of these new unions began rising sharply as a result of the newly opened up political space.

Labor strikes and direct actions had been on an upward spiral for years preceding Mubarak’s fall: for example, in 2008 there was a general strike.  The Middle East Research and Information Project reports:

“Despite the limited capacity of [newly created independent unions] to mobilize at the national level, for the last two and a half years, workers have escalated the protest movement that began in the late 1990s. In the decade before Mubarak’s ouster well over 2 million workers participated in some 3,400 strikes and other collective actions. The total number of workers collective actions in 2011 was 1,400; in 2012 it reached 1,969. According to the Egyptian Center for Social Rights(ECESR), in the first quarter of 2013 there were 2,400 social and economic protests. At least half involved workers and publicly employed professionals — doctors, engineers and teachers.”

The MB government took a very clear stance against the demands of the resurgent labor movement that was trying to further open up the political and economic social dialogue, and gains some basic rights.

In fact, public pronouncements by the MB, the military and elite media outlets were unanimous in their characterization of the labor direct actions as petty and selfish, thereby de-legitimizing those demands and refusing to allow for any new rights for collective bargaining by workers.

MB members and spokespersons even went so far as to characterize such workers’ demands as “counter revolutionary.” In other words, the MB-military coalition arrogated to themselves the title of true revolutionaries while the very demands that fueled the revolution were now characterized as counter-revolutionary!

However, not all segments of the ruling elites were as overtly antagonistic to the working class economic demands. Some in the ruling coalition clearly recognized that they would not be able to stop the tide of workers raising their demands in such a revolutionary period. Therefore, they opted to choose to co-opt some of the labor union leaders by integrating them into the government.

The fundamental mistake made by the MB was joining the old regime during a revolutionary upsurge, the time that the wrath of the people had just found its public expression. Decades of bottled up resentment had now found a voice, and while Egyptians gave the MB some time to address it, revolutionary energy would not be so easily stifled.

Instead of tackling the crisis of youth unemployment in Egypt by revolutionary means, the MB ignored it, and overall unemployment has been rising from 9 percent in 2011 to 13 percent, with youth unemployment at 25 percent. The MB thought that they could take the helm of a revolution while taking zero revolutionary action to address the structural issues that gave rise to it. In fact, the MB worked hard to maintain those conditions.

It was inevitable, then, that a revolution on the scale of Egypt’s would not lie dormant in the face of such flagrant neglect. In fact, during the MB’s reign there was activity across all social strata, as Egyptians learned to use their new voice. Labor unions continued to strike, student groups and others continued to organize, and all the while the dignity that all these groups continued to demand was never granted. This process placed the revolutionary movement, once again, in direct opposition to the state apparatus, this time led by the MB.

Since the new face of the state had acquired a religious covering — on top of the old economic and political miseries still firmly in place — it was natural that the most vociferous oppositions would be directed against this newly added feature of the revamped dictatorship. Hence, the main demand of the massive June 30th-July 3rd demonstrations was for the ouster of the MB, personified by Morsi. The revolutionary energy re-found its focus and targeted a new obstacle to be overcome in its path towards social and economic dignity.

The fact that the military used the MB as the scapegoat and threw them out so swiftly, of course, creates a critical dilemma. The fight for political power in Egypt is now a three-sided brawl: the military, the MB, and the real revolutionaries, who are trying to express the broader population’s economic and social demands. In this power struggle, the forces of counterrevolution have two dogs in the fight: the military and the MB.

The fact that these two mongrels have gone from uneasy allies to savage enemies — even if temporarily — makes no difference as far as their political attitude towards the revolution goes. Their anti-revolutionary perspective is, of course, tied to their economic interests, which are existentially tied to the existing economic system, from which the overwhelming majority of Egyptians gain absolutely nothing but misery.

The military had to discard their MB short-term partnership because they saw that this partnership had not managed to halt the revolution, and that, in fact, the movement was finding more depth — digging deeper would be dangerous for the military. The military had to throw out the MB and then provoke them into reactive violence, which the MB did resort to via burning churches, killing a 100 plus police/military personnel, etc. This enabled and “justified” the generals’ unleashing massive military might to crush the MB, and if left unchecked, eventually the revolution.

It would be a crucial mistake to join the Muslim Brotherhood’s side in the ongoing fratricidal conflict between them and the military, as many liberal-minded people are doing. It’s of course natural to side with a group under attack from a stronger adversary, and it was perfectly acceptable to demand an immediate end to the military’s offensive. But to demand the return of Morsi to power is to place oneself on the wrong side of the barricades.

American liberals might be swayed by Juan Cole’s description of the Muslim Brotherhood, correctly labeling them as the Egyptian equivalent of the American Tea Party movement, a grouping that is on the political right of the Republican Party, and at times in conflict with the Republicans. Like the MB, the Tea Party relies on neo-liberal economics combined with religious fundamentalism.

“But even so,” some liberals may claim, “the Muslim Brotherhood was elected, and we must protect democracy.” But democracy also takes place in the streets, and the massive demonstrations that led to Morsi’s ouster were at least as large as the revolutionary demonstrations that ousted Mubarak, when no one questioned whether or not a revolution was afoot.

Furthermore, the demonstrations called by the Muslim Brotherhood did not find a broader echo beyond their rank and file: the only large demonstrations occurred in the Muslim Brotherhood stronghold of Nasser City and parts of Alexandria. Thus, the MB knew that their demand — the reinstatement of Morsi — could not be achieved by the current balance of forces; they purposely provoked a crisis to remain politically relevant, perhaps to use as a bargaining chip against the military. But the MB leadership underestimated the military’s audacity, and now the MB is facing decapitation.

The MB belatedly realized the politics of revolution; after the masses were ignored and even antagonized by the MB, the people refused to rally to their defense when the military attacked. The masses rallied instead to the side of the attackers, which, under the circumstances, seemed to many as the only way to keep the MB from retaining state power.

This is where some Egyptian revolutionaries stumbled. So eager were they to overcome the immediate obstacle of the Muslim Brotherhood that they gave unconditional support to the military to remove this obstacle for them. It seemed practical to overcome the revolution’s most immediate problem — the MB — by using another enemy of the revolution, the generals. But a policy of pragmatism isn’t suited for the complex issues that the revolution is facing.

The Egyptian left and labor movement failed to put forth a united, independent solution in the face of the July 3rd “popular coup” and the crisis provoked by the MB’s militant civil disobedience response. Some on the left even gave their public blessing and a blank check to the military to “deal with” the Brotherhood, akin to bringing a tiger into the home to deal with a rat infestation.

The military was thus allowed to take the initiative, and during times of crisis the will to act is a major ingredient for victory. The revolutionaries had a valid fear of the Muslim Brotherhood since they represent a major threat to the revolution, but now another foe of the revolution, the military, is stronger than it’s been in years, and has quickly regained its position as the revolution’s primary obstacle.

Overcoming obstacles is a constant feature of all revolutions. After overcoming the obstacles of Mubarak and Morsi, the revolution will seek to steamroll over the next hurdle in its path; the millions of people who demanded Morsi’s removal have not disappeared, nor have they been cowed into silence.

Many analysts view each obstacle as insurmountable and have thus declared the revolution dead after every stage. When Morsi was elected, the revolution was declared dead; and when the revolution flared by the millions to oust Morsi, the revolution was quickly declared dead again when the generals used terror against the Brotherhood.

But the current support for the military is inevitably temporary, since the demands that continue to fuel the revolution will soon become the focus. This is why the military is eager to put forth a new face to their regime in the form of another set of speedy elections or “national salvation government” that was cobbled together on July 3rd. The military itself remains incapable of directly confronting the revolution, whose is strength is growing.

But after each obstacle is overcome, the revolution deepens its analysis and strengthens its morale, since nothing fuels revolution like success. The July 3rd “popular coup” still resonates as a major victory of the revolution, regardless of the bloodshed that followed. Every time the people exert their power in the streets and win their demands, the revolution gains immense strength, since the power of the people is re-affirmed.

The ultimate goal of the revolution is resolving the fundamental social and economic issues that gave birth to it; these are the problems that prevent the majority of Egyptians from living a dignified life, while these same problems enrich a tiny minority of Egyptians — and foreigners — at the expense of everybody else. This is the focus that Egyptian revolutionaries must unite under, and it must be done soon.

Egyptians must unite around a set of necessary and revolutionary measures, such as the reversal of the privatization of public industries that have resulted in layoffs, lower wages, and factory closures; the end to all IMF and World Bank dictated policies — a demand that would include Egypt refusing to repay any more of the debts that Mubarak and his cronies racked up. A crucial demand is for a national jobs program to create new — and reinforce older — public works projects. Such a jobs program could be funded by re-nationalizing Egypt’s previously privatized public banks, such as the Bank of Alexandria that was sold to Italy in 2006.

Organizing around such concrete socio-economic issues takes away from the importance of whether or not one is a Muslim — or of what particular denomination — and focuses the struggle on the real class issues that underlie the revolution and continue to breathe life into it.

Such organizing will also help to put an abrupt end to the possibility of a prolonged civil war, which would benefit both sides of the counter-revolution by hiding the political issues that the Muslim Brotherhood and the generals refuse to address. A civil war — perhaps of the Syrian variety — would bolster the Muslim Brotherhood in that they would retain their cadre — and possibly new foreign fighters to wage jihad against the military. In such a scenario, the military would retain the allegiance of many Egyptians who simply want their safety protected.

The only way to prevent this is by directing the revolutionary energy towards solving the actual social problems of Egyptians, which would attract both the rank and file soldier and rank and file Muslim Brother. One of the original slogans of the revolution was: “They are eating pigeon and chicken, but we eat beans everyday.”

To prevent the possibility of a civil war between the Islamists and the military regime, the Egyptian revolutionaries must take the initiative. If the rank and file of the Nasserite Party, the Tamaroud movement, the April 6th movement, socialist and trade union groups, and others put forth a united set of demands to resolve the economic crisis by taking revolutionary action, the true voice of the revolution will have found a common platform, a potent expression, and the power of the generals and the Muslim Brotherhood will instantly be weakened, since the rank and file of both groups would be natural recruits and would most likely be drawn to such demands.

These concrete demands would finally expose the class regime behind Mubarak and Morsi, leading the people to eventually demand that the regime itself be targeted, resulting in a more conscious revolutionary movement that the military would be unable to control.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Shamus Cooke is a social service worker and an elected officer of SEIU 503. He can be reached at shamuscooke@gmail.com

Reza Fiyouzat can be reached at: rfiyouzat@yahoo.com