Blum’s Anti Empire Report: “Yatsenuk’s Delusions”; Cuba’s calvary, and other topics.

The Anti-Empire Report #136

Bill Blum (Via M. Bradley, fickr) [Click on images to expand.]

Murdering journalists … them and us

[dropcap]After Paris,[/dropcap] condemnation of religious fanaticism is at its height. I’d guess that even many progressives fantasize about wringing the necks of jihadists, bashing into their heads some thoughts about the intellect, about satire, humor, freedom of speech. We’re talking here, after all, about young men raised in France, not Saudi Arabia.

Where has all this Islamic fundamentalism come from in this modern age? Most of it comes – trained, armed, financed, indoctrinated – from Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria. During various periods from the 1970s to the present, these four countries had been the most secular, modern, educated, welfare states in the Middle East region. And what had happened to these secular, modern, educated, welfare states?

In the 1980s, the United States overthrew the Afghan government that was progressive, with full rights for women, believe it or not, leading to the creation of the Taliban and their taking power.

In the 2000s, the United States overthrew the Iraqi government, destroying not only the secular state, but the civilized state as well, leaving a failed state.

In 2011, the United States and its NATO military machine overthrew the secular Libyan government of Muammar Gaddafi, leaving behind a lawless state and unleashing many hundreds of jihadists and tons of weaponry across the Middle East.

And for the past few years the United States has been engaged in overthrowing the secular Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad. This, along with the US occupation of Iraq having triggered widespread Sunni-Shia warfare, led to the creation of The Islamic State (ISIL) with all its beheadings and other charming practices.

However, despite it all, the world was made safe for capitalism, imperialism, anti-communism, oil, Israel, and jihadists. God is Great!

Starting with the Cold War, and with the above interventions building upon that, we have 70 years of American foreign policy, without which – as Russian/American writer Andre Vltchek has observed – “almost all Muslim countries, including Iran, Egypt and Indonesia, would now most likely be socialist, under a group of very moderate and mostly secular leaders”. Even the ultra-oppressive Saudi Arabia – without Washington’s protection – would probably be a very different place.

On January 11, Paris was the site of a March of National Unity in honor of the magazine Charlie Hebdo, whose journalists had been assassinated by terrorists. The march was rather touching, but it was also an orgy of Western hypocrisy, with the French TV broadcasters and the assembled crowd extolling without end the NATO world’s reverence for journalists and freedom of speech; an ocean of signs declaring Je suis Charlie … Nous Sommes Tous Charlie; and flaunting giant pencils, as if pencils – not bombs, invasions, overthrows, torture, and drone attacks – have been the West’s weapons of choice in the Middle East during the past century.

Where has all this Islamic fundamentalism come from in this modern age? Most of it comes – trained, armed, financed, indoctrinated – from Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria.

No reference was made to the fact that the American military, in the course of its wars in recent decades in the Middle East and elsewhere, had been responsible for the deliberate deaths of dozens of journalists. In Iraq, among other incidents, see Wikileaks’ 2007 video of the cold-blooded murder of two Reuters journalists; the 2003 US air-to-surface missile attack on the offices of Al Jazeera in Baghdad that left three journalists dead and four wounded; and the American firing on Baghdad’s Hotel Palestine the same year that killed two foreign cameramen.

Moreover, on October 8, 2001, the second day of the US bombing of Afghanistan, the transmitters for the Taliban government’s Radio Shari were bombed and shortly after this the US bombed some 20 regional radio sites. US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld defended the targeting of these facilities, saying: “Naturally, they cannot be considered to be free media outlets. They are mouthpieces of the Taliban and those harboring terrorists.”

And in Yugoslavia, in 1999, during the infamous 78-day bombing of a country which posed no threat at all to the United States or any other country, state-owned Radio Television Serbia (RTS) was targeted because it was broadcasting things which the United States and NATO did not like (like how much horror the bombing was causing). The bombs took the lives of many of the station’s staff, and both legs of one of the survivors, which had to be amputated to free him from the wreckage.

I present here some views on Charlie Hebdo sent to me by a friend in Paris who has long had a close familiarity with the publication and its staff:

“On international politics Charlie Hebdo was neoconservative. It supported every single NATO intervention from Yugoslavia to the present. They were anti-Muslim, anti-Hamas (or any Palestinian organization), anti-Russian, anti-Cuban (with the exception of one cartoonist), anti-Hugo Chávez, anti-Iran, anti-Syria, pro-Pussy Riot, pro-Kiev … Do I need to continue?

“Strangely enough, the magazine was considered to be ‘leftist’. It’s difficult for me to criticize them now because they weren’t ‘bad people’, just a bunch of funny cartoonists, yes, but intellectual freewheelers without any particular agenda and who actually didn’t give a fuck about any form of ‘correctness’ – political, religious, or whatever; just having fun and trying to sell a ‘subversive’ magazine (with the notable exception of the former editor, Philippe Val, who is, I think, a true-blooded neocon).”

Dumb and Dumber

Remember Arseniy Yatsenuk? The Ukrainian whom US State Department officials adopted as one of their own in early 2014 and guided into the position of Prime Minister so he could lead the Ukrainian Forces of Good against Russia in the new Cold War?

“Prime Minister” Yatsenyuk holding forth before the Atlantic Council. (Atlantic Council, via flickr)

In an interview on German television on January 7, 2015 Yatsenuk allowed the following words to cross his lips: “We all remember well the Soviet invasion of Ukraine and Germany. We will not allow that, and nobody has the right to rewrite the results of World War Two”.

The Ukrainian Forces of Good, it should be kept in mind, also include several neo-Nazis in high government positions and many more partaking in the fight against Ukrainian pro-Russians in the south-east of the country. Last June, Yatsenuk referred to these pro-Russians as “sub-humans” , directly equivalent to the Nazi term “untermenschen”.

So the next time you shake your head at some stupid remark made by a member of the US government, try to find some consolation in the thought that high American officials are not necessarily the dumbest, except of course in their choice of who is worthy of being one of the empire’s partners.

The type of rally held in Paris this month to condemn an act of terror by jihadists could as well have been held for the victims of Odessa in Ukraine last May. The same neo-Nazi types referred to above took time off from parading around with their swastika-like symbols and calling for the death of Russians, Communists and Jews, and burned down a trade-union building in Odessa, killing scores of people and sending hundreds to hospital; many of the victims were beaten or shot when they tried to flee the flames and smoke; ambulances were blocked from reaching the wounded … Try and find a single American mainstream media entity that has made even a slightly serious attempt to capture the horror. You would have to go to the Russian station in Washington, DC, RT.com, search “Odessa fire” for many stories, images and videos. Also see the Wikipedia entry on the 2 May 2014 Odessa clashes.

If the American people were forced to watch, listen, and read all the stories of neo-Nazi behavior in Ukraine the past few years, I think they – yes, even the American people and their less-than-intellectual Congressional representatives – would start to wonder why their government was so closely allied with such people. The United States may even go to war with Russia on the side of such people.

L’Occident n’est pas Charlie pour Odessa. Il n’y a pas de défilé à Paris pour Odessa.

Some thoughts about this thing called ideology

Norman Finkelstein, the fiery American critic of Israel, was interviewed recently by Paul Jay on The Real News Network. Finkelstein related how he had been a Maoist in his youth and had been devastated by the exposure and downfall of the Gang of Four in 1976 in China. “It came out there was just an awful lot of corruption. The people who we thought were absolutely selfless were very self-absorbed. And it was clear. The overthrow of the Gang of Four had huge popular support.”

Many other Maoists were torn apart by the event. “Everything was overthrown overnight, the whole Maoist system, which we thought [were] new socialist men, they all believed in putting self second, fighting self. And then overnight the whole thing was reversed.”

“You know, many people think it was McCarthy that destroyed the Communist Party,” Finkelstein continued. “That’s absolutely not true. You know, when you were a communist back then, you had the inner strength to withstand McCarthyism, because it was the cause. What destroyed the Communist Party was Khrushchev’s speech,” a reference to Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev’s 1956 exposure of the crimes of Joseph Stalin and his dictatorial rule.

Although I was old enough, and interested enough, to be influenced by the Chinese and Russian revolutions, I was not. I remained an admirer of capitalism and a good loyal anti-communist. It was the war in Vietnam that was my Gang of Four and my Nikita Khrushchev. Day after day during 1964 and early 1965 I followed the news carefully, catching up on the day’s statistics of American firepower, bombing sorties, and body counts. I was filled with patriotic pride at our massive power to shape history. Words like those of Winston Churchill, upon America’s entry into the Second World War, came easily to mind again – “England would live; Britain would live; the Commonwealth of Nations would live.” Then, one day – a day like any other day – it suddenly and inexplicably hit me. In those villages with the strange names there were people under those falling bombs, people running in total desperation from that god-awful machine-gun strafing.

This pattern took hold. The news reports would stir in me a self-righteous satisfaction that we were teaching those damn commies that they couldn’t get away with whatever it was they were trying to get away with. The very next moment I would be struck by a wave of repulsion at the horror of it all. Eventually, the repulsion won out over the patriotic pride, never to go back to where I had been; but dooming me to experience the despair of American foreign policy again and again, decade after decade.

The human brain is an amazing organ. It keeps working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 52 weeks a year, from before you leave the womb, right up until the day you find nationalism. And that day can come very early. Here’s a recent headline from the Washington Post: “In the United States the brainwashing starts in kindergarten.”

Oh, my mistake. It actually said “In N. Korea the brainwashing starts in kindergarten.”

Let Cuba Live! The Devil’s List of what the United States has done to Cuba

On May 31, 1999, a lawsuit for $181 billion in wrongful death, personal injury, and economic damages was filed in a Havana court against the government of the United States. It was subsequently filed with the United Nations. Since that time its fate is somewhat of a mystery.

The lawsuit covered the 40 years since the country’s 1959 revolution and described, in considerable detail taken from personal testimony of victims, US acts of aggression against Cuba; specifying, often by name, date, and particular circumstances, each person known to have been killed or seriously wounded. In all, 3,478 people were killed and an additional 2,099 seriously injured. (These figures do not include the many indirect victims of Washington’s economic pressures and blockade, which caused difficulties in obtaining medicine and food, in addition to creating other hardships.)

The case was, in legal terms, very narrowly drawn. It was for the wrongful death of individuals, on behalf of their survivors, and for personal injuries to those who survived serious wounds, on their own behalf. No unsuccessful American attacks were deemed relevant, and consequently there was no testimony regarding the many hundreds of unsuccessful assassination attempts against Cuban President Fidel Castro and other high officials, or even of bombings in which no one was killed or injured. Damages to crops, livestock, or the Cuban economy in general were also excluded, so there was no testimony about the introduction into the island of swine fever or tobacco mold.

However, those aspects of Washington’s chemical and biological warfare waged against Cuba that involved human victims were described in detail, most significantly the creation of an epidemic of hemorrhagic dengue fever in 1981, during which some 340,000 people were infected and 116,000 hospitalized; this in a country which had never before experienced a single case of the disease. In the end, 158 people, including 101 children, died. That only 158 people died, out of some 116,000 who were hospitalized, was an eloquent testimony to the remarkable Cuban public health sector.

The complaint describes the campaign of air and naval attacks against Cuba that commenced in October 1959, when US president Dwight Eisenhower approved a program that included bombings of sugar mills, the burning of sugar fields, machine-gun attacks on Havana, even on passenger trains.

Another section of the complaint described the armed terrorist groups, los bandidos, who ravaged the island for five years, from 1960 to 1965, when the last group was located and defeated. These bands terrorized small farmers, torturing and killing those considered (often erroneously) active supporters of the Revolution; men, women, and children. Several young volunteer literacy-campaign teachers were among the victims of the bandits.

There was also of course the notorious Bay of Pigs invasion, in April 1961. Although the entire incident lasted less than 72 hours, 176 Cubans were killed and 300 more wounded, 50 of them permanently disabled.

The complaint also described the unending campaign of major acts of sabotage and terrorism that included the bombing of ships and planes as well as stores and offices. The most horrific example of sabotage was of course the 1976 bombing of a Cubana airliner off Barbados in which all 73 people on board were killed. There were as well as the murder of Cuban diplomats and officials around the world, including one such murder on the streets of New York City in 1980. This campaign continued to the 1990s, with the murders of Cuban policemen, soldiers, and sailors in 1992 and 1994, and the 1997 hotel bombing campaign, which took the life of a foreigner; the bombing campaign was aimed at discouraging tourism and led to the sending of Cuban intelligence officers to the US in an attempt to put an end to the bombings; from their ranks rose the Cuban Five.

To the above can be added the many acts of financial extortion, violence and sabotage carried out by the United States and its agents in the 16 years since the lawsuit was filed. In sum total, the deep-seated injury and trauma inflicted upon on the Cuban people can be regarded as the island’s own 9-11.

Notes

US Department of the Army, Afghanistan, A Country Study (1986), pp.121, 128, 130, 223, 232
Counterpunch, January 10, 2015
Index on Censorship, the UK’s leading organization promoting freedom of expression, October 18, 2001
The Independent (London), April 24, 1999
“Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk talking to Pinar Atalay”, Tagesschau (Germany), January 7, 2015 (in Ukrainian with German voice-over)
CNN, June 15, 2014
See William Blum, West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir, chapter 3
Washington Post, January 17, 2015, page A6
William Blum, Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, chapter 30, for a capsule summary of Washington’s chemical and biological warfare against Havana.
For further information, see William Schaap, Covert Action Quarterly magazine (Washington, DC), Fall/Winter 1999, pp.26-29

Any part of this report may be disseminated without permission, provided attribution to William Blum as author and a link to this website are given.

What is $1 a month to support one of the greatest publications on the Left?

‘Iraqi Kurdistan’ – Western Fifth Column in the Middle East

ANDRE VLTCHEK
Roaming Correspondent

Mr Ali, a Syrian refugee.

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his report is dedicated to Serena Shim. Because both of us, had been covering an almost identical story. Because she is dead and I am still alive. Because she was brave. Because even as she was being threatened, and scared, she did not stop her dedicated quest for the truth, and as long as people like her live, work, struggle and die for our humanity, all is not lost, yet!

***

The weather is gloomy; it is drizzling and heavy fog is covering the entire countryside. After leaving Erbil, the capital of the Kurdish Autonomous Region of Iraq, large and small military as well as police checkpoints appear; like ghosts, on both sides and in the middle of an old, dilapidated motorway, which was built during Saddam Hussein’s years.

Erbil refineries.

There are huge Kurdish flags waving above the checkpoints. Small ones are attached to the bumpers of cars.

“We cannot slow down, unless the guards order us to stop”, explains my driver, as we pass by the mountains of sandbags and the aggressive black muzzles of machine guns. “They have orders to shoot without warning.”

We don’t stop, but I photograph whenever it is possible, even through the windshield.

We are driving on the road that leads straight to Mosul, the city that was taken by ISIS, or as it is known here, in Arabic, Da’ish, in June 2014.

My driver is scared. The entire region is tense and this time even the city of Erbil (also known as Arbil) has not been spared. On the 19th of November, a car bomb exploded in front of the Governor’s office, killing at least 6 people, and injuring dozens. Almost immediately, ISIS took responsibility, declaring their aim to spread insecurity in the Kurdish, which is pro-Western, enclave of northern Iraq.

As our car literally flies over the bumps and potholes, on the right-hand side of the road, stand huge oil-drilling installations and refineries that are barely visible, belonging to KAR, the Kurdish oil company. The flames of the refineries burn confidently, and there are countless tanker trucks with Turkish license plates, parked or driving all along the main and secondary roads.

We soon pass Kalak Town, also known as Khabat. This used to be a major checkpoint; this is where refugees from Mosul used to stream through into the Kurdish region, by the thousands daily, after the ISIS surprise offensive. There used to be posts of several UN agencies here, as well as staff from all sorts of NGO’s, spies from countless countries, and armed forces wearing different uniforms.

Iraqi Kurdistan is mainly geared towards the exploitation of natural resources and the neglect of its own people.

Now – there is just the road and some desperate makeshift fruit stalls. The road has been destroyed, broken, much the same as almost the entire country of Iraq has: battered, bleeding, and hopeless.

Soon after, there is a huge checkpoint, which ends with a wall made of concrete blocks. Now that is the end of the motorway. All around are antennas and watchtowers, SUVs and military vehicles.

“We cannot go any further”, says my driver. “ISIS is just a few kilometers away from here. Nobody can go any further.”

But I have everything arranged. A few minutes of talking, a few hot cups of tea, and from the post I go in further, in a Toyota Land Cruiser, driven personally by a Kurdish battalion commander of the Zeravani militarized police force (part of the Peshmerga armed forces), Colonel Shaukat.

We drive towards the massive concrete wall, and as we get very close, I realize that there is a small tunnel wide enough for military vehicles. We pass through it, and then the countryside opens up, becomes open and wide, and we speed towards the city of Mosul.

The road is totally empty and eerie. There are a few machine guns scattered leisurely around the cabin of the 4WD. There is one under my feet; I actually have to rest my shoe on it. Mechanically, I make sure that it is secured.

A few kilometers from the post, and there is a huge sand wall, then, a little bit further along, another one. The walls cut across 4 lanes of the motorway, leaving only one narrow passage.

“These used to be border lines between us and ISIS”, explains the colonel. “You can see how we are gradually pushing them further and further back, towards Mosul.”

War mementos dot the highway:

“This car blew up; exploded by a suicide bomber”, the colonel continues. “ISIS also detonated the tanker truck over there, as we were forcing them towards Mosul and the hills.”

And suddenly, the road ends. There is a river and a totally wrecked bridge.

“Khazer River!” the colonel gets emotional. “They –ISIS – were all over this area. They blew up the bridge… They destroyed my checkpoint, see over there?”

It all looks desperate around here, totally ruined. But there is a new military bridge, a metal one, just one lane wide. A few fighters approach us.

“We pushed ISIS from here” I am told again.

“How far is Mosul?” I ask.

“7 kilometers”, they say. “At most 10.”

I don’t think so. I have a navigation system in my phone, and it appears that we are at least 15 kilometers from the doomed city.

“And where is the nearest position of ISIS, now?”

The Kurdish military men take me to the provisory military bridge, and wave their hands towards the hills, SSW from our present position.

“They are there, on those hills. And they are still shelling us, day and night?”

“Mortars?” I wonder.

“Not those. Mortars would not make it that far. They are shooting artillery rounds – 155 calibers. They get that stuff from Iran.”

“Are you sure it comes from Iran?” I wonder.

“We are told…” I don’t ask by whom.

Next to the bridge there is Sharkan Village, totally empty, and de-populated.

The colonel comes back to me: “I will drive you through the villages”, he says. “We will make a detour. The US bombed ISIS into the ground, here, on the 9th of September. Then we attacked, and recaptured this territory. We lost some people… We lost Captain Rashid… We lost a soldier whom I knew – his name was Ahmad. ISIS also killed many Peshmerga troops. Several soldiers died because everything around here was mined.”

We drive straight to that mess: Sharkan Village, then Hassan Shami.

“This is the village of the former Minister of Defense”, the colonel tells me. “This used to be his house.”

Almost everything has been flattened, but the mosque stands. The bombs penetrated countless houses and there is debris all over the place.

“How many civilians died?” I ask instinctively.

“Not one”, I am told. “I swear! We provided great intelligence, so the US forces knew what to bomb.”

I wonder… House after house: all destroyed.

Soldiers of the Kurdish army keep emerging from the fog, as we drive through this desolated land. There are many different uniforms being worn here, but everyone salutes the colonel. Some even come up and kiss him.

No one lives in the villages, anymore. The villages were ‘liberated’, but destroyed. People were killed, or they escaped. Or maybe something else happened to the survivors: I do not ask because I know that I would not be told.

“Do you also plan to liberate Mosul?” I ask.

“We are not going to take Mosul”, says the colonel at one of the stops and consequent military gatherings. Others nod in agreement. “We have nothing to do with that city… We just want to recapture what is ours.”

As we drive back to the Khazer base, I am told that the ISIS contingent, fighting around here, is truly ‘international’. Recently, the Kurdish forces killed 3 Chechen fighters, 4 Afghanis, 2 Germans and 2 or 3 Lebanese.

I suddenly realize that the colonel speaks perfect English, something very unusual in this part of the world. And he only identifies himself with a single name.

“Colonel Shaukat”, I ask. “Where did you learn to speak English so well?”

He gives me a big and bright smile: “In the United States and in the UK. I spent 2 years in the UK and 14 years in the US, where I was trained. I was also trained in Austria…”

“Where exactly were you trained in the US?”

“In North Carolina”, he replies.

At the base, we sit on some rugs: with about ten Kurdish officers and me. Again, we drink tea. I pass my name cards, but the colonel only gives me his phone number: “No time for the internet, but come back, anytime! We like real war correspondents, here.”

I interview two doctors in Mosul, a long-distance call, as we drive back to Erbil; the mobile phones are still working:

“ISIS do not kill anymore”, I am told. “Those who had to die are already dead. Now you smoke, and they cut off your finger. You work during the time for prayer, and they punish you. They have killed Shia Muslims, Kurds, and Christians… They had their list of the people to murder… Now Mosul is screaming from pain: we are out of medicine, milk formula, pampers for children, food…”

***

In the evening I have a cup of tea with an old scientist, a nuclear physicist, called Ishmael Khalil, originally from Tikrit University, now a refugee. We are in the ancient tea-room in the center of Erbil. He speaks:

“All that I had was destroyed… Americans are the main reason for this insanity – for the total destruction of Iraq. Not just me, ask any child, and you will hear the same thing… We all used to belong to a great and proud nation. Now everything is fragmented, and ruined. We have nothing – all of us have become beggars and refugees in our own land.”

Machko Chai Khana is a true institution: an old, traditional tea-room carved into the walls of the ancient Citadel of Erbil. This is where many local thinkers and writers gather; where they sip tea and play cards.

Now local intellectuals rub shoulders with refugees arriving from all over Iraq, and from as far away as Syria.

“I used to teach and to create, I used to contribute to building my country. Then Iraq was invaded and destroyed. I can do nothing, now… I have nothing… Now I only sleep and eat. And that is exactly what the West wants – they want to destroy our minds!”

As he speaks, Professor Khalil browses through his smart phone, showing me photos of his university, of his office and his former students.

“I escaped five months ago, after my university was devastated by ISIS. And we all know who is behind them: the allies of the West: Saudi Arabia, Qatar and others… I often dream about my country, as it used to be, during Saddam Hussein. The infrastructure was excellent and people were wealthy. There was plenty of electricity, water… There was education and culture for all…”

***

Now the Autonomous Kurdish Region of Iraq (with Erbil as its capital) is trying to promote itself as relatively stable and increasingly prosperous, ‘unlike the rest of Iraq’. It has some of the greatest oil reserves in the world, and therefore attracts huge investments from the West. While the rest of Iraq is bathing in blood, decomposing economically and socially, this part of the country is ‘not allowed to collapse’, due to the strategic importance it has to the United States and Europe.

There are foreigners everywhere. As I find myself detained at a checkpoint, for an hour, just before the city of Kirkuk, allegedly for routine questioning and ‘for my own safety’, I see a convoy of several white government Toyota Land Cruisers speeding towards Erbil, with a Western man wearing sunglasses, sitting behind an enormous machine gun mounted on the back of the leading vehicle.

In a luxury hotel, the Rotana, I share an elevator with a British bloke walking barefoot, his filthy boots carried by a butler.

“I ruined my boots in the desert!” The Westerner confesses, smiling at his servant. “I teach people how to shoot, you know? Do you like shooting?”

“Oh yes, sir!” The man carrying the pair of dirty boots replies. He is most likely from Syria, a refugee. He is very eager to please. “I love shooting so much, sir!”

Foreigners are in control of oil production, they are ‘dealing with the military issues’, they run hotels, and they even work here as masseuses, waiters and domestic servants. Westerners are in charge of business, and there are Turks, Lebanese, Egyptians, Syrians, Indonesians, and people from the sub-continent, doing all sorts of managerial, skilled as well as menial jobs.

Turkey is investing heavily, and it has been building everything here, from shiny glass and steel office towers, to the brand new international airport on the outskirts of Erbil. It is Iraqi Kurdistan’s most important trading partner, followed by Israel and the United States.

Turkey, a staunch ally of the West and of Israel, is also deeply involved ‘politically’. Some of my academician friends in Istanbul actually claim that it is running almost the entire Iraqi Kurdistan.

Despite all that positive propaganda and hype that is being spread about Iraqi Kurdistan by the Western mass media, the place feels chaotic, even depressing. As any country or region of the world, which is under the total control of Western business and geopolitical interests, Iraqi Kurdistan is mainly geared towards the exploitation of natural resources and the neglect of its own people. While the income disparities are growing, there is very little done to improve the living standards of the impoverished, uneducated and deeply frustrated majority.

As a top manager (he is from an Arab country, and is afraid to reveal his identity on the record) of one of Erbil’s luxury hotels explained:

“We were young and ready for any adventure; we wanted to experience the world. And we were told: ‘grab the opportunity and come to Erbil! It is soon going to be another Dubai! But look at it now, after all these years: the people are very poor, and there is no infrastructure. Basically, there is no drainage and the electricity is constantly collapsing: we have blackouts for long hours every day, and all the hotels have to use their own generators. Can you imagine, a country with so much oil, but with constant blackouts? They want to be independent from Iraq, but they have ended up in the deadly embrace of the foreigners: Westerners, Turks and Israelis are running their country. It is perfect for the rich, for the elites. Only the rich and corrupt are benefiting from the way this country is structured. There is not a single solid factory here… I am just wondering what they going to eat after they run out of oil.”

I drive to the Erbil Refinery, belonging to KAR (a local oil conglomerate), located in Khabat district, at Kawrkosek town (also known as Kawergosk), just 40 km west of Erbil city. The army, police and paramilitary are everywhere, protecting the installations. There are Turkish tanker trucks parked all along the road. But as I drive just a few minutes further, up to a hill, the misery screams out loudly in my face.

I speak to Mr. Harki, whose house faces the refinery. He is indignant, like most of the common citizens:

“All this is for the rich… All this is for the corporations and nothing for the people. This oil company has taken our land. It said that we would get compensation: money, fuel, jobs… But until now, we have got nothing! I am very angry. Now my family is sick: we have respiratory problems, the air is just terrible.”

A few kilometers further, away from the motorway, the entire area is contaminated with garbage and filthy scrap yards. All types of fences, some even high-voltage ones, partition the land, just as in the rest of ‘Iraqi Kurdistan’.

In the town of Kawergosk, I see several Muslim women picking up some roots, right off the road, obviously in order to fill the stomachs of their families.

Not far from them, I spot a public elementary school. It is dilapidated, and extremely basic.

This Muslim community is obviously neglected, despite the nearby oil basins and refineries. No wonder: the pro-Western regime in Erbil is openly anti-Arab and pro-Western. President Barzani repeatedly speaks about the Eurasian character of his enclave, disputing that it has anything to do with an undesirable Middle-Eastern Arab character.

A school principal, erect, beautiful and proud, wears a headscarf. I dash into her office, and then slow down and apologize. I have only one question for her: ‘Do any of the proceeds from those oilfields and refineries outside, end up here, in her school, in the education sector’?

Her reply is as short and precise, as my question: “No, nothing! Our people and our schools get absolutely nothing!”

But the number of Kurdish millionaires is growing, as is the number of luxury limousines and SUVs, as are the flashy malls for the elites, as are the armies of arrogant security guards, local and imported.

Like in so many ‘client’ states of the West, in Iraqi Kurdistan it is uncertain whether all those men flashing their machine guns are actually protecting the country from terrorists, or whether they are guarding the elites from the impoverished masses.

***

Not far from the oilfields, there is a massive refugee camp; this one is for the Syrian exiles.

After negotiating entry, I manage to ask the director of the camp – Mr. Khawur Aref – how many refugees are sheltered here?

“14,000”, he replies. “And after it reaches 15,000, this place will become unmanageable.”

I wanted to know whether all the refugees housed here actually come from Syria?

“They are all from the northern part of Syria; from Kurdish Syria. Almost all of them are Kurds; we have very few Arabs.”

I am discouraged from interviewing people, but I manage to speak to several refugees anyway, including Mr. Ali and his family, who came from the Syrian city of Sham.

I want to know whether all new arrivals get interrogated? They do. Are they asked questions, about whether they are for or against the President Bashar al-Assad? Yes they are: everybody is asked these questions, and more… And if a person – a truly desperate, needy and hungry person – answers that he supports the government of Bashar al-Assad, and came here because his country was being destroyed by the West, then what would happen? His family would never be allowed to stay in the Iraqi Kurdistan.

Inside the magnificent Citadel, one of the longest inhabited places on Earth, and now a World Heritage Site, so designated by UNESCO, Mr. Sarhang, a curator at the impressive ‘Kurdish Textile Museum’, is as discontented with his country, as are almost all people in and around the city of Erbil:

“We are supposed to be safe, but just a few days ago, on the 19th of November, a bomb blast killed 6 people, just a few minutes walk from here. ISIS claimed responsibility. Now as you can see, nobody dares to walk around here, and the museum is empty. But that is not the only problem that we are facing. Look at the outskirts of Erbil: they are building brand new posh apartments for the local elites and for foreigners. A flat goes for around US$500,000! Who can pay that? Money that is made here is siphoned out, by foreigners and by our corrupt officials and businessmen. There is almost no public transportation here, and extremely bad infrastructure…”

Back in Machko Chai Khana, Professor Ishmaeal Khalil raises his voice, as the owner of tearoom blasts old tunes by the great Egyptian singer, Am Khalthom:

“Kurdish people are playing it both ways: they say one thing to the West, another to the Iraqi government. France, Germany, US – they are clearly betting on an ‘independent’ Kurdistan. The West wants to break Iraq, once and for all. They have already created a deep divide between the Shia and Sunnis, and they will go much further. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey – those are all close allies of the US and they are involved in the project. You speak against the plan – and you get killed.”

He suddenly stops talking and looks around. Then he changes the subject:

“Today, again, there is no electricity in Erbil.”

I recall some of the last words of the Kurdish Colonel Shaukat, uttered near the frontline with ISIS: “Our allies are the US, the UK, France, and other Western countries.”

As if to confirm his words, some 40 kilometers away, at the gates of Erbil International Airport, there are jets that have just come directly from Frankfurt, Vienna, Ankara, Istanbul and many other ‘friendly cities’: Lufthansa, Austrian Airlines, Turkish Airlines, also some unidentifiable 747s.

***

There is an increased nervousness in and around the city of Kirkuk, which sits on tremendous oil deposits, and which has been for several months now, governed by both the Kurds and the Iraqi government in Baghdad.

“Some anti-Western forces are operating there, right now”, I am told.

It appears that almost no one likes the government in Baghdad, and no one, except some Kurds in Iraqi Kurdistan likes Westerners.

It is no secret that ISIS was welcomed in Mosul and other places, by desperate citizens. But many, or most of the educated Iraqi citizens, see them as some sort of routine nightmare – an offshoot of the US and European client-movements, created and armed in order to destroy President’s al-Assad’s Syria.

People like Serena Shim, a Lebanese-American journalist who had been covering these horrendous events for Press TV, get intimidated. If they don’t stop working and telling the truth, they get liquidated, murdered – exactly as happened to her.

In the meantime, corrupt businessmen and local officials, but mainly foreigners, are stripping Iraqi Kurdistan naked, systematically.

And there is very little left in the rest of Iraq.

As has become extremely common, thieves and murderers are now calling themselves ‘liberators’ and good Samaritans.

Iraq is bleeding, but almost nothing of the truth has been allowed to penetrate the rest of the world, about the awful fate of this country once known as the cradle of our civilization.
∞

Professor Khalil

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Andre Vltchek is a novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. The result is his latest book: “Fighting Against Western Imperialism”. ‘Pluto’ published his discussion with Noam Chomsky: On Western Terrorism. His critically acclaimed political novel Point of No Return is re-edited and available. Oceania is his book on Western imperialism in the South Pacific. His provocative book about post-Suharto Indonesia and the market-fundamentalist model is called “Indonesia – The Archipelago of Fear”. His feature documentary, “Rwanda Gambit” is about Rwandan history and the plunder of DR Congo. After living for many years in Latin America and Oceania, Vltchek presently resides and works in East Asia and Africa. He can be reached through his website or his Twitter.

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Discovering Iran: a travelogue

Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich

Washington may indeed be too dumb to understand other nations, but then again its imperialist, greedy dynamic does not leave any space for an enlightened and fair policy. To behave decently is to unravel the empire and weaken capitalism.

n the 40C heat of an Iranian summer, many women push the boundaries, wearing loose hijab or sporting clothing authorities deem 'un-Islamic'. Photograph: Facebook

In the 40C heat of an Iranian summer, many women push the boundaries, wearing loose hijab or sporting clothing authorities deem ‘un-Islamic’. Photograph: Facebook

[dropcap]M[/dropcap]arcel Proust once said: “The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” During the past two decades, I visited Iran on numerous occasions staying 10-14 days at a time. This time around, I stayed for 2 months and heeding Proust, I carried with me a fresh pair of eyes. I discarded both my Western lenses as well as my Iranian lenses and observed with objective eyes. It was a formidable journey that left me breathless.

Part I – Women of the Islamic Republic of Iran
It is hard to know where to start a travel log and how to describe a newfound world in a few pages. However, given the West’s obsession (and the “Westernized” Iranians living abroad) to rescue Iranian women from their perceived “oppression” (while simultaneously imposing illegal and immoral sanctions on them!) perhaps it is appropriate to start with the women in Iran as I perceived them.

Western media with help from feminists and Iranians living outside of Iran portray Iranian women as being “oppressed” — foremost because women in Iran have to abide by an Islamic dress code – hijab. Yes, hijab is mandatory and women choose to either wear either a chador or to wear a scarf. But what is crucial to understand is the role chador played in pre 1979 versus the post Revolution era.

Prior to the 1979 Revolution, the chador was indicative of a thinly veiled caste system. While a few distinguished women of high socio-economical background chose to wear the chador, the rest, the majority of Iranian women, were simply born into the habit. In short, the socio-economically disadvantaged wore the pre 1979 chador. In those days, the chador was a hindrance to a woman’s progress; she was looked down at and frowned upon. She could not move forward or up. She was oppressed. But Western feminists were blind to this oppression. After all, the Shah was modern and America’s friendly dictator.

The Revolution changed the status quo and chipped away at the caste system. A revolution, by definition, is a complete change in the way people live and work. And so it is with the Iranian Revolution. The post 1979 chador is no longer an impediment to a woman’s future. Today’s Iranian woman, the same (formerly) less privileged class, has found freedom in their chador. They have been unshackled and they march on alongside their (formerly) more privileged colleagues. This emancipation is what the Western/Westernized feminists see as oppression.

I myself come from yesterday’s tiny minority of “privileged” women, far too comfortable in my “Western” skin to want to promote hijab, but I will not allow my personal preferences to diminish the value of the progress made because of hijab. The bleeding hearts from without should simply change their tainted lenses instead of trying to change the lives of others for Iranian women do not need to be rescued, they do not follow – they lead.

On two separate occasions I had the opportunity to sit and talk with a group of PhD students at Tehran University’s Global Studies Department. Frankly, these young women charmed me. Their inquisitive and sharp minds, their keen intellect, their vast knowledge, their fluent English, and their utter confidence dazzled me. Western feminists would consider them “oppressed”. Seems to me that feminism needs rescuing, not Iranian women.

The inordinate success of women goes vastly beyond education; they participate in every aspect of society — motherhood, arts and sciences, high tech, film and cinema, research, business, administration, politics, sports, armed forces, etc. Women’s prominent role in society is undeniable. What I found tantalizing was their role as cultural gatekeepers.

Women – The Cultural Warriors
Cultural imperialism is part and parcel of neocolonialism. The eradication of an indigenous culture and replacing it with a hegemonic one enables the hegemon to exert influence on the subject nation – to own it. And women are the nuclei. They hold the family together and pass on traditions. To this end, in every colonial adventure, regardless of geography, women have been the primary target (i.e. victims of rescue). Iran has been no different. While some have indeed abandoned their culture in order to embrace that of another, the vast majority have resisted and fought back with authentic Iranian tradition.

A young Iranian veiled woman stands in front of a mosque at the 18th Tehran International Book Fair, May 8, 2005. (photo by REUTERS/Morteza Nikoubazl)

One group of these cultural warriors left a deep impact on me. I attended a dance ensemble at the famous Roudaki Hall (Talar Roudaki). Girls aged 6 to 18 sent the packed hall into a thunderous applause when they danced to various traditional songs from around the country. Their dance was not MTV stuff. It reflected the beauty and the purity of an ancient culture. Their movements and gestures were not intended to be seductive, they were graceful and poetic ushering in the ancient past and bonding it with the present, strengthening it. These were the women of Iran who would guard Iran’s precious culture and traditions against modern, Western culture deemed central to ‘civilization’ and ‘freedom’ by Western feminists.

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]f and when the Iranian society decides to change its current laws (or maintain the status quo), it will do so without outside interference and on its own terms.

It is not my intention to give the false impression that every woman in Iran is happy, successful, and valued. Like any other society, Iran has its share of unhappy, depressed girls and women. It has its share of women who have been abused and betrayed. It has its share of girls and women who turn to drugs, prostitution, or both. I came across these as well. I also confirm that laws in Iran do not favor women, be it divorce, child custody, or inheritance. But if and when the Iranian society decides to change its current laws (or maintain the status quo), it will do so without outside interference and on its own terms. I have no doubt that any outside interference will receive a negative and opposite reaction.

Part II – Esprit de Corps Washington Just Doesn’t Get It

Numerous visitors have travelled to Iran and brought back reports describing the landscape, the food, the friendliness of the people, the impact of the sanctions, and so forth. For the most part, these reports have been accurate — albeit incomplete. I do not want to tire the reader by repeating my observations on these same topics; rather, I invite the reader to share my journey into the soul of the country – the spirit of the Iranian nation.

Washington’s missteps are, in part, due to the simple fact that Washington receives flawed intelligence on Iran and Iranians. This has been a long-standing pattern with Washington. Prior to the 1979 Revolution, a plethora of US personnel lived in Iran. Thousands of CIA agents were stationed there. Their task went beyond teaching torture techniques to the Shah’s secret police; they were, after all, spies. In addition to the military personnel that came in tow with the military equipment sold to the Shah by the U.S., there were official US personnel who worked at the American Embassy in Tehran. None got it.

They all failed miserably in their assessment of Iranians. These personnel were simply too busy enjoying a lavish lifestyle in Iran. As the aforementioned travellers have all repeated, Iran is beautiful, the food scrumptious, the people hospitable. These personnel attended lavish parties thrown by those close to the Shah (or other affluent Iranians) and lived the kind of life they could not have dreamt of elsewhere. American ambassadors doled out visas to the lazy kids of these same families who would not have otherwise been able to make it to the US under normal student visa requirements. These same Iranian people, the privileged elite, provided Americans in Iran with intelligence – inaccurate, flawed information which was passed onto Washington. To this end, Washington believed Iran would remain a client state for the unforeseen future. The success of the revolution was a slap in the face.

For the past several decades, Washington has continued to act on flawed intelligence. Today, Washington relies on the “expertise” of some in the Iranian Diaspora who have not visited Iran once since the revolution. In addition to the “Iran experts”, Washington has found itself other sources of ‘intelligence’, foremost; the Mojahedeen Khalg (MEK) terrorist cult who feed Washington information provided them by Israel. Previous to this assignment, the cult was busy fighting alongside Saddam Hossein. Is it any surprise that Washington is clueless on Iran. What Washington can’t fathom is the source of Iran’s strength, its formidable resilience.

Thanks to its ‘experts’, and the personal experience of some visitors, Washington continues to believe that the Iranian people love America and they are waiting to be ‘rescued’ from their rulers. True – Iranians are generous, hospitable, and charming. They welcome visitors as guest regardless of their country or origin. This is part and parcel of their culture. They also believe a guest is a ‘blessing from God’ — mehmoon barekate khodast. Karime khodast. But they are not waiting for. This is what Washington is not able to grasp. Washington to rid them of their rulers – quiet the contrary.

While the Iranian people love people of all nationalities, including Americans, they see Washington for what it is. Washington and its policies have adversely affected virtually every single family in Iran for the past several decades. These include those whose dreams and hopes were shattered by the CIA orchestrated coup against their nascent democracy and its popular leader, Mossadegh, later, parents whose children were arrested, brutally tortured, killed or simply disappeared at the hands of the Shah’s CIA/Mossad trained secret police. And then there are the millions of war widows or orphans, the maimed soldiers, and the victims of chemical weapons supplied to Saddam Hossein by America to use against Iranians while the UN closed its eyes. Additionally, there are also the victims of American sponsored terrorism, including kosher terrorism – sanctions. Millions of Iranians have first hand experience of all that has been plagued upon them by Washington.

It is these victims, their families and acquaintances that fight for Iran’s sovereignty, that are the guardians of this proud nation. They are the source of Iran’s strength. They are not simply citizens of Iran, they have a stake in it. Victor Hugo once said: “No army can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has come.” There simply is no army on earth which can occupy, by proxy or otherwise, the land the people have come to believe belongs to them not by virtue of birth, but because they have fought for it, died for it, kept it from harm.

I met many such families; one in particular was more memorable. During the Shah’s regime, this family worked on my father’s farm. The father and his sons worked the farm and the mother helped around the house. In those days, this family and future generations would have simply continued to work on the farm, remain uneducated with no future prospects. But the revolution rescued them.

The boys in the family all went to war. One uncle lost his life to chemical warfare. The rest survived – and thrived. They got themselves free education provided by the government America wants to dislodge. One of these boys, the man I met after some 35 years, Kazem, once condemned to be a ‘peasant’, had become a successful businessman. I spent hours talking to the family and to Kazem in particular. What impressed me was not just his affluence and his success in business, but the wisdom that only comes with age, and yet he had acquired in youth. He had intellect and dignity. A gentleman, I found his knowledge of internal and global affairs to be far superior to the average “Westernized” person living in Tehran (or outside Iran). He had experienced war, seen death. Iran belonged to him. He would fight for it over and over and die for it.

This is the Iran the Diaspora has left behind, the Iran that is unknown to them. This is a far superior country than the one I left behind as a child and visited throughout the years. Iran’s guardians, its keepers, are all Kazems. It has been said that the strength of an army is the support of the people behind it. The whole country is that army. This is what Washington is not able to grasp. As Khalil Gibran rightly observed: “Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.” With every wrong policy, America adds to the scars, strengthens the character and spirit of this unbreakable nation. This is what Washington is not able to grasp.

•

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From Pol Pot to ISIS: “Anything that flies on everything that moves”

In his latest essay, John Pilger evokes the US bombing of Cambodia in the 1970s, which gave rise to Pol Pot and the genocidal Khmer Rouge, in examining the rise of the equally fanatical ISIS in Iraq and Syria, the role of Western governments, and the urgent need for solutions that include a truce in Syria, and justice for the Palestinians.

Imperialism and Iraq: Lessons from the past

Part One

Col. Lawrence in Arab garb. He felt a true affinity for the Arab tribesmen he encountered.

By Jean Shaoul , wsws.org
(Originally published 29 May 2003) | (Reposted by reader request)

[A]nyone looking at the events today in Iraq cannot but be struck at the obvious parallels with what happened there in the first half of the twentieth century.

The roll call of imperialist powers with an interest in the region was similar, but the dominant imperialist power at that time was Britain not the United States. British armed forces invaded Mesopotamia, as Iraq was then known, in 1914 with promises of freedom—from the Turks. But the promises were just for public consumption. Behind the rhetoric lay, as ever, material interests—oil. Like the US today, the British vigorously denied any such motive.

The Hollywood blockbuster Lawrence of Arabia only timidly suggested that Lawrence’s quest for an independent Arab nation had been betrayed. The British were presented as the civilized liberators of Arabia from a backward and brutal master. (Peter O’Toole won an award for his portrayal of Lawrence.)

The military odds enjoyed by the British army were also just as favourable. And after a war to “liberate the Arabs” from Turkish control, came not freedom, but a British occupation.

Then too, horrific aerial bombing marked the occupation. Then too, there was a series of sordid deals between the imperial powers—the US, Britain, France and Italy—over how the spoils of war should be divided up as Britain sought to steal a march on its so-called allies, with the League of Nations (forerunner of the United Nations) shamelessly endorsing the carve up.

More importantly, defence of its oil interests meant British rule over Iraq in all but name—under a League of Nations Mandate until 1932, and later as the power behind the throne, with the Iraqi people bearing the financial burden of Britain’s war, occupation and rule.

British rule finally ended in 1958, when massive street demonstrations threatened to get out of control, and the army stepped in, overthrew the monarchy, seized power and took action to gain control of Iraq’s oil.

It is instructive to examine this earlier period and the role the imperialist powers played in shaping the political, economic and social conditions in Iraq. While all the powers sought to control the oil resources of the Middle East, it was only after the deaths of millions of workers in the first imperialist world war and countless acts of skullduggery that the British were able to establish their hegemony.

Such an analysis confirms that far from liberation and any progressive future, the US occupation of Iraq in the aftermath of the most recent Gulf war bodes only the return to direct rule and control of country’s oil resources by imperialism—this time by the US with Britain as its junior partner.

Imperialist interests in Mesopotamia before World War I

The first imperialist power to establish itself in the Middle East was Britain. Its initial connection with the region was the result of its interest in protecting the route to India and Indian trade. To this end, British naval forces mounted repeated attacks on the Arabian coast and by the 1840s established colonial possessions in the Persian Gulf and Aden. Britain’s domination of the coast opened up the hinterland to Western imperialism.

Mesopotamia, as the three vilayets or provinces of Basra, Baghdad and the predominantly Kurdish Mosul that make up modern day Iraq were then known, had been the easternmost part of the Ottoman Empire for several centuries. A backward rural economy, many of its peoples were semi-nomadic. By the end of the nineteenth century, the opening of the Suez Canal and the development of river transport by the British had led to Mesopotamia’s increasing integration into the wider capitalist economy. The Basra province became ever more important for the export of cereals and cotton to Manchester and Bombay.

At the same time, there was an increasing interest in the region’s oil resources. While it had been known for thousands of years that certain areas in Mesopotamia and Persia, as Iran was then known, contained oil springs and seepages, apart from primitive local uses there was no developed industry.

European interest in exploiting Mesopotamian and Persian oil commercially began in the last quarter of the nineteenth century when capital began to flow into the region. Permission for numerous explorations was sought from Constantinople, often under cover of archaeological excavations. The Anglo-Persian Oil Company discovered the first commercially exploitable oil in southern Persia in 1908.

While British and Indian trade dominated the region, accounting for 75 percent of the total, German capital began to pour into Mesopotamia—particularly after Germany won the concession to build the railway from Turkey to Baghdad in 1903. Since the intention was to carry it on to Basra and Kuwait, this would have created a direct link between the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf and posed a strategic threat to Britain’s position in India.

The railway took on an additional significance after the discovery of commercially exploitable oil in Persia, since the concession included exclusive rights over minerals in the 20 kilometres on either side of the track.

With the start in 1904 of the British Royal Navy’s conversion from coal to oil, which made transport both cheaper and faster, the government sought supplies that were nearer than the Gulf of Mexico and had a more long-term future. The British government’s advisors believed that since the exports from the main oil producers were set to decline, the oil majors would be in a position to dictate terms to the Royal Navy upon which the Empire depended. Over the next 20 years, government policy increasingly focused on the need to control both the sources and suppliers of Britain’s oil. The government therefore provided full diplomatic support to British nationals in their bids to secure oil concessions in Mesopotamia.

In 1911, an Anglo-German consortium (Royal Dutch Shell, the entrepreneur C. S. Gulbenkian, the (British) National Bank of Turkey and Deutsche Bank) secured an exclusive concession from Turkey to exploit all the oil within the empire’s borders. The Turkish Petroleum Company (TPC), as it soon became known, merged with Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC) in 1913, with the ownership shared between British, German, Dutch and Gulbenkian interests. In August 1914, after protracted negotiations, the British government took a majority shareholding in the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (the forerunner to BP, now Britain’s largest corporation) for £2.2 million, thereby gaining the oil rights to Mesopotamia as well and further strengthening its interests in the region.

At the same time, numerous other international groups had begun to seek oil concessions around Baghdad and Mosul. These commercial tensions played a crucial role in precipitating World War I at whose heart lay the division of Turkey’s eastern lands. As far as Britain was concerned, the fact that new sources of oil, a resource so vital to the Empire, lay outside its boundaries led to the inevitable conclusion that the Empire must be expanded.

Britain seizes control of Mesopotamia in World War I

Throughout most of the nineteenth century, British imperialism’s “Eastern Policy” had been based on propping up the bankrupt Ottoman Empire as a bulwark against Tsarist Russian expansionism. But when World War I broke out and Turkey joined the war on the side of Germany and Austria, British policy underwent a complete change.

Fearing that at Germany’s behest Turkey would hamper oil supplies and trade, the British authorities in India sent an expeditionary force to Basra to prevent Turkey from interfering with British interests in the Gulf, particularly its interests in the oil fields in southern Persia. This was to turn the Middle East into an important theatre of war. It became explicit policy to break up the Ottoman Empire and bring its Arab territories under British control.

After a series of ignominious defeats, it became clear that taking control of the Turkish territories was not going to be a walk over. So Britain entered into a series of cynical, fraudulent and mutually irreconcilable agreements designed to secure Turkey’s defeat and further her own commercial and territorial ambitions in the region.

First, Britain calculated that an Arab uprising would be invaluable in attacking and defeating the Turks from the south, and opening a route into Europe from the east, thereby breaking the bloody stalemate in the trenches in Flanders. Its initial contacts were with the Hashemites, a desert dynasty in Hejaz, now part of Saudi Arabia, which controlled the Muslim holy places of Mecca and Medina and sought to replace Ottoman rule with their own. Britain reasoned that such an alliance would prove useful in securing the loyalty of its Indian Muslim conscripts in the Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force whom it was using as cannon fodder in its war against Germany. The disastrous defeats at Gallipoli led the British to accept the conditions spelt out under the Damascus Protocol: British support for the Arabs in overthrowing Turkish rule in return for Arab independence for the territories now known as Syria, Lebanon, Israel/Palestine, Jordan, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. In 1915, they made an agreement with the Hashemite Sherif Hussein of Mecca, promising independence in return for their support against the Turks.

Secondly, at the same time as Britain was using the Arabs to further its aims, it was facing rival claims from her wartime allies, France and Russia, for control over the Ottoman Empire after the war and was forced to cut a deal with them. In May 1916, Britain signed the Tripartite Agreement, better known as the Sykes-Picot Agreement, according to which Russia would get Istanbul, the Bosphorus and parts of Armenia. France would take what is now Syria and Lebanon while Britain would take Baghdad, Basra and Trans-Jordan (Jordan). Britain evidently took her eye off the ball when she ceded part of the potentially oil-rich Mosul province to France, and spent the next period trying to bring Mosul into her own sphere of influence. Palestine would be separated from Syria and placed under an international administration and its ultimate fate would be decided at an international conference at the end of the war. Only in the most backward and impoverished part of the region, the Arab peninsula, would the Arabs be given independence.

Needless to say, the peoples affected by this disposition would have no say in deciding their future and the terms of the treaty were kept secret. After the Russian Revolution, when the Bolsheviks published the secret agreement to expose the imperialists’ conspiracies against the oppressed peoples of the region, Sherif Hussein demanded an explanation. But right up to the end of the war, the British and French promised full independence to the Arabs.

“The end that France and Great Britain have in pursuing in the East the war unloosed by German ambition is the complete and definite freeing of the peoples so long oppressed by the Turks and the establishment of national Governments and Administrations deriving their authority from the initiative and free choice of the indigenous population,” stated the joint Anglo-French declaration of November 7, 1918. “France and Great Britain have agreed to encourage and assist the establishment of indigenous Governments and Administrations…. And in the territories whose liberation they seek.”

Thirdly, in November 1917, Britain, intent on stealing a march over France and securing her own interests in the region by holding on to Palestine, made yet another commitment under the cynical subterfuge of humanitarian concerns for the Jews. It issued the deliberately vague Balfour Declaration, which “viewed with sympathy the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine”.

With the aid of the Arabs, the British were able to reverse their misfortunes and take Baghdad in March 1917, and later Jerusalem and Damascus, from the Turks. The Arab Revolt against the Turks, led by Faisal, the son of Sherif Hussein of Hejaz, was of strategic importance to the British. It tied down some 30,000 Turkish troops along the railway from Amman to Medina and prevented the Turko-German forces in Syria linking up with the Turkish garrison in Yemen.

Perfidious as ever, British military forces in Mesopotamia ignored the Armistice signed with Turkey at Mudros on October 30, 1918, and continued their march north, capturing the predominantly Kurdish province of Mosul a few days later. This was because it made little sense to keep the central and southern provinces of Mesopotamia without the oil rich northern province. Mosul was also important as an intermediate staging post on the route to the Russian controlled oil-rich Caspian and Caucasian states. Britain then expropriated the 25 percent German share in the Turkish Petroleum Company, which was planning to develop the oilfields.

Thus, by the end of 1918, British forces from Cairo had conquered Palestine and Syria and helped to drive the Turks out of the Hejaz. British forces from India had conquered Mesopotamia and brought Persia and Ibn Saud of Nejd in the Arabian Peninsula into Britain’s orbit. These forces pushed north through Persia to hold the Caucasus against the Turks, while another force moved north and fought the Red Army in support of “independence” for the White-controlled, oil-rich states Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia and Daghestan, until forced to withdraw in 1920.

Promises of liberation prove fraudulent

With the victors forming queues to take over the former Ottoman provinces and German and Austrian colonies in Africa and the Far East, the British were determined to hang onto their conquests in the Middle East to defend the trade routes to India and secure the region’s oil. They had set their sights firmly on keeping Palestine, the three provinces of Mesopotamia, renamed Iraq, ruling Kuwait from Iraq while maintaining their sphere of influence over Persia and the southern and western coasts of the Arabian peninsula. The Persian Gulf and Red Sea would thus become British lakes.

The central and southern provinces of Mesopotamia came under direct British rule from India and were administered under military law pending a peace settlement. Following the pattern set in India, the British turned to the old tribal leaders, whose influence had declined by the end of the nineteenth century, to collect the taxes and control the predominantly rural population in return for long term security of tenure. This only served to exacerbate landlordism, the impoverishment of the peasantry and the deep-seated hostility to the British occupation. They also cultivated the small but important minorities, particularly the Christians and the Jewish community that played a key financial role and whose relations with the British were to have important repercussions later with the rise of Zionist-Palestinian conflict.

The Kurds in the newly captured Mosul province took the British at their word and immediately set up an independent state that Britain spent nearly two years brutally suppressing with British and Indian troops. The Royal Air Force was sent in to bombard the guerrillas and Churchill, then Secretary of State for War, approved the use of poison gas.

Mosul was to be incorporated into the Iraqi state, abandoning the idea of Kurdish autonomy included in the Treaty of Sevres. In the words of one British official, “any idea of an Arab state is simply bloodstained fooling at present.”

But Britain’s plans to incorporate the Arab world into the Empire were repeatedly thwarted. Firstly, her wartime Allies, particularly the Americans, were determined to prevent her walking away with the lion’s share of the spoils. President Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points, issued in 1917 on the eve of the US entry into the war, were the price that Britain and France would have to pay for US support.

They signified a new world order in which America’s political and economic interests would predominate over those of the old imperial powers. There would be no secret diplomacy or annexations by the victors and former colonies must have the right to self-determination. But above all else, there would have to be an Open Door policy with respect to trade. That meant an end to exclusive rights to resources and trade. In the context of the Middle East and Iraq, what was at issue was the future of the oil concessions the British had extracted from the Turks. The British viewed Wilson’s policy as such a threat that they forbade the local publication of the Fourteen Points, which only appeared in Baghdad two years later.

READ PART 3 OF THIS SERIES HERE