Obama, Romney and the real debate about US foreign policy

The US presidential election is fast approaching. When it comes to foreign policy – which was the topic of last Monday’s televised debate – voters face a poor choice in Obama v Romney on 6 November. The terms of debate are very narrow: there may be differences in timing or emphasis, but not in substance.

President Obama has mocked his Republican challenger Mitt Romney for having a foreign policy straight out of the 1980s (as well as economic policy from the 1920s and social policy from the 1950s). The jibe was prompted principally by the fact that Romney has described Russia as the principal challenger to the US. It focuses attention, quite reasonably, on Romney’s parochial ignorance of much in global affairs and his tendency to make gaffes.

But it is also an instance of Obama positioning himself as best-suited to offer leadership in the current period of US imperialism. The aim is to convey that Romney is stuck in the past, while Obama grasps what is needed to fight the ‘war on terror’. This narrow debate does not necessarily reflect American public opinion, as polling has repeatedly established domestic majorities believing the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were a mistake.

Continuity not change

Obama’s approach to world affairs is still largely stuck in the first decade of this century. There is far more continuity than change from the George W Bush era. The era that opened in the immediate aftermath of the 11 September 2001 terrorist atrocities – the War on Terror, more aptly characterised as a War of Terror – continues under different management.

Obama’s electoral victory in November 2008 was assisted by widespread popular approval for his anti-war stance over Iraq, but Obama-mania has long since dissipated – partly for domestic reasons, but also fuelled by a series of disappointments in US operations abroad.

As Seumas Milne wrote this week, ‘Whatever the personal views of the politician at the top, the US empire is a system, not a policy, underpinned by corporate and military interests.’ Washington is at the political centre of what is, in effect, a global empire. Barack Obama has made only minor modifications to the workings of that imperial system.

The ideology remains broadly the same: America is a champion of freedom and democracy, taking on ‘rogue states’ and ‘Islamist terror networks’, to liberate oppressed peoples in faraway lands. In such a climate, international law and respect for human rights are luxuries we can dispense with, while torture, rendition and targeted killing can all, at least obliquely, be justified.

Of course the real motivations – political and economic – were different to the fanciful rhetoric back in 2001. They remain different now. The US has sought to assert its superiority and strength in the Middle East and western Asia, areas of the globe that remain strategically important. The invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001 and the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 were decisive moments in a broader project.

The last decade or so of war has unfolded against a backdrop of long-term relative economic decline for the US. There is, also, the rise of potential economic and geopolitical threats, most importantly China. Washington relies heavily on military dominance to compensate for the shifting dynamics of the global economy. An iron fist enables it to punch harder.

The US massively outstrips other states on arms spending. It continues to maintain a network of military bases that helps ensure global military dominance, with a special focus on the Middle East.

Washington can also deploy the economic strength the US does still maintain through imposition of sanctions on troublesome states. The sanctions on Iran are currently having a brutal, destructive toll on ordinary people, not those running the country who are supposedly their targets. Sanctions, it should be remembered, can be a prelude to war not an alternative to it. The threat to Iran is ever-present.  

The development of targeted killing, or drone warfare, in the last few years – primarily an Obama-era phenomenon – enables the US to intervene in countries it hasn’t attacked, invaded or occupied. The aim is ‘control without occupation’, minimising the costs both financially and in terms of US troop fatalities. There has in fact been a geographical expansion of the war since Obama became president, with drone deployments in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.

The War on Terror

Since 2001, then, the US has asserted itself militarily in the hope this will compensate for declining economic status. Armed force is its greatest asset. US ‘foreign policy’ directly affects the populations of many countries, not just those like Iraq and Afghanistan which have endured direct occupation.

The post-2001 phase of US imperialism has had a number of elements. In addition to wars and occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq, there has been continued funding of Israel (as a loyal colonial-settler ally in the region); reliance on viciously repressive regimes like Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and (prior to the revolution) Mubarak’s Egypt; and threats or sanctions against countries, most notably Iran.

During the Obama era we have not only seen a huge increase in drone warfare, but also the use of direct military intervention when feasible, as seen in Libya, and more covert means, like liaising with elements of Syria’s popular movement, when that isn’t feasible.

Since 2001 we have also seen a shifting of the boundaries in what kinds of state surveillance and coercion are deemed acceptable: rendition, torture, erosion of civil liberties, the growth of surveillance. Obama promised to close Guantanamo Bay. It hasn’t happened.

Islamophobia – associating Muslims as a whole with images of terrorism, characterising Muslim communities as an ‘alien’ or ‘backward’ threat within Western societies – has accompanied all this. It remains a potent ideological weapon.

An impasse for US armed force

Almost every aspect of Bush-era global relations has therefore been maintained. But none of this should suggest the US and its allies have got it all their own way.

The withdrawal from Iraq reflected the disastrous impasse that had been reached (as well as the impact of massive anti-war protests globally). Afghanistan – unstable, violent and riddled with corruption – is no more of a success story. There are political tensions in both Washington and London over the timing of withdrawal, with growing calls for troops to be brought home much sooner than planned.

The Arab revolutions have shaken US influence in the Arab world, most importantly by bringing down the Mubarak regime – one of the three most important US allies, alongside Israel and Saudi Arabia – and through the spread of popular uprisings to traditionally stable Gulf states. Ideologically the uprisings have shattered the myth that Arabs need external intervention – in the form of Western bombs or tanks – in order to overthrow or challenge an oppressive order.

The US, together with allies including the ever-faithful UK, would undoubtedly like to bomb Syria, but have struggled to build a global alliance. Russia and China oppose a UN resolution, having been unhappy with the way their support for a resolution on Libya was used to sanction a sustained – and devastating – bombing campaign that escalated the death toll in that country to around 30,000 and ensured long-term political instability and social chaos.

The Western powers, and regional allies like Turkey and Saudi Arabia, are instead attempting to buy off sections of the Syrian movement, those who they can ‘do business with’, in an effort to shape a post-Assad Syria that is favourable to Western interests. This fits into a bigger context. Since March 2011 – when the bombardment of Libya began and Saudi forces, with a nod from Washington, crushed Bahrain’s popular movement – the US has sought to re-assert its influence through a combination of co-opting the Arab revolutions (with mixed results) and continuing support for centres of counter-revolutionary repression like Saudi.

The US and its allies are, therefore, in some ways weaker than in 2001. Profound problems with overt military interventions have encouraged a turn to more covert means, from the deployment of drones in Pakistan, to arming some of the Syrian rebels, to imposing sanctions on Iran.

What happens in the future depends more on what we do than whether Obama or Romney sits in the White House. We must broaden the parameters of debate, sustaining and developing our critique of US imperial belligerence, but also mobilising to end the occupation of Afghanistan and stop further wars.

In response to both austerity and war, there is – on both sides of the Atlantic - public appetite for a different set of values and priorities. In this country, slogans like ‘fund education not war’ and ‘cut Trident not public services’ were raised on the 20 October anti-cuts demonstration.

Millions of people across north Africa, the Middle East and western Asia have also shown their capacity for mass protest. This has been seen in the Arab uprisings, in Palestinian resistance (and solidarity movements elsewhere), and in the popular rejection by Iraqis and Afghans of foreign colonial occupation of their land. Combined with anti-war movements based inside the imperialist countries, popular mobilisations in these parts of the world can be a counterweight to imperialist intervention, whatever form it may take.

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Libya and Afghanistan: there's always money for war?

Tripoli - after a NATO air strike

The age of austerity is putting extra strain on US and UK governments' ability to rally public opinion behind their wars.

This applies to both the long occupation of Afghanistan and the current bombing of Libya, which increasingly looks like it may not be the swift victory the politicians promised.

The costs of war are exposing the myth that 'there's no money'. George Osborne's recurring mantra that public sector cuts are 'necessary', 'unavoidable' or 'inevitable' looks hollow when £260 million is spent on a military campaign with no agreed purpose or exit strategy, which is generating criticisms from countries (e.g. Italy) and alliances (e.g. Arab League) that initially lined up in support, and which is opposed by a large portion of the British public.

As the New Statesman puts it:

'The cost of the mission undermines Osborne's previous insistence that "the cupboard is bare". It is harder for ministers to defend library closures, Sure Start closures and the rest when the government is spending hundreds of millions of pounds on a war far from home.

The coalition has sought to present many of its decisions (the VAT rise, the tuition fees increase, the abolition of universal child benefit) as "unavoidable" but today's news is a reminder that it has choices too. Given that the government spent £694.4bn in 2010-11, £260m is, as Jock Stirrup, the former chief of the defence staff, said on The World At One, "very small beer". But it's the perception that counts. Public support for the mission, already at a record low, is likely to plummet further.'

We might add, of course, that Trident replacement is estimated to cost £70 billion - and that's not 'small beer' by any standards. The wars and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan are thought to have cost this country at least £20 billion. The costs of attacking Libya are part of a pattern.

And, as we've seen in recent days, there can be the human cost of civilian casualties, including children, too. This is no flawlessly precise 'smart' bombing (who'd have thought it?).

The mounting costs of the 'war on terror' are also a huge factor in President Obama's announcement that a third of US troops in Afghanistan will be withdrawn by September 2012, before he faces re-election by an electorate which now has majority opposition to the occupation.

The Guardian reports:

'The withdrawal, which comes against a backdrop of rising US public weariness with the longest war in American history, could form part of Obama's pitch in the 2012 White House election campaign.

The president phoned leaders in Afghanistan, Pakistan, France, Germany and Britain to inform them of his decision. David Cameron is expected to make announcements on substantial UK troop withdrawals at the beginning of July. It is likely to represent the biggest troop withdrawal since British forces left Iraq but precise numbers have yet to be reached.'

We need to build the pressure on our own government to withdraw the troops from Afghanistan now and end the attacks on Libya. There are many reasons for opposing these military adventures. The obscene costs - and the accompanying hypocrisy - just add more.

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US activist David Swanson on Obama and the anti-war movement

David Swanson's own report of Saturday's Stop the War conference in London is HERE. This video is of his speech at the conference.




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Michael Moore slams Obama press secretary's Left-baiting

Robert Gibbs (pictured with Barack Obama), a White House press secretary, has lashed out at what he terms "the professional left" in the US. He's evidently unhappy at anyone daring to criticise the Obama administration's failure to improve healthcare, close Guantanamo, end the occupation of Afghanistan, and do a number of other things millions of Democrat voters hoped for.

His vitriolic comments have clearly triggered a backlash from what can broadly be called the Left, and generated a fair amount of media discussion. The apparently off-the-cuff outburst - in which he suggests progressive critics must be on drugs, and are wildly unrealistic by demanding such things as Canadian-style health care - reflects the administration's sensitivity to criticism from people fed up with Obama's failure to deliver change. Gibbs' comments also reflect, as Moore points out, the contempt those currently in office have for their own support base.

I enjoyed Moore's comment "I've never heard the Left described as professional before - it implies we're organised", but he also makes more serious points, e.g. about how the current regime has favoured the bankers instead of confronting them, how the Canadian model of health care is in fact perfectly realistic, etc. Insightful, witty and worth watching. 



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The 44th President: new emperor, old empire

The massive crowds at Barack Obama's inauguration, one year ago today, feel like a long time ago. The euphoria of election night the previous November seems even more distant. While Obama's election remains a historically significant moment, especially in relation to the politics of race, it won't be too controversial if I point out the general sense of anti-climax.

Racism has, inevitably, continued. It is inevitable because racism is structural: it is part of modern American society, with a material base, not simply a problem of outmoded attitudes that just won't go away. Racism still matters in the realities of American life and it is still relevant to understanding attitudes and ideas, for example the dubious portrayal of the people of Haiti in American news media. A black President is symbolically important and a source of optimism, but the inequalities of both race and class have stubbornly remained (and, without more radical social change than Obama might ever countenance, will continue).

Obama never promised much of substance, but there are problems even with the little he did promise: most glaringly, his administration has failed to meet its own deadline for closing Guantanamo Bay, symbolic of the preceding Bush regime and everything that made it detested. There has been no wider rethink of what 'security' really means or how it can be attained, with the continuation of authoritarianism combined with aggressive pursuit of US foreign policy interests. Afghanistan is the key issue here: many people, giving Obama the benefit of the doubt, overlooked the new President's hawkish stance last January, but that is no longer possible. With mounting US, UK and Afghan casualties, the quagmire of Afghanistan can't be blamed on the previous President.



Domestically, Obama's priority has unsurprisingly been to save capitalism from itself. This has meant a few measures that dissent from the neoliberal tradition, but without genuinely challenging anyone's wealth or power. It is merely crisis management, within carefully monitored constraints, unaccompanied by any redistribution of wealth. In this profoundly unequal society, health care has become a major focus. Obama's plans are too modest in the first place and progress is slow, but the hysterical reaction to 'socialised healthcare' from the American Right is a reminder of the political Establishment's hostility to anything faintly progressive.

The Timeline video above was made shortly after Obama became President. The other programmes in the series available via YouTube are on Afghanistan, Palestine and the Iraq Inquiry. On a lighter, more satirical, note see The Onion's interpretation of Obama's shift from rhetoric to reality.

It's time to return that Nobel Peace Prize...

Also see HERE.

Just think what an American President could spend $33 billion on: rebuilding Haiti, creating green jobs, providing health care...

Money for war, as millions slip into poverty

Yesterday I referred to the potential for the US anti-war movement to revive and become a major mobilising force. I've just learnt of a very promising initiative that points in the direction of this becoming reality. Representatives of 34 anti-war groups have signed an open letter to President Obama, calling for the troops to leave Afghanistan. This co-incides with Obama's commitment to put 30,000 more US troops into the country.

The US movement declined enormously, largely as a result of activists getting behind Obama and helping his campaign for first the Democratic nomination and then the White House. This diverted energies from the movement and to some extent compromised it, considering Obama's pro-war stance on Afghanistan. The open letter signifies a sea change in both public attitudes and the willingness of campaigners to get organised. The disillusionment with Obama's foreign policies is starting to turn into action designed to change those policies.

But there's something else too. The language of the letter makes it clear there's something different from the era of mass protests about Iraq - this time around the politics and bitterness are deepened by the economic crisis:

'With millions of U.S. people feeling the fear and desperation of no longer having a home; with millions feeling the terror and loss of dignity that comes with unemployment; with millions of our children slipping further into poverty and hunger, your decision to deploy thousands more troops and throw hundreds of billions more dollars into prolonging the profoundly tragic war in Afghanistan strikes us as utter folly.'

Lowkey: Obama Nation

"I see imperialism under your skin..."

Check this speech by Tariq Ali and this documentary by John Rees for more in-depth analysis.

Obama, US imperialism and the future of Palestine

John Rees, author of the excellent book 'Imperialism and Resistance', spoke recently at Queen Mary University, one of the 35 colleges and universities where there was an occupation earlier this year in solidarity with Gaza. Stop the War and PSC student activists in many places are finding that Palestine continues to be a major political issue for students. I spoke at a similar meeting at Newcastle University on Tuesday, attended by 45 people.

Palestine is linked, of course, to wider geopolitical issues: as Rees says in this video, "Palestine necessarily, and always has been, bound up with wider questions of war and peace in the Middle East; perhaps at no time so completely as since the Bush administration came to power, since the inauguration of the 'war on terror', since the attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq". It continues to be a priority for anti-imperialists.

The misery continues, but with a different face

Michael Moore on very good form, in advance of his new feature documentary being released in the US. It's cheekily titled 'Capitalism: a Love Story' and examines the economic crisis and its fallout.

Timeline: Obama and US power

John Rees, author of 'Imperialism and Resistance', has written and presented this short documentary film for the Islam Channel, as part of the excellent 'Timeline' series.

Read the text of the film HERE.

Time to bring them home

This article is also published at www.counterfire.org

CNN's latest poll shows a clear majority of the US public opposed to the occupation of Afghanistan. It shows a shift in the last three months, with the popular mood moving against the occupation - 54% say they are opposed, with only 41% in favour. The argument for withdrawing NATO troops has rarely been so vilified in the media, yet in both this country and the US recent polls inidcate strong anti-war feeling.

Military chiefs on both sides of the Atlantic have stepped up pressure on political leaders for more money and more troops. Many of those politicians need little persuading anyway - as they are dedicated to the whole long-term imperial project, and Afghanistan's vital place in it - though it nonetheless creates tensions for them that are hard to resolve.

They know the continuing occupation isn't popular, a problem exacerbated by the widely reported rising toll of deaths of US/UK soldiers, and they can't hide from an overwhelming sesne that the war is unwinnable. Pulling them in the opposite direction is the nauseating 'patriotism' of much media coverage, the Right's arguments about underfunding of the armed forces being the core problem, and their own determination to pursue the wider 'war on terror'.

Recent talk of a long war becoming ever-longer, stretching on even for decades, clashes with the brutal political reality that domestically people simply won't tolerate such futility and misery. The casualties mount up, the money keeps pouring in - at a time of increasing hardship due to recession and plans for public service cuts - and the sense of pointlessness eats away at people who aren't traditionally anti-war.

Barack Obama may have been powered to victory in large part thanks to his anti-war stance regarding Iraq - and because he wasn't the warmonger George Bush - but the goodwill towards him can't last forever. The new poll ratings are especially striking when you recall that Obama, greeted with such jubilation on election last November, has consistently been (and continues to be) steadfastly pro-occupation and keen to intensify NATO operations. CNN report opposition to his policy in Afghanistan is mainly among Democrat supporters. A gulf is opening up between the President and those who elected him.

Here we have a politically similar scenario: Gordon Brown was viewed by many as sure to be better than Blair, including in the area of foreign policy, but has turned out (as some of us warned) to be all continuity and no change. It is apparent that change will come only with a strengthening of the anti-war movement in the coming weeks and months, starting with nationwide protests to greet the news of the 200th British soldier being killed (the total is currently 195).

On Saturday 24 October thousands will march in London to demand we bring the troops home now. Regardless of the Westminster consensus on Afghanistan, despite the media's narrowing of debate, this movement reflects majority public opinion - and carries the possibility of real change.

Marxism - highlights here

The irrepressible Ady Cousins has already posted videos of the best two talks I went to at Marxism - in London this weekend - on his excellent YouTube channel. Tariq Ali provided a clear and comprehensive survey of American imperialism in the Obama era. The Logan Hall, by far the biggest venue used at the event, was absolutely packed. He struck just the right balance in critically analysing the reality of US foreign policy today - it's not radically different to before Obama's election - while acknowledging that saying good riddance to Bush and Cheney was extremely welcome.



The other highlight was the talk John Rees gave about revolutionary leadership, which was linked to a short book about Lenin by the Hungarian Marxist Georg Lukacs. He managed to convey the essentials about both Lenin and Lukacs - himself an influential and exceptional figure in the marxist tradition - as well as illuminating the big questions about revolution, organisation and leadership.

Ady's also posted Slavoj Zizek's side of the Zizek-Callinicos debate, which I was also at on Saturday - especially popular with students, it had the Logan Hall overflowing. Although not rising to the standards of the Obama/imperialism and Lenin/Lukacs sessions, this meeting certainly generated a lot of discussion in the bar afterwards (not just due to Zizek's penchant for risque jokes).