The
present interview with Alex Callinicos was performed over several weeks by email
spanning late July to mid September. The early questions took place at the start
of the Israeli attack on Lebanon. The
last five questions were answered in one go in mid September. Because of the
lengthiness of the interview it was not possible to pose any further questions
arising out of these answers.
Ardeshir
Mehrdad: Can we start
with the political context. In general terms, how would you describe the current
political situation in the Middle
East?
Alex
Callinicos: The
current situation not only but especially in the Middle East is defined by
the imperialist offensive mounted by the United
States and its closest allies (notably Israel and Britain) since
11 September 2001. Carried out under the slogan of the 'war on terrorism' the
real aim of this offensive is to perpetuate the global domination of
US capitalism (hence the title of the
neocon 'Project for the New American Century'). The Middle East and more
generally Western Asia (what Zbigniew Brzezinski calls the 'the global Balkans')
is the privileged site of this struggle, both because of its strategic and
economic significance and because of the setbacks that the US and its allies
have suffered, notably thanks to the effects of the Iranian Revolution of
1978-9 and of Israel's disastrous 1982 Lebanon War.
This
imperialist offensive suffers three main problems. First and most
fundamental, it has evoked powerful resistance, above all in Iraq itself, where the US seems to be
bogged down in an unwinnable counter-insurgency war. We now see
Israel too beginning to face
similar difficulties thanks to Hezbollah's very effective defence against the
Israel Defence Force's assault on Lebanon. Secondly, compared to the
1991 Gulf War, the current 'war on terrorism' lacks international
legitimacy thanks to the Bush administration's unilateralism and its contempt
for human rights (Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Bagram ...). Some
commentators, for example Giovanni Arrighi, argue that we are witnessing a
broader crisis of US hegemony.
Thirdly,
the ideological justification of the imperialist offensive what Condoleezza
Rice calls 'the birth of a New Middle East' with the spread of liberal democracy
is rebounding on its authors. This is partly because when given the chance to
vote people seem to be backing radical Islamists such as Hamas and the Muslim
Brotherhood. Moreover, by giving legitimacy to democratic demands the
US threatens to undermine its
closest Arab allies, for example, the Saudi autocracy and the Mubarak dynasty in
Egypt. Finally, of course, by
allowing Israel to destroy
Lebanon, Washington is destroying the one clear success for its
democracy agenda in the region, the so-called 'cedar revolution' thanks to which
the US and
France forced
Syria to pull out of
Lebanon.
AM: Before
proceeding to the next question you might wish to clarify and expand on the
seriousness of the three main problems that you suggest challenge the
imperialist offensive. Could you, for example consider following facts: First,
the existing resistance movements operating in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, and
Lebanon appear to suffer from internal weaknesses, resulting predominantly from
sectarian rivalries and factionalist tensions. Second, in recent years the Bush
Administration seems to have modified its unilateralism significantly. The
US has been seeking a broader
international consensus over its pre-emptive strategy as witnessed, at least, in
the current referral to the UN Security Council of the war on
Lebanon or the
Iran nuclear issue. And third, the
power of corporate media to modify and dampen down the negative impact of the US
Army's barbaric behaviour in the region, and to conjure up spurious ideological
justifications for the continuation of its military aggression.
AC: These
are big issues. I'm afraid I disagree with you on all three supposed 'facts'.
First of all, when it comes to 'sectarian rivalries and factional tensions' it's
important to draw distinctions. What we have seen across the whole region is a
process in which the leadership of resistance to US imperialism and Israel has
passed from secular nationalists and the left to the Islamists. This process
began with the Iranian Revolution of 1978-9 but we have seen some very important
developments in the past few months, notably with Hamas's defeat of Fatah in the
elections to the Palestine Authority and the enormous acclaim that Hezbollah and
its leader Nasrallah have received through the region for their resistance to
the IDF. It's misleading to describe this as 'factionalism'. It is a historic
shift that is a consequence of the political failure of secular nationalists and
the left. We may not welcome this
development as a revolutionary
Marxist I don't, though I am glad that someone is seriously taking on the
imperialists but we have to recognize it if the left is ever to re-emerge in
the Middle East.
The case
of Iraq has to be mentioned separately
because it is so complex. Here the resistance, which appears to be a loose
collection of Iraqi Ba'athists, nationalists, and Islamists based mainly in the
Sunni Arab areas have succeeded in mounting a counter-insurgency war that, to
repeat, the US shows no sign of winning. (It is
essential to distinguish the mainstream of this resistance from the sectarian
terrorists of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, formed
by the late and unlamented Zarqawi.) The US sought to isolate the resistance through a
policy of divide-and-rule, and in particular by allying itself to those
political leaders of the Shia majority who, though having very different agendas
from Washington (most obviously, often close
links with Tehran), were prepared to advance their
interests through collaboration with the occupation.
This
policy has now badly rebounded on the occupiers. Strategically it has
strengthened Iran, thanks to its influence on the
Shia politicians who dominate the Iraqi client regime. Politically the biggest
single bloc in the Iraqi parliament, the supporters of Moqtada al-Sadr, belong
to the ruling coalition, but also oppose the occupation and have just mounted a
mass demonstration in Sadr City in solidarity with Hezbollah. Finally, and
disastrously from a human perspective, divide-and-rule, and the government death
squads that it licensed have unleashed large-scale sectarian killings,
particularly in Baghdad, that have developed a dynamic of their
own. Last week the Commander of US Central Command, General Abizaid,
acknowledged that 'it is possible that Iraq could move towards civil war'.
The disintegration of Iraq,
which might be the result of such a war, would not work to the advantage of the
US. That was why George Bush senior
decided to leave Saddam Hussein in power at the end of the 1991 Gulf
War.
Secondly,
the administration of George Bush junior radicalized the unilateralism that was
already a visible feature of US global policy during the 1990s under Clinton. Conquering
Iraq was supposed to
vindicate the Bush Doctrine of unilateral preventive war, first unfolded at
West Point on 1 June 2002. Instead, of course,
the US has bogged down in Iraq, which has gravely limited its ability to deal
with other crises such as North Korea's nuclear programme and the challenge of
Hugo Chαvez and the new left in Latin America. One wing of the American ruling
class, represented by Brzezinski and Brent Scrowcroft, Bush senior's National
Security Adviser, say the Bush administration have behaved like idiots in
abandoning multilateralism: they need the European Union in particular as junior
partner in running the world.
What has
happened since Condoleezza Rice took over as Secretary of State in January 2005
has been contradictory. On the one hand, she has tilted towards the critics, in
particular by involving the other major powers in the negotiations over
North Korea's and
Iran's nuclear programmes. On the
other hand, the administration's rhetoric, most notably in Bush's Second
Inaugural Address, has if anything become harder in affirming what one might
call Wilsonian imperialism using the power of the US to spread American-style
liberal democracy world-wide.
The
present war in the Lebanon demonstrates that Rice's more
multilateralist style is a tactical adjustment, reflecting an accommodation to
the limits of American power rather than a strategic reorientation. The Iraqi
quagmire has encouraged the administration to see the Islamic Republican regime
in Iran as the major obstacle
to securing its objectives in the Middle East.
Hence the war plans revealed by Seymour Hersh back in April. It's clear the
administration saw the Lebanon crisis as a heaven-sent opportunity to
weaken Tehran through Israel 'degrading' Hezbollah, a powerful and
strategically placed guerrilla movement closely allied to Iran. The crisis
has also highlighted America's crisis of international legitimacy
since it has been almost alone, backed only by Israel itself and by Britain, in opposing an immediate cease fire in
Lebanon. The US is negotiating with France now because it needs French troops in
Lebanon this is a sign of
weakness, not strength, on both its part and that of Israel.
Thirdly, I
don't really see Iraq as a good example of the power
of the corporate media. In the US itself public opinion has turned against the
war much more quickly than it did in the case of Vietnam. The
evident American failure in Iraq is one of the main causes of the
rapid decline in Bush's popularity since Hurricane Katrina a year ago. In
Britain today Tony Blair is
hugely unpopular, above all because of his close support for Bush in
Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Lebanon. It's
true that it's hard to translate this popular opposition into the removal of the
politicians responsible for these disasters, but this reflects the nature of the
political system rather than the ability of the media to deceive people about
what's really happening.
AM: In
order to clarify the substance of my previous question and to arrive at a more
accurate picture of the political conditions pertaining in the Middle East, and also as revolutionary Marxists in order
to arrive at the means to a better prospect for the region, it might be better
to recast my previous questions in a different mould. Let us assume that the
problems facing the imperialist offensive are those you have enumerated. We then
have to answer two questions. First how durable and robust are these problems
(as they stand today)? What are their significances and how effective are they?
Are they capable of acting as a real barrier against the implementation of the
imperialist projects of the US and her allies or merely elements
that increase the cost of these projects? Second can the current situation in
the Middle East be reduced to the various
obstacles lying on the route of imperialist aggression? Are there in the current
political context in the Middle East no other
factors or grounds that facilitate the furtherance of the dominating imperialist
offensive?
You
will appreciate that your previous explanations are not entirely clear on this
score. It is indeed correct that presently the Islamist movements (or to put it
in more general terms, religious and/or ethnic ultra-conservative movements)
play an important role in the regional political arena. Indeed they have a
greater weight than seculars and leftists in the resistance struggles against
the US imperialist assault. It is equally
true that this superiority is an expression of a "historic shift", the roots of
which should be sought, among others, in the political defeats of secular
nationalist, socialist and communist movements. But such a reasonable emphasis
cannot excuse ignoring the internal weaknesses of the present resistance and to
leave out this feature from our analysis of the conditions pertaining in the
region.
Specifically,
it is difficult to ignore the fact that the domination of religious and ethnic
sectarianism or political factionalism on large parts of the anti-imperialist
resistance has reduced its mobilising power. It has meant that the entire
popular potentials of resistance in Iraq, Palestine,
Lebanon, and
Afghanistan (which you chose not to
mention) cannot be mobilised, nor work in tandem. It has prevented the Muslim,
Jew, Christian (Assyrian, Armenians, Maronites), and Zoroastrian; Shi'i, Sunni,
Bahaii, and Sheikhi; the religious and agnostic; the Kurd, Arab, Persian,
Turkmen, Turk, Pashto, Bluchi, Hazareh, and Tajik to see themselves as belonging
to the same camp. A camp determined to stand up to the new order of slavery that
is in the process of being engineered by the Pentagon and other imperialist
agencies.
Moreover,
the fact that the Bush administration has radicalised unilateralism does not
mean that this government has become paralysed and has lost its ability to
manoeuvre. We have witnessed that this same government, as you rightly pointed
out, has to a great extent albeit tactically, reduced the problem of
"international legitimacy" in pursuing the "war against terrorism" through a
series of retreats from its previous unilateralist action. One can observe this
in the behaviour of the UN Security Council in confronting Israel's barbaric military assault on Palestine and Lebanon, or over the Iran nuclear
issue. It demonstrates that despite the crisis of hegemony, the Bush government
can still line up the "international community" in support of its policies and
conduct in the Middle
East.
And
finally, if it is true that today's Iraq is not a good illustration the power of the
corporate media in shaping public opinion, Iran is. The
strong American public opinion support for a new offensive in the Middle East
and a military intervention in Iran, even while the US military machine is still
sunk in the Iraqi quagmire, cannot be explained except through the
illusion-creating power of the corporate media (see for example: USA TODAY/CNN
Gallup Poll www.usatoday.com/news/polls/2006-02-13-poll.htm
and Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg Pool www.pollingreport.com/iran.htm).
AC:
There's
no law that says you have to agree with what I say, but I'm becoming worried
that the interview will become bogged down by the repetition of the same
questions. Maybe going deeper may help to short-circuit this problem. If we want
to understand what underlies the difficulties facing the US in the Middle
East we have to look at the more fundamental situation of American
capitalism. There is a basic discrepancy between its economic and military
power. Militarily the US enjoys massive conventional and
nuclear superiority over any combination of other states. Economically, however,
it faces deep-seated problems of competitiveness reflecting the challenge from
other centres of capital accumulation Germany, Japan, China, etc. that are
expressed in the so-called global imbalances, notably the US balance of payments
deficit, which has to be financed by a massive inflow of capital, mainly from
East Asia. As both David Harvey and I have argued, the neocon adventure in Iraq
was intended as the beginning of a 'flight forward' the use of American
military superiority to reinforce Washington's domination of the Middle East and
thereby to begin to freeze a global balance of forces that entrenched the
hegemony of US capitalism.
The
significance of this context of the resistance in Iraq is that it has helped to precipitate a
'crisis of overstretch' for American imperialism in other words, a crisis that
highlights the limits of US power. These limits are partly
military notoriously the relatively small hi-tech force that Rumsfeld insisted
the Pentagon used, rejecting his generals' demands for far more troops, was
strong enough to seize Iraq but not enough to control the
country.
They are also political Washington's
inability to find a popular base in Iraq (or indeed elsewhere in the Middle East) for
the kind of political project it is pursuing: hence the increasingly problematic
alliance it has had to forge with the Shia parties in Iraq.
As
I have already noted, being tied down in Iraq has limited Washington's ability to take initiatives
elsewhere. You see the resulting retreats as successful manoeuvres that have
allowed the administration to contain the crisis of international legitimacy,
but it is hardly a convincing demonstration of US supremacy to be forced to
renounce, for the present at least, serious moves against Kim Jong-il or Chαvez:
before the outbreak of the Lebanon war, many neocons were complaining about
Bush's 'appeasement' of North Korea and Iran. As to Lebanon itself, if you really believe that this
is going well for the US and
Israel, you are alone in the world. I
prefer the judgement of my friend and comrade Gilbert Achcar, who has written:
'Whatever the final outcome of the ongoing war in Lebanon, one thing is already
clear: instead of helping in raising the sinking ship of the US Empire, the
Israeli rescue boat has actually aggravated the shipwreck, and is currently
being dragged down with it.'
This
crisis of overstretch doesn't reflect an absolute scarcity of the material
resources available to American imperialism. By the standards of the Cold War,
let alone the Second World War, US defence spending constitutes a
relatively small percentage of national income. In principle, then, the Pentagon
could greatly increase its military capabilities. But this would require much
higher levels of taxation than the American rich would find comfortable. It's
also quite possible that the East Asian and European ruling classes would balk
at lending the US the money
it would need to pursue a much more aggressive military project given that
America has already overwhelming
superiority over the rest of the world. The economic and geopolitical situation
is very different from the late 1940s and the early 1950s, when Washington was able to
brigade together the advanced capitalist world under its leadership and pay for
the entire enterprise itself.
This
brings me to the question that you repeat about factionalism. How serious a
problem the divisions you itemize are depends on the criterion by which you
judge the resistance. If you are simply considering the resistance in terms of
its capacity to disrupt and impede the US project, then these divisions
aren't decisive. Iraq clearly shows this. So does
Afghanistan, which for some reason
you imagine I am trying to avoid discussing.
What's
been happening there very clearly illustrates the general crisis of overstretch.
The US has been trying to cut
down its commitments in Afghanistan by getting Canada and the
European Union to take over much of the country under the aegis of NATO.
Meanwhile, the farcical Karzai regime clearly has very limited control outside
Kabul. The
absence of any worthwhile government in the south has created a space in which
the 'Taliban' (in fact we know very little about who is fighting the
US and NATO forces in
southern Afghanistan) can resume activity and
rebuild support. The NATO troops now participating in the US-led offensive in
the south have run slap bang into much stronger resistance than they
anticipated. It's true that all this further reinforces the fragmentation of
Afghanistan, a process that has been
going on, through the interaction of outside powers and domestic political
forces, for more than a quarter century.
But this fragmentation is a problem for the US in attempting to construct a viable client
regime capable of ruling Afghanistan as a
whole.
If
we are assessing the resistance forces in terms of their ability to develop what
Gramsci would call a hegemonic project that is, by their capacity to present a
programme that offers a way forward for society at large, then the picture is
different. The sectarian Sunni jihadis of Iraq and Afghanistan are certainly incapable
of such a project. But I don't think this is true of all of political Islam. In
this context, I find your formulation of 'religious and/or ethnic
ultra-conservative movements' unhelpful analytically and politically, since it
reduces all forms of Islamism to reactionary identity politics. One dimension of
Islam's ideological power has always been that the concept of the umma is a
universalist and therefore potentially an inclusive
notion.
One
very interesting development that is currently taking place is the drawing
together of Shia Islamist radicalism the Iranian regime, Hezbollah, the
Sadrists in Iraq with the
mother ship of Sunni Islamism, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and its
close ally Hamas. Is this just a temporary tactical convergence reflecting the
fact that these forces have common enemies or will it prove to be a more
long-term political and ideological realignment? This is an important question
for the left if it is to begin to develop its own hegemonic project. In this
context it's worth pointing out that I didn't just refer to 'the political
defeats of secular nationalist, socialist and communist movements', but to their
failure in other words, to their proven inability to develop successful
hegemonic projects in societies such as Egypt, Iraq, Iran, and Lebanon, which
created the political space the Islamists have now filled. This is a question
that requires considerable analysis and discussion.
Finally
back again to the question of 'the illusion-creating power of the corporate
media'. The problem with using this factor to explain American public opinion's
support for an attack on Iran
is that it can't account for the fact that this same public opinion has turned
against the war in Iraq. We need to have a much more
differentiated analysis of how the corporate media exert an influence as part of
quite a complex constellation of forces that varies over time and according to
the issue. My guess is that the decisive factor weighing with the American
public over Iran is the memory of the humiliations the US suffered during and
after the 1978-9 revolution (the Embassy crisis etc), reinforced by the more
general Islamophobia that is a major constituent of contemporary racism, and
renewed by Ahmadinejad's campaign against Israel. This campaign seems to have
been very effective in winning support for Tehran
in the Arab and Muslim world but it has had the opposite effect in countries
where there is a strong Israel lobby.
It
is interesting that in the US
and Germany more people see
Iran as a great threat to
world peace than the number of those who believe the American presence in
Iraq is a major threat, but
the opposite is true in Britain, France, and Spain.
This contrast suggests that we are not just the prisoners of structural forces
such as the corporate media: for example, the kind of determined but broadly
based anti-war movement that we have in Britain can have help bring about a
dramatic change in popular attitudes,
AM:
I understand your concerns and share in them. In the rest of our dialogue I will
try to avoid repetition of questions and for the interview entering a close
circuit, even where I feel that my questions may remain
unanswered.
You
will doubtless be aware that many of the revolutionary left's past and present
mistakes are rooted in optimistic or pessimistic, and indeed reductionist and
one-sided, analyses of processes and phenomena. It may be no exaggeration to say
that one of the main reasons that the socialist and Marxist left was
marginalised in the political arena of the last few decades in many countries
(including Iran), and the failure of its efforts to build a better and more
humane society, is rooted in these kinds of formulations in its analyses and
assessments. My emphases in previous questions were merely attempts to arrive
with your help, to the extent possible in an interview, at an accurate and
multidimensional understanding of the political arena of the Middle East an area whose developments will undoubtedly
have profound effects on the future of our planet. In my view your replies,
particularly where it describes the existing structural and political obstacles
to the imperialist assault on the region were illuminating. I certainly learnt
much from it.
In
continuation, and in a closer look, I would like to ask you opinion on the other
actors in the political scenes of the Middle
East. We know that alongside imperialism and the governments of the
region (one or perhaps two exceptions apart, dictatorial and corrupt to the
marrow) it is difficult to deny the effects of collective political actions in
shaping to the developments of the region. Clearly these actions cannot be
limited to the anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist resistance (of which we have
spoken above) and extent to other issues. Among these issues one can identify:
ethnic, gender, sexual, religious, and national inequalities and oppression,
class inequalities and poverty, and political despotism (religious or secular).
The
Middle East today is witness to the growth and
spread of numerous socio-political movements among which three groups stand out.
First, the nationalist movements of the oppressed nations and ethnic groups.
(for instance Arabs, Baluchi, and Azari in Iran, Turkmen in Iraq and Iran, and Kurds in Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and Iran). Second
the secular anti-dictatorial and democratic movements for freedom and legal
equality (with growing roots among women, students, intellectuals, religious
minorities especially in Iran, Afghanistan and Iraq). Third,
anti-capitalist movements fighting particularly against neo-liberal policies
(with an expanding social base among urban and rural working people and the most
deprived in most of the countries of the region). Where do you see the place and
role these movements in the current political developments of the region?
Before
concluding the question, I would like your indulgence to make two points in
relation to my previous question. First, I too do not believe that
Israel's attack on
Lebanon, with all its
potential contradictory results, has had any positive result for
Israel or America.
Moreover, I do not think that in essence my comments on Lebanon in the
previous question could have permitted such a conclusion. Yet however we
interpret the results of the Israeli attack on Lebanon, it is undeniably true that the
US was able to line up the
"international community" behind it in addressing this assault and was able to
create conditions where for nearly a month the UN Security Council watched the
slaughter of Lebanese women and children without batting an eyelid!
Second,
I agree with you that there are real differences between the Hizbollah in
Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine, Al-Qaida, the Taliban, and the Islamic regime in
Iran. It is vital for the left to pay
attention to these differences in formulating policy. Yet, in my view, it is
equally important to pay attention to the existing parallels between them. If we
assume that political ideology and social and economic platforms are key factors
in these parallels, then I do not believe "ultra-conservative" as a concept,
provides us with a less useful analytical tool than the "radicalism" used by
you. What are your views on these points?
AC:
Look, I'm not an expert on contemporary Middle Eastern political movements, and
therefore I can't answer your main question in any detail. Let me make three
points. First of all, I certainly agree that multi-dimensional analysis is
required. But I don't accept that the main problem with the left in the region
is theoretical reductionism. What for many decades crippled the left in the
Middle East was the formative influence of Stalinist ideology in one form or
other and in particular of the idea that the main political task was to
construct broad class alliances, including in particular the 'progressive',
'national' section of the bourgeoisie, against imperialism and its local allies
and clients.
This
led the left to a schizophrenic attitude towards the non-socialist forces
confronting imperialism in the past, the secular nationalists (Nasser, Qasim,
the different sections of Ba'athism, Fatah, etc), more recently the Islamists. I
think in many cases one can document an oscillation between political
subordination to whoever was identified as representing the interests of the
national bourgeoisie and denouncing these forces as completely reactionary,
fascist, etc. This certainly implied a one-sided analysis since it failed to
grasp the contradictory character of bourgeois nationalism (and here I intend
this expression to cover some of the Islamists as well as Nasserites, Ba'athists
and the like), which can, in concrete circumstances, lead real struggles against
imperialism but will nevertheless subordinate these struggles to its class
aspiration to build its own capitalist state, and therefore, ultimately, come to
terms with the dominant powers. I stress all this because these political
problems haven't gone away: I'll return to this below
Secondly,
if we look as the different political movements in the Middle East, it seems to me that one can identify there
main trends. The first consists in the remnants of secular nationalism and
Communism. These survive to varying degrees but are enormously weakened and
greatly disoriented. Witness, for example, what has happened to the Iraqi
Communist Party, once the most important CP in the Middle East, now shamed by
the collaboration of one section in the US occupation of Iraq. And I
understand some Communist fragments elsewhere in the region expressed sympathy
with the invasion of Iraq as a way of getting rid of
Saddam. This is a kind of reductio ad
absurdum of Popular Front politics to imagine American imperialism as an
ally in the democratic struggle! Of course, there are still many excellent
revolutionaries who haven't capitulated (there are, for example, fine Iraqi
Communists involved in the British anti-war movement), but the left is deeply
marked by defeat and failure.
The
second trend is much more interesting, because it represents a new secular
force. I am thinking of a very influential tendency in the democracy movements
in countries like Egypt and
Iran. The dominant discourse is very
familiar from the example of non-governmental organizations elsewhere in the
world, as well as that of the movement for another globalization that of
'civil society' as a distinct sphere separate from the state asserting human
rights against the existing regime. It is essential to respond positively to
this trend as it has given expression to the entry of a new generation into
political activity against reactionary regimes.
But
it is important also to stress that this ideology is an ambiguous one,
reflecting the fact 'civil society' itself is a vague concept that isn't clearly
differentiated from the market economy. Those influenced by it can move in a
radical, anti-capitalist direction if they recognize the power of the
transnational corporations, which greatly limits the extent of capitalist
democracy, but it is necessary, especially in the Middle Eastern context, to go
further and identify the interrelations between economics and geopolitics and
therefore the close connections binding the main Arab regimes to US imperialism.
If the ideology of civil society is not deepened and radicalized, then the
danger is that it can be used by those in the region who see their interests as
being advanced by the Bush administration's 'new Middle East' policy and by the
implementation of neo-liberal economic policies. Ayman Nour and his followers in
Egypt are a good example of
this option, as was the 'cedar revolution' last year in Lebanon.
Finally,
there are of course the Islamists. This brings me to my third general point. I
accept that 'radicalism' isn't a very precise term, but it is still a lot better
than 'ultra-conservatism'. Anyone who at present denounces Nasrallah, for
example, as an ultra-conservative will simply make a fool of themselves. Here
again we need a careful and differentiated analysis, not simply of the concrete
varieties of Islamism but also of what American political scientists would call
different issue-areas. Depending on the issue, different forces may seem more or
less radical.
Thus
if one were to identify the main ideological element at work in popular
mentalities in the Middle East it would be
anti-imperialist nationalism. The reasons for this are obvious reactivated
memories of the colonial past, the scale and visibility of the Western
domination of the region, the constantly renewed wound of Israel, and the pathetic subordination of most
Arab regimes to Washington. What the historic shift I referred
to earlier represents is the Islamists taking over the mantle of leadership of
the anti-imperialist struggle from the secular nationalists and the left. To the
extent to which they translate words into action, as Hezbollah have against
Israel, then, on this central issue
they cannot be described as 'ultra-conservative'. Of course, when it comes to
social and economic issues the picture is different the Muslim Brotherhood,
for example, supports privatization in Egypt. But even here one has to be
careful. Both the Brotherhood and Hezbollah have cultivated a popular base among
the urban poor through their welfare programmes, something that one can't
imagine American Republicans or British Tories doing.
In
any case one has to analyse the ideologies of different Islamist political
forces as totalities. Anti-imperialist nationalism isn't, as Ernest Laclau has
argued for many years, a neutral 'element' that can be combined with others to
make an indefinitely broad variety of different political ideologies: it has a
definite class content.
Anti-imperialist nationalism is the ideology of an actual or aspirant capitalist
class that seeks the way to its own independent state blocked by imperialism and
therefore must mobilize the masses to help break down this obstacle.
As
I have already indicated, the logic of such movements is to subordinate the
interests of workers and other exploited classes to those of the bourgeois
leadership. This is what explains the many defeats the left has suffered in the
region. It is important to point out at this particular juncture, in the face of
the euphoria created by Hezbollah's successful resistance to the IDF, that
though its leaders dress differently and use a different ideological language
from those, say, of Fatah, they can repeat the same mistakes by, for example,
tying their movement to presently supportive states such as the Islamic
Republican regime in Iran and the Assad regime in Syria that may well be
prepared to use it as a bargaining chip in their pursuit of their own
geopolitical interests.
AM:
I think discussing political Islam requires a separate interview. I will
therefore limit myself to posing only two further questions regarding the
application of "anti-imperialism nationalism" to characterize the political
ideology of Islamism.
First:
There is no doubt that in their conflict with imperialism, Islamist movements
usually rely on nationalist rhetoric, as well as, on the nationalist sentiments
of the people as their main instrument to gain mass support. However,
considering the fact that concepts such as "umaat" are opposed to nation, the
fact that Islamist movements distinguish between "mo'men" (believer) as opposed
to "kaafar" (non-believer) and consider such distinctions central to their
political ideology, how useful would it be to apply nationalism in trying to
identify these movements? Furthermore, historically speaking how can we, for
instance, bridge the huge distance between the pan-Islamism of Khomeini or
Kashani (the spiritual leader of Fada'ian-e Islam who supported the 1953 CIA
coup) and the nationalism of Mossadegh or Fatemi, one giving priority to the
national interests of Iran and the other to the interests of political Islam and
Islamic world revolutionary movement in absolutely opposite directions to each
other? In fact the ultra-nationalist tendencies of Khomeinism have determined
even the definition of the main organs of the Islamic political system in
Iran. Constitutionally, the
leadership of Islamic Republic (vali-e faghih) is defined as the head of the
Islamic revolution (Enghelaab-e Mahdi), and the Revolutionary Guards are
described as the army of this revolution, both non-territorial and non-national
in terms of their role and their political
geography.
Second:
as you suggest, Islamist forces are currently the most powerful agents in the
struggle against imperialism and Zionism in the region. However, we know that
both the Taliban and Al- Qaidah developed under the supervision of Berzhinsky,
or that Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood owe their initial successes to the
support of Israel. The positions of the main
Shia organizations in Iraq
(Hezb-al-Daveh
and Majles-e-Ala) or the Welfare Party
(Refah Partisi) in
Turkey do not need any elaboration.
In addition, the Iran-Contra affair or the Iranian collaboration with
imperialist aggression on Afghanistan and Iraq should suffice to demonstrate the
contradictory nature of the anti western and anti-imperialist positions of the
Islamic regime in Iran. Considering these facts, do you
think one can apply the term anti-Imperialist as an epithet to all political
Islamist movements worldwide (regardless of the stage of development or the
political circumstances in which they are acting). Could this provide us with a
useful analytical tool?
I
do not need to remind you that the declared aim of these movements is the
seizure of state power and aimed reconstruction of social and political
structures of countries with majority Muslim populations according to their
interpretation of Sharia'.
AC:
To be frank, I think the question of political Islam dominates the concluding
questions of this interview. That is as it should be, since it is a very
important reality that any revolutionary socialist strategy in the Middle East has to confront. I think we should treat
Islamism, not as something unique or diabolical, but as a socio-political
phenomenon that must be understood using the normal Marxist tools of historical
interpretation. That means we should learn how to read different Islamist
ideologies and organizations in order to locate them precisely within the
political field and within the larger constellation of social forces nationally,
regionally, and globally.
Consequently,
of course I don't think 'one can apply the term "anti-imperialist" as an epithet
to all political Islamist movements word-wide'. On the contrary, I said that the
classical Marxist analysis of bourgeois anti-imperialist nationalism applied to
'some of the Islamists'. One has to
be very concrete: the Saudi monarchy, one of the closest allies of American
imperialism in the Middle East, is legitimized by the same version of Sunni
Wahhabi Islam as is invoked by bin Laden and al Qaeda in waging a global war
against the US.
As
to your specific points, I myself noted that the Islamic concept of the umma is a transnational one. Al Qaeda
draws on this ideological resource in order to project itself globally. But it
would be a mistake to conclude from this that Islamism is inherently
incompatible with nationalism. Gramsci stressed long ago that ideologies are
concrete combinations of specific elements sometimes deriving from different
historical periods and articulating the interests of different classes (though
in each case one class interest tends to predominate). In both Stalinism and
social democracy, socialism, an inherently internationalist ideology, coexisted
with and was dominated by a form of nationalism. If we want to understand the
political success of Islamist movements, and in particular their role in
anti-imperialist struggles in the Middle East today, one has to see how this has
involved appropriating themes from the broader nationalist mentalities
prevailing in the popular masses and combining them with interpretations of
Islam.
Secondly,
of course you are right that different Islamist tendencies and regimes that may
now present themselves as anti-imperialist have a history of collaborating with
imperialism but I'm not sure what this proves. Yes, al Qaeda emerged from the
war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, in which the CIA, the
British SIS and the Pakistani ISI were instrumental in orchestrating the armed
struggle of the mujahedin. But it's
no secret that bin Laden's relationship to the US has changed a
little since then. Yes, the ISI (not Brzezinski, who was long before out of
office in Washington) were very actively
involved in the foundation of the Taliban, but this doesn't alter the fact that
today in Afghanistan the Taliban (maybe still
with the support of elements of the ISI) is fighting and killing American,
British, and Canadian soldiers.
And
yes, to take the example that probably interests you most, it's true that the
Reagan administration supplied arms to Iran in the mid-1980s, both to fund the Contra
attacks on the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and to keep Iran and Iraq preoccupied with the war between
them. But when the policy was exposed it proved very controversial in the
American ruling class, fundamentally because since the fall of the Shah the
Islamic Republican regime has been regarded by the US as a
strategic enemy and therefore such manoeuvres were seen as undermining the
long-term interests of American imperialism. Hence, in 1986-88, in the wake of
the scandal and in response to the prospect of an Iranian victory over
Iraq, American naval and air power
was deployed to ensure that Saddam won. Of course, that policy shift in turn
rebounded against the US when
Saddam grabbed Kuwait in
August 1990, but the result was not reconciliation with Tehran but the policy of 'dual containment' aimed at both
Iran and Iraq and pursued by Bush Senior and by Clinton after the 1991
Gulf War.
It's
important to stress this history because it would be a huge mistake to conclude
from the fact that Tehran and Washington collaborated in the mid-1980s that Bush Junior
isn't serious in his threats of war against Iran. As I have
already noted, his administration's attempt to break out of the straitjacket of
dual containment by overthrowing Saddam has strengthened Iran. The
Lebanon war was an attempt to
isolate Iran by removing one of its main
allies, Hezbollah. Israel's
defeat may, if anything, make Washington more
determined on a direct attack on Iran in order to shift the regional
balance of forces back in its favour.
The
fact that the Islamic Republican regime was prepared, despite its
anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist declarations, to collaborate with the
US and Israel in the
mid-1980s (and indeed on other occasions as well, for example the early stages
of the 'war on terrorism') shows it is not a consistent opponent of imperialism.
But this is precisely what I was arguing earlier. It is of the essence of
bourgeois nationalists that, when imperialism prevents them for building their
own independent capitalist state, they may lead struggles against it, but they
are striving to carve out a place for themselves within the existing system, not to
overthrow it. This means that, sooner or later, they will come to terms with
imperialism, just as Nehru and Nasser, Mandela and Gerry Adams all did.
I
think some of what you say tends to idealize secular nationalism. For example,
you talk about Mossadegh 'giving priority to the national interests of
Iran': what are these 'national
interests'? Do they transcend class antagonisms? Did Mossadegh represent the
harmonious unity of workers, peasants, and capitalists in Iran? I don't
think so. That is why the development of independent socialist politics and
organization is so important in order to articulate the distinct class project
of the working class.
AM:
In the campaigns that have taken shape for creating "another world", where and
do you consign the importance and place of any efforts to create a "new
Middle East"? What developments are necessary
to bring us nearer to building a better Middle
East? From your perspective what are the obligation of the left and
progressive forces in Europe and America in this regard?
AC:
First of all I wouldn't talk about a 'new Middle
East' because this is the slogan of the Bush administration's policy
of 'democratic' imperialism. Given the strategic importance of the Middle East
and the suffering of its peoples at the hands of their 'own' regimes,
Israel, and the Western powers, the
development of a real left in the region is very urgent. That left can begin to
emerge through the coming together of three agendas democratic (dismantling of
the dictatorships, winning of real citizenship rights for the entire population,
equality for women and for other oppressed groups, etc.) , social (against the
exploitation of workers and peasants, poverty and economic inequality,
neo-liberal 'reforms', for redistribution of land and other forms of wealth
etc.), and anti-imperialist (against the occupations in Palestine, Iraq, and
Afghanistan, against the Western military presence and alliances, against any
new wars).
As
the example of the democracy movements cited above illustrates, any left that
fails to address all three agendas doesn't deserve the name. The duty of the
left in the imperialist countries is to help nurture and support any signs of
such a left emerging in the Middle East. This
means, above all, solidarity which needs to be directed particularly in two
areas (1) campaigning against the Western and Israeli occupations and in
support of those resisting them, (2) against repression, especially though of
course not exclusively when it is practised by regimes closely allied to the US
and Britain.
AM:
Part of the left in Europe and America, when deciding on the stance they need to
take in response to imperialist intervention confine themselves to a mirror
image of the imperialist position and in the first instance the
US government. Wherever imperialism
places a negative mark, they automatically replace it by a positive, and vice
versa. For example tension or conflict between Washington and the regime of any
country is enough for that regime to be labelled "progressive" and the
revolutionary or socialist duty becomes not only to oppose the interventionist
imperialist policies and actions or defend the right of self determination (or
sovereignty) of the people of that country, but to go further and to directly
support the regime. It does not matter if Castro or Chavez is ruling there or
Saddam and Milosovitch, or Robert Mugabe and Ayatollah Khameni'i. Also the real
content of the conflict between that regime and Washington appears to matter little, nor what
are the relationship of that regime with its people (even ignoring specifically
how it deals with its workers, peasants and working people). Some go so far as
to consider any form of criticism to the policies of such regimes as aiding and
abetting imperialism and condemn it with the justification that such criticisms
provide the ideological excuse for imperialist intervention and aggression. In
the face of such behaviour what do you consider is a principled stance.
Particularly where the footprints of corrupt, repressive and anti-people regimes
are visible, which position do you support?
AC:
I find your description very general and lacking in concrete examples. I can
best respond by stating my own view. At the heart of Marxism is the idea of
socialism as the self-emancipation of the working class. Therefore what counts
is the self-activity of the masses. Existing regimes and states, all of which
part of the capitalist world system, have to be judged in the light of this
overall conception of socialism. But a key feature of global capitalism is that
the world is organized into a system of states in which a few the imperialist
powers dominate the rest economically, politically, and militarily. This poses
the question of what stance Marxists should take when states fight each
other.
Now
it is possible to argue that since the conflicting parties are all capitalist
states the left should, as a matter of principle, take no interest in who wins.
This is the line anarchists generally take, but it is one that the great
Marxists, from the revolutions of 1848 onwards, have always rejected. Marx,
Engels, Lenin, and Trotsky all judged the wars of their day from the standpoint
of what would advance the interests of the international working class. We
should do the same now. So, when the US fights some corrupt and repressive Third World state we should ask: whose side's victory will
be less harmful to the interests of the world working class? Given the role of
the US as the main
imperialist power maintaining the global relations of capitalist exploitation
and domination, the question answers itself: the defeat of the
US is in these cases the better
outcome.
Does
this mean that we should remain silent about the character of the regime (or
movement) fighting the US, concealing its class character
and denying its crimes? Absolutely not. I look forward to the moment when the
Iranian working class resumes the work it left unfinished in 1978-9 and sweeps
aside the Islamic Republican regime and indeed the capitalist class itself. But,
all the same, if the US were
to attack Iran tomorrow,
under the present regime, the better outcome would be if the US lost even
if, as it probably would, this temporarily strengthened the regime. The global
weakening of the relations of domination, the greater space for mass struggle
and initiative that would result from a US defeat make this outcome the
lesser evil.
This
problem isn't a new one. In 1937 Japan invaded China. The
ruling Kuomintang regime had drenched the Communist movement in blood when it
crushed the revolutionary wave of 1925-7. Nevertheless, Trotsky argued that
Chinese revolutionary Marxists should work for the defeat of Japan, an imperialist power seeking to colonize
China. He defined the appropriate
stance as one of political opposition but military support for the Kuomintang.
In other words, if revolutionaries could facilitate the victory of the
Kuomintang against Japan, they should do so, but they
should maintain their political independence and promote the self-activity of
the workers and peasants in order to prepare for the regime's overthrow.
Of course, there are tensions in this formula, but they reflect one of the
things that I have been stressing all along the contradictory nature of
anti-imperialist nationalism itself.
AM:
Here I ask your indulgence to give a brief introduction before I pose a question
on Iran. The heightening crisis in the
relations between the Bush administration and the regime in Iran in the last few
years has coincided with the appearance and spread of a new wave of protests and
struggles by workers, students, women and the oppressed nations, ethnic groups
and religious minorities in Iran. The protests and struggles have had in the
main a progressive, democratic, freedom- and equality-seeking content and are in
direct confrontation to the policies and actions of the ruling regime in
Iran. The unilateral attention of
left groups in Europe and America on the aggressive policies of imperialism in
the region (which is understandable in present tense atmosphere) and the
tendency in many of these groups unconditionally support the Iranian regime in
its confrontation with imperialism has meant that the social and mass struggles
of the Iranian people remain hidden from the view of European and American
socialists. This inattentiveness has handed over the discourse over human
rights, democracy and freedom entirely to the neo-conservatives and liberal
imperialists. The Voice of America is the loudest voice heard supporting the
protests of the people of Iran.
The
Tehran Bus Drivers have struggled to create an
independent trade union, and for improvement in their living and working
conditions (a struggle that began over a year ago and continues to this day),
and more than 1,200 were arrested without the slightest echo in the left and
revolutionary press of Europe and America. In a peaceful gathering in
Tehran in defence of social and legal rights and for protest against the
policies of sexual apartheid tens of people were beaten up, arrested and sent to
prison without the European and American left raising a finger in protest. Over
the last year we have been witness to widespread mass protests in a number of
cities with Kurd, Arab, Azeri, and Baluch population to which the regime
responded by bloody and savage repression. Yet the European and American left
saw itself without any duties in relation to the oppressed nations of the
country and kept silent in the face of the repression and killings. At this
moment about 10 Iranian Arab youths are awaiting a death sentence accused of
acts that could be completely without foundation. Yet while everyday thousands
of pages are written to prove the confluence of Ahmadinejad and Fidel Castro's
paths and surface in the publication and web-sites belonging to the left, yet
one can search in vain for one word in support of these victims.
In
your view how defensible are these policies on the part of the left (socialist
and communist)? What ideological and morel consequences do you think these forms
of political behaviour will have for the international left? Should one not
consider these behaviours of the same ilk as the mistakes that, as you pointed
out, resulted in the paralysis and weakening of the left in Iran and the Middle
East?
AC:
This information is very interesting and important. It should undoubtedly be
more widely publicized in the West, although I must emphasize that, for example,
Action Iran here in Britain
has combined campaigning against a US attack on Iran with stressing the importance of the social,
democratic and national movements with Iran. I'm maybe less offended that
you by the comparison between Castro and Ahmadinejad because I see them both as
bourgeois nationalists (though of very different kinds). Certainly it is wrong
to subordinate the independent interests of the working class to those of
particular nationalist regimes and movements. But it would be also wrong to
imagine for a moment that American imperialism could free the peoples of
Iran from the oppression you
describe.
Of
course you don't imagine this, but then you have to face the question I have
already posed. If Bush attacks Iran tomorrow, which side are you on?
I would be on Iran's but as Lenin put it I
would refuse to paint Ahmadinejad in communist colours; in other words, I would
be for an Iranian victory despite his
anti-Semitic rantings, despite the
regime's capitalist class base, despite the repression it perpetrates.
This is the politics of permanent revolution, which seeks the overthrow of
imperialism and of the local
bourgeois regimes, with the complex relations of collaboration and conflict that
they have with the main capitalist powers.
One
final note of warning: the national minorities in Iran were
oppressed under the Shah, and continue to be oppressed under the Islamic
Republican regime (incidentally, this shows how Islamism can co-exist with, in
this case, Farsi nationalism). Revolutionary socialists should support their
right of national self-determination. But, at the same time, we should remember
what has happened with the Kurds of northern Iraq, whose corrupt and clientilistic leaders
have sold themselves lock, stock, and barrel to US imperialism, providing Washington (and Israel) with a secure base in Iraq. There have
been reports of agents of the US, Britain, and Pakistan being active among Iran's national
minorities as part of Bush's strategy of 'regime change'. It is important that
the left point to the example of Iraqi Kurdistan as a warning against the
temptation that some in these minorities may have of improving their position by
allying themselves to American imperialism.
AM:
How do you see the anti war movement? By its powerful appearance in the prelude
to the Iraq war it raised hopes in a huge
way. You reflected those hopes in your excellent book The New Mandarins and
American Power, which came out that same year. Yet a few years later, not only
did this movement not grow and spread, but we have indeed witnessed its
downturn. Why? In your view can we be optimistic for a resurgence of this
movement? How and in what direction?
AC:
It is a common error to use the gigantic protests of early 2003 to proclaim the
death of the anti-war movement. One of our greatest achievements is used to hang
us! The 2003 protests were on such a scale that they could only go forward by
bringing down governments which did in fact happen in Spain in March
2004, albeit in an indirect and complex way. The failure to achieve such an
outcome on a broader scale and therefore prevent or end the Iraq war did
lead to a certain ebbing of the anti-war movement relative to the high point of
15 February 2003, but the extent varied enormously depending on national
conditions. Thus in the US the mainstream of the anti-war movement (including
figures as principled as Chomsky) made the fatal error of putting their efforts
in defeating Bush in 2004 by backing the pro-war Democrats under John Kerry, a
mistake from which they are only beginning to recover.
By
contrast, I think it is completely wrong to describe the condition of the
anti-war movement in Britain as one of 'downturn'. The
Stop the War Coalition has been able to sustain an astonishingly high level of
mass mobilization for the past five years a succession of big demonstrations,
usually twice a year, all very big by historic standards, if not on the scale of
15 February 2003 and to gain very deep roots in British society. This is
reflected in its ability to mount two large marches against the Lebanon War at
very short notice and at the height of the summer holidays. More generally, his
central role in engineering the Iraq War fatally damaged Tony Blair's government
and his complicity in the destruction of Lebanon is
helping to end his premiership.
This
contrast suggests that the fate of the anti-war movement has varied according to
the state of the left in different countries. In the US the left has
been crippled by its dependence on the Democrats. The British anti-war movement
has been led by forces of the radical left that have been able to sustain it in
a way that has combined consistent opposition to imperialism with an emphasis on
building on a broad and inclusive basis. Elsewhere the pattern is confirmed by,
for example, the decline of the Italian anti-war movement, which in 2001-4
mobilized on even a bigger scale than in Britain, but which has been very negatively
affected by the entry of Rifondazione Comunista into a centre-left coalition
government that is sending troops to Afghanistan and Lebanon.
The
international anti-war movement in any case faces a very big challenge. The
Lebanon War confirms that the Bush administration is telling the truth when it
says that it is waging a global war. Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon are all
fronts in this war. Iran may be the next one. The
involvement of European troops in both Afghanistan and Lebanon requires
a response for the left throughout the EU. Let us hope that this very
threatening situation will produce an upsurge of anti-war activity, not just in
Europe but globally.
AM:
Finally can I ask you to turn to the global anti-capitalist movement. Where, in
your view, does this movement stand today? What are the real potentials of this
movement and what prospects can we expect for it? As someone who has had an
important role in the formation and persistence of the regional and world social
forums, what role do you think these forums have had in the global
anti-capitalist movement and what role do you see them having in the
future?
AC:
This introduces some very big questions that extend well beyond the subject
matter of the rest of our discussion. I hope your readers will forgive me if I
refer them to writings where I have discussed these matters in depth,
particularly An Anti-Capitalist
Manifesto (Cambridge, 2003) and my contribution to H. Dee, ed., Anti-Capitalism: Where Next? (London, 2004). I would be
happy to provide this latter text for translation.
AM: Many
thanks for giving your time. I wish you every success in your
struggles.
Alex
Callinicos
is a member of the Central Committee of Socialist Workers Party and Professor of
European Studies at Kings College London. His publications include
Trotskyism (1990), The Revolutionary Ideas of Karl Marx (1999),
New
Mandarins and American Power
(2001), Anti-capitalist
manifesto
(2003).
