Quiet on the anti-interventionist front

[Originally posted at NOW]

Is it just me, or have America’s latest killings of jihadists in Iraq generated less resentment – not to say rage – than similar efforts typically did in the previous decade?

A glance at the reaction – or, rather, lack thereof – from anti-interventionist circles over the past few days suggests that is indeed the case. Barring the sheer crackpottery of such outfits as Britain’s Stop The War, which said it was “vital that we oppose” the operation that rescued over 20,000 Iraqis from certain death at ISIS’ hands (and which, when it’s Russia rather than America doing the invading, turns out to be remarkably flexible on the principle), there simply has not been much noise made about it. Even so cacophonous a demagogue as George Galloway hasn’t been able to denounce the strikes per se, grumbling instead (on Russian state TV) that they’ll be ineffective because the Americans “sat on their hands” the whole time ISIS was growing – a criticism that, he apparently doesn’t see, works at the expense of the anti-interventionist position.

Why, then, this quiet? A generous reading might point to the highly idiosyncratic circumstances of the Mount Sinjar case – easily identifiable militant locations, clearly segregated from a purely civilian populace facing unambiguous and imminent genocide. It’s a moral philosopher’s hypothetical example brought to life – if ‘Responsibility to Protect’ doesn’t apply here, it doesn’t apply anywhere.

Yet there is likely a second reason, plainly (if inadvertently) detectable in Galloway, which is that many anti-interventionists have for three years now energetically premised their case precisely on their enmity toward ISIS and its predecessors, who (having been the “resistance” in Iraq back in the 2000s) then became the Zionist-imperialist traitors against the “fortress of Arab dignity” that is the Assad regime. That’s why neither Lebanon’s Hezbollah nor Tehran have made any public condemnations of the operations – call someone a “takfiri” or “terrorist” once, and it’s not easy to complain when someone starts killing them. How embarrassing it must be for the “anti-imperialists” to suddenly find Empire fighting on their side.

Zionists and anti-Zionists finally agree (that Syrian rebels are "terrorists")

[Originally posted at NOW]

There was a time, not very long ago at all, when being called a “terrorist” by the Israeli chief of staff earned one the instant respect and support of the anti-Zionist intelligentsia. One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter, after all, so what nobler title could there be for the warrior for Palestinian liberation than this ultimate vilification, this summa of demonization in the enemy’s eyes? Indeed, to disavow “terror”, as Yasser Arafat did in 1988, was nothing less than craven capitulation to Empire and shameful treachery to the cause.

Alas, the “anti-imperial” left has undergone strange contortions in the last two years, and an unlikely consensus is beginning to be forged between the bitterest antagonists. Already reviled by the likes of As’ad AbuKhalil as “armed fanatical gangs […] inheritors of Bin Laden […] terrorists and not revolutionaries”, the Syrian opposition was later partly designated a "terrorist organization" by the White House. This was ostensibly on the grounds that the brigade in question, Jabhat al-Nusra, was deliberately killing civilians, but on Monday State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland even condemned as “terrorism” a rebel attack on Syrian regime soldiers, to whom she inexplicably referred as “noncombatants”. Reporters in the room at the time must have briefly wondered if they were not at a Russian Foreign Ministry press conference.

Yet equally interesting on Monday was Israeli military chief Benny Gantz’ warning that “the terrorist organizations [in Syria] are becoming stronger on the ground.” Of particular concern to Gantz was that Bashar al-Assad’s most dangerous weapons “could fall into the hands of these terrorist organizations” (draw what inference you will about the hands they’re currently in).

How extraordinary to see the Israeli army, the Arab “left” and the American administration singing in such resonant harmony. Evidently, whatever their differences over Gaza, the settlements and the occupation, they battle as happy comrades in this latest round of the War on Terror.

Let's be clear: They're not anti-imperialists

[Originally posted at NOW Lebanon]

Lebanese demonstrators on March 8, 2005, holding signs "thanking" Syria's Assad for occupying their country for 29 years (AP)

Twitter is abuzz today with recommendations of an intellectual “demolition” of what the author dubs “Assad’s useful idiots.” In a deeply-researched 4,000 word juggernaut, the Global Mail Middle East correspondent Jess Hill comprehensively details the manner in which Assad apologists from The Guardian’s Seumas Milne to the journalist John Pilger to the author Tariq Ali to British MP George Galloway are “willfully twisting the narrative on Syria to score points against the ‘imperialist West’” and thereby “excusing and providing intellectual cover for the Assad regime.”

It’s an excellent job, and one I thoroughly endorse, save for one slight but significant objection. Throughout the piece, Hill unironically labels these stooges “anti-imperialists” and even “leftists.” In a particularly regrettable lapse, she describes Lebanon’s Al-Akhbar as “the leftist Hezbollah-friendly newspaper.” Such misnomers sully the good names of these political traditions, which can and must be rescued from the villains who masquerade under them. Put simply, Assad, Hezbollah and their cheerleaders are not anti-imperialists but rival imperialists, whose contempt for liberalism places them not on the left, but the very-far-right.

An extreme example is Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, who calls herself both an “anti-imperialist” and a “Greater Syria nationalist” (an ideology, incidentally, that drew heavily on the fascism of 1930s Europe). Her ravings can often be found on Al-Akhbar, where she infamously once wrote that supporting Assad’s “struggle” against the opposition was the “litmus [test] of [...] commitment to the Palestinian cause.”

And where these “leftists” aren’t openly advocating ethno-nationalist expansionism, they’re making excuses for violent and totalitarian theocracy. As Michael Weiss drily noted to me after Max Blumenthal’s resignation from Al-Akhbar, “He was fine with writing for [it] when it was just pro-Hezbollah…”

It’s high time we started calling spades spades. An Islamist cannot also be a leftist, nor can a supporter of (say) the Syrian occupation of Lebanon be an anti-imperialist. Genuine leftists and anti-imperialists deserve better than being lumped in with such sinister company.

Beirut leftists turn ire on Putin

[Originally posted at NOW Lebanon]

“Anti-imperialism,” as a political persuasion, is one about which it usually pays to be suspicious. Those who shout loudest about the self-interested realpolitik of Western governments are more often than not ready to excuse comparable, or even greater, crimes at the hands of rival empires. Theirs is a long-standing tradition, whose milestones have included lauding the “resistance” credentials of Supreme Leaders in Tehran, fellow-travelling with tyrants from Stalin to Mao, and even opposing war with Hitler on the grounds that Churchill was no better (see Nick Cohen’s magisterial 'What’s Left?' for a comprehensive account of this sorry history).

So it was a very pleasant surprise indeed to find a rare display of genuine anti-imperialism outside the Russian embassy in Beirut on Tuesday evening. Around 20 people of a manifestly leftist bent had gathered to protest Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intractable support for the gore-drenched Syrian regime. They held up signs to passing cars on Corniche al-Mazraa saying things like “Russia: We want your vodka not your weapons.” One placard, which ought to give Hassan Nasrallah something to think about, equated Putin’s policy on Syria with America’s on Israel. They then proceeded to throw paper planes over the barbed-wired walls surrounding the embassy compound, each one unfolding into a list of names of murdered Syrians.

Can one draw any meaningful conclusions with such a pitifully small turnout (there were more journalists than demonstrators, and far more security officers than journalists)? Perhaps not. But it would be nice all the same to think the Lebanese left was increasingly breaking ranks with the despot-friendliness that too often taints its name (those who haven’t read it yet, please see Amal Saad-Ghorayeb’s blog, in which she describes her politics as simultaneously “anti-imperialist” and “Greater Syria nationalist”). More of this please.