Israel’s
invasion of Lebanon is taking place in the context of the Bush regime’s
crusade to forcibly reshape the entire Middle East in order to solidify
and deepen America’s grip on the region and its vast petroleum wealth.
This in turn is part of its broader agenda of attempting to create an
imperialist empire that is both unchallenged and unchallengeable-across
the entire global and for decades to come.
This
staggering agenda demands crushing all impediments to U.S. hegemony,
whether resistance from the masses, reactionary states and forces not
firmly under U.S. control, or rival global powers-current and
potential.
This is why there is every
reason to be alarmed that what we are witnessing in Lebanon (and in
U.S. actions toward Iran) may be preparing-or may lead-to a wider and
even more murderous U.S.-led war across the Middle East.
Israel’s
actions are taking place in the context of both its history as an
outpost of imperialism in general, and the specific demands of the Bush
agenda in particular. In a nutshell, what Israel is doing (and has
done) does not flow from its “Jewishness,” (nor is Israel the “tail”
wagging the U.S. “dog”), it flows from its character as an outpost and
creation of imperialism-and the particular needs and goals of U.S.
imperialism now.
The Bush regime’s goals
have meant that Israel has become even more crucial and central to U.S.
designs in the region than before-as demonstrated by the close
coordination between the U.S. and Israel in the current war (see “Massacres and Invasion: The Bloody Hands of the U.S. and Israel in Lebanon“).
What
the U.S. and Israel are trying to achieve in the Middle East-and the
difference between today’s wars and past U.S. interventions and
invasions-can be summed up in three dimensions: even more brutally
imposing imperialist domination, necessarily in a more murderous way;
doing so across the entire region, not just in this country or that;
and carrying out this agenda in a more all-or-nothing, “world war” way.
The Imperialist and Genocidal Nature of Bush’s “New Middle East”
The
U.S. rulers talk of spreading “democracy” across the Middle East and
describe the current atrocities against Lebanon as the “birth pangs” of
a new region. But what is being shown in Lebanon is instead the reality
that, as Bob Avakian has put it, “What the U.S. spreads around the
world is not democracy, but imperialism and political structures to
enforce that imperialism.” And it is doing so more openly and brutally
than ever.
Lebanon has an elected
government, of which Hezbollah is part, and Hezbollah has a mass base
among Lebanon’s Shi”ite population, the country’s largest
ethnic/religious group which comprises some 40 percent of the
population, or at least 1.5 million people.
Did
the U.S. and Israel respect the votes and desires of the Lebanese
people? No, and not because Hezbollah is at bottom a reactionary
organization, representing traditional and feudal interests, which can
neither thoroughly oppose imperialism nor contribute to the genuine
liberation of the Lebanese people. They did so because Hezbollah has
contradictions with Israel and has allied in various ways with Hamas in
Palestine as well as Syria and Iran. So Hezbollah is an obstacle to
unfettered U.S. regional hegemony and making Lebanon completely pliant
to the U.S. and Israel, crushing the Palestinian people, and isolating
and weakening Syria and Iran.
Hence
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice declares (8/2) that the U.S. “will
not allow a return to the status quo ante [the way things were
before],” and that there will be no ceasefire until Hezbollah is
disarmed. Who gave the U.S. imperialists the right to destroy the
“status quo” and determine Lebanon’s future?
There
are real genocidal implications to this Bush program, both because the
imperialists are attempting to impose or reimpose more direct forms of
imperialist domination and because there is a Hitlerian, “final
solution” element to this agenda of not tolerating impediments, but
seizing the moment to “fully resolve” them.
Think
about Hezbollah’s roots among Lebanese Shi”ites, and the implications
when Israel’s U.S. Ambassador declares, “We will not go part way and be
held hostage again. We”ll have to go for the kill- Hezbollah
neutralization.” (Washington Post, 7/16). Or when Jed Babbin, a former
official in the Bush I administration states on CNN (7/28); “I’m
willing to kill as many people as it requires to take out Hezbollah.”
Or when Israel’s Justice Minister Haim Ramon claims (7/27), “Everyone
in southern Lebanon is a terrorist and is connected to Hezbollah.”
Lebanon
Shiites have been a major target in Israel’s air war. “Probably 90
percent of the people who fled their homes in Lebanon-some 800,000
people by United Nations accounts-are Shiite. This represents nearly a
quarter of the Lebanese people. I suspect close to 95 percent of the
more than 800 Lebanese killed so far are Shiite.” (“Who Is Really at War? The Patterns So Far,” Chibli Mallat)
Attacks
are also continuing in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, causing world
renowned writers Noam Chomsky, Arundhati Roy, John Berger, Howard Zinn
and others to warn in an open letter on July 19 that Israel was aiming
for “nothing less than the liquidation of the Palestinian nation.”
Targeting Syria and Iran
No
single action the U.S. takes in the world today can be understood apart
from its overall objectives, and its support for Israel’s attack on
Lebanon is no different: this war is also aimed- directly or
indirectly-at Syria and especially Iran.
There
is speculation in the media that the hardcore of the Bush regime is
attempting to use the crisis to trigger a war with Syria and/or Iran.
(See for example, Salon.com, where Sidney Blumenthal, a former Clinton
official and Israel supporter argues that high-ranking Bush officials
are working to “widen the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah and
Israel and Hamas into a four-front war”. laying the condition for
regional conflagration with untold consequences.”)
In an article titled “Iran Is Bush’s Target in Lebanon,”
the LA Times (July 30) quoted a U.S. official who stated, “Israel’s
battle with Hezbollah is merely part of a larger struggle between the
U.S. and Iran for influence across the Middle East,” and that the U.S.
and Iran “are conducting a proxy war” in Lebanon.
(This
past week, the U.S. diplomatic assault on Iran escalated with the UN’s
demand, delivered on July 30, that Iran stop enriching uranium before
August 31 or face possible sanctions.)
A Murderous and Explosive Logic at Work
The
U.S. is not only attempting to gain tighter control of states in the
Middle East; it also envisions making deep political, social and
economic changes to more thoroughly open them up to U.S. capital and
more completely integrate them into the U.S. empire.
There
is a murderous and potentially explosive logic at work here. On one
hand, the Bush regime is compelled to stay on the offensive to realize
its goals: any slowing down could stall and/or derail the whole
juggernaut. What they”re doing on a world scale requires an unrelenting
offensive, a dynamic in which any hesitation or retreat works against
their aims and could potentially unravel the whole thing. This means
that they are not going to easily pull back in the face of obstacles
and difficulties, for example in Iraq, but instead envision battling
through years of turmoil and upheaval to create their new world order.
(Right-wing imperialist George Will recently described the Bush
approach as one that “makes instability, no matter how pandemic or
lethal, necessarily a sign of progress,” which he warned
“creates a blind eye.” Washington Post, 7/18). Instead, they are driven
to push on through-even “escape forward” from the contradictions they
face and create by widening the war, to both maintain its momentum and
because they feel they can only deal with the difficulties they are
facing on a larger stage.
On the other
hand, the very enormity and brutality of U.S. objectives, coupled with
its relentless push ahead carries with it the potential for things
getting wildly out of their control and for major strategic defeats (as
well as fierce infighting within the ruling class over how to manage
the situation), all of which can happen very quickly. There is already
widespread talk that the U.S.-Israeli assault on Lebanon has failed and
may backfire.
Yet as Revolution’s editorial
points out this week, such surprising events and/or defeats will not
translate into halting the U.S.’s murderous path unless the masses of
people resist now, and seize upon any difficulties the imperialists
face to mount even greater resistance.