Time for the “International Left” to Take a Stand on Venezuela

by GREGORY WILPERT

JULY 17, 2017 counterpunch.org

Venezuela is heading towards an increasingly dangerous situation, in which open civil war could become a real possibility. So far over 100 people have been killed as a result of street protests, most of these deaths are the fault of the protesters themselves (to the extent that we know the cause). The possibility of civil war becomes more likely as long the international media obscure who is responsible for the violence and as long as the international left remains on the sidelines in this conflict and fails to show solidarity with the Bolivarian socialist movement in Venezuela.

If the international left receives its news about Venezuela primarily from the international media, it is understandable why it is being so quiet. After all, this mainstream media consistently fails to report who is instigating the violence in this conflict. For example, a follower of CNN or the New York Times would not know that of the 103 who have been killed as a result of street protests, 27 were the direct or indirect result of the protesters themselves. Another 14 were the result of lootings, in one prominent case because looters set fire to a store and ended up getting engulfed in the flames themselves. 14 deaths are attributable to the actions of state authorities (where in almost all cases those responsible have been charged), and 44 are still under investigation or in dispute. This is according to data from the office of the Attorney General, which itself has recently become pro-opposition.

Also unknown to most consumers of the international media would be that opposition protesters detonated a bomb in the heart of Caracas on July 11, wounding seven National Guard soldiers, that a building belonging to the Supreme Court was burnt by opposition protesters on June 12th or that opposition protesters attacked a maternity hospital on May 17.

In other words, it is possible that much of the international left has been misled about the violence in Venezuela, into thinking that the government is the only one responsible, that President Maduro has declared himself to be dictator for life (when he actually confirmed that the presidential elections scheduled for late 2018 will proceed as planned), or that all dissent is being punished with prison (when a major opposition leader, Leopoldo Lopez, who was partly responsible for the post-election violence in 2014 was just released from prison, now under house arrest). If this is the reason for the silence on Venezuela, then the left should be ashamed for not having read its own critiques of the mainstream media.

All of the foregoing does not contradict that there are plenty of places where one might criticize the Maduro government for having made mistakes with regard to how it has handled the current situation, both economically and politically. However, criticisms (of which I have made several myself) do not justify taking either a neutral or pro-opposition stance in this momentous conflict. As the South African anti-apartheid activist Desmond Tutu once said, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”

Perhaps the Venezuelan case is also confusing to outsiders because President Maduro is in power and the opposition is not. It could thus be difficult to see the opposition as being an “oppressor.” However, for an internationalist left it should not be so confusing. After all, the opposition in Venezuela receives significant support not only from private business, but also from the US government, the international right, and transnational capital.

Perhaps progressives feel that the Maduro government has lost all democratic legitimacy and that this is why they cannot support it. According to the mainstream media coverage, Maduro canceled regional elections scheduled for December 2016, prevented the recall referendum from happening, and neutralized the National Assembly. Let’s take a brief look at each of these claims one by one.

First, regional elections (state governors and mayors) were indeed supposed to take place in late 2016, but the National Electoral Council (CNE) postponed them with the argument that political parties needed to re-register first. Leaving aside the validity of this argument, the CNE rescheduled the elections recently for December 2017. This postponement of a scheduled election is not unprecedented in Venezuela because it happened before, back in 2004, when local elections were postponed for a full year. Back then, at the height of President Chávez’s power, hardly anyone objected.

As for the recall referendum, it was well known that it would take approximately ten months to organize between its initiation and its culmination. However, the opposition initiated the process in April 2016, far too late for the referendum to take place in 2016, as they wanted (because if it takes place in 2017 there would be no new presidential election, according to the constitution, and the vice-president takes over for the remainder of the term).

Finally, with regard to the disqualification of the National Assembly, this was another self-inflicted wound on the part of the opposition. That is, even though the opposition had won 109 out of 167 seats (65%) outright, they insisted on swearing in three opposition members whose election was in dispute because of fraud claims. As a result, the Supreme Court ruled that until these three members are removed, most decisions of the national assembly would not be valid.

In other words, none of the arguments against the democratic legitimacy of the Maduro government hold much water. More than that, polls repeatedly indicate that even though Maduro is fairly unpopular, a majority of Venezuelans want him to finish his term in office, which expires in January 2019. As a matter of fact, Maduro’s popularity is not as low as several other (conservative) presidents in Latin America at the moment, such as that of Mexico’s Enrique Peña Nieto (17% in March, 2017), Brazil’s Michel Temer (7% in June, 2017), or Colombia’s Juan Manuel Santos (14% in June, 2017). Compare these to Nicolas Maduro’s 24% approval rating in March 2017.

Now that we have addressed the possible reasons why the international left has been reluctant to show solidarity with the Maduro government and the Bolivarian socialist movement, we need to examine what “neutrality” in this situation would end up meaning – in other words, what allowing the opposition to come to power via an illegal and violent transition would mean.

First and foremost, their coming to power will almost certainly mean that all Chavistas – whether they currently support President Maduro or not – will become targets for persecution. Although it was a long time ago, many Chavistas have not forgotten the “Caracazo,” when in February 1989, then-president Carlos Andrés Perez meted out retaliation on poor neighborhoods for protesting against his government and wantonly killed somewhere between 400 and 1,000 people. More recently, during the short-lived coup against President Chávez in April 2002 the current opposition showed it was more than willing to unleash reprisals against Chavistas. Most do not know this, but during the two-day coup regime over 60 Chavistas were killed in Venezuela (this figure does not include the 19 killed in the lead-up to the coup, on both sides of the political divide). The post-election violence of April 2013 left 7 dead, and the Guarimbas of February to April 2014 left 43 dead. Although the dead in each of these cases represented a mix of opposition supporters, Chavistas, and non-involved bystanders, in almost all of these cases the majority belonged to the Chavista side of the political divide. Now, during the most recent wave of guarimbas, there have also been several incidents where a Chavista was too close to an opposition protest were chased and killed because protesters recognized them to be a Chavista in some way.

In other words, the danger that Chavistas will be persecuted more generally if the opposition should take over the government is very real. Even though the opposition includes reasonable individuals who would not support such a persecution, the current leadership of the opposition has done nothing to reign in the fascist tendencies within its own ranks. If anything, they have encouraged these tendencies.

Second, even though the opposition has not published a concrete plan for what it intends to do once in government (which is also one of the reasons why the opposition remains almost as unpopular among the general population as the government), individual statements by opposition leaders indicate that they would immediately proceed to implement a neoliberal economic program along the lines of President Temer in Brazil or Mauricio Macri in Argentina. They might succeed in reducing inflation and shortages this way, but at the expense of eliminating subsidies and social programs for the poor across the board. Also, they would roll back all of the policies supporting communal councils and communes that have been a cornerstone of participatory democracy in the Bolivarian revolution.

So, instead of silence, neutrality, or indecision from the international left in the current conflict in Venezuela, what is needed is active solidarity with the Bolivarian socialist movement. Such solidarity means vehemently opposing all efforts to overthrow the government of President Maduro during his current presidential term in office. Aside from the patent illegality that the Maduro government’s overthrow would represent, it would also be a literally deadly blow to Venezuela’s socialist movement and to the legacy of President Chávez. The international left does not even need to take a position on whether the proposed constitutional assembly or negotiations with the opposition is the best way to resolve the current crisis. That is really up to Venezuelans to decide. Opposing intervention and disseminating information on what is actually happening in Venezuela, though, are the two things where non-Venezuelans can play a constructive role.

Gregory Wilpert is a former director of the teleSUR English website and author of Changing Venezuela by Taking Power: The History and Policies of the Chávez Government.

La ola populista latinoamericana

José Blanco

La  Jornada  18 de Julio de 2017

Las olas crecen gradualmente,pueden ser de tamaño impresionante, alcanzan un culmen y después se desvanecen. Tras una ola sigue otra. La ola social de la que hablaremos no tiene la regularidad del mar. Pero en el presente y el futuro previsible es probable que tengamos nuevas olas sociopolíticas nacional populares (o populistas); las experiencias vividas no se mueren, no podrá haber una simple restauración al régimen neoliberal anterior.

La ola populista latinoamericana duró algo más de una década. No se ha desvanecido absolutamente, pero el futuro inmediato parece oscuro. Como era de esperarse muchos analistas ya la dieron por muerta e inhumada. Mis eventuales lectores saben que, a la par de ya numerosos analistas, en este espacio se ha hablado positivamente del populismo, reivindicándolo absolutamente.

Los muchos, de muchos colores, que han festejado el desvanecimiento de la ola, han formulado un veredicto que piensan definitivo: como era de esperarse, la izquierda ha fracasado; sus abundantes yerros en materia de política económica, los ha llevado al precipicio. Esa es una síntesis más o menos ajustada, aunque suavizada, de la lluvia de piltrafa envenenada lanzada por el neoliberalismo de diversas tonalidades, contra quienes mostraron que sí es posible esquivar a los poderes internacionales dominantes.

La ola tuvo una corta vida turbulenta, pero fue potente y sus logros no fueron pocos: 70 millones de latinoamericanos salieron de la pobreza…, se dice pronto. En el estudio que conjuntamente elaboraron la Cepal y la OCDE, titulado Perspectivas Económicas de América Latina 2012, se dice: Pese a la gran diferencia en la dinámica económica entre América del Sur, por un lado, y Centroamérica, México y el Caribe, por otro, en conjunto la sostenida demanda externa (especialmente de economías emergentes, como China), en combinación con vigorosas demandas internas, han permitido que la región alcance un crecimiento anual promedio de casi 5 por ciento en el periodo 2003-2008. Este buen desempeño fue también inducido por una adecuada gestión macroeconómica que, en muchos casos, creó el espacio fiscal para afrontar los efectos de la crisis financiera global, sin poner en peligro la solvencia fiscal. Ese estudio, resultado del esfuerzo unificado de dos instituciones incapaces de incurrir en derivas izquierdistas, desmiente categóricamente los arteros ataques provenientes de la derecha neoliberal que domina al mundo, según la cual los populismos latinoamericanos eran de suyo ignorantes de la globalización, del manejo equilibrado de la macroeconomía, de la prudencia en sus cuentas con el exterior. En general, con excepción de México y el Caribe, América del Sur, durante la década aludida, se orientó por el neoestructuralismo elaborado por la Cepal y los pensadores afines o cercanos a esta corriente de pensamiento latinoamericano. México ha permanecido fidelísimo al Consenso de Washington; pero hay novedades en curso...

Ahora los populismos latinoamericanos han ido atrás en términos económicos y políticos, pero ha quedado una experiencia política que será asimilada con el tiempo. Los regímenes que surgieron apoyados en movimientos populares, no transformaron al Estado, no innovaron mayormente en materia institucional, prácticamente no avanzaron en transformar el modelo productivo y, así, no era posible dar continuidad a las experiencias vividas. Veremos que ocurre con el caso de Ecuador.

El culmen de la ola fue de 2003 a 2012, aunque la primera elección de Hugo Chávez fue en 1998. Siguieron Lula en 2003; Ernesto Kirchner en 2003; Evo Morales, elegido por primera vez en 2005; Cristina Kirchner en 2007; Rafael Correa en 2007. Dejo fuera de esta lista a Daniel Ortega y su extravagante costilla.

El socialismo del siglo XXI es un término acuñado por Heinz Dieterich Steffan que fue difundido por Hugo Chávez en el Foro Social Mundial de 2005, e inmediatamente apropiado por los gobiernos de Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador y Nicaragua. Desde el ángulo del concepto de populismo que aquí hemos esbozado someramente, los regímenes referidos fueron experiencias diversas de populismo.

De otra parte, también es claro que fueron experiencias distintas. Fueron propiciadas por las brutales injusticias sociales, la pobreza profunda, el hartazgo con unos gobiernos que sólo sabían recitar el Consenso de Washington, el que aumentaba sin cesar las desigualdades más inicuas, que acabaron con las instituciones que intentaron en el pasado mejorar la vida de los de abajo, que han vivido inmersos en un mar corrupto. Los movimientos sociales se multiplicaban, y aparecieron los líderes carismáticos que, apoyados en el inicio del ciclo de los altos precios de los bienes primarios en general, estuvieron en capacidad de usar la vía electoral para hacerse de las instituciones mediante partidos políticos en algunos casos creados al vapor, expresamente organizados para ganar elecciones.

Los líderes populistas prometieron nada menos que la ¡refundación de sus naciones!; así querían volar. Repudiaron el neoliberalismo, promovieron la unidad latinoamericana sin injerencias del imperio y buscaron establecer modelos superiores de democracia incluyente basados en la participación popular y en una equidad creciente.

Con la crisis de 2007/2008, y la caída de los precios de los bienes básicos, los populistas enfrentaron problemas políticos cada vez más complejos, que crecieron verticalmente. Fueron populismos imperfectos porque les faltó crear pueblo: crear un sentido común de lo nacional-popular de cada uno, y reivindicarlo para sí, una política para disputar sin tregua la hegemonía a los neoliberales.

Esa construcción social llamada pueblo, no estaba hecha. No había quien defendiera a los nuevos regímenes en ciernes. Dilma es uno de los casos más dramáticos: no fue defendida por un pueblo que no estaba.

Russia Baiters and Putin Haters

by Patrick J. Buchanan Posted on July 14, 2017 Antiwar.com

"Is Russia an enemy of the United States?" NBC’s Kasie Hunt demanded of Ted Cruz. Replied the runner-up for the GOP nomination, "Russia is a significant adversary. Putin is a KGB thug."

To Hillary Clinton running mate Tim Kaine, the revelation that Donald Trump Jr., entertained an offer from the Russians for dirt on Clinton could be considered "treason."

Treason is giving aid and comfort to an enemy in a time of war.

Are we really at war with Russia? Is Russia really our enemy?

"Why Russia is a Hostile Power" is the title of today’s editorial in The Washington Post that seeks to explain why Middle America should embrace the Russophobia of our capital city:

"Vladimir Putin adheres to a set of values that are antithetical to bedrock American values. He favors spheres of influence over self-determination; corruption over transparency; and repression over democracy."

Yet, accommodating a sphere of influence for a great power is exactly what FDR and Churchill did with Stalin, and every president from Truman to George H. W. Bush did with the Soviet Union.

When East Germans, Hungarians, Czechs, Poles rose up against Communist regimes, no U.S. president intervened. For those nations were on the other side of the Yalta line agreed to in 1945.

Bush I and James Baker even accused Ukrainians of "suicidal nationalism" for contemplating independence from Russia.

When did support for spheres of influence become un-American?

As for supporting "corruption over transparency," ex-Georgia President Mikheil Saakashvili resigned in disgust as governor of Odessa in November, accusing Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, our man in Kiev, of supporting corruption.

As for favoring "repression over democracy," would that not apply to our NATO ally President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, our Arab ally Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi of Egypt, and our Philippine ally Rodrigo Duterte? Were U.S. Cold War allies like the Shah of Iran and Gen. Augusto Pinochet of Chile all Jeffersonian Democrats? Have we forgotten our recent history?

The Post brought up the death in prison of lawyer-activist Sergei Magnitsky in 2009. Under the Magnitsky Act of 2012, Congress voted sanctions on Russia’s elites.

Yet China’s lone Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Liu Xiaobo, sentenced to 11 years in prison for championing democracy, died Thursday of liver cancer, with police in his hospital room. Communist dictator Xi Jinping, who makes Putin look like Justin Trudeau, would not let the dying man go.

Will Magnitsky Act sanctions be slammed on China? Don’t bet on it. Too much trade. Congress will do what comes naturally — kowtow. Yet our heroic Senate voted 98-2 to slam new sanctions on Russia.

What are the roots of this hostility to Russia and hatred of Putin, whom a Fox analyst called "as bad as Hitler"?

During the Cold War, every president sought detente with a USSR that was arguably the most blood-soaked regime of the century.

When the Cold War ended in December 1991, the Soviet Union had dissolved into 15 nations. Moscow had given up her empire, a third of her territory, and half the population of the USSR. Marxist-Leninist ideology was dead. An epochal change had taken place.

Yet hostility to Russia and hatred of Putin seem to exceed anything some of us remember from the worst days of the Cold War.

Putin’s Russia is called imperialist, though Estonia, next door, which Russia could swallow in one gulp, has been free for 25 years.

Russia invaded Georgia. Well, yes, after Georgia invaded the seceded province of South Ossetia and killed Russian peacekeepers.

Russia has taken back Crimea from Ukraine. True, but only after a U.S.-backed coup in Kiev replaced the elected pro-Russian regime.

Russia has intervened to back Bashar Assad in Syria. Yes, but only after our insurgent allies collaborated with al-Qaida and ISIS to bring him down. Is Russia not allowed to support an ally, recognized by the U.N., which provides its only naval base on the Med?

Russia has meddled in our election. And we have meddled in the affairs of half a dozen nations with "color-coded revolutions." The cry of "regime change!" may daily be heard in the U.S. Capitol.

Putin is not Pope Francis. But he is not Stalin; he is not Hitler; he is not Mao; and Russia today is not the USSR. Putin is an autocrat cut from the same bolt of cloth as the Romanov czars.

His cooperation is crucial to the peace of the world, the freedom of the Baltic States, an end to the Syrian civil war, tranquility in the Persian Gulf, and solving the North Korean crisis.

While our tectonic plates may rub against one another, we are natural allies. The Russia of Tolstoy, Pushkin, Solzhenitsyn and the Orthodox Church belongs with the West.

If America stumbles into a war with Russia that all our Cold War presidents avoided, the Russia baiters and Putin haters will be put in same circle of hell by history as the idiot war hawks of 1914 and the three blind men of Versailles in 1919.

Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of Churchill, Hitler, and “The Unnecessary War”: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World. To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Web page at www.creators.com.

The Growing Danger of War With Iran

by Paul R. Pillar lobelog.com

A combination of circumstances has increased the risk that armed conflict will break out between the United States and Iran. Such a war is no certainty, but the chance that one will occur is greater today than it has been in years. Some of the relevant circumstances, such as the first two mentioned below, have been around in some form for a substantial amount of time, while others are more recent.

Anti-Iranism in American discourse

The vocabulary has become so repetitive and widely used that it rolls off tongues automatically: Iran is a “theocratic autocracy” and the “largest state sponsor of terrorism” that engages in “nefarious,” “malign,” and “destabilizing” behavior as part of its “drive for regional hegemony,” etc. The verbiage has become a substitute for thought and for any careful examination of exactly what Iran is and is not doing and how it does and does not affect U.S. interests. Such a commonly accepted mantra means that anyone making a focused attempt to stir up trouble with Iran starts with a built-in advantage in mustering public and political support.

The lobby pushing hostility against Iran

There indeed have been, and still are, focused attempts to stir up trouble. Politically potent interests have their own narrow reasons to keep U.S.-Iranian relations bad and to keep Iran isolated. Foremost among those interests is the right-wing government of Israel, for which Iran as chief bête noire serves to cripple a competitor for regional influence, to explain all regional trouble in terms that do not relate to Israel, to distract attention from matters (especially the occupation of Palestinian territory) the Israeli government would rather not discuss, and to keep the United States wedded to Israel as supposedly its only reliable regional partner.

Given the obvious impact of the Israeli government’s preferences on American politics, this factor weighs greatly on the current administration’s policies toward Iran. Donald Trump has tilted heavily to those Israeli preferences, as reflected in his appointments and in his rhetoric since midway through the presidential campaign. Trump still aspires to achieve an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, which would require sharp breaks with the Netanyahu government’s current course. But that might make aggressiveness and confrontation with Iran seem all the more necessary, as a form of compensation to Netanyahu while pressing him for concessions toward the Palestinians.

Anti-Obamaism and the nuclear agreement

The preceding factor was one of two major reasons for opposition to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the multilateral agreement that severely restricts Iran’s nuclear program and closes any possible path to a nuclear weapon. The other major, and very partisan, reason was that the accord was probably Barack Obama’s biggest single achievement in foreign policy. Trump, who scathingly denounced the accord during the campaign and whose administration only grudgingly acknowledges that Iran is complying with its obligations under the agreement, still shows a strong inclination to do the opposite of whatever Obama did. Now that the Republican effort to undo Obama’s signature domestic achievement, the Affordable Care Act, has run aground on the realities of health care, the urge may be stronger than ever to undo Obama’s signature foreign policy achievement. If it can be undone not through direct U.S. renunciation but as a casualty of some other confrontation with Iran, then so much the better from Trump’s point of view.

Weak voices of restraint in the administration

There are press reports of debate within the Trump administration on aspects of policy toward Iran, and real debate is much better than policy made through wee-hours tweets. But it is doubtful whether the sober reasons why armed conflict with Iran would be folly are getting adequate attention. This is not only a matter of the dominance of non-sober voices, such as that of self-declared Leninist destroyer-of-worlds Stephen Bannon, who demonstrated his clout with Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris climate change agreement. The problem also is that visceral anti-Iranism infects even some of those looked to as adults in the room, most notably Secretary of Defense James Mattis. 

Respectability given to regime change

Another of the adults, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, recently told the House Foreign Affairs Committee that regime change is part of U.S. policy on Iran. This comment resurrects a malevolent concept that amply deserves a place on the trash heap of U.S. foreign policy history, especially given the disastrous results under the previous two administrations of regime change in Iraq and Libya. The concept is no more suitable to Iran, where there is not some political movement in our own image that is just waiting to be freed from the yoke of theocratic autocrats through a new revolution.

Those with other reasons for promoting hostility toward Iran also have been promoting the regime change idea. Shortly after the inauguration, for example, the Sheldon Adelson-funded Foundation for Defense of Democracies was pushing a paper at the National Security Council centered on regime change. The specific notion usually being pushed is that forms of subversion short of armed conflict would do the job, but the fantasy outcome of a new and attractive regime in Tehran can easily become an objective of military operations initiated, or ostensibly initiated, for other reasons. Meanwhile, the rhetoric of regime change adds to tension and distrust between Tehran and Washington that make destabilizing incidents increasingly likely.

Mission creep in Syria

The crushing of the so-called Islamic State’s caliphate is close enough to completion that the difficult and deferred question of what becomes of its diminishing territory in Syria now must be faced directly. Much commentary on this question in the United States is advocating what amounts to a significant expansion of U.S. objectives in Syria by confronting the Damascus regime and its Russian and Iranian backers. U.S. actions on the ground and in the air already have moved in this direction. Incidents have included shooting down Iranian drones and a manned Syrian aircraft, as well as U.S. attacks on what were described as “Iranian-supported” militias.

It is remarkable how much the mission in Syria already has creeped and evolved. As Josh Wood puts it, “Over the course of his short tenure, Mr. Trump and his administration went from talking about potentially partnering with Damascus and Moscow against [Islamic State], to appearing absolutely disinterested in the civil war, to bombing Syrian government targets.” The evolution of objectives in the next five months could be just as rapid as in the last five. Given Iran’s significant role in Syria, and the expanding U.S. role there, Syria is one of the places most likely to spark direct warfare between the United States and Iran.

Displacement from Russia

Incidents with the Syrian regime’s other major backer, Russia, certainly are worth worrying about along with incidents involving Iran. But some of the very reasons for special worry about direct armed conflict with Russia—a nuclear-armed ex-superpower—are also reasons to expect special restraint, along lines similar to what the United States and the USSR displayed throughout the Cold War. Moreover, under the Trump administration, Russia does not play the sort of automatic, take-for-granted-as-an-adversary role that Iran plays. We have yet to fathom the full reasons for Trump’s more qualified and even benign posture toward Russia, but there clearly are such reasons. If the administration needs to strike at one of the beasts involved in the Syrian war, that beast will be Iran, even though Russian support probably has been at least as important as Iranian support in shoring up the Assad regime.

Delegation to the military

Trump’s practice of delegating to the Pentagon major decisions, even of a more strategic than tactical nature involving deployment or use of military forces, could in some circumstances be an encouragement of restraint, given the disinclination of experienced military officers to be thrust into new conflicts in which the United States is not already involved. But the United States is already involved in places such as Syria and the Persian Gulf where confrontation with the Iranians is possible, and with such involvement the military bias is in the direction of doing more rather than doing less. The bias is toward being more aggressive to accomplish presumed objectives and especially to protect American forces. At least one U.S. attack so far in Syria has been justified in terms of protection of U.S. forces. Military decisions taken for military reasons may spark an expanded conflict. 

Heightened bellicosity in Arabia

The tension between Saudi Arabia and Iran is especially high right now, and most of the initiative for making it so has come from the Saudi side. The ascent to power of the Saudi king’s inexperienced son, Mohammed bin Salman, has something to do with this. The young crown prince has talked about how “we will work so the battle is there, in Iran.” He has used the relatively minor link between a Yemeni group and Iran as the excuse for prosecuting a war that has turned Yemen into a humanitarian disaster. His most recent destabilizing move has been the fracturing of the Gulf Cooperation Council for the sake of bashing Qatar, one of whose listed offenses is to have more-or-less normal, peaceful relations with Iran. The potential for the United States being dragged into an escalation of this mess is significant, especially given Trump’s inclination so far to go all in with the Saudis.

Brinksmanship in the Persian Gulf

Even without the added recklessness of young princes, the Gulf is the other most likely place, besides Syria, for an incident involving U.S. and Iranian forces to escalate out of control. The U.S. forward presence in what the Iranians regard as their maritime backyard is more than matched by the sometimes reckless and unsafe maneuvers by small craft of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The recent fatal collision of a U.S. Navy destroyer with a merchant ship in Japanese waters shows what can happen in crowded sea lanes even when there is no international conflict or animosity involved. Imagine something similar happening in the Persian Gulf amid the current hostility in U.S.-Iranian relations, with no apparent interest by the Trump administration in restoring a diplomatic channel for defusing incidents.

The nature of the person in the White House

In his congressional testimony, James Comey mentioned “the nature of the person” as a reason for meticulously documenting his conversations with President Trump. He meant that Trump is a serial liar. The first five months of Trump’s administration is sufficient to see that the lying extends not just to individual falsehoods but to large segments of his policies. On domestic and economic policy, the populism he voiced and that won him decisive votes last year has been revealed to be fraudulent, with health care being only one of the indications of this.

There is no reason to suppose that what Trump has said about foreign and security policy, including vote-winning rhetoric about aversion to more foreign wars, is any less fraudulent. With the rhetoric being next to meaningless, other aspects of the nature of the person will be influential, including Trump’s impetuosity, his dwelling on the immediate at the expense of longer-term consequences, and his insatiable appetite for personal approbation at the expanse of broader national interests. None of these qualities augurs well for avoiding conflagration with Iran.

Diversion from difficulty

These personal qualities of Trump make him a prime candidate to turn to the time-honored tactic of using foreign conflict to divert attention from domestic troubles and to win rally-round-the-flag popular support. His current support, according to the latest poll on the subject, continues to fall.

Consequences of War

Armed conflict with Iran would be an enormously negative event for U.S. interests on several grounds, beginning with whatever expenditure of American blood and treasure was involved. Other consequences would include giving a gift to the most hardline elements in Iranian politics, possibly leading to renunciation of the nuclear agreement and the opening of a path to an Iranian nuclear weapon. There would be collateral damage to U.S. good will and relations with many others, beyond some hardliners in other places who would welcome the spilling of American blood as long as it was done in the service of attacking Iran. One can hope that that there will be enough thinking about such consequences to prevent such an armed conflict from coming to pass.

But war is a possibility, with a likelihood that is somewhere above trivial levels. It is an uncertainty. Also uncertain is the extent to which any conflict that did break out would be fully intended, as distinct from an unintended consequence of aggressive and confrontational policies and postures.

Citizens and members of Congress need to be fully aware of the possibilities and the associated dangers. They should be alert to any new signs that the United States may be headed toward such a war, and they should ask the toughest of questions every step of the way as to whether this path is in U.S. interests.

Why Is Nikki Haley Still Trump’s UN Ambassador?

It's unclear whether she is speaking for herself or the White House.

By PHILIP GIRALDI • July 7, 2017 theamericanconservative.com

I went to a meeting the other night with some Donald Trump supporters who, like me, had voted for him based on expectations of a more rational foreign policy. They were suggesting that the president’s attempts to move in that direction had been sabotaged by officials inside the administration who want to maintain the current warfare state. Remove those officials and Trump might just keep his pledge to leave Bashar al-Assad alone while improving relations with Russia. I was somewhat skeptical, noting that the White House had unilaterally initiated the April 7 cruise missile attack on a Syrian airbase as well as the more recent warning against an alleged “planned” chemical attack, hardly moves that might lead to better relations with Damascus and Moscow. But there are indeed some administration figures who clearly are fomenting endless conflict in the Middle East and elsewhere.

One might reasonably start with Generals James Mattis and H.R. McMaster, both of whom are hardliners on Afghanistan and Iran, but with a significant caveat. Generals are trained and indoctrinated to fight and win wars, not to figure out what comes next. General officers like George Marshall or even Dwight Eisenhower who had a broader vision are extremely rare, so much so that expecting a Mattis or McMaster to do what falls outside their purview is perhaps a bit too much. They might be bad choices for the jobs they hold, but at least they employ some kind of rational process, based on how they perceive national interests, to make judgements. If properly reined in by a thoughtful civilian leadership, which does not exist at the moment, they have the potential to be effective contributors to the national-security discussion.

But several other notable figures in the administration deserve to be fired if there is to be any hope of turning Trump’s foreign policy around. In Arthur Sullivan’s and W. S. Gilbert’s The Mikado, the Lord High Executioner sings about the “little list” he is preparing of people who “never will be missed” when he finally gets around to fulfilling the requirements of his office. He includes “apologetic statesmen of a compromising kind,” indicating that the American frustration with the incompetence of its government is not unique, nor is it a recent phenomenon.

My own little list of “society’s offenders” consists largely of the self-described gaggle of neoconservative foreign-policy “experts.” Unfortunately, the neocons have proven to be particularly resilient in spite of repeated claims that their end was nigh, most recently after the election of Donald Trump last November. Yet as most of the policies the neocons have historically espoused are indistinguishable from what the White House is currently trying to sell, one might well wake up one morning and imagine that it is 2003 and George W. Bush is still president. Still, hope springs eternal, and now that the United States has celebrated its 241st birthday, it would be nice to think that in the new year our nation might be purged of some of the malignancies that have prevailed since 9/11.

Number one on my little list is Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, who is particularly dangerous as she is holding a position where she can do bad things. Haley has been shooting from the lip since she assumed office and, it has become clear, much of what she says goes without any vetting by the Trump administration. It is never clear whether she is speaking for herself or for the White House. That issue has reportedly been dealt with by having the State Department clear in advance her comments on hot button issues, but, if that is indeed the case, the change has been difficult to discern in practice.

Haley is firmly in the neocon camp, receiving praise from Senators like South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham and from the Murdoch media as well as in the opinion pages of National Review and The Weekly Standard. Her speechwriter is Jessica Gavora, who is the wife of the leading neoconservative journalist Jonah Goldberg. Haley sees the United Nations as corrupt and bloated, in itself not an unreasonable conclusion, but she has tied herself closely to a number of other, more debatable issues.

As governor of South Carolina, Haley became identified as an unquestioning supporter of Israel. She signed into law a bill to restrict the activities of the nonviolent pro-Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, the first legislation of its kind on a state level. Haley has also stated that “nowhere has the UN’s failure been more consistent and more outrageous than in its bias against our close ally Israel.” On a recent visit to Israel, she was applauded by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, stating “You know, all I’ve done is to tell the truth, and it’s kind of overwhelming at the reaction…if there’s anything I have no patience for, it’s bullies, and the UN was being such a bully to Israel, because they could.”

But Haley sometimes goes far beyond trying to “tell the truth.” In February, she blocked the appointment of former Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to a diplomatic position at the United Nations because he is a Palestinian. In a congressional hearing this past week, she was asked about the decision: “Is it this administration’s position that support for Israel and support for the appointment of a well-qualified individual of Palestinian nationality to an appointment at the UN are mutually exclusive?” Haley responded yes, that the administration is “supporting Israel” by blocking any Palestinian from any senior UN position because Palestine is not recognized by Washington as an independent state.

At various UN meetings Haley has repeatedly and uncritically complained of institutional bias towards Israel, asserting that the “days of Israel bashing are over,” without ever addressing the issue that Israeli treatment of the Palestinians might in part be responsible for the criticism leveled against it. Her description of Israel as an “ally” is hyperbolic and she tends to be oblivious to actual American interests in the region when Israel is involved. She has never challenged the Israeli occupation of the West Bank as well as the recent large expansion of settlements, which are at least nominally opposed by the State Department and White House.

Haley is inevitably a hardliner on Syria, reflecting the Israeli bias, and consistently hostile to Russia. She has said that regime change in Damascus is a Trump administration priority. Her most recent foray involves the White House warning that it had “identified potential preparations for another chemical weapons attack by the Assad regime.” Haley elaborated in a tweet, “…further attacks will be blamed on Assad but also on Russia and Iran who support him killing his own people.” Earlier, on April 12, after Russia blocked a draft UN resolution intended to condemn the Khan Shaykhun chemical attack, Haley said, “We need to see Russia choose to side with the civilized world over an Assad government that brutally terrorizes its own people.”

Haley’s analysis of who is doing what to whom in Syria is certainly questionable at a minimum. And her language is hardly supportive of possible administration diplomatic attempts to mend fences with the Russians and can also be seen as quite dangerous as they increase the likelihood of an “accidental encounter” over the skies of Syria as both sides harden their positions and seek to expand the areas they control. She has also said that, “We’re calling [Russia] out [and] I don’t think anything is off the table at this point. I think what you’re going to see is strong leadership. You’re going to continue to see the United States act when we need to act.” Regarding Moscow’s role on the UN Security Council, she complained that, “All they’ve done is seven times veto against Syria every time they do something to hurt their own people. And so Russia absolutely has not done what they’re supposed to do.”

Regarding Ukraine, Haley has taken an extreme position that guarantees Russian hostility. In February, she addressed the UN Security Council regarding the Crimean conflict, which she  appears not to understand very well. She warned that sanctions against Russia would not be lifted until Moscow returned control over the peninsula to Kiev. On June 4, she doubled down, insisting that the United States would retain “sanctions strong and tough when it comes to the issue in Ukraine.”

Haley is also increasingly highly critical of Iran, which she sees as the instigator of much of the unrest in the Middle East, again reflecting the Israeli viewpoint. She claimed on April 20, during her first session as president of the UN Security Council, that Iran and Hezbollah had “conducted terrorist acts” for decades within the Middle East, ignoring the more serious terrorism support engaged in by U.S. regional allies Saudi Arabia and Qatar. She stated last week that the Security Council’s praise of the Iran Nuclear Agreement honored a state that has engaged in “illicit missile launches,” “support for terrorist groups,” and “arms smuggling,” while “stok[ing] regional conflicts and mak[ing] them harder to solve.” All are perspectives that might easily be challenged.

Haley is also much given to rhetoric reminiscent of George W. Bush during his first term. Regarding North Korea, on May 16 she told reporters that, “We have to turn around and tell the entire international community: You either support North Korea or you support us,” echoing George W. Bush’s sentiment that, “There’s a new sheriff in town and you’re either with us or against us.”

So Haley very much comes across as the neoconservatives’ dream ambassador to the United Nations–full of aggression, a staunch supporter of Israel, and assertive of Washington’s preemptive right to set standards for the rest of the world. That does not necessarily make her very good for the rest of us, who will have to bear the burdens of imperial hubris. Nor is her tendency to overstate her case a plus for the Trump administration itself, which is clearly seeking to work its way through Russiagate–and just might be considering how to establish some kind of modus vivendi with Vladimir Putin.

If Donald Trump really wants to drain the Washington swamp and reduce interference in other nations, he might well continue that program by firing Nikki Haley. He could then appoint someone as UN ambassador who actually believes that the United States has to deal with other countries respectfully, not by constant bullying and threats. In the lyrics of Gilbert and Sullivan, she’s on my list and “she will never be missed.”

Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, is executive director of the Council for the National Interest.

PEÑA Y VIDEGARAY, LOS “CHIHUAHUEÑOS” DE ESTADOS UNIDOS

A pesar del desastre social, económico y político en el que han hundido a México los gobiernos del PRI y del PAN los últimos 30 años, Peña Nieto y su impresentable canciller, el “caballo de Trump”, Luis Videgaray, insisten en jugar el papel de “punta de lanza” del imperio contra el gobierno de Nicolás Maduro.

Así, en sus conversaciones con Macron en Paris y con Trump en Hamburgo, presidente y canciller mexicanos mantuvieron su posición de condena a la violencia y crisis económica que sufre Venezuela, y que son instigadas, pagadas y organizadas por el gobierno de Trump y por los oligarcas venezolanos, para hacerse de nuevo con el control de las riquísimas reservas petroleras de ese país, para beneficio del 1% de la población que concentra la riqueza mundial.

Pero lo que resulta hilarante es que Peña y Videgaray son tan pequeños en el juego de ajedrez mundial, que en vez de ser los pitbull del gobierno estadounidense, son más bien los “chihuahueños” que ladran y ladran, pero son realmente inofensivos.

El gobierno mexicano, lastimosamente, con objeto de mantener vigente el Tratado de Libre Comercio de América del Norte (NAFTA, por sus siglas en inglés), está dispuesto a jugar el triste papel de sicario internacional contra el gobierno venezolano, azuzando y aliándose con otros gobiernos derechistas y vasallos de Washington (como los de Argentina, Brasil, Colombia, España, Francia y Canadá), para hacerle el trabajo sucio a Trump, y buscar el cambio de régimen en Caracas, para favorecer a los intereses trasnacionales de las corporaciones estadounidenses y de sus socios menores venezolanos.

Peña está completamente dispuesto a jugar el papel de “golpeador” para Estados Unidos, y a aceptar todas las exigencias que se le hagan en la renegociación del NAFTA, a cambio de que el gobierno estadounidense ayude a mantener en el poder a la subclase política corrupta del PRI-PAN-PRD-PVEM, haciéndose de la “vista gorda” en el masivo fraude electoral que ya preparan contra Morena y López Obrador para las elecciones federales del 2018 (e incluso ayudándolos con sus “centros de fusión de información” en México, para monitorear permanentemente a dicho partido político); a cambio de que “perdonen” a Peña y su camarilla el cúmulo de latrocinios y crímenes que han cometido durante su dilatada carrera política, con objeto de que cualquier posible acusación en su contra en organismos y tribunales internacionales o en cortes de Estados Unidos, sea convenientemente desestimada; y a cambio de que se le permita seguir disfrutando de su riqueza mal habida, sin molestas investigaciones o acusaciones por parte de los serviles medios de comunicación estadounidenses, que siempre atacan a los líderes que se oponen al imperialismo de Estados Unidos, pero protegen a los aliados.

El gobierno mexicano, los oligarcas y las trasnacionales, van a pugnar porque en la renegociación del NAFTA no se toque para nada las miserables remuneraciones que reciben los trabajadores mexicanos, ni tampoco la nula aplicación de las regulaciones ambientales y de protección al consumidor en México, pues es eso lo que constituye la ventaja de invertir en nuestro país (además de que las grandes empresas pagan mucho menos impuestos que en Estados Unidos), y que genera el superávit comercial para México.

Si el gobierno de Trump presionara para que en la renegociación se obligue a las empresas que tienen sus fábricas en México, a pagar sueldos similares a los que se pagan en Estados Unidos; a que se les apliquen las mismas regulaciones ambientales y de protección al consumidor; y a que paguen impuestos en la misma proporción que en Estados Unidos, de seguro que los que se levantarían de la mesa de negociación serían los serviles funcionarios mexicanos, que están ahí para negociar en favor de las grandes corporaciones, no del pueblo de México.

Y así resultaría paradójico que el xenófobo, anti mexicano y racista Trump, podría llegar a defender el interés de los trabajadores y ciudadanos de México, mucho más que el servil y lacayo gobierno mexicano.

Sin embargo, lo más probable es que Trump acabe por hacerle caso al poderoso lobby de las empresas estadounidenses que tienen sus fábricas y cadenas de suministro en México, y decida hacer pagar a nuestro país el déficit comercial (y el muro) a través de otros mecanismos.

En todo caso, ni en política exterior, ni en la renegociación del NAFTA, ni en lo relativo a los temas de seguridad y migración, el gobierno mexicano vela por los intereses de la población mexicana; lo único que hace es proteger los intereses de las trasnacionales, de los oligarcas mexicanos y de la subclase política corrupta (con sus socios del crimen organizado); y para ello está dispuesto a servir de “guarura” del imperio y de representante de los grandes consorcios, principales beneficiarios de la globalización, a la que rinde pleitesía todos los días, el vasallo gobierno mexicano.

WIDE DAY OF ACTION TO SAVE NET NEUTRALITY

On July 12, 2017, websites, Internet users, and online communities will come together to sound the alarm about the FCC’s attack on net neutrality. Learn how you can join the protest and spread the word at https://www.battleforthenet.com/july12/.

Right now, new FCC Chairman and former Verizon lawyer Ajit Pai has a plan to destroy net neutrality and give big cable companies immense control over what we see and do online. If they get their way, the FCC will give companies like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T control over what we can see and do on the Internet, with the power to slow down or block websites and charge apps and sites extra fees to reach an audience.

If we lose net neutrality, we could soon face an Internet where some of your favorite websites are forced into a slow lane online, while deep-pocketed companies who can afford expensive new “prioritization” fees have special fast lane access to Internet users – tilting the playing field in their favor.

But on July 12th, the Internet will come together to stop them. Websites, Internet users, and online communities will stand tall, and sound the alarm about the FCC’s attack on net neutrality.

The Battle for the Net campaign will provide tools for everyone to make it super easy for your friends, family, followers to take action. From the SOPA blackout to the Internet Slowdown, we've shown time and time again that when the Internet comes together, we can stop censorship and corruption. Now, we have to do it again!

Learn more and join the action here: https://www.battleforthenet.com/july12