By Andrew Williams
The veto, by Russia and China, of a US-backed UN Security Council resolution aimed at giving cover to stepped up imperialist intervention in Syria has made this more difficult. But this setback will not stop the offensive of the US and the other imperialists, backed by Israel, to overthrow Syria’s government.
Any confusion about what is driving developments in Syria should be blown away by the increasingly open intervention of Saudi Arabia, primarily through its agent, Qatar, in stepping up the offensive against the Assad regime. This escalated recently with the call by the Qatari dictator, Emir Hamad, for the Arab states to intervene militarily.
By Jane West
Despite claims it was supporting the ‘Arab Spring’, NATO bombed Libya for its own time-honoured reasons – to depose a regime that was unreliable for Western interests, a frequent nuisance in OPEC, and sometime supporter of various anti-imperialist and anti-colonial struggles.
By Jane West
As the imperialist intervention in Libya moves into its endgame with the NATO pounding of Sirte, the West’s attention is moving more decisively towards the situation in Syria.
So far the imperialists have drawn back from openly threatening military intervention. This is not because it is not on their agenda, but because a number of factors have temporarily stayed their hand.
By David Fennell
As NATO launched its final air bombardment and military assault on Tripoli (because of course the entire coordination of the attack was done with total NATO involvement) every major imperialist of the world cheered. The Interim Transitional National Council (ITNC), having already been feted in Washington, London, Paris and other imperialist capitals, was then summoned for a new round of ‘consultations’ – that is to work out with the imperialists how their joint interests might be further advanced. In short imperialism was victorious in the war in Libya. Regrettably the British political organisations Counterfire and the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) had been on the same side in this war as the imperialists despite it being clear what was occurring.
By Tom O’Donnell
By Andrew Williams
Despite almost four months of bombing Libya, NATO has still not succeeded in installing the regime it backs in Tripoli. Although the aerial campaign initially helped opposition forces maintain control of towns in the east of Libya, and Misrata, the capital Tripoli in the west of the country remains under Libyan government control – with NATO backed forces unable to significantly advance towards it for weeks. Whilst its lack of progress leads to some frustration and tensions within imperialism’s ranks, it remains determined to break the stalemate, so NATO has ramped up the air raids on western Libya since the beginning of July.
Britain has been bombing Libya for more than 16 weeks
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