Rethinking Africa's Development

HE Paul Kagame

We all know what Africa needs in terms of integration, prosperity, stability and more equal global partnership. But there is value in once more reviewing these plans, as long as we can understand why we are not there yet. Are we able to find a different way of approaching our longstanding challenges, that will give us the consistent results that we want? Allow me to offer a few thoughts on how we can start to build new momentum.

First, we have become used to thinking about development as something we do with money, or other means, coming from outside our countries, or our continent. However, we must continue to challenge ourselves, focusing on and making better use of what we already possess or can mobilize domestically. And there is plenty.

The advancement of the financial sector in Africa, including the creation of national and regional capital markets, is an encouraging sign. But we need more and better collaboration, to build more sophisticated systems required to manage Africa’s substantial financial resources here on the continent. The idea is not to do things blindly and to our detriment, so that the money continues to flow. It has to be about making our societies better, because that is we what Africans want and deserve.

Second, real impact happens when we first decide what we want to do, and then apply the money to it, as opposed to doing what the money may dictate. External support should not determine the right choices. When we are able to build something that works for us, no matter how small, that solves real problems, we are in a better position to invite partners to join so they contribute to scaling up a proven solution.  This kind of momentum unlocks energy and demonstrates meaningful outcomes. It also allows us to stop accepting frequent excuses regarding capacity, skills and funding.

Third, we will achieve our aim of a united Africa faster if we urgently intensify our efforts towards regional integration. There are quick wins to be made by simply applying political will. For example, in less than two years, the Northern Corridor Infrastructure Projects has already led to freer movement of East Africans, significant reduction of non-tariff barriers, and a big drop in the cost of mobile phone roaming within the region.  We are also making good progress in the planned major regional infrastructure projects.

Finally, we are used to taking the big decisions, as governments. But we will not get the prosperous economies we seek unless the private sector plays a prominent role. For Public Private Partnerships to be a reality, government and the private sector need to work together, not only on financing, but also planning and implementation, right from beginning.

We have given ourselves another fifty years to get Africa to where we want it to be. This may seem like a long time, but it really isn’t given the enormity of what needs to be done. We seem to have everything we need to achieve our Agenda 2063, except a sense of urgency and real ownership. So let us not continue to think someone else will get it done, or else we will only be waiting for ourselves, while the world waits for us.

Turning briefly to Rwanda’s empowerment of women and lifting visa restrictions for Africans, we have listened to expert advice and most of what needs to be done is already known. These things are doable.  It is a matter of translating political will. The empowerment of women is a question of rights and it makes sense when they are more involved, whether in economic activities or parliament. Regarding visa restrictions, initially there were worries. People thought there would be many threats. But we decided that the risks were worth it because these risks were neither new, nor greater than those that already existed.

By creating the one area network in telephone communications, more people gained access to communication tools and more money is being made, even with reduction of fees. The question we then asked ourselves is, why didn’t we do this much earlier? Until we move forward and do the practical things, we will only have dreams that delay or never come true.

New Zealand: Sham inquiry established into spying revelations

Tom Peters

The government’s Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Cheryl Gwyn announced on March 26 that she would investigate complaints made by the Green Party and others “over alleged interception of communications of New Zealanders working or travelling in the South Pacific by the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB).”

The aim of the inquiry is to contain the damage to the government and the political establishment more broadly from revelations of the GCSB’s illegal and anti-democratic activities.

Documents from the US National Security Agency (NSA) leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden last month revealed that the GCSB carries out mass surveillance on several Pacific island nations. The agency records virtually all telephone calls, emails and other Internet data in the region and shares the data with the other members of the Five Eyes alliance: the spy agencies of the US, Canada, Britain and Australia. This inevitably includes spying on New Zealand citizens and residents—which was illegal prior to a widely opposed amendment in 2013.

Other leaked documents show that the GCSB spies on several Asian countries, including China. The documents made clear that the NSA highly values the intelligence gathered by the GCSB on its behalf, including in “areas and countries ... difficult for the US to access.”

Another leak on March 23 revealed that in 2013 the GCSB used the NSA’s powerful XKeyscore search tool to spy on the communications of candidates for the job of director-general of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Trade Minister Tim Groser was competing for the position, which was eventually secured by Brazilian diplomat Roberto Azevedo. The leak prompted Brazil’s foreign ministry to demand an explanation from the New Zealand ambassador.

The National Party government has refused to comment on any of the leaks other than repeatedly stating that the GCSB acts within the law—despite substantial evidence to the contrary.

The Snowden revelations shatter the government’s claims that the GCSB is needed to protect New Zealanders from terrorism and other threats. The documents demonstrate that the agency’s role is to advance New Zealand’s neo-colonial interests in the Pacific and elsewhere, while contributing to US imperialism’s operations—including the Obama administration’s strategic “pivot” to Asia, aimed at militarily encircling China and reducing Beijing’s influence in the Asia-Pacific region.

Inspector-General Gwyn’s inquiry is intended to whitewash the GCSB. Gwyn stated that she will audit the agency’s activities and “provide as much information to the public on my findings as I can, withholding only that information that cannot be disclosed without endangering national security.”

This means anything can be concealed. The government has repeatedly cited “national security” as the pretext for refusing to comment on the GCSB’s activities—including whether it uses the mass surveillance tool XKeyscore and what information it shares with the Five Eyes. Last month GCSB acting director Una Jagose refused to publicly answer questions from MPs about whether the agency carries out mass surveillance in the Pacific, declaring that there was a “need for secrecy” about its operations.

Prime Minister John Key told the media on March 26 that he was “not fearful in the slightest” about the Inspector-General’s inquiry. He added that it was “a good thing it’s happening” and it would counter the supposedly “one-sided view” presented by the media about the leaked documents.

The opposition Labour and Green parties closed ranks with National to endorse the inquiry. In a statement, Greens co-leader Russel Norman welcomed Gwyn’s “reassuring” announcement, adding, “These are very serious allegations and they do need to be looked at by an independent body.”

Labour leader Andrew Little told Newstalk ZB that if Gwyn found that New Zealanders’ privacy had been invaded “and it shouldn’t have been, then we’re going to have to look at what [is] needed to insure that New Zealanders’ privacy interests are properly protected.” Labour has called for an additional investigation of the alleged spying on WTO candidates.

In reality, Gwyn is anything but an “independent” agent: her office is an integral part of the government’s surveillance apparatus. She was appointed in April 2014 by the Administrator of the Government, acting on behalf of Governor-General Sir Jerry Mateparae, to oversee the GCSB and the domestic spy agency, the Security Intelligence Service. Before becoming Governor-General in 2011, Mateparae worked briefly as director of the GCSB, and before that as chief of the Defence Force.

Parliament’s Security and Intelligence Committee, which included Key, Norman and then-Labour leader David Cunliffe, was consulted on Gwyn’s appointment.

Gwyn has already intervened to cover up the GCSB’s activities. Last year, just three days before the September 20 general election, she issued a brief statement declaring that she had “not identified any indiscriminate interception of New Zealanders’ data in my work to date.”

This followed the release of documents by Snowden on September 15 outlining how the GCSB and NSA had tapped the Southern Cross undersea cable, which carries the vast majority of Internet traffic between New Zealand and the rest of the world. Snowden wrote that he frequently came across the private communications of New Zealanders when he worked as a contractor for the NSA.

Sir Bruce Ferguson, who was director of the GCSB from 2006 to 2011, admitted to Radio NZ on March 6 that the agency engages in “mass collection” of data throughout the Pacific, including that of New Zealand citizens. Prime Minister Key did not deny this.

The endorsement of Gwyn’s sham inquiry by Labour and the Greens exposes the hollowness of the opposition’s limited criticisms of the GCSB, which apply only to its surveillance of New Zealand citizens, not the mass spying in conjunction with the NSA on the world’s population. Prior to the September 20 election Labour promised only a vaguely defined “review” of the spy agency.

The 1984–1990 Labour government opened the GCSB’s Waihopai signals interception base, which now spies on the Pacific. The 1999–2008 Labour government, which was backed by the Greens, increased the GCSB’s staff and resources and passed legislation establishing the GCSB as a separate government department. It sent soldiers and GCSB agents to Afghanistan to assist the US-led war. According to investigative journalist Nicky Hager’s bookOther People’s Wars, GCSB agents helped to identify targets for US bombing missions.

Australian “No to racism rallies” silent on Labor and union role

Mike Head

Several thousand people joined “Say no to racism” demonstrations last Sunday, opposing anti-Islamic and racist “Reclaim Australia” rallies called by extreme right-wing groups in 16 capital and regional cities across the country. The largest turnout was in Melbourne’s Federation Square, where about 2,000 people outnumbered the 500 or so anti-Islam protestors.

Fifteen years of US-led invasions in the Middle East, accompanied by repeated “terrorist” scare campaigns, such as that around last December’s Sydney café siege, and the demonization and repression of refugees by successive governments, both Liberal-National Coalition and Labor, have created the conditions where right-wing nationalist and neo-fascist organisations are raising their heads, exploiting fears whipped up about Islamic immigrants.

Aided by generous publicity in the corporate media—especially Rupert Murdoch’s outlets—these groups are seeking to divert in xenophobic directions the mounting social discontent and political disaffection generated by four decades of deepening attacks on the jobs, working conditions, living standards and basic services of working people by all the parties of the political establishment.

There is no doubt about the reactionary character of the outfits involved in the “Reclaim Australia” protests. Behind the demagogic elevation of issues designed to generate tensions and splits in the working class—such as demands for bans on burkas, mosques and halal food certification—is an array of “White Australia” nationalist and fascistic groups. Among those waving Australian flags were thugs sporting swastika tattoos.

The organisations taking part in last Sunday’s rallies included the neo-Nazi Australian Defence League (ADL), which has been involved in violence against Muslims, especially women, and the Rise Up Australia Party, a pro-Christian jingoist formation, whose leader Danny Nalliah was the “keynote speaker” at the Melbourne gathering. Addressing several hundred people in Brisbane was Pauline Hanson, a rabid anti-immigrant and anti-welfare politician whose “One Nation” party garnered a million votes in Queensland on the back of the widespread hostility toward both Labor and the Coalition during the late 1990s.

The “Reclaim Australia” events are being deliberately promoted by sections of the mainstream media as a means of channelling political unrest in divisive, nationalist directions amid a rapidly worsening economic situation facing Australian capitalism and an intensifying crisis of the parliamentary system.

Murdoch’s Herald Sun tabloid in Melbourne is now featuring reports that the “Reclaim Australia” leaders are vowing to stage “bigger rallies” across the country after last Sunday’s clashes with “No to racism” demonstrators. The newspaper quoted rally organiser Shermon Burgess, an ADL figure who calls himself “the Great Aussie Patriot,” declaring: “The next ones are going to be much, much bigger, seeing a lot more people now know that Reclaim Australia is here.”

This is under conditions where the same media proprietors, and other business leaders, are ramping up their pressure on the federal and state governments to find ways to impose drastic cuts to wage levels and social spending because of collapsing export prices for iron ore, coal and gas, the unravelling of the two-decade mining boom and the ongoing destruction of thousands of manufacturing jobs via global corporate restructuring.

However, the organisers of last Sunday’s “No Room for Racism” counter-rallies, led by the pseudo-left organisations Socialist Party and Socialist Alliance, are attempting to divert the working class discontent back into the parliamentary framework and behind the very forces primarily responsible for enforcing the social crisis created by big business—the Labor Party, its Greens allies and the trade unions.

Not a word was said at Sunday’s counter-demonstrations about the role of Labor and the unions. Not only have they long implemented the free-market restructuring that has devastated working class conditions. They have encouraged the vilification of Muslims and refugees through their support for the bogus US-led “war on terror” and draconian measures to block asylum seekers trying to flee war, impoverishment and oppression by boat. At the same time, the unions have increasingly agitated against “foreign workers” being employed in Australia, blaming them for the jobs crisis.

Just in the past two weeks, the retail industry trade union struck a deal with employers to slash the wage penalty rates on which many workers depend for financial survival. At the same time during the New South Wales state election, the Labor Party and the unions tried to whip up chauvinistic anti-Asian opposition to the possible sale of the state electricity grid to a Chinese-government owned company.

Such are the forces to which the pseudo-left groups seek to tie the working class. They insist that Labor, or the Greens who back Labor governments, represent a “lesser evil” compared to the Coalition, and claim that the unions are genuine workers’ organisations. They vehemently oppose any struggle for the independent political mobilisation of the working class against this apparatus. That is why the featured speakers at the counter-rallies included people billed as union representatives.

Alongside them on the platforms were representatives of Islamic groups, churches and government-supported organisations promoting a “multicultural” Australia. This is another form of nationalism and identity politics that also serves to divide the global working class according to nation-state borders and ethnic backgrounds. It both defines working people in terms of their national origins, rather than their common class interests, and promotes the myth of a harmonious and tolerant “national unity” within Australia under the capitalist profit system. This covers over the essential class divide in society—that between the working class and the super-rich corporate and financial elite.

The emergence onto the streets of Australia of neo-Nazi elements is a warning to working people of the violent and communalist forces to which the ruling class will turn increasingly as the economic crisis escalates. But it is also a warning of the price being paid for the continued suppression and diversion of the struggles and resistance of working class by the Labor and union machine, and its pseudo-left accomplices.

The only way to defend social and democratic rights and defeat the threat of fascism is through the unification and mobilisation of the working class, independently of the Labor-union apparatus and all big business parties, to fight for a workers’ government and socialist policies.

Sri Lankan president performs delicate balancing act in Beijing

Wasantha Rupasinghe

Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena paid a five-day state visit to China, starting on March 25, at President Xi Jinping’s invitation, in a bid to patch up relations and secure continuing Chinese investment and aid.

In a thinly disguised, US-backed regime change operation, Sirisena won the presidential election in January and ousted President Mahinda Rajapakse, who established close economic and strategic ties with Beijing. Sirisena’s government has rapidly moved to shift foreign policy toward the US, and also India, through high-level visits and exchanges.

Tensions with China have already emerged. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe announced a review of Chinese investment in Sri Lanka, including the huge $US1.4 billion Colombo Port City project, which is now on hold. During the election campaign, Sirisena blamed Chinese investment for the alleged corruption of Rajapakse’s government.

However, confronting a growing economic crisis and mounting debt at home, Sirisena cannot afford a complete break with Beijing. During his trip to China, he was accompanied by senior ministers, including Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera and Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake.

Sirisena met with Xi, Prime Minister Li Keqiang and other top Chinese officials and signed agreements on public health, trade and commerce, agriculture and human resource development. China pledged more than $1 billion in additional grants to fund projects, including a hospital and other health facilities.

For its part, the Chinese government is keen to preserve its relations with Sri Lanka. Beijing wants to counter the US “pivot to Asia” that seeks to undermine Chinese influence and justify a military build-up throughout the region. Xi declared that Sirisena was “an old friend of the Chinese people” who had visited many times. He stressed that China considered Sri Lanka a strategic partner and wanted to “promote and elevate the China-Sri Lanka relationship to that level.”

Sri Lanka’s suspension of the Colombo Port City project was clearly a source of friction. Xi called on Sri Lanka to ensure the “legitimate rights and interests of Chinese enterprises,” suggesting that Beijing could take legal action if contracts were broken. He emphasised the need for joint efforts to build China’s major initiative—the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road—to encourage economic and commercial linkages throughout the region.

China’s Assistant Foreign Minister Liu Jianchao said Sirisena indicated that the problems surrounding the project were “rather temporary” and expressed the hope that it would continue “after things are sorted out.” Sirisena reportedly said that “Sri Lanka welcomes more Chinese enterprises” and pledged to “offer favorable investment for investors.”

At Xi’s invitation, Sirisena extended a scheduled three-day trip by two days to participate in the Boao Forum—an annual gathering of major political and business figures that is billed as the Asian equivalent of the Davos summit in Switzerland.

Sirisena’s visit highlights the dilemma faced by his government and the Colombo ruling elite as a whole. While it has shifted its foreign policy toward the US and India, Sri Lanka badly needs foreign investment and loans to sustain its economy.

Though economic growth was around 7 percent in recent years, much of it depended on foreign loans, often at high interest rates. Foreign debt now amounts to 88 percent of gross domestic product, raising the danger of a balance of payments crisis. China is Sri Lanka’s biggest investor, a major trading partner and the greatest lender, having provided $US5.3 billion in loans for infrastructure projects.

Despite Sri Lanka’s foreign policy shift, the International Monetary Fund recently rejected a government request for a $4 billion loan to restructure debt repayments on Chinese loans. On the eve of Sirisena’s visit to China, Reuters asked Sri Lankan Finance Minister Karunanayake if the government would try to renegotiate the loans. “That’s what we are asking China. Please help us,” he declared.

Sri Lanka has already agreed to become a founding member of the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, through which Beijing has promised billions of dollars in investment throughout the region.

Washington is closely watching Sri Lanka’s moves. Significantly, on the day that Sirisena and Xi held talks, US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Nisha Biswal told the US House Foreign Affairs Committee that Sri Lanka represented “another dramatic opening.” This was a reference to Burma’s sudden turn to Washington in 2011. She declared that Sirisena was “pivoting the country away from the harmful policies of his predecessor.”

For five years, the Obama administration sought to pressure the Rajapakse government by threatening to take action over its human rights atrocities during the communal war against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. Once Sirisena took office, the US gave the green light to delay the release of an international report into Sri Lankan “human rights.” If Sirisena steps out of line, Washington will not hesitate to use threats of possible war crimes prosecutions against his government, as it did against Rajapakse’s.

The Indian Express commented in an editorial last week that Sirisena was engaged in a “delicate balancing act.” Under the Rajapakse government, it stated, Sri Lanka “drifted close to China in ways that made it seem unconcerned about India’s sensitivities.” The newspaper added: “While China will continue to loom large in Sri Lanka, India’s real challenge is to rapidly consolidate its own strategic and economic partnership with Colombo.”

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s right-wing government, backed by Washington, is aggressively seeking to undermine Chinese influence in South Asia and the Indian Ocean region. Modi visited Sri Lanka in February during a tour of four Indian Ocean island countries—the first visit by an Indian prime minister in 28 years. New Delhi is seeking to invest more in Sri Lanka and seal a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement with Colombo.

Sirisena’s installation has resolved none of these geo-strategic conflicts. It has only ensured that Sri Lanka will be drawn ever more directly into the growing storm of tensions being generated by Washington’s reckless “pivot to Asia” and its preparations for war against China. At the same time, Colombo is facing a worsening economic crisis and has few options but to turn to Beijing for much-needed financial assistance.

Germany: Speculation mounts over Thyssen Krupp plan to outsource steel production

Elisabeth Zimmerman

Speculation has been growing over recent months that Thyssen Krupp could be preparing to part with its steel production division that employs some 26,000 workers. Such an outcome would involve thousands of job losses and a further deterioration in working conditions.

Thyssen Krupp AG emerged as a result of the merger of three German steelmakers with a long history. In 1999, Thyssen and Krupp merged, with Krupp having already taken over Hoesch in 1991. Thyssen Krupp is Germany’s largest steelmaker and technology firm.

The fear that the steel division could be sold off grew when Swedish investor Sevian Capital increased its share in the company to more than 15 percent last year, becoming the second largest shareholder after the Krupp Foundation. Sevian is represented on the Krupp board of management by its German chief, Jens Tischendorf.

When the finance investor first became involved with Thyssen Krupp in autumn 2013, Tischendorf stated, “We see significant potential to increase the company’s value over the next five to seven years.”

Sevian’s business model is based on involvement in a company it considers to be undervalued, achieve influence over company policy with a seat on the board of management, and then impose drastic cuts to increase the company’s value at the expense of the workforce.

For a short time, Sevian was involved with the construction and crane producing firm Demag Cranes. The firm enforced major job losses so as to sell its share at double its original price to the American firm Terex, which assumed full ownership of Demag Cranes.

More recently, Sevian enforced this ruthless strategy at building company Bilfinger, where hundreds of workers lost their jobs. The chief executive, former Hesse state premier Roland Koch, and the chairman of the board were forced out one after the other because they did not achieve the sales targets set by Sevian.

The Süddeutsche Zeitung wrote of Sevian on March 26: “The investment firm invests mostly in firms it considers undervalued. It measures the success of the company based on its strongest competitor. In this comparison, Thyssen-Krupp does not perform well in some areas. ‘Then we look at why and how our target company can be just as good and successful,’ said Tischendorf in a recent interview and added, ‘That is exactly what we have done at Thyssen Krupp, and we are convinced that a lot of potential can be created with the correct decisions.’”

According to the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Thyssen Krupp chief executive Heinrich Hiesinger is in favour of maintaining the unity of all of the company’s divisions, including steel production. Through a new and intensified round of cuts, he intends to make the company profitable at the expense of the workforce. He has the unqualified and active support for this in the IG Metall trade union and works council.

Nonetheless, proposals to separate off entirely the steel production division continue to feature on Thyssen Krupp’s board. When the firm reported a loss of €5 billion in the autumn of 2012 for the business year just concluded, brought about above all by the disastrous attempt to build new factories in Alabama in the United States and Rio di Janeiro in Brazil, newly appointed chief Hiesinger introduced the first multi-billion-euro savings programme.

Based on information from sources on the board, Wirtschaftswoche reported at the time that Hiesinger was considering all options for the steel subsidiary, from outsourcing to placing the German plants on the stock market.

Thyssen Krupp’s former stainless steel manufacturing plants, with the exception of Terni in Italy and VDM in Germany, were sold off to its competitor Outokumpu, leading to the closure of several factories and the loss of thousands of jobs.

Along with Sevian, voices are now being raised by representatives of the steel industry who consider the closure or merger of further steel manufacturers in the near future to be unavoidable. At a conference organised by Handelsblatt at the end of February, Wolfgang Eder, president of the global steel association WorldSteel and chief executive of Austrian steel producer VoestAlpine, doubted that there would still be active steel production facilities in Europe in 20 years’ time.

The head of Thyssen Krupp’s steel division, Andreas Goss, stated, “Sooner or later there will have to be a further consolidation, because quite simply not all providers can survive.” Thyssen Krupp intended to enter this struggle from a position of strength.

Goss explained that the investments recently undertaken in the steel division, and the profit of €79 million made in the last quarter at the company’s European steel operations, were mainly the result of a strict cost-cutting programme. This was imposed on the Thyssen Krupp workforce with the support of IG Metall and the works councils.

When the firm announced its multi-billion cost-cutting programme in late 2012, Oliver Burkhard, who until then had been regional head of IG Metall for North Rhine-Westphalia, was appointed as human resources chief to impose the planned attacks on the workforce. Thyssen Krupp paid Burkhard around €170,000 per month for his services. He collaborated closely with the company works council led by Wilhelm Segerath in the drafting and implementation of the cuts.

One measure which hit the steel workers at Thyssen Krupp particularly hard was the reduction of the work week from 34 hours to 31 hours beginning in October 2014 for a period of four years. This enforced reduction of working hours meant a pay cut of around 10 percent and increased pressure for workers in the shift rotations, with the number of workers per shift reduced.

This measure was agreed upon in September 2013 by Thyssen Krupp Steel’s labour director Thomas Schlenz, former head of the central works council, and his successor Segerath. IG Metall’s contract commission signed up to it as part of a drastic cost-cutting programme.

When statements by Hiesinger caused unrest in the steel division at the end of last year, IG Metall and the central works council organised a brief protest in front of Thyssen Krupp Steel’s headquarters in Duisburg-Hamborn. Representatives from the works council and IG Metall made demagogic appeals for the company’s board to make a commitment to steel and referred to their own efforts towards ensuring the international competitiveness of the company with cost-cutting measures and the enforced victimisation of steel workers. Such protests are exclusively aimed at covering up the union’s own role in the attacks on the workers, which is increasingly difficult to disguise.

French bosses call to end permanent job contracts, facilitate mass layoffs

Kumaran Ira

French business lobbies are urging the Socialist Party (PS) government to implement “shock” labour measures, including eliminating permanent labour contracts for private sector workers and creating a new type of contract to facilitate mass sackings and wage cuts.

A few days before an April 3 social summit, Pierre Gattaz, the head of Medef business federation, proposed to create a new pro-business job contract which would facilitate the dismissal process. On April 3, the government, business groups and trade unions gathered to assess 2013 labour reforms that significantly gutted labour rights and imposed greater “flexibility” for companies.

Gattaz told RTL radio, “In the weeks and months to come, we absolutely need shock measures, courageous measures to free up jobs, that is, making how you fire people clearer and more visible.”

The new labour contract would allow bosses to “adapt, adjust, if the market turns around or if there is new technology,” he added.

Although previous labour reforms, including the 2013 reforms, gave businesses greater flexibility, Gattaz considers French labour law too protective of workers, undermining business competitiveness. He called mass sackings “a necessary act in a world that moves at top speed, in constant change.”

He continued, “If you do not have a guaranteed possibility to fire people quickly and easily, with pre-established conditions for the worker, you will not hire, because maybe you do not know how you will be burned in the end.”

Big business is demanding the destruction of all job security, forcing workers to agree to employers’ demands and accept the shredding of basic social rights won over decades of struggle. The new job contract is designed to allow bosses to sack millions of private sector workers and transform the entire workforce into precarious workers with low wages and no benefits.

The French private sector has an estimated 17.8 million workers. Of these, 15.4 million have a permanent job contract (CDI), 500,000 a temporary contract, and 1.8 million fixed-length contracts (CDD). Since the crisis broke out, the overwhelming majority of workers have not been hired on CDIs. “87 percent of hirings are still on CDD,” said Jean-François Pilliard of the Medef.

According to Labour Ministry statistics agency (Dares), there has been a sharp rise in job openings on short-term contracts between 2000 and 2012: “From the beginning of 2000 to the end of 2012, the number of CDD job openings grew 76 percent, the number of temp jobs 14 percent, whereas outside of the public sector, the number of CDI job openings grew only 4 percent.”

The Medef also proposed to use more broadly the “project contract,” common in the IT and tech sectors, where workers are hired for only one specific project. The contract terminates when the project ends.

In addition, the Medef wants to cut off workers’ ability to challenge their dismissal in labour courts. It proposed to “introduce a scale of severance packages, which if respected by the employer, automatically precludes all legal challenge.” It also called for imposing an upper limit on employers’ liability if a dismissal is challenged.

The proposal for further deregulation of labour law comes after the PS forcibly passed the pro-business Macron Law through parliament without a vote. The law makes it harder for workers to sue for wrongful dismissal, lets employers demand increased working hours on Sunday without overtime pay, comprehensively overhauls fees for various legal and medical services, and begins the privatisation of many public firms.

The PS government responded positively to the Medef proposal. It had already made clear that it would intensify structural reforms and austerity measures after it provided €40 billion in handouts to big business under the so called Responsibility Pact, aimed at slashing labour costs.

The Medef proposal will be a key item in June talks between government officials, business groups and trade unions to discuss the intensification of social cuts and labour reforms. PS officials indicated that they received their orders from Gattaz loud and clear.

On Friday, President François Hollande reiterated that “measures will be taken in June to boost hiring” in small and mid-sized firms. While he imposes a pro-business agenda of slashing workers’ wages and living standards, Holland cynically claimed that moves to “give more flexibility” to companies did not mean “creating insecurity for employees.”

Prime Minister Manual Valls declared, “Yes, we need reforms to allow small and mid-sized firms to hire. ... We must remove that fear.”

Amid soaring unemployment (more than 10 percent, with over five million unemployed) due to the economic slump, the French bourgeoisie feels it can demand the entire workforce accept devastating concessions. The PS government will rely on a corrupt union bureaucracy, which is hypocritically criticising the Medef, while preparing to work with bosses to implement the cuts and to stifle opposition in the working class.

Laurent Berger, the general secretary of the PS-linked French Democratic Labour Confederation (CFDT) said, “The debate on labour contracts is one we must bring to a close immediately.”

Philippe Martinez, the leader of the Stalinist General Confederation of Labour (CGT) cynically stated that the consequences of the reforms are “often dramatic,” for employees on redundancies in particular.

Having called for Hollande’s vote in the 2012 presidential election, trade unions and the pseudo-lefts, such as New-Anti Capitalist Party (NPA), are working to suppress struggles and allow the PS to carry out pro-business measures at the expense of the working class. Their role has been to oversee the reduction of labour costs in the years since Hollande’s election, so that now companies are making bigger profits.

The French government statistical agency (Insee) recently reported that French labour costs have passed below those in Germany. According to Insee, “Labour costs, including salary and social benefits, grew barely 0.4 percent between the fourth trimester of 2013 and 2014.” In Germany, labour costs rose to 1.6 percent in 2014.

Jean-François Ouvrard, an economist at Coe-Rexecode, told Le Figaro, “Beyond that, French firms will benefit from job-creation incentives and cuts to social spending as part of the Responsibility Pact.”

Pseudo-left rally behind Scottish National Party at anti-nuclear submarine rally

Julie Hyland

An estimated 3,000 people gathered in George Square, Glasgow, Saturday, for a “Bairns (children) not Bombs” rally.

The protest speaks to broader anti-war sentiment. As vital social provision is being cut back through government-imposed austerity, the ruling elite in Britain and internationally squander billions on weapons of mass destruction in line with the resurgence of imperialist violence.

All the more venal then are the efforts by the organisers of Saturday’s protest to channel this opposition behind capitalist parties fully committed to militarism.

The demonstration was organised by the “Scrap Trident” coalition, a reference to Britain’s nuclear submarine programme, due for renewal next year at an estimated cost of up to £100 billion.

The coalition includes the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and the Quakers in Scotland, along with the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP), the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), Scottish Green Party and the Radical Independence Convention (RIC). These pseudo-left tendencies champion Scottish nationalism and acted as the main foot soldiers for the Scottish National Party (SNP) in last September’s failed referendum on Scottish independence.

It is no surprise then that SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon took pride of place at the rally. Amid a sea of Saltire flags, Sturgeon denounced plans to renew Trident as “morally obscene” and “economically indefensible.”

The SNP has made the scrapping of Trident one of its central slogans. It complains that the nuclear programme, which is situated on the River Clyde just 40 miles from Glasgow, makes Scotland the target of a potential attack, either by unspecified hostile nations or terrorists.

But the SNP’s opposition to Trident is a cynical pose. Its real attitude to the growth of militarism is shown not by its stance on a single weapons programme but by its decision, taken in 2012, to abandon its long-standing opposition to the NATO alliance.

The decision was a signal to the United States and the European Union that an independent Scotland could be relied on to safeguard imperialist interests. That is why, while the SNP make great play of the dangers posed to Scotland by the Trident programme, it says little about the threat it constitutes to the rest of the globe.

Four submarines—one of which is always at sea—each carry 40 nuclear warheads that can strike anywhere within a 7,000 mile radius. The explosive power of just one of these warheads is eight times greater than the US atomic bomb that devastated Hiroshima.

Not only does the SNP’s support for NATO, which is at the forefront of US and UK provocations against Moscow, make a mockery of its anti-war pose, but it is also actively participating in trying to stoke up tensions against Russia.

In a recent BBC Question Time programme, Sturgeon said she believed “Russia is potentially a threat.”

“The eye has been taken off that ball [the Russian threat]”, she complained, by the government’s “obsession with nuclear weapons.”

Meanwhile, SNP councillors are currently agitating for Glasgow to sever its ties with the Russian twin city of Rostov-on-Don over the crisis in eastern Ukraine. While remaining silent on the US and EU’s central role in backing last year’s right-wing putsch in Kiev, Glasgow council’s SNP group parrot official propaganda blaming Moscow for the civil war.

Susan Aitken, leader of the Glasgow council SNP group, said, “Where the national government of one of the twin cities behaves in a way that flagrantly breaches accepted international standards—as with President Putin’s actions in Ukraine in recent months—then the council really can’t simply stand by and remain silent.”

This is the main organisation that the pseudo-left are promoting in Scotland as an anti-war party. But their deliberate misleading of working people is not confined to the SNP.

The Scrap Trident campaign is part of a wider attempt by these groups to conceal the advanced preparations for war and sow illusions that by building a “progressive alliance” across the political spectrum, the bourgeoisie can be made to see sense.

A series of protests are to be held in the run-up to the May 7 general election at the Ministry of Defence in London and the Faslane naval base, where the Trident missiles are located, in Scotland. The focus of these actions is to press MPs to vote against Trident’s renewal.

Patrick Harvie of the Scottish Greens told the Glasgow protest, “You need to take the message out day after day, to friends, family, your colleagues, your neighbours, make sure they bring the issue of Trident to the top of the political agenda when they [MPs] decide how they will cast their vote,” he said.

Labour MP Katy Clark also addressed the rally. The SNP’s stated opposition to Trident has not prevented it from making clear it will support a potential Labour administration after May 7, despite Labour leader Ed Miliband’s support for the nuclear programme.

Only in January, Labour joined with the Conservatives in parliament to crush a motion, sponsored by the Greens and the SNP, against Trident’s renewal. The motion was defeated by 364 votes to 35, with just 19 Labour MPs voting in favour.

In the wake of the defeat, CND, with the support of the pseudo-left, are attempting to rebuild parliament’s tattered credentials. On March 25, CND launched its “Vote out Trident” manifesto in Westminster, addressed by representatives of Labour, the SNP, Greens, the Welsh nationalist Plaid Cymru and the Liberal Democrats.

To great fanfare, CND announced that a “survey of 500 parliamentary candidates across all major parties show 81 percent would vote against Trident replacement ... ”

CND General Secretary Kate Hudson said the result was proof of the Conservatives’ “isolation”!

“Every other major party has expressed openness to engaging with the question of whether Britain really needs to spend £100 billion on a Cold War weapons system which senior military figures have described as completely useless,” she claimed.

Hudson is the national secretary of Left Unity. Fronted by film director Ken Loach, it was formed out of the detritus from various pseudo-left organisations. Its stated aim is to build a “broad left” coalition along the lines of Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain.

Left Unity speaks of the need for Britain to be “independent” of the US, which is why it calls for withdrawal from NATO. But it bolsters the United Nations and the European Union as potential instruments for peace.

Hudson and CND are urging MPs from all political parties to sign up to a pledge stating, “I believe a security strategy and defence reviews must consider not replacing nuclear weapons, and will urge the government to fund only conventional military equipment and postures ” (emphasis added).

This stance echoes the recent report by Centreforum, which last month issued its report, “Dropping the Bomb.” The think tank, whose board members include Liberal Democrat, Labour and Conservative MPs, described the replacement of Trident as “nonsensical.”

Author Toby Fenwick explained, “By scrapping Trident, the UK would be able to use the savings to increase the capacity of its conventional forces. It would also be able to improve significantly its medium term conventional strike capability through converting the Vanguard class submarines to carry conventionally armed missiles. Ultimately, investing in conventional forces will be far more effective in protecting the UK’s international status than replacing Trident.”

Only the Socialist Equality Party is standing in the election on a genuine anti-war platform. Our candidates, Katie Rhodes in Glasgow Central and David O’Sullivan in Holborn and St. Pancras, London, insist that the war danger can be defeated only by tackling its root cause in the profit system. They are standing in order to mobilise working people as part of a global revolutionary offensive against capitalism and for a socialist world.

Detroit water department lays off all building maintenance workers

James Brewer

In an unpublicized move, the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) is laying off 35 building maintenance workers and replacing them with commercially contracted janitorial services. A notification dated March 23 was sent to DWSD employees informing workers of the change, effective Monday, April 6, 2015.

The affected employees are members of AFSCME Local 207. Mike Mulholland, president of the local, told the World Socialist Web Site that the union was not informed of the layoffs before the notices were sent to their members and that they had learned about the job cuts only when they heard rumors from employees. Mulholland said he had learned that the city workers receiving layoff notices were told they could reapply for the jobs with the commercial contractors at the poverty wage rate of $8.25 an hour with no benefits.

If this is true, it is a further indication of the impotence of the union, which has so far not lifted a finger to defend the victimized workers. Indeed, throughout the bankruptcy process AFSCME blocked any independent mobilization of workers against the attacks on workers or retirees, eventually agreeing to a deal that cut pensions in exchange for union control of a half-billion-dollar retiree health care trust fund.

The notice sent by DWSD informed all employees that the contract for the commercial janitorial services would begin on Monday, April 6 and asked workers to be patient and cooperative as the contractors begin the job, which they are unfamiliar with.

The layoff off the janitorial workers is part of a broader assault being carried out against water department employees as plans are laid for the eventual privatization of the operation.

The DWSD has been preparing the transition to the newly created Great Lakes Water Authority (GLWA) since early 2014 under what it calls its “Optimization Plan.” When the new entity comes into effect in July of this year, most of the employees of the DWSD will become GLWA employees and will be handed over to a new local union, which has already signed a five-year contract with the GLWA.

Last year, all DWSD employees were instructed to reapply for their own jobs in preparation for the reorganization of the department. The creation of the GLWA was a product of the forced bankruptcy of Detroit as part of an effort to monetize this extremely valuable asset of the city and move toward its transformation into a profit-making operation. The creation of the GLWA was part of an end run around the Detroit City Charter, which had contained certain safeguards against the privatization of the water department.

This did not of course mean that investors did not make huge profits through the holding of municipal water bonds. In fact the speculative deals entered into by the City of Detroit, such as the interest rate swaps—which bankruptcy judge Steven Rhodes was forced to admit were likely illegal—went a long way toward undermining Detroit’s financial situation, providing justification for the financial vultures to force the city into bankruptcy.

The reapplication process has provided management with a carte blanche to select employees at will and reassign them to its best advantage. DWSD management is in the process of culling through the 1,400 current employees and determining which workers to get rid of as “undesirable.” At the same time they are breaking down job classifications through “lateral training.” The goal is to create a subservient and low-paid workforce, making the operation more attractive to investors.

The unions, rather than fighting this scheme, have conspired behind the scenes with management to straitjacket workers to prevent them from organizing any opposition.

Last April, 14 Detroit city employees unions agreed to five-year contracts as part of the bankruptcy negotiations. AFSCME Region 25 President Ed McNeil and spokesman for the Coalition of Detroit Unions stated at the time, “This agreement, in principle, offers an opportunity for the unions to provide regular input and guidance to city management.”

The extended contracts were negotiated by the unions to lock in the automatic dues checkoff in advance of Michigan becoming a Right-to-Work state. This ensured the continued flow of dues into the unions’ treasuries for another five years.

Workers who will be assigned to the GLWA will be moved into the Operating Engineers Union Local 324, which has already signed a 10-year contract with the new entity. Included are some paltry wage increases, which not only don’t make up for inflation, but they don’t recoup the 10 percent cut city workers were dealt years ago.

Last September, in a communique to members of AFSCME Council 25, the union explained that there was no choice but to sign paperwork for a status change: “It is my understanding that you are being presented with a status change for the new position, which includes the union you will be assigned to: and in most cases that union may not be AFSCME. Several members have called, expressing their objection to being placed in another union. Therefore, Michigan AFSCME Council 25 suggests the following: Accept your new position. Sign your stays change, but include these words ‘signing under duress.’ This will allow you to accept your promotion, while Council 25 continues the fight against the DWSD’s attempt to destroy our union.”

DWSD management reportedly maintains a list of employees that will not be reassigned due to supposed bad attendance. Most of these workers have been placed in this category because they have taken leaves based on the US Department of Labor’s Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), entitling employees to take “unpaid, job-protected leave for specific family and medical reasons.” Those taking FMLA time off for the covered reasons are protected by law from being discriminated against by their employer, yet DWSD management is still planning to get rid of them.

The reorganization of the DWSD and preparations for privatization are also behind the recently announced water rate hikes throughout the Metro Detroit area and the city’s publicized intention to resume water cutoffs to as many as 28,000 households this spring. The aim is to improve the balance sheet of the city’s water operations, making it more attractive to private investors.

The decision to deny water to thousands of working class families and the assault on water department employees puts the ruthlessness and the cruelty of the ruling elite on display. It continues the attack begun with the Detroit bankruptcy, which eliminated most retiree health benefits and slashed pensions. These events are setting a precedent for attacks on working people across the United States and indeed internationally.

Preparing ground invasion of Yemen, Saudi military to raze some 100 border towns

Thomas Gaist

Saudi Arabian military forces participating in the US-backed war against Yemen will raze to the ground nearly 100 villages along the Yemen-Saudi border, according to reports in Saudi media Monday.

The mass demolitions are part of the preparations by Saudi Arabia to expand its ongoing air campaign into a full-scale ground invasion of its impoverished neighbor to the south. Saturday marked the 11th day of a Saudi-led bombing campaign pounding the country, with concentrated strikes against targets around Aden and the northern city of Saada.

Strikes launched by the Saudis and allied forces from the Persian Gulf monarchies, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait, as well as from Jordan, Egypt and Sudan, continued to pound the capital of Sanaa over the weekend.

Saudi special forces are already on the ground inside Yemen, according to some reports. Saudi Arabia demanded this weekend that Pakistan join the “Arab coalition” and supply military aid in advance of a ground invasion.

At least 500 are dead and 1,700 wounded as a result of the fighting that has raged across the Saudi-Yemeni border and throughout the interior of the country. The streets of Aden are “strewn with dead bodies,” and freshly wounded residents are flooding local medical centers, according to the Red Cross. Nearly 200 civilians have been killed and more than 1,200 wounded in Aden in the past 10 days, according to a local health official cited by the BBC.

The Red Cross has called for a 24-hour “humanitarian pause” in the fighting and the Saudi blockade of Yemen, which the agency said was necessary to prevent further mass deaths of civilians.

The breakdown of Yemen’s sanitation infrastructure under the impact of the Saudi air war threatens a devastating public health crisis, experts warn. Medical programs, including immunization programs for children, have been disrupted by severe supply shortages. Much of Aden has been without water and electricity for days, according to Reuters.

“Many, many” children have been killed since the Saudi-led assault began, according to UNICEF’s Yemen representative. Reports are emerging of mass recruitment of children into rival militias.

There is a widespread understanding that Yemen is being rapidly transformed into a slaughterhouse. Numerous governments scrambled to evacuate their citizens from Yemen over the weekend, in anticipation of further escalation of the violence, with Pakistan evacuating some 170 nationals by air on this weekend, Algeria evacuating 160, Jordan 150, Egypt 380, India 440, and Turkey rescuing some 230 of its nationals.

As Yemen’s cities and towns face bombardment from the air, the country is being torn apart by clashes between warring tribal-based militias that have stepped into the void produced by the collapse of the US puppet government of President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi. Installed by the US and Saudi-dominated Gulf Cooperation Council in early 2012, Hadi is currently in exile in Saudi Arabia after being deposed at gunpoint by Houthi forces in the opening weeks of 2015.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and other sectarian militant forces, meanwhile, have expanded their control over substantial areas, seizing entire towns and springing hundreds of imprisoned fighters from government jails.

The Houthi rebels now control territory in the northwest and the south and along the strategically critical western coastline, and are engaged in a chaotic civil war with AQAP fighters and other militant groups that effectively control areas along the southern coast.

AQAP captured the city of al Mukalla on Friday, forcing government forces to flee their fortifications and abandon their US-made weapons. It is becoming clear that the group is seen by Saudi Arabia as a critical fighting force against the Houthis.

Previously, AQAP’s activities were invoked as the pretext for US intervention and military presence in Yemen, with AQAP constituting one of the main targets of Washington’s drone warfare. Now, the group may soon be fighting on behalf of the Saudi coalition, and thus effectively on behalf of Washington.

The Saudi monarchy seeks to maintain power over the impoverished Saudi and Middle Eastern working classes through a counterrevolutionary and sectarian strategy that includes the violent suppression of Shia minorities both inside and along its borders, making the extreme-right Sunni militants of AQAP all the more attractive as potential allies against the Iran-linked Houthis.

Nonetheless, the efforts of Western media to try to portray the conflict as driven primarily by a sectarian struggle of Sunni versus Shia are calculated to cover over the fundamental responsibility of the US government and ruling elite for the rising tide of war in Yemen and throughout the broader region.

Far from the product of medieval religious disputes, as the self-proclaimed pundits of the US media establishment contend, the accelerating destruction of Yemen has been waged in close coordination with the US and with direct US logistical support and weaponry and flows directly from the efforts of US imperialism to maintain political domination over the Arabian Peninsula and the Persian Gulf through endless wars and militarist conspiracies.

In an analysis posted in late March, “America, Saudi Arabia, and the Strategic Importance of Yemen,” Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) drew out the geopolitical considerations behind the war against Yemen.

Because the new Yemen war involves essential US global interests, the Pentagon must prepare to provide direct “combat support” for the Saudi-led war, Cordesman argued.

“US strategic interests require a broad level of stability in the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula,” the CSIS chief, who serves as unofficial foreign policy advisor to the White House, noted.

“Yemen is of major strategic importance to the United States, as is the broader stability of Saudi Arabia and all of the Arab Gulf states. For all of the talk of U.S. energy ‘independence,’ the reality remains very different. The increase in petroleum and alternative fuels outside the Gulf has not changed its vital strategic importance to the global and U.S. economy,” Cordesman wrote.

Cordesman’s point is that historic oil surpluses do not free the US from the need to control the strategic reserves and shipping channels of the region, levers of global power that are essential to US domination over the main European and Asian powers.

Yemen’s proximity to two of the most important commercial waterways on the planet, the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and the Straits of Hormuz, make it a linchpin of US regional strategy. Traffic exiting the Persian Gulf must cross through Bab el-Mandeb, which is less than 20 miles across with only two shipping lanes at its narrowest point, before reaching the Suez Canal and SUMED pipeline.

“The Bab el-Mandeb Strait is a chokepoint between the Horn of Africa and the Middle East, and it is a strategic link between the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean,” Cordesman noted.

Control over even small portions of Yemen by hostile forces could threaten key US allied regimes in Riyadh and Cairo, calling into question both “the economic stability of [the US-backed military dictatorship in] Egypt," and "the security of Saudi Arabia’s key port at Jeddah and major petroleum export facility outside the Gulf,” Cordesman noted.

Obama defends Iran nuclear pact as Pentagon prepares for war

Bill Van Auken

In an interview with the New York Times published Monday, President Barack Obama spelled out his attitude toward the deal announced last Thursday with Iran on the country’s nuclear program. Obama made it clear that Washington sees the agreement with Tehran to severely limit its nuclear activities and subject them to an unprecedentedly intrusive inspection regime as a kind of “test” of the Iranian government, even as the US maintains its option to launch a war against Iran.

The interview, given to Thomas Friedman, the Times foreign affairs columnist who served as one of the newspaper’s most ardent advocates of the unprovoked US war on Iraq, was organized as a means of countering a wave of hostile criticism from the Republican Party in the US and the right-wing Zionist government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel.

In the Times interview, as in earlier statements on the deal, Obama stressed that military action remained among the “options on the table,” should Washington deem Tehran out of compliance with the agreement.

Describing the US posture in relation to the negotiations, Obama said: “It’s not as if, in all these conversations, I’m leaving all my rifles at the door. We’re walking into these negotiations and everyone knows we’ve got the most firepower. And we’re not relinquishing our capacity to defend ourselves or our allies.”

Stressing the tactical character of the push toward a negotiated agreement with Iran, Obama added: “Iran’s defense budget is $30 billion. Our defense budget is closer to $600 billion. Iran understands that they cannot fight us.... You asked about an Obama doctrine. The doctrine is: We will engage, but we preserve all our capabilities.”

Underscoring the concrete implications of Obama’s invocation of US “capabilities,” the Wall Street Journal reported last Friday that the Pentagon has successfully tested a new upgraded version of its so-called Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or MOP, the bunker-buster bomb, which is the most destructive non-nuclear weapon in the US arsenal.

“The Pentagon continues to be focused on being able to provide military options for Iran if needed,” a senior US official told the Journal. “We have not taken our eyes off the ball.”

The upgrading of the weapon came following the conclusion by Pentagon war planners that the existing 30,000-pound MOP wasn’t powerful enough to assure destruction of some of Iran’s nuclear facilities, particularly the Fordow nuclear enrichment plant, which is built into the side of a mountain near the city of Qom.

A strike on such facilities would consist of two of the huge bombs dropped in sequence. “Steering two or more massive ordinance penetrators to a single entry point would have a devastating effect never before seen by a nonnuclear weapon,” the Journal quoted unnamed US officials as saying.

In addition to militarist muscle-flexing, Obama stressed Washington’s unconditional commitment to the defense of Israel. His interview was made public in the midst of a full-throated campaign by Israeli prime minister Netanyahu to block any agreement with Iran.

Netanyahu appeared on three different television networks’ Sunday talk shows, denouncing the agreement as a “bad deal” that would give Iran “a free path to the bomb.” He further cautioned that the deal would trigger a “nuclear arms race among the Sunni countries in the Middle East.” Israel, of course, is already a nuclear power, with hundreds of nuclear weapons, and has refused to sign or abide by the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The entire debate between Washington and Tel Aviv over the agreement with Iran is based on the false assumption that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapon, with the differences arising over whether or not the deal reached in Switzerland can deter it from this path.

In reality, the intelligence agencies of both countries agree that there is no such drive by Iran to build a bomb. The National Intelligence Estimate produced by the US spy agencies in 2007 concluded that Iran had halted its pursuit of nuclear weapons in 2003. And a recently leaked Mossad document from 2012 found that Iran is “not performing the activity necessary to produce weapons.”

For both Washington and Tel Aviv, Iran’s nuclear program is not the real issue, but rather has served as a pretext for imposing crippling economic sanctions, carrying out military and intelligence provocation and threatening all-out war.

The tactical shift being executed by the Obama administration in relation to Iran is aimed at securing a rapprochement with Tehran in order to facilitate the Pentagon’s “pivot to Asia” and the preparation for far more dangerous wars against China and Russia.

For the Israeli government, however, the lessening of tensions with Iran is seen as a double threat, diminishing the importance of the Washington-Tel Aviv axis in the Middle East as well as depriving the Zionist regime of a purported “existential threat” with which to distract the population from the steadily deteriorating conditions for the great majority of Israeli society.

Obama sought to counter Netanyahu’s campaign with a declaration of unconditional support for Israel. “Not only am I absolutely committed to making sure that they maintain their qualitative military edge and that they can deter any future military attacks, but what I’m willing to do is to make the kinds of commitments that would give everyone in the neighborhood, including Iran, the clarity that if Israel were to be attacked by any state that we would stand by them.”

The statement came in response to Friedman’s suggestion that Washington should conclude a “US-Israel Mutual Defense Treaty.” After Obama made his statement, Friedman gushed, “You’ve just made that commitment right now, that’s a signal to them.”

In asserting his unqualified support for Israel, Obama pointed out that in the summer of 2014, when Tel Aviv faced condemnations from around the world for its slaughter of more than 2,300 Palestinians in Gaza, his administration had held fast to the shameful mantra that Israel had “a right to defend itself.”

Netanyahu’s campaign against the nuclear agreement has dovetailed with that of the Republican leadership in Congress, which staged a political provocation last month by organizing—behind the back of the White House—a speech to a joint session of Congress in which the Israeli prime minister denounced the Obama administration’s negotiating position.

The Republican denunciations of the framework agreement announced in Switzerland last week seemed somewhat more muted in the face of widespread reports that Iran had made much more far-reaching concessions than anticipated.

Senator Bob Corker, the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who has spearheaded legislation mandating a vote in Congress on any final deal, told Fox News Sunday that he was waiting for more information on the agreement. “I don’t know how someone can ascertain whether this is something good or bad,” he said.

Obama has threatened to veto any bill that requires congressional approval of the agreement. Corker acknowledged Sunday that he did not have the 67 votes needed in the Senate to override a presidential veto, while saying he still believed that “Congress needs to be playing a role.”