UK schools decimated by funding cuts

Tom Pearce

Across the UK, teachers are drawing attention to the impact of the Conservative government’s slashing of funding to schools.

The government had pledged to protect school spending, but this was a façade. Successive UK governments have failed to stop the austerity cuts on schools and the Conservatives’ proposed fairer funding formula is a further attack on the education system. A desperate situation has been created as cash-strapped schools look to face even further cuts from proposed funding reforms.

The National Audit Office (NAO) reports that schools faced £3 billion in spending cuts and a forecast from the Institute for Fiscal Studies said this equated to an 8 percent real-term cut to funding. This means that schools face the worst reduction in funding since the mid-1990s.

The situation is so dire that MPs recently debated the schools funding crisis. At the Education Select Committee on January 31, Minister of State for Schools Nick Gibb admitted that 5,500 schools are on the funding “floor.”

This was in stark contrast to previous comments by the Education Secretary Justine Greening who claimed that “schools were already receiving record levels of funding. We recognise that schools are facing cost pressures, which is why we will continue to provide advice and support to help them use their funding in cost-effective ways, including improving the way they buy goods and services, so they get the best possible value for their pupils.”

Greening’s response covers up the truth that schools will be forced to find detrimental ways to cope with the coming cuts on spending. Pressures of funding are compromising the education of every child, with schools being treated as businesses. The most expensive part of a school’s budget is teachers’ pay. School head teachers will ultimately be forced to decide between allocating funding for staff or resources.

This will only exacerbate the existing crisis. Cuts in funding have already led to a desperate situation where class sizes have increased substantially.

There are many cases across the UK where, even before further attacks take place, schools are struggling and are already considering extreme measures to survive. Schoolchildren face the prospect of a four-day week in the county of West Sussex, and the same is now being considered in the north-west county of Cheshire because of a shortage in funding.

School principals from Cheshire have warned that some subjects could be scrapped, while teaching assistants and mental health support workers could face redundancy.

While facing this crisis, Prime Minister Theresa May has nevertheless pledged that schools will take on a larger role in dealing with mental health issues. This is due to cuts of at least £600 million to mental health services since 2010. Previously paid for by central and local government funding, schools will have to pay for these additional responsibilities out of their own budgets.

This attack on school budgets is not sustainable, with school leaders forced to consider unprecedented measures. The BBC reported Denis Oliver, head teacher at Holmes Chapel Comprehensive School in Cheshire, saying he was investigating the possibility of “having children working at home with their teachers online as virtual support, [thereby] saving on heating, lighting, cleaning and transport costs. We are looking at everything.”

He added, “Class sizes will rise, services for children with high needs will drastically reduce, school libraries may have to close. It’s draconian. It will destroy some schools.”

This is not an isolated case but the emerging reality nationwide, with the Independent reporting, “40 percent of small rural schools are set to lose funding.”

The impact is being felt across the board. North Devon schools are likely to go bankrupt due to proposed funding changes. Member of Parliament for Liverpool West, Stephen Twigg, said, “80 percent of schools in Liverpool are set to have budget cuts.” In the area of Kirklees in West Yorkshire only one school is set to benefit from the new funding formula changes, with the rest losing money. In Oldham, each school is set to lose £438 per pupil.

Not only are schools worried about the coming changes, but growing numbers of secondary schools are over-spending and deficits are growing. Their average deficit during 2015/16 increased from £246,000 to £326,000. Schools Week magazine reported, “Schools are now at the point where they have cut all they can from non-staff budgets.”

In this situation, the only solution left to head teachers is to cut money from staffing.

The government’s strategy in response to funding problems in Academy schools has been to intervene to give them notices to improve. There is no evidence that this process has helped improve a school’s financial situation. In fact, the NAO found that 70 out of 322 academy trusts ended back on financial concern lists even after receiving Education Funding Agency (EFA) support.

The National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT), who asked 1,000 schools about their funding situation, substantiates these statistics. They found that 71 percent of head teachers polled were only able to balance their budgets by making cuts or dipping into reserves. Seventy-two percent of head teachers fear budgets will be unsustainable by 2019 and 85 percent save money by spending less on new equipment.

The greatest cost pressures on schools, according to head teachers, are government changes, which have passed the costs of employing staff on to schools; the decline in local authority services; and the abolition of a central government grant that enables councils to support schools with pupils with mental health issues.

According to the NAHT, almost 80 percent of schools are providing support for children with mental health issues from general school budgets. Schools are “stepping in where cuts in health and social care funding have failed to meet the growing demand for support.”

As wider cuts to social care and children’s services continue, schools have to deal with the effects by taking over the care systems that have been wiped out. This situation only exacerbates the school funding situation and directly affects the care of children, with fully funded and dedicated services no longer available.

Schools are forced to cut hours of speech therapy sessions, and specialist staff who used to work in areas such as drugs, gangs and counselling have disappeared or had their hours cut. Head teachers complain that there is no help outside school for children with mental health issues and schools are now being asked to take on even heavier burdens, but without extra funding.

Schools cannot afford family liaison workers, yet are being judged on the attendance records of children. Head teachers are cutting training budgets at a time when the government has changed every course and every exam curriculum. Money for resources and training for these courses cannot be found by some schools. Some head teachers have followed a policy of not replacing staff where they do not have to.

Parents are increasingly being asked to contribute to school funding. One example is Beechen Cliff, a state school in Bath, which sent a letter to all parents—several years before the new funding formula came in—asking for a regular voluntary financial contribution. Noting the “bleak governmental funding future,” it said that maintaining existing standards “will only be possible with help and support.” The letter continued, “At Beechen Cliff education is free but, if parents are willing to give a fraction of that money, we could achieve so much more.” It added, “We are asking ALL families for a voluntary contribution of £30, £20 or £10 per month to the new Top-up Scheme.”

Many schools are heading towards bankruptcy and will be forced to go to the wall. The aim of the government’s attacks is to force schools to become businesses that compete, with the privatisation of school-age education the goal.

German Chancellor Merkel promotes harsher deportation policies

Martin Kreickenbaum 

German Chancellor Angela Merkel told the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) parliamentary group at the end of August that in refugee policy “the most important thing in the coming months is repatriation, repatriation and again repatriation.”

Last Thursday, the chancellor met with the minister presidents of Germany’s states to put this slogan into practice. In place of the so-called “welcoming culture” a “deportation culture” has emerged which could certainly be compared to the policies of US President Donald Trump.

Prior to the summit in the chancellor’s office, Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière (CDU) urged a “joint pooling of forces” to deport refugees in large numbers. The minister presidents then agreed on a 15-point plan which drastically curtails immigrant rights, and supports more frequent and quicker deportations.

The measures were supported by state presidents from all political parties. Only the President of Thuringia Bodo Ramelow (Left Party) stayed away from the summit out of tactical considerations.

The 15-point plan includes the following measures:

The reasons for detention pending deportation will be increased. In the future, rejected asylum seekers can be interned if they are accused of endangering public security or order. Such preventive detention violates current laws, and the utterly unclear concept of a “threat” in criminal law opens the door wide to police arbitrariness.

“Custody pending departure,” a euphemism for the detention of entire families, is being lengthened to 10 days. This violates EU law, which bans arbitrary measures without constitutional review.

The police and intelligence surveillance of foreigners required to leave will be significantly expanded. The smart phones and SIM cards of refugees who are not cooperative enough during identification checks can be confiscated and examined. In addition, the federal office for migration and refugees can also pass sensitive data to the police authorities.

Rejected asylum seekers can have stricter residency requirements imposed upon them so that they are not permitted to leave the area or city in which they live. Refugees can also be sanctioned more strictly with benefit cuts and employment bans.

Until now, refugees who had held tolerated status in Germany for at least a year could challenge a deportation order within one month. This option shall be restricted so that tolerated refugees can expect to be deported at any time.

Asylum seekers who are deemed not to have a “perspective of staying” prior to their first hearing can be compelled to stay at arrival centres. They “are to be sent back from the arrival centre as soon as possible after the commencement of the requirement to depart.” In this way, the permanent internment of refugees will become the norm. The refugee camps will thus become “centres of organised hopelessness,” as refugee support organisation ProAsyl has noted.

The heads of government at the federal and state levels have also agreed to create “a sufficient number of detention pending deportation places within close distance of central departure institutions.” In addition, “a centre to support return” will be established to coordinate deportation measures between the federal and state governments and press ahead with mass deportations, especially to Afghanistan.

The Interior Ministry also intends to expand the number of the so-called Dublin regulations. Refugees will be sent back to the country where they first entered European Union territory. According to Interior Minister de Maizière, there will soon be “Dublin transfers” to Greece, Hungary and Bulgaria, even though refugees are abused in those countries and there is no functioning asylum system or adequate accommodation.

And finally, the so-called “voluntary repatriation” of refugees will be intensified. An additional €90 million is to be made available for this. In this procedure, refugees will face pressure already during asylum hearings to return “voluntarily” to their homeland in exchange for a small incentive. The repatriation programme “Starthilfe plus” listed countries gripped by civil war, including Afghanistan, Syria and Eritrea as targets for voluntary repatriation.

If one includes the refugee deal with Turkey, the systematic sealing off of the Balkan route and the Mediterranean as well as the attempts of the European Union to build detention centres in North Africa for refugees, these measures hardly differ from the bullying, internment and deportation of refugees adopted by the Trump administration. Constitutional principles are being thrown overboard and human rights trampled underfoot.

The right to asylum has been restricted several times in Germany since the autumn of 2015 to deter refugees. Benefits have been cut, residency requirements reintroduced and toughened, family reunification made more difficult and deportations pushed forward.

Now the criteria for the acceptance of asylum seekers is to be arbitrarily intensified. The decision paper from the heads of government meeting states early on, “In the coming months, the BAMF [Federal Office for Migration and Refugees] will in the future reject a high number of asylum applications from people who do not require protection in Germany.”

Chancellor’s office Minister Peter Altmeier (CDU) told Bavarian Radio, “We assume that deportations will be more frequent and quicker from all states, including to Afghanistan.” This should also result in fewer people setting out to Germany.

It is significant that the government has hired the consultancy firm McKinsey, which is normally tasked with rationalising business operations, to produce a study on the deportation of refugees. Refugees are being treated like cattle whose deportation is a mere matter of feasibility and cost-effectiveness.

Even though only 150,000 tolerated refugees who currently live in Germany are obliged to leave the McKinsey study assumes that the number could rise to 485,000 in 2017.

The stepped-up actions against refugees was agreed to by an all-party coalition. For the Social Democrats, Justice Minister Heiko Mas praised the package of measures, “Only if we enforce our regulations can we permanently achieve acceptance for migration.”

A despicable role is being played by the Left Party. Their interior policy spokeswoman in parliament publicly described the measures as “competition of shamelessness in deportation policy” and attacked the expansion of federal authority in deportations for suppressing “humanitarian considerations, which luckily are still employed in some states.”

However, the Thuringia state government noted its readiness in the protocol to the 15-point plan to enforce the obligation to return for rejected asylum seekers. It merely intends to rely more heavily on the so-called “voluntary” repatriation, because “the support of voluntary return [is] an efficient instrument.” And in Berlin and Brandenburg, where the Left Party is also in government, the party has not raised any principled objections to the measures.

Trump administration to expand India-US military-strategic alliance

Deepal Jayasekera & Keith Jones 

The Trump administration has served notice that it intends to expand the Indo-US military strategic alliance. This is not surprising, but nonetheless highly significant: first, because it underscores the new administration’s intention to pursue confrontation with China; and second, because Washington’s drive to harness India to its military-strategic offensive against China has dangerously destabilized the region, fueling tensions between India and both China and Pakistan.

US Secretary of Defense, General James “Mad Dog” Mattis, telephoned his Indian counterpart, Manohar Parrikar last week. Mattis, according to the Pentagon readout of their Feb. 8 conversation, hailed the “tremendous progress” made in “recent years” in Indo-US “defense cooperation” and said the new administration is eager to “sustain the momentum” and “build upon it.”

The readout made specific mention of the bilateral Defense Technology and Trade Initiative (DTTI) under which the US and India are codeveloping and coproducing advanced weapon systems.

Mattis placed his call to Parrikar shortly after returning from a trip to East Asia, during which he reaffirmed Washington’s longstanding strategic alliances with Japan and South Korea. He also reiterated the Obama administration’s commitment to go to war with China if Beijing were ever to threaten East China Sea islets (known in Japan as the Senkaku and in China as the Diaoyu) that are currently held by Japan, but claimed by China.

Mattis’s call came the day after officials in Washington had said that all the legal changes necessary to give effect to India’s recent designation as a “Major (US) Defense Partner” have now been completed. As a quid pro quo for New Delhi agreeing to allow the Pentagon to use Indian military bases to service its warplanes and battleships, the Obama administration last year conferred “Major Defense Partner” status on India. This gives New Delhi access to US weapons on a par with Washington’s most trusted treaty allies and Indian companies “a presumption of approval” when they seek to buy most US Commerce Department-controlled military and “dual use” goods.

Since the turn of the 21st century, Republican and Democratic administrations alike have prioritized strengthening strategic ties with India, viewing it as critical to US efforts to contain and, if need be, thwart China’s rise. India’s size, large nuclear-armed military, and strategic location are all reasons India has been touted by the Pentagon, CIA, and US foreign policy think tanks as a “strategic prize.” From the standpoint of the strategists of US imperialism, India is China’s western underbelly. Moreover, it juts far out into the Indian Ocean, providing a prime vantage point for controlling the sea-lanes that convey much of China’s oil and other natural resource imports, and almost all its exports to Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

Since the Obama administration launched its “Pivot to Asia” in 2011, and especially since the Indian elite propelled Narendra Modi and his Hindu supremacist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to power in May 2014, India has been integrated ever more completely into Washington’s military-strategic offensive against China.

In their parting addresses, both Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and Secretary of State John Kerry characterized the enhanced Indo-US military-strategic ties as one of the major achievements of Obama’s eight-year presidency.

Under Modi, India has been transformed into a veritable frontline state in Washington’s anti- China offensive.

In addition to opening its military bases for routine US use, India—as revealed by the head of the US Pacific Command, Admiral Harry Harris, last month—is now exchanging intelligence with the US Navy on Chinese submarine and ship movements in the Indian Ocean.

New Delhi has also dramatically expanded its bilateral and trilateral military-security cooperation with America’s closest Asia-Pacific allies, Japan and Australia.

Beginning with the January 2015 “India-US Joint Strategic Vision for the Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean Region,” the Modi government has consistently parroted Washington’s provocative position on the South China Sea dispute, painting China as the “aggressor.” This stance is encouraging the US to act ever more recklessly. The Trump administration has gone so far as to threaten to block China’s access to the South China Sea islets it currently controls, an act that would be tantamount to a declaration of war.

The extent to which India is being integrated into the US war build-up against China has been further underscored by this week’s announcement that the Pentagon has decided to make India a hub for servicing and repairing battleships and other vessels attached to its Seven Fleet—the force that would play the lead role in implementing the US military’s Air-Sea Battle plan against China.

The ever-tighter Indo-US alliance has overturned the balance of power in the South Asian region, leading to the dangerous intensification of geopolitical tensions between India and its principal rivals, China and Pakistan. One expression of this is a nuclear and ballistic missile arms race, involving all three states.

Emboldened by the many strategic “favors” Washington has showered upon it, New Delhi has launched a campaign of diplomatic, economic and military pressure aimed at forcing Islamabad to stamp out all logistical support from Pakistan for the anti-Indian insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir. Last fall, South Asia was plunged into its gravest war crisis in over a decade, when India mounted commando raids inside Pakistan in retaliation for an attack on an Indian military base carried out by Islamist Kashmiri separatists.

For more than four decades, India did not publicly admit to attacks inside Pakistan for fear of triggering a dynamic of escalating strikes and counterstrikes that could quickly lead to all-out war. The Modi government has dashed this policy. It has celebrated the commando raids as the throwing off of the shackles of “strategic restraint” and has vowed that it will continue to punish Pakistan until it “renounces” terrorism even if that leads to the first-ever war between nuclear-armed states.

The Modi government has been encouraged in this provocative stance by Washington. Eager to demonstrate to New Delhi the value Washington places on their strategic partnership, the Obama administration supported India’s illegal and highly provocative “surgical strikes” inside Pakistan, first implicitly and then explicitly.

Even before Mattis’s phone call to his Indian counterpart, Parrikar, New Delhi was calculating how it could exploit the harder line the Trump administration is expected to adopt with Pakistan, which Washington has repeatedly criticized for not doing more to stamp out Taliban safe havens inside Pakistan. In reality, if Islamabad, or at least sections of Pakistan’s military-intelligence apparatus, have maintained ties with some Taliban factions it is because they are hedging against the impact of the Indo-US alliance, which has drastically increased the strategic imbalance between Pakistan and India, a country with a six times larger population and an eight times larger economy.

Pakistan’s principal military-strategic response to the burgeoning Indo-US ties had been to deepen its longstanding alliance with Beijing. This in turn has further exacerbated tensions between Beijing and New Delhi.

In a statement to the Indian parliament last week, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj reiterated the Modi government’s hardline policy of refusing all substantive contacts with Pakistan until it abandons any material support for the Kashmir insurgency. Swaraj proclaimed India’s policy was “no dialogue, until peace” and boasted about Islamabad’s growing diplomatic isolation.

Up until 2015, China adopted a cautious approach to the Indo-US military-strategic alliance, based on the calculation that a strong reaction might backfire and push New Delhi further into Washington’s embrace. But over the past two years, Beijing has taken an increasingly confrontational stance, as exemplified by its decision to make the $50 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor a cornerstone of its One Belt, One Road initiative.

Significantly India figures large on the list of key strategic concerns Beijing has reportedly given to the Trump administration. According to Michael Pillsbury, a Trump advisor and China expert, Beijing listed six top “sensitivities”: Taiwan; the One China policy; the antiballistic missile system Washington is building in South Korea (THAAD); US arms sales to India; the Sino-Indian border dispute; and the Dali Lama and the Tibetan government-in-exile, which is located in India.

At Modi’s invitation, the US Ambassador to India, Richard Verma, made a high-profile visit last October to Arunachal Pradesh, territory China claims as South Tibet. On a similar visit earlier last year a lower-level US diplomat said Washington considers Arunachal Pradesh an indisputable part of India.

Syria talks restart in Astana as fighting continues

Jordan Shilton

Talks to resolve the Syrian conflict organized by Russia, Turkey and Iran are set to begin today in the Kazakh capital, Astana. The second round of discussions has been overshadowed by renewed tensions between Russia and Turkey, and the possibility that an opposition delegation could refuse to attend.

An announcement was made Tuesday by the Kazakh government that the meetings would take place behind closed doors.

The initiative to reach a peace agreement to end the civil war was taken by Russia and Turkey after US-backed rebels suffered a disastrous defeat in eastern Aleppo at the end of last year. The retaking of the country’s second major city by forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, with the support of Russian air strikes and Iranian fighters, was a severe setback to Washington’s six-year-long war for regime change in Damascus. Washington has been left sidelined in the Astana talks, although Moscow and Ankara extended an invitation for the US to attend as an observer.

US President Donald Trump ordered senior military personnel January 28 to propose plans for the US intervention in Syria, giving them a one-month deadline. The administration has continued a brutal air war in collaboration with an international coalition, which is ostensibly targeting ISIS positions. According to the latest statistics, US air strikes in January killed over 250 civilians.

Over 400,000 Syrians have lost their lives since the outbreak of the conflict and at least 11 million, around half of the country’s population, have been forced to flee their homes.

In contrast to the Obama administration, whose Syria strategy of backing Islamist rebels dominated by the al-Qaida-affiliated Al-Nusra Front suffered a debacle in December with the fall of Aleppo, Trump has indicated his readiness to consider “safe zones” in the north of the country. This policy would aim to keep the millions who have been forced from their homes within the country and would at the same time serve as the pretext for a vast escalation of US military personnel in the country. It has already been pointed out by several commentators that defending such zones would entail a far larger US military commitment.

There is little prospect that the peace talks over the coming days can avert a further escalation of tensions in the region. After the two-day meeting in Astana, the parties will reconvene next week under the auspices of the United Nations in Geneva, where the United States and other Western powers are expected to participate.

Over the weekend, Turkey continued to advance on the ISIS-controlled town of al-Bab and currently has approximately 40 percent of it under its control. The offensive came following a telephone call last week between Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and a visit to Ankara by new CIA head Mike Pompeo.

The seizure of al-Bab heightens the risk of renewed clashes between Turkish and Kurdish forces organized in the People’s Protection Units (YPG). The YPG is at present engaged in operations to retake Raqqa, the de facto capital of ISIS territory, but control over al-Bab would increase Turkish influence on the military offensive. Erdogan even suggested last week that Turkish troops could move east to attack the ISIS stronghold. Trump, who initially expressed the hope that Turkish and Kurdish forces could be persuaded to collaborate in combatting ISIS, appears to have abandoned this position in the face of stiff opposition from Erdogan, who opposes any expansion of Kurdish autonomy in northern Syria for fear that it will encourage separatist sentiments across the border in the Kurdish-majority areas of southeast Turkey.

Turkish-Kurdish hostilities could yet trigger frictions between Ankara and Moscow. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov invited representatives of the Democratic Unity Party (PYD), the political arm of the YPG, to Moscow for a briefing on the last round of talks in Astana. Turkey has not criticized this move so far, but it rejects any cooperation with the PYD, which it denounces as terrorists and being linked to the separatist Kurdish Workers Party (PKK). While Moscow has spoken out in favor of a federal settlement for Syria, this is rejected by Turkey.

The Turkish push further into Syrian territory also threatens to trigger clashes between Turkish-aligned Syrian militia and Assad’s forces, which are advancing on al-Bab from the south with Russian support.

An Amnesty International report released last week, “Human Slaughterhouse: mass hangings and exterminations at Saydnaya prison,” documented the brutal repression employed by the Assad regime against political opponents. The yearlong investigation uncovered a systematic program of extrajudicial killings under which groups of up to 50 prisoners were taken to the basement of the jail and hung without prior notice, let alone legal proceedings. This practice went on between 2011 and 2015, and Amnesty noted that there is strong evidence to suggest it still continues.

The report went on to detail how prisoners were systematically abused from the moment they entered Saydnaya prison, with frequent beatings or so-called “parties” organized by the prison guards.

Predictably enough, the US media, led by the New York Times, seized on the findings of the Amnesty report to renew its campaign for confrontation with Russia over Syria and an intensification of the war for regime change fomented by the United States in 2011. The Times followed up its coverage of the report with a lengthy article on Sunday drawing on research carried out for the Atlantic Council by the US government-funded Bellingcat research group in the UK. The report provided information on Russian air strikes in Aleppo that targeted civilians and hospitals.

There is no doubt about the brutality of the Assad regime, or the fact that the months-long bombing campaign conducted by Damascus and Moscow to retake Aleppo claimed many civilian lives.

However, the task of overthrowing such dictatorships and putting an end to the scourge of imperialist war, which has devastated Syria and the entire region, cannot be outsourced to the United States and the European major powers. US imperialism and its allies have been responsible for death and destruction on a much broader scale, as the one million civilian lives ended by the intervention in Iraq, the tens of thousands killed in the brutal NATO air war in Libya in 2011 and the hundreds of thousands who have died in the US-instigated Syrian conflict tragically testify. Only by constructing an international antiwar movement, based on a socialist program to unite workers in the advanced capitalist countries with their brothers and sisters in Syria and throughout the entire Middle East, can an end be put to the wars and dictatorships that have ravaged the region.

The chief responsibility for the atrocities that have been committed in Syria lies squarely with Washington. The destabilization of the country and the entire Middle East region, including the incitement of sectarian violence, is the product of more than 25 years of virtually uninterrupted military conflicts led by the United States and its European imperialist allies, beginning with the first Gulf War in 1990.

For his part, Assad used an interview last Friday with Yahoo News to appeal to the Trump administration for support in his government’s efforts to regain control of territory held by the Islamic State.

Referring to Trump’s repeated pledges to focus on fighting “terrorism” and eliminating ISIS, Assad commented, “We agree about this priority. That’s our position. In Syria, it is to fight terrorism.”

Behind the Flynn resignation and Trump crisis: A bitter conflict over imperialist policy

Patrick Martin

The Trump administration is facing an escalating political crisis following the Monday evening resignation of National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. There are growing calls from the media and sections of the political establishment for congressional investigations into Flynn’s contacts with Russia prior to Trump’s inauguration, and demands that Trump explain what he knew about the contacts and whether Flynn was operating with his knowledge and approval.

On Tuesday afternoon, it was reported that the FBI interviewed Flynn soon after Trump’s inauguration about his telephone conversation with the Russian ambassador to Washington, Sergey Kislyak, on December 29, 2016. The call was secretly monitored and recorded by the National Security Agency.

The Washington Post revealed that Justice Department officials informed the White House several weeks ago that Flynn had discussed US sanctions on Russia with the ambassador, and that his repeated denials of that fact were false. A transcript of the Flynn-Kislyak conversation is reportedly circulating at the highest levels of official Washington.

In the corporate-controlled media, a series of commentators, serving as conduits for material provided by the Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency, have begun to raise the specter of impeachment or a Nixon-style forced resignation.

A raging conflict within the US ruling elite has erupted to the surface of American political life. The battle involves the major institutions of the capitalist state—the White House, CIA, NSA, FBI and Pentagon—as well as the leaderships of both the Democratic and Republican parties. At the center of this conflict are divisions over foreign policy and concerns within the military-intelligence apparatus that the Trump administration is not taking a sufficiently aggressive line against Russia.

The campaign against Trump is no less reactionary and militaristic than the new administration itself. It has a definite logic, leading to an escalation of the political and military confrontation with Russia, with potentially catastrophic consequences for the entire world.

This campaign is the central preoccupation of the Democratic Party. Throughout the final months of the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton repeatedly attacked Trump as a political stooge of Russian President Vladimir Putin, while presenting herself as the more reliable defender of American imperialism.

The issue was raised again during the post-election transition, with claims that “Russian hacking” was responsible for Trump’s surprise victory. Following Trump’s inauguration, the theme has been taken up once more, with congressional Democrats and a section of Senate Republicans acting as the political spearhead of the CIA and Pentagon.

Congressional Democrats seized on Flynn’s resignation to raise the Watergate-era question, “What did the president know and when did he know it?” Their contention is that when Flynn telephoned Kislyak on December 29, the same day President Obama imposed new sanctions on Russia, Flynn was conveying assurances from Trump that those sanctions would be relaxed or discarded outright once Trump entered the White House.

The most strident comments came from Eric Swalwell of California, a member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, who declared that Trump aides “have improper relationships with Russia” and that Trump himself was implicated. “The Republicans may have the majorities in Congress and their candidate may have won the White House, but [the Democrats] are not helpless,” he said. “We have the American people, and the American people will not be satisfied until they know whether the president is with us or with Russia.”

Swalwell would have been more truthful if he had said the Democrats “are not helpless” because they have the CIA, the NSA and much of the Pentagon behind them, powerful sections of the state apparatus that have made an enormous strategic investment in preparing for war with Russia.

The Democratic Party oozes complacency and passivity when it comes to Trump’s cabinet nominations and his issuance of antidemocratic and unconstitutional executive orders. This is because, whatever their tactical criticisms of these elements of Trump’s policy, they are in line with the interests of the corporate and financial aristocracy that both parties represent. But when given the chance to wage a McCarthy-style campaign claiming that Trump is a Russian stooge, they charge into battle frothing at the mouth.

It is significant that sections of congressional Republicans, as well as Democrats, have distanced themselves from Trump over this issue. It is not just warmongers like John McCain and Lindsey Graham. The Senate Republican leadership has agreed to investigate alleged Russian interference in the US elections and to include Flynn’s contacts with Russia within the scope of the inquiry.

US imperialism seeks to counter its declining world economic position by exploiting its unchallenged global military dominance. It sees as the principal roadblocks to its hegemonic aims the growing economic and military power of China and the still-considerable strength of Russia, possessor of the world’s second-largest nuclear arsenal, the largest reserves of oil and gas, and a critical geographical position at the center of the Eurasian land mass.

Trump’s opponents within the ruling class insist that US foreign policy must target Russia, with the aim of weakening the Putin regime or overthrowing it. This is deemed a prerequisite for taking on the challenge posed by China.

Numerous Washington think tanks have developed scenarios for military conflicts with Russian forces in the Middle East, in Ukraine, in the Baltic States and in cyberspace. The national security elite is not prepared to accept a shift in orientation away from the policy of direct confrontation with Russia along the lines proposed by Trump, who would like for the present to lower tensions with Russia in order to focus first on China.

Even as the struggle rages within the ruling class and the capitalist state, the Trump administration’s attacks on democratic rights are provoking an unprecedented outpouring of popular opposition. Millions of working people and youth, native-born and immigrant, have taken part in protests against the new government. But this broad social movement has, as yet, neither a clear political program articulating the independent interests of the working class nor a revolutionary socialist leadership.

This situation poses grave dangers. The intelligence agencies, acting primarily through the Democratic Party, are seeking to hijack the mass opposition to Trump and redirect it behind their war plans, whether directed against Russia or China, using supposed external enemies as lightning rods for rising social and economic distress.

Workers and young people must not line up behind either faction of the ruling elite. Both are preparing for new military bloodbaths to safeguard the profits of American corporations. They are fighting over tactics and the sequence of targets, not over whether to send American youth to kill or be killed in imperialist wars.

The struggle against the Trump administration poses the need for a complete break with the Democrats and Republicans, the twin parties of big business, and the building of a mass independent political movement of working people, based on a socialist and internationalist program.

India-UAE: An Emerging Special Relationship

Ranjit Gupta

In December 1999, a hijacked Indian Airlines aircraft that had been diverted from Kathmandu to fly to Kandahar, which had deadly Pakistani terrorists on board, had been on the tarmac in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE) for over five hours. No Indian official was allowed access to the airport and an Indian request for permission to raid the aircraft was summarily turned down. The UAE was the only country other in addition to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, which was a strong supporter of - and had diplomatic relations with - the extremely anti-India Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

As Pakistan continued its descent into internal and cross-border terrorism against Afghanistan and India, the UAE finally recognised that such Pakistani-sponsored terrorism posed grave dangers to the entire region. Deeply alarmed by the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, the UAE government despatched a high level security team to Mumbai within 24 hours for detailed discussions with relevant Indian agencies. Since then, the UAE has been providing India the best anti-terrorism cooperation of any country in the world. It has been repatriating most of those India wanted for terrorist activity within India despite Pakistan's intensive efforts to prevent such repatriations, including going to the extent of often claiming that those persons were Pakistani nationals. 

Trajectory of Bilateral Relations

Encouraged by this and the burgeoning socio-economic bilateral relationship, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi decided that West Asia needs special attention. He visited the UAE in August 2015, 34 years after former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi visited the country, becoming only the second Indian prime minister to do so. Again demonstrating his now well well-known international reputation of establishing great personal rapport with foreign leaders even in their first meetings, he invited the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi to visit India, who did so in February 2016 - in less than six months after Prime Minister Modi’s visit. This was the highest level visit from the country since UAE President Sheikh Zayed’s 1975 visit to India. 

In their Joint Statement issued in February 2016, the two leaders had said that it is “the responsibility of all states to control the activities of the so-called ‘non-state actors’, and to cut all support to terrorists operating and perpetrating terrorism from their territories against other states.” 

Greatly encouraged by this, the exceedingly satisfying bilateral discussions, and the Crown Prince’s numerous gestures of high personal regard for the prime minister and friendship for India, Prime Minister Modi accorded the Crown Prince a singular honour by inviting him as Chief Guest at India's Republic Day celebrations. An announcement in this regard is almost invariably made in December or even January but this time it was done in September 2016, and exceedingly significantly, in the immediate aftermath of India’s surgical strikes in response to attacks by Pakistani terrorists on a military camp in Uri in India's Jammu and Kashmir state. The morning after this terrorist attack, the UAE in a statement had said that it “stand(s) against terrorism in all its forms and manifestations and expressed… solidarity with the Republic of India and support to all actions it may take to confront and eradicate terrorism.” 

The Crown Prince, UAE’s de facto head of state, has visited India twice in less than 12 months and the two leaders have met three times in less than 18 months. Such frequency is unique in India’s bilateral relations with any country and indeed unprecedented in international relations. 

Continuing concern related to terrorism was expressed in all three joint statements and eloquently reflected in the two leaders joint op ed in the Times of India and the Khaleej Times on 26 January 2017: “We have denounced and opposed terrorism in all forms and manifestations, wherever committed and by whomever, calling on all states to reject and abandon the use of terrorism against other countries, dismantle terrorism infrastructures where they exist, and bring perpetrators of terrorism to justice. We believe that this approach is crucial for fostering an environment of peace, stability and prosperity in our region.”

Status of India-UAE Relations

Some other notable facts about the current bilateral relationship deserve attention:

1. The UAE supports India’s proposal for the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism and India's Permanent Membership of the UN Security Council.

 

2. Internal security in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries was always accorded the highest priority. Given the multiple wars raging in West Asia since 2011, this has become a far greater concern than it did earlier. In this context, that 2.8 million Indians live and work in the UAE - more than double the number of locals - and being by far the largest expatriate group in the country, and with the number increasing every year, represents an enormous vote of confidence in Indians and India. 

 

3. From a mere $180 million in 1971, India was UAE’s 8th ranked trading partner from 1990-91 till 2000-2001; the ranking began rising rapidly thereafter and in the past decade, the UAE has invariably been amongst India’s top three trading partners and amongst India’s top two export destinations, and in both cases, more than once being number one.

 

4. Indians have invested $55 billion in the UAE. During Prime Minister Modi’s 2015 visit, the UAE agreed to invest $75 billion to upgrade India’s infrastructure, particularly in strategically important projects.

 

5. During the Crown Prince’s January 2017 visit, the Chief Executive Officer of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company invited India to explore investments in upstream oil and gas exploration and downstream in refining and petrochemicals; and to store 6 million tonnes of oil in an Indian Strategic Oil Reserve facility - both a first from a GCC country. Since its independence in 1971, the UAE has always been among the top seven oil suppliers to India. 

 

6. The three Joint Statements deserve to be read very carefully as they exhibit the vast depth and breadth of the across-the-spectrum comprehensiveness of bilateral cooperation including new emphasis on security and defence cooperation including in defence co-production. 

 

7. Though there are sharply different perceptions regarding the current conflicts in West Asia between India and the UAE, the two leaders have consciously decided not to allow this to affect the growing excellent bilateral relations.

All this eloquently demonstrates that India's relations with the UAE are clearly on the trajectory of becoming a ‘particularly special relationship’, one of a kind for both countries.

Harnessing the Relationship

Ultimately, it is exceedingly close socio-economic interdependence that will provide the ballast for a true strategic partnership between the two countries. India must get its act together - a quick resolution of past UAE investment legacy issues; and quick identification of potential UAE investment projects that must have time bound implementation flow charts. 17 months have passed since the UAE agreed to make a $75 billion investment in India in the August 2015 Joint Statement but an agreement on the modalities of its utilisation has not yet been signed, putting India’s credibility at stake.

Once exceedingly special, the UAE’s relations with Pakistan are under severe strain. India should desist from pushing the envelope in this regard in the public domain because it could be counter-productive.

Forecast 2017: Carnage Ahead?

Vijay Shankar

Donald Trump in his inaugural speech, vowed “…this American carnage must stop here.” What preceded his vow suggested, with more intensity and less clarity, what the “carnage” was. Presumably he implied a host of current circumstances whose balm included the advent of an era marked by mass mobilisation, bellicism, end of idealism, a blow out of the liberal left, abrogation of the spoils of the political and power elites, imposition of a draconian immigration policy, discarding multilateral alliances in favour of the bilateral, a baleful threat to eradicate radical Islamic terror, and a promise to ease the agonising ‘reality of the citizen’s state.’ His prescriptive mantra was simplistic; nationalism, protectionism, a menacing portent of a war on radical Islam, and the nebulous abstraction of “America First” (an odd declaration; were not US interests always first?). And yet coming from the mouth of a democratically elected leader of the planet’s sole super power, it must indeed set the stage for serious debate of what foreshadows the immediate future. It is his mantra that will disproportionately influence any strategic prognostication.

 

Global events such as Brexit and the rise of the far right in Europe, Russia and other parts of the world are symptomatic and a precursor of the geopolitical trends that Donald Trump articulated.

 

Clearly the challenges are complex, and in an intertwined world of global economic and security networks, the need for reconciling competing and often conflicting perspectives through empathy and compromise is on a collision course with insular politics. Given events that disparage (often correctly) established leadership as corrupt and the quest for mutuality involving far-reaching alliances as acknowledgement of frailty; nationalism has been ignited to mould malevolent distinctiveness that threatens to derange the integrative forces that have brought north and south together in a beneficial embrace. All this has been fuelled by the rapidity of technological changes and the inability of leadership to fully come to grips with the reach of the individual, which extends far beyond the ambit of the nation-state. And yet, at a point in the evolution of a world order which begs for robust international institutions that manage and regulate current global shifts, the world is faced with forces that unhinge existing systems. 

 

Nationalism, as one such unhinging force, conventionally, snatches control from the ‘gilt-edged’ and sets into motion undercurrents that progressively redistribute power. However, nationalism in the context of the masses damning ruling elites and challenging the beneficiaries of privilege has historically been double-edged.

 

While being a powerful dynamic of change, the history of the twentieth century has shown that it is invariably accompanied by anarchy in the absence of systems that serve to provide social solidity. Russia, China and Europe in the run-up to the First World War and in the frenzied interregnum between the two wars are all precedents that cannot be easily set aside. But the 21st century citizens’ voluntary and non-violent electing for chauvinistic administration is different. It is not only an indication of deep-seated frustration that targets the statusquo, but is also an expression of ‘disruptive discontent’, that is, a conception of the crisis without either the competence or the wherewithal to direct events. Paradoxically, it remains at odds with the gains of order, inclusive economics and globalisation. And because of the unique temper of contemporary times dominated by a cult of popular power laced liberally with nationalism, collaborative structures, both economic and security, that were hitherto evolving, are severely undermined.

 

A quick geopolitical scan will be helpful in putting the dangerous pall of instability in perspective. Russia, over the last quarter of a century since the end of the Cold War and disintegration of the Soviet Union, has emerged out of strategic limbo and again transformed into a major global player. It is today expanding and assimilating the western confines of what was the erstwhile Czarist empire and has, with relatively more success than the US and NATO, established its influence in West Asia. Eastward, it is building bridges with Communist China. While China, on a winning march of influence over East Asia and the South China Sea, is yet to reconcile its autocratic rule with the aspirations of its people, leaving it a trifle inadequate to don the mantle of global or even regional leadership. Unfortunately, the tide of history is turning towards these authoritarian states. In the meantime, the promise of an Arab awakening in West Asia and North Africa has been belied. The stalled transformation has given way to implosions within and the rise of a host of medieval ‘jihadist ideologies’ bent on re-establishing a Caliphate through the instruments of terror and radical Islam. In what is historically an awkward irony, the very destruction of Saddam’s Iraq has paved the way for fragmentation of the Sykes-Picot borders and the tri-furcation of Iraq into a Kurdish enclave in the northeast, a Shia enclave in the south and the Islamic State (IS) running riot in the centre and in Syria. The delusion that a new West Asia was in the build flies in the face of the current situation. In the interim, radical Islam has spread its tentacles from Pakistan through Afghanistan, into the Levant, Yemen, Somalia and all of the Maghreb. The IS has swept from Syria into Iraq in a maelstrom of destruction. No political Islam or civilisational impulse here, just rabid intolerance.

 

In its wake it has disrupted the correlation of political forces in the region as the US seeks a quick blocking entente with Iran; Syria sees in the situation an opportunity to settle scores with the insurgency raging within; Shia organisations find common cause to offset the IS; Sunni states carry a cloaked bias towards the IS to the extent that recent reports suggest funding by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar; and terror organisations in Afghanistan and Pakistan welcome the new leadership that has displaced al Qaeda. As the fanatical outburst of xenophobia stretches south, west and eastward the IS’ influence has manifested in the fertile jihadist breeding grounds of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Many perceptive analysts have noted that Pakistan today represents a very dangerous condition as its establishment nurtures fundamentalist and terrorist organisations as instruments of their misshapen policies in Afghanistan and Kashmir. The essence of Pakistan’s rogue links will unmistakably seduce the IS, underscoring the distressing probability of extending its reach into a nuclear arsenal. These anarchic conditions have set into motion a refugee crisis that, unfortunately, no nation is willing to provide permanent relief to or even recognise. 

 

The linkage between extreme nationalism, protectionism and authoritarian government is historically unassailable and its impact on the world as a rising force of global disarray is unmistakable. Civil society in Russia, China, Turkey, Iran and elsewhere is in retreat, greatly pressured by governments fearful of an empowered citizenry and liberal thinking amongst them (the question is will the US take a slant in this direction?).  Disinformation is now galvanised by the use of social media and international relations are marred by large scale cyber-attacks. States, quite openly, ‘loan’ tens of millions of dollars to nationalist parties in countries such as France, Hungary, Romania, etc to dislocate politics through electoral means.

 

Arbitrary laws constrain foreign entities into narrower channels of activity under increasing pressure. Misperceptions commonly provide the controllable framework not only for public discourse but also, as recent history in Iraq and Afghanistan has demonstrated, for intelligence services to weave “alternate facts."

 

With the quickening of changed power relations, already apparent in the larger context of Brexit and the growing bonhomie between the US and Russia, the pulling away from multilateral alliances and the potential for new strategic orientation would appear to be the new norm. The strategic unleashing of Japan and its ramifications for stability in the Asia-Pacific could well redefine the power balance in the region. And lurking in the shadows is the real possibility of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of radical Islamic terrorists, which along with the only comparable danger, in terms of scale of destruction, is environmental catastrophe; both must be seen for what they are, and perhaps, provide the imperative for unified response.

 

All the while what appeared to be an accepted ‘post-internet globalised world view’ is rapidly confronted by an absolutist conception of national sovereignty. The shaping influence of this complex of events that have so far been deliberated deliberated has just begun to loom large over the new century. More than anything else, it separates the world of the 20th century from the 21st. Efforts to cope with this globe splitting xenophobic embrace, particularly for a large developing nation such as India, is not just to rapidly advance its internal pattern of growth, development, demand and consumption but also to ensure that its security is in no way jeopardised through either appeasement or due lack of preparation. This will remain an abiding balancing act to master in the remaining years of this century.

WMG Excellence Masters Scholarships at University of Warwick for International Students 2017/2018

Application Deadline: 20th May 2017.

Eligible Countries: International

To be taken at (country): UK

About the Award: WMG (formally Warwick Manufacturing Group) is one of the largest academic departments at the University of Warwick, located in the Faculty of Science. The department provides inspiring and industry relevant Masters education in fields related to Management, Technology, and Innovation. WMG is nationally and internationally renowned for collaborative R&D with global companies

Type: Masters

Eligibility: 

• Applicants should have received an offer to study on a WMG Full-time MSc course that runs in the UK, starting October 2017, before applying for the WMG Excellence Scholarship.
• Applicants should have an excellent academic track-record. The WMG Scholarship committee will be reviewing both the academic achievement (usually the equivalent of a British 1st Class Honours Degree) and Scholarship Statement when awarding.
• For conditional offer-holders, scholarship awards will also be conditional on achieving the awardee’s final predicted grade.
• WMG Excellence Scholarships are for self-funded students only. NB: students with partial bursaries on scholarship-loan schemes or partially funded by an external organisation may be considered. Awardees should inform the scholarship committee if they are in receipt of another scholarship or are later awarded other funding.
• WMG Excellence Scholarships are awarded for study on UK Full-time MSc Programmes only.
• WMG Excellence Scholarships are paid towards tuition fees only and cannot be paid in cash or towards accommodation or maintenance costs.
• WMG will award WMG Excellence Scholarships across all WMG Full-time MSc Programmes to maximize nationality and gender diversity.
• In order to maximise your chances of success, we recommend you submit your MSc application as early as possible.

Selection Criteria: WMG Excellence Scholarships are available on a competitive basis. Awards will be based on past academic achievement, previous experience, extracurricular activities, reasons for study, and your vision for the future.

Value and Number of Scholarships: Up to a total of 50 WMG Excellence Scholarships will be awarded on a % discount of the tuition fees. Awards will range from 25% to 50% fee discount.

Duration of Scholarship: 

How to Apply: Students must complete a Scholarship Statement in order to be considered for the WMG Excellence Scholarships.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details 

Award Provider: University of Warwick

Bungling in Yemen: Trump and the Cult of the Action Hero

Binoy Kampmark

“Rather than advancing a political solution that almost everyone agrees is the only way to solve the conflict, it seems the Trump administration’s actions are just adding fuel to the fire.”

Adam Baron, European Council on Foreign Relations, Feb 7, 2016

The seething bickering in Washington has been going on for over a week. Was the first authorised international raid by the Trump administration, supposedly made over dinner, a success?  There was little denying that the  bells and blood Yemen mission in Bayda province last month was spectacularly deadly, costing the life of a US serviceman, twenty five civilians including nine children and eight women – in addition to al-Qaeda operatives.

The leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), Qassim al-Rimi, did not suffer the same fate, but was happy to chortle that President Donald Trump was the “White House’s new fool.”  The foolishness was compounded by revelations that a US citizen, an eight-year old girl and daughter of Anwar al-Awlaqi, was also killed.

The cleric Al-Awlaqi was slain in 2011 by a drone strike on the grounds that he was a key recruiter for al-Qaeda, making him the first US citizen to be killed by his own government without trial since the Civil War.

Even a Yemeni tribal leader was baffled at the sheer muscularity of the raid, featuring Reaper drones, helicopter gunships and elite personnel, suggesting that it would have been easier to simply bomb the place – “but it looks like Trump is trying to say ‘I’m a man of action’.”  It was evident that the president had been addled by a diet of “Steven Seagal movies.”

Networks were drawing up their scorecards on the mission.  NPR came up with its own list, among them the death of US Navy Seal, Ryan Owens, the civilians already mentioned, and a $90 million tilt-rotor aircraft known as an Osprey, destroyed on crash landing.  “The operation, the first authorized by the Trump presidency, also raises serious questions about the planning and decision-making of the current occupant in the Oval-Office, as well as the truthfulness of information coming out of the White House” (NPR, Feb 10).

The technique of such truthfulness – the alt-fact world of tinkering, adjustments and readjustments – was as much a matter of deflection than anything else. White House press secretary Sean Spicer is fast becoming the spinner of the deflected tale and inflated ruse: instead of focusing on the mission’s heroic efforts, critics, he charged, were rubbishing the exploits of a fallen Navy Seal.

“The life of Chief Ryan Owens was done in service to his country and we owe him and his family a great debt for the information that we received during that raid.  I think any suggestion otherwise is a disservice to his courageous life and the actions that he just took.  Full stop.”

Impoverished Yemen has already become a pool of blood, a civil war in large part exacerbated by the continued US support for the Saudi Arabian-led operation against the Shia Houthi rebels.  That particular bombing campaign has been vicious, making a point of targeting critical infrastructure (schools, roads, hospitals) along with a generous spread of holy sites.

Some 10,000 people have perished (the number is derived from an August 2016 estimate by the United Nations); millions have been displaced, joining the humanitarian queues in a global supply of refugees.  Famine risks stalking the land, afflicting up to 19 million Yemenis who are said by officials to require humanitarian assistance.

Senator John McCain certainly saw few good signs in the operation, deeming it a failure.  The International Crisis Group saw a gun-crazed buffoon stumbling into conflict.  “The first military actions by the Trump administration in Yemen bode poorly for the prospect of smartly and effectively countering AQAP.”  Even Yemen’s government-in-exile emitted mixed signals regarding the Yakla engagement, wishing to conduct a “reassessment” of the raid.

This reassessment was already taking place moments with the blood still drying.  The US military’s Central Command (CENTCOM) painted a less than rosy picture despite celebrating the killing of al-Qaeda militants.  “A team designated by the operational task force commander has concluded regrettably that civilian non-combatants were likely to have been killed in the midst of a firefight during a raid in Yemen on January 29.  Casualties may include children.”

According to the Wall Street Journal, initial reports that Yemeni officials had withdrawn their support for such operations was subsequently repudiated. What was needed in the future, rather, was “more coordination with Yemeni authorities before any operation and there needs to be consideration for our sovereignty.”

The ingredients for a deepening of conflict exist.  Michael Flynn, Trump’s national security adviser, insists that the Houthis are an Iranian proxy front, and a terrorist one, no less.  The Houthis, whilst denying the full bloom link with Teheran, take issue with the US support for the Saudi operations to restore President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

Add to this a range of Islamist groups of various persuasions, including the Islah Party, with deep Muslim Brotherhood links, and we have a convulsed mess that will need more than an action hero to sort out.  The White House resident, imbued with the brutish spirit of Steven Seagal, will be the perfect recruitment figure for the very organisations Washington wishes to neutralise.