Trump administration ends funding for Palestinian refugees

Jean Shaoul 

After weeks of speculation and leaks, the Trump administration announced Friday that it is to end all its payments to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), including the $290 million planned for this year.

The US State Department also attacked the agency’s “endlessly and exponentially expanding community of entitled beneficiaries,” rejecting UNRWA’s definition of Palestinian refugees, which includes not only the 750,000 who became refugees in 1948-9, when they fled or were driven out by Israeli forces, but their descendants who together total some five million. In future, only those who became refugees in 1948-9 will be deemed refugees by the US administration.

The US has hitherto funded nearly 30 percent of UNRWA’s total budget that provides health care, education and social services to Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. It was set to give around $360 million this year, releasing $60 million in January, but withheld a further $65 million of the $290 million it had been due to provide.

The loss of funding will be felt beyond the occupied Palestinian territories, in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria where UNRWA funding provides a vital safety net for regimes that have hovered on the brink of bankruptcy for years.

Although Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and others have offered more than $200 million in additional funding, and Germany said it too would boost its financial support for the agency, senior Israeli diplomatic officials said that Washington had indicated its intention was to “close down UNRWA altogether” and transfer its functions to other agencies.

UNRWA commissioner-general Pierre Krähenbühl in an interview with Associated Press contradicted Washington’s assertion that the agency was inefficient. He said, “I can say with a great degree of confidence that the decision [to withhold funding] was not related to UNRWA’s performance, because in November I had received very constructive and openly positive feedback on those issues.” Instead, it was meant to punish Palestinians for protesting Washington’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

He warned that although its 711 schools that educate the 526,000 Palestinian refugee children in Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria would open on time, the agency only had enough money to keep them open until the end of September. It needed a further $217 million to keep the schools running the rest of the year.

A few weeks ago, UNRWA announced cuts to its services that would mean laying off more than 100 of its 13,000 staff in Gaza, transferring some 580 to part-time contracts and cutting salaries of hundreds more, sparking angry protests and causing UNRWA to “lose control” of its compound in Gaza for more than two weeks.

The situation is particularly acute in Gaza where about half of its two million population are dependent upon food aid from UNRWA, which also runs more than 250 of Gaza’s schools and 22 medical centres.

A spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called the US move a “flagrant assault” against all Palestinians and a breach of UN resolutions.

Saeb Erekat, the Palestinians’ chief negotiator in the defunct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, said, “The American administration’s decisions on Jerusalem, refugees and settlements embody annihilation of international law and security and stability in the region.” He added, “They are gifts for radical forces and terrorism in the region.”

The US move has delighted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who earlier this year declared that UNRWA “needs to pass from this world.” He said, “The time has come to dismantle UNRWA and have its parts integrated into the UN High Commission for Refugees.” He claimed that “UNWRA is one of the main problems perpetuating the conflict [between Israel and the Palestinians].”

Ron Prosor, a former Israeli ambassador to London and the UN, led the campaign against UNWRA on Israel’s behalf. He said, “The time has come to state the truth. The refugees should be rehabilitated. There are no more than half a million refugees from 1948. All the rest are hitchhikers getting a free ride; it is about time that they rehabilitate themselves in the places they live.”

According to Prosor, a review of the refugee issue, begun under the Obama administration, noted that the number of UNRWA-registered refugees was ten times the original number, with the result that “UNRWA has become a monster employing tens of thousands of people in order to perpetuate a whole industry. This makes any attempt to discuss a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict impossible.” He said that only the original refugees should be recognized as refugees.

Last month, Foreign Policy magazine revealed that Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and Middle East envoy, called for “an honest and sincere effort to disrupt UNRWA.” In January, Kushner sent an email to several senior officials stating that UNRWA “perpetuates a status quo, is corrupt, inefficient and doesn’t help peace.”

Dissolving UNRWA—and redefining the number of Palestinian refugees—is aimed at making their right of return to their former homes in Israel, a key issue in any “final status” deal aimed at settling the Israel-Palestine conflict, simply disappear. Israel has always refused to grant the Palestinians their internationally recognized legal right of return, despite granting that same “right of return” to Jews all over the world who have never lived in Israel/Palestine.

The shape of the “ultimate deal” that Trump promised on taking office, to be brokered by Kushner and US ambassador to Israel David Friedman, ardent supporters of an expansionist Israel, has long been clear. The Palestinian Authority must accept its role as security guard for Israel and US imperialism in the region and settle the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict on Israel’s terms: the abandonment of Jerusalem as the capital of any Palestinian statelet made up of non-contiguous towns and villages, and no right of return for the Palestinians who became refugees in 1948-9 and 1967.

Trump’s decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move its embassy there from Tel Aviv marked the definitive end of a decades-long US policy, which formally upheld the position that the status of Jerusalem could only be determined through a negotiated settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.

In another move clearly intended to force the PA to submit to its terms, the White House announced that it also intended to cut more than $200 million in bilateral aid to the Palestinian Authority that was agreed following the implementation of the 1993 Oslo Accords. State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said that aid to the PA “does not provide value to the US taxpayer.”

The Palestinian Authority already has a $1.8 billion financial deficit for 2018, thanks to Israel’s withholding of millions of dollars of the funds it collects on the PA’s behalf and the reduction in contributions from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, that will be further exacerbated by the US cuts.

The cuts, ostensibly the result of a review of aid to the PA, are widely seen as a punishment for the Palestinians anger over Washington’s decision to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, thereby recognizing Israel’s control over the entire city, including East Jerusalem that Israel illegally annexed after the 1967 war and the Palestinians claim as their capital. In the words of US President Donald Trump, it served to take the Jerusalem problem “off the table” in any “deal” between Israel and the Palestinians.

Now the Palestinians’ right of return is being taken “off the table.” US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley questioned Palestinian claims to a “right of return” to Israel, saying the issue should be taken “off the table” and suggesting the Trump administration would consider rejecting the demand that all the original refugees and their descendants be allowed to return to modern-day Israel in any final deal.

The US froze millions in aid to the PA earlier this year after the passage of the Taylor Force Act that made funding conditional on the PA ending financial support for Palestinians in Israeli jails convicted of terrorist offences. The freeze severely affected Palestinians’ access to medical services and food aid.

Nevertheless, US funds for the PA’s security forces, the largest per capita in the world, which act as Israel’s subcontractor to suppress the impoverished Palestinian working class—thereby protecting both Israel and the Palestinian bourgeoisie—are to be continued.

Washington and Tehran trade threats over the Strait of Hormuz

Jordan Shilton

Less than a month after brutal US sanctions snapped back into force against Iran, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed yet again, in a report released Friday, that Tehran is in full compliance with the 2015 nuclear accord. The agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was unilaterally abrogated in May by US President Donald Trump, who made entirely bogus claims that Iran had violated the deal.

The latest IAEA findings further expose the provocative character of the Trump administration’s policy, which threatens not only to plunge the entire region into military conflict, but also has dramatically sharpened tensions between Washington and its ostensible European allies. Trump vowed following his announcement that any company doing business with Iran, including those based in Europe, would be barred from trading with the United States.

The fact that US imperialism is the most destabilizing factor in the present situation has been underlined over the past week following aggressive comments by US National Security Adviser John Bolton. On August 22, he declared that Washington intends to push Iranian oil exports down to “zero,” and do so just as soon as its sanctions on Iran’s energy sector are re-imposed November 8.

Bolton’s ominous threat was made as reports emerged that the US may be preparing a major military strike on the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad, which, as a close ally of Tehran and Moscow, is viewed by Washington as a major obstacle to the consolidation of its unchallenged control over the energy-rich and strategically pivotal Middle East.

In response to Bolton’s threat, a top general in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) threatened to block oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, if Washington follows through on Bolton’s declaration. In recent months, Iranian officials have repeatedly said that if the US and its local clients, such as Saudi Arabia, seek to illegally strangle Iran’s economy—imposing, in what is tantamount to an act of war, an oil-export embargo—then it will be within its rights to stop the Saudis and others from exporting oil as well.

The Pentagon has invariably replied to such Iranian warnings with war threats. In what amounted to an implicit threat of direct military action, Major Josh Jacques of US Central Command was quick to respond to the IRGC general’s warning, declaring “Together,” with its allies, Washington stands “ready to ensure the freedom of navigation and the free flow of commerce wherever international law allows.”

“Freedom of navigation” has served as Washington’s justification for a massive military build-up in the Asia-Pacific against China, including the deployment of nuclear-capable aircraft and vessels to the region in a series of highly provocative exercises.

Should US imperialism follow through with the threat to invoke “freedom of navigation” to launch a military assault on Tehran, Washington would provoke a region-wide conflict with catastrophic consequences.

As well as being a direct participant in the Syrian conflict, Iran has also aligned with Turkey and Russia to exclude the United States from ongoing peace talks. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani met last week for a previously unannounced meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has increasingly been at odds with Washington due to its support for the Kurdish YPG in Syria and its backing of a failed coup against Erdogan in July 2016.

Officially, the meeting was billed as preparation for a summit to be attended by Rouhani, Erdogan and Russian president Vladimir Putin in Iran on September 7 to discuss the way forward in Syria. However, the two leaders undoubtedly discussed their plans to maintain Iranian-Turkish energy ties, which are critical to both countries’ economies, when US sanctions on Iranian energy exports take hold.

Amid these rapidly rising tensions, Tehran announced plans on Saturday to boost its missile capacity and purchase modern fighter jets and submarines. Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, said he believed a war would not break out, but added that the army needs to be “vigilant … and raise their personnel and equipment capacities.”

Khamenei’s remarks came just days after he told a cabinet meeting, also attended by Rouhani, that Iran could leave the nuclear accord. “The nuclear deal is a means, not the goal, and if we come to this conclusion that it does not serve our national interests, we can abandon it,” he declared. His message was reiterated in a tweet Friday, following the publication of the IAEA report, from Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif.

These threats reflect the deepening crisis confronting the bourgeois-clerical regime in Tehran, under conditions in which Washington is seeking to crash the Iranian economy and is intensifying military pressure. At the same time, unrest is growing in Iran over rampant social inequality, and the bourgeoisie’s drive to make the working class and oppressed masses bear the burden of the confrontation with imperialism.

Khamenei’s threat is also bound up with Tehran’s growing realization that its hopes that the European powers would and could shield them from Washington’s offensive are proving in vain.

Although the EU has revived legislation it claims will protect European companies from US sanctions if they continue to do business with Iran, hundreds of corporations, including Germany’s Daimler and France’s Total, have voted with their feet by declaring their intentions to halt operations in the Islamic Republic.

This has led to a deepening of the rift between the former trans-Atlantic allies. Driven by the intensifying crisis of global capitalism, expressed above all in the breakdown of the post-war economic and political institutions, European politicians, led by Germany, are demanding more independence from and even confrontation with Washington. Two weeks ago, in a comment in the German daily Handelsblatt, German Foreign Minister Heiko Mas called for the creation of an independent European payments system as an alternative to the US-controlled SWIFT system and the drawing of “red lines” by the European powers in their relations with Washington.

No less than Washington, the European imperialist powers are determined to exert their economic, political and military domination over Iran, the Middle East and other parts of the globe. However, their sharp differences with Washington over policy to Iran are based on frustration that the US sanctions are cutting across billions in European investment, and fears that a war with Tehran would cause oil prices to spike and destabilize the entire Middle East region on Europe’s doorstep.

This was underlined in the response by French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian to the latest IAEA confirmation that Iran is complying with the JCPOA’s terms. While defending the JCPOA, Le Drian echoed Trump by demanding that Tehran accept negotiations not only on its future nuclear policy, but also on its ballistic missile program, as well as its roles in regional conflicts in Syria and Yemen. “Iran needs to avoid the temptation to be the [regional] hegemon,” added Le Drian.

The danger that a catastrophic military conflict could erupt between the US and Iran, which would rapidly draw in the European imperialist powers and other regional players like China and Russia, is compounded by deep divisions within the Iranian regime. These disagreements are being exacerbated both by US imperialist aggression and internal social conflicts, which were expressed most clearly in widespread working class protests against worsening living conditions earlier this year.

In an unprecedented move, the Iranian parliament censured Rouhani following responses he gave to a parliamentary sitting last week on the economic situation and economic policy. Earlier in August, parliamentary deputies voted to remove Rouhani’s economy and labour ministers. This reflects sharpening conflicts within the regime between so-called hardliners, whose support for the Iran nuclear deal was at best tepid from the start, and the Rouhani-led “moderate” wing of the ruling elite, which hoped that the JCPOA would serve as the initial stage of a broader rapprochement with the imperialist powers. Trump’s decision to trash the nuclear accord has further weakened the moderate wing, which had already been under increased pressure due to the JCPOA’s failure to bring about any real improvement to economic growth and the living standards of the vast majority of the Iranian population.

The Iranian president’s attempts during his parliamentary appearance to portray the US as solely responsible for the country’s economic woes and tar all anti-government protesters as dupes of Washington are thoroughly dishonest. All factions of the Iranian regime, whatever their differences over foreign policy, agree that the working class must be made to pay for the country’s economic crisis and have pursued neo-liberal pro-market reform and austerity measures for years.

Syria: A False Flag Operation Thwarted?

Chandra Muzaffar

An organised expose by the Syrian and Russian governments over a 3 day period starting 27thAugust may have thwarted a British backed plan to stage a “false flag” chemical weapons attack in Idlib province that would have forced the US to launch a missile and air assault on Syria.

According to Russian Defence Ministry spokesperson, Igor Konashenkov, a militant group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, was going to be the conduit for this false flag operation. It would foment an attack targeting innocent citizens of Idlib and then put the blame upon the Syrian government. Eight chlorine tanks were delivered to Jisr al-Shughurtown for this purpose. Militants “trained in handling poisonous substances under the supervision of specialists from the private British military company Oliva arrived in the town a day earlier. The militants had the task of simulating the rescue of the victims of the chemical weapons attack dressed in the clothes of the famous White Helmets.”  Konashenkov accused British special services of being “actively involved “in the “provocation” which will “serve as another reason for the US, the UK and France to hit Syrian government targets with air strikes.”

False flag operations of this sort have happened a number of times before in Syria. In April 2018, the White Helmets staged such an operation as admitted by some of the so-called “victims” themselves. A year before that, in April 2017, a fake chemical attack became the excuse for US missile strikes against Syrian military installations in Syayrat Airbase It will be recalled that in  August 2013, a fabricated chemical weapons attack was the rationale for a full-scale military assault on Syria ordered by President Barack Obama which was averted at the eleventh hour partly because of the mobilisation of mass public opinion and partly because of some sane voices in the top brass of the US military itself.

The 2013 episode like other false flag operations in Syria from 2011 to the end of 2016 had a singular underlying goal: the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad. Whatever the justifications provided, there was a convergence of motives among those who sought Bashar’s overthrow. For the leaders of the US, Britain, France and Israel, Bashar especially through his links with Iran and Hezbollah was a formidable obstacle to their agenda for hegemonic control over West Asia. For the Saudi political elite it was his association with Iran — the elite’s rival for regional influence — that was the problem. For the Saudi religious elite, on the other hand, what was unacceptable was Bashar’s affiliation to a minor Shia sub-sect. The Qatari elite was incensed by Bashar’s opposition to the construction of a massive inter-state gas pipe-line starting from the tiny state that would have had far-reaching geo-economic and geopolitical consequences. The elite in Ankara with its connection to the Muslim Brotherhood failed to persuade Bashar to incorporate Brotherhood elements and ideology into Damascus’s governing power structure. For all these different reasons, Bashar became the common target for regime change.

But by early 2017 it was clear that Bashar could not be ousted. Apart from the solid support of a wide spectrum of his own society, he has the backing of Russia, Iran and the Hezbollah. He has now regained control of most of Syria. The militants, whose acts of terror have alienated the vast majority of Syrians, are totally isolated. Besides, Donald Trump who assumed the US presidency in January 2017 is not interested in regime change in Syria. In fact, now that the militants have been vanquishedhe is more inclined towards withdrawing from Syria. There are indications that he wants to work with Russian President, Vladimir Putin, to restore peace and stability in Syria.

This is anathema to the ‘Deep State’ in the US. Cooperating with Putin or withdrawing from Syria, from the perspective of those elements in the intelligence and security services, the military, the Congress, the media, some of the lobbies and special interest groups that constitute the Deep State, would spell the end of US hegemony and dominance of West Asia.  For the advocates of hegemony, it means surrendering to Russia whose power and influence in the region is growing. It would also facilitate the entrenchment of Iranian and Hezbollah influence in Syria. This, the Deep State argues, will weaken Israel’s position and increase its vulnerability. US’s other allies in the region such as Saudi Arabia, other Gulf monarchies, Egypt and Jordan will also feel threatened. It explains why Deep State elements are insisting that the US retains a foothold in Syria.

It is in this context that Idlib assumes added significance. The British plan to launch a “false flag “chemical weapons attack may yet happen. And it may yet lead to a US helmed assault upon Syria.

Rohingya run and imperialism

Farooque Chowdhury

The long Rohingya run is passing more than a year in its current phase – a huge number of the Rohingyaas in Bangladesh. Amidst diplomatic dialogues, and imperialist intrigues the Rohingyas staying in Bangladesh are passing difficult days.

The Rohingyaas’ days are harsh and hard, very difficult to bear. Their days are uncertain and undignified also. Living on doles is not a dignified life. Moreover, dignity dries down when imperialism appears friend. Imperialism’s “friendly” posture creates a lot of critical questions. Nowhere and never imperialism was friend of any people struggling for survival and justice, for democratic rights, for dignity as the two interests – people’s and imperialism’s – are diametrically opposite, contradictory.

The Banglaa monsoon has passed through the lives of the Rohingyaas staying in Bangladesh. Another winter is coming in their lives. Chilling cold will overshadow their shacks within months. Apprehension of sea cyclones battering Rohingyaa refugee camps is always there. It’ll be the Rohingyaa children and the aged, the Rohingyaa women and the infirm to bear most of the difficulties accompanying all elements. Shedding tears in this article mean nothing in real terms to these unfortunate people, victims of persecution, murder, arson and rape. Rather, raising hard facts of life and politics helps chart the future path. And,  imperialism is one of the hard facts influencing life and politics. Ignoring the question of imperialism is suicidal, an approach for making oneself subservient to imperialism. This is the reality the Rohingyaas are now confronting.

Now, another undeniable fact: Bangladesh within its capacity, and by heavily paying in many terms including ecological, is sheltering a huge number of the Rohingyaas. A few of the losses including ecological Bangladesh is incurring are irreversible while the total price is high for an economy like Bangladesh. The total payment, a high price tag, is ultimately being made by the Bangladesh people. And, in final analysis, none, neither the rich nor the robber aristocrats, but the toilers in Bangladesh are making the payment as only the toilers produce resources, surpluses, parts of which reach different destinations.

Uncertainties overshadow lives of these Rohingyaas: What’s waiting in the wings? What’s going to happen to their food-shelter-health-education question, to the livelihood question, to the issues of safety and security, to the issue of rights considered inalienable by humanity, and to the question of dignity all peoples are entitled to? The issues haunt the Rohingyaa people every day and every moment. This business of haunting is neither a hobby nor an amateurish act to the people. This haunting goes on as these are essentials for survival as human being. Today’s world proclaims rights and safety of wild and domesticated animals. The Rohingyaas are neither wild nor domesticated animals. They are human beings, a people; and they deserve rights, dignity and safety as members of the human community. Should the rights, etc. be ignored? Should not be.

But, this people are passing a period hostile to them. There’s geopolitics that’s now determining the path of their destiny. They have no standing ground in real terms other than rights proclaimed by humanity, which is a powerful and solid ground. At the same time, they now face a choice: Saying “yes” or “no” to any possible plan for turning them proxy of imperialism. Any of the two options – “yes” or “no” – makes a lot of difference in terms of time and real gains. This question is now important as imperialism identifies South Asia as a region for its permanent presence in different forms. A senior leader from the Empire has expressed this idea very recently.

How much the Rohingyaa people know about geopolitics concerning the region they are associated with? The term itself is unknown to most of them. Are they aware that the factor – geopolitics – is determining their on-going days, and their unknown days? Imperialism is making efforts to make them mere pawns in the geopolitical game related to the region. It will not be startling if it’s found that there is a plan to make them cannon fodder of imperialism – an “insignificant” issue to imperialism while a life-and-death question to the Rohingyaa people.

The entire business of choosing between the options “yes” and “no” mostly depends on goal and program the people like to achieve, leadership and leadership’s level of maturity, and leadership’s capacity to identify goals, and allies and foes. Mao, in one of his early-writings on class analysis, made the suggestion: Identifying classes hostile and friendly determine success. Option for choice vanishes if the role of imperialist proxy is played. Moreover, imperialist proxies are not having an easy time in today’s world; and coming days, it’s assumed, will be harder for the proxies.

Geopolitics is cruel at times, and geopolitics is difficult to deal with at moments. To anybody, today’s geopolitics is turning difficult for imperialism compared to the early-1990s as imperialism is wrestling with itself at times.  Who imagined at the inception of the WTO that imperialism would question the organization, would ponder leaving the tool, would say the tool organized to facilitate its domination is hurting it? But, now, it says: the WTO is troublesome, the organization is biased against it, majority of its judges go against it! No doubt, it’s a ponder-worthy statement: who is telling why. There are other significant, though small, shifts in the world situation, where imperialism is not always having a smooth sailing. So, turning oneself as proxy of imperialism is not a wise choice even if someone loves to dump conscience in the heap of denunciations, even if someone discards goal and program for a peaceful-prosperous-democratic life. And, goal and program for a peaceful-prosperous-democratic life can never be achieved with imperialism’s “friendship” as imperialist economy doesn’t allow prosperity to any people anywhere, even not in imperialist country. Moreover, a look at the vanished widely-propagated American Dream shows limits of imperialist economy. It’s not possible for imperialist economy to help other lands as the economy can survive only by pauperizing people and plundering lands around the world.

It’ll be a foolish business for the Rohingyaas to allow imperialism to turn them into a time bomb in the region. The time bomb, if planned and executed, will be disastrous for many including the Rohingyaas, Bangladesh and others in the region although there are calls by some quarters to invoke R2P for intervention, a disgraceful act and a dangerous proxy-game. This move makes anyone apprehensive: Is there a long-term plan for imperialist intervention in the region? Is the plan being initiated? Or, has it already started rolling?

It’s a question: How can one suggest invoking R2P after the experiences of Iraq and Libya, empirical evidences, not a theoretical discourse? Shall that – invoking R2P for intervention – be beneficial to any people and to any land other than imperialism? Shall not it hurt Bangladesh, a striving economy powered by the toils of millions in home and at abroad? Is issuing the call a responsible act with obligation to Bangladesh people? Even, it will not help the Rohingyaas. Has not imperialism abandoned its once-friends, its once-proxies? Very recent examples, months-old, are available if someone likes to forget imperialism’s long history of abandoning its friends. Who can forget, from recent-past, Marcos and Noriega, and the way they were dumped? Marcos was humiliatingly helicopter-picked from the presidential palace ground in Manila while Noriega experienced a brutal blow after ending in an imperial prison. No prudent leadership with the aim of attaining rights and obligation to its people depends on imperialism. Shall not the Rohingyaas consider this aspect and move prudently? The answer depends on the Rohingyaas.

Has the Bangladesh anti-imperialist camp protested and denounced the call for invoking R2P for initiating intervention? Has it discussed implication of issuing such a call? A silence on the issue brings nothing but shame for the anti-imperialist camp, expands scope for furthering the call by imperialist proxies, helps create ground for imperialist intervention, records shameful performance or non-performance of the anti-imperialist camp in Bangladesh, and ultimately shows the anti-imperialist camp abandoned its anti-imperialist fight.

For the Rohingyaas, the call for imperialist intervention will be hurting. It, in no way, will further their cause. Any imperialist intervention in any land is only for furthering imperialist interests. Doesn’t the history of imperialism and following developments in intervened countries bear evidences to support the claim, related to imperialist interests, made above?

Who in today’s world stands with imperialism? None, but its lackeys and proxies. None with a sense of dignity, none seeking justice and rights, none with the aspiration for self-reliance, none with dream for a prosperous and dignified nation stands for imperialism. Have not Fidel and his country – Cuba – showed it repeatedly over the last decades?

Over-enthusiasm of the imperialist/mainstream media with the Rohingyaa issue is noteworthy. Although the same media very-often goes near-mute on the Yemeni people’s suffering. But, the Yemeni people are the same suffering people, the same brethren. The Yemeni children and their mothers suffer the same pain as the Rohingyaa children and the mothers, the Rohingyaa orphans suffer. In one case, it’s over-loud while in another case, it’s near-silent. Has ever the imperialist/mainstream media went for any people’s genuine cause? Nowhere and never. The same evidence is present in the cases of Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua. How much information the imperialist/mainstream media has presented on the corrupt elites in Brazil, their corruption in terms of money and in terms of their political plays? How much information this media has presented on the assassination campaign by the rightists to foil democratic movement of the people in Colombia? Audience of this media knows the answer: Almost nil, almost hiding the Brazilian elite-corruption, almost hiding the Colombian assassinations. How much support this media extended to Arafat and to the Palestinian people? Not at all. Then, is not it a question: Why this media is over-loud with the Rohingyaa cause? Is it genuine? Or, is there some other agenda the bosses have in their pockets? The Rohingyaa people should take this issue into consideration. It’s the Rohingyaa people to decide.

Against the backdrop of this existing reality the Rohingyaa people are to decide their journey, to choose their friends and not-friends, to articulate their aspiration, to decide about their form of move for gaining rights and justice. Their rights include democratic rights, fundamental rights, human rights, birth rights, environmental and ecological rights, rights as members of the world human society. These rights are inalienable, un-snatchable, undeniable. None can snatch away these rights, none can deny these rights. These rights are included in democratic movement. And, all democratic movements must be anti-imperialist as imperialism stands against people’s democratic movement. In today’s world, there’s no space left for democratic movement to establish alliance with imperialism as imperialism is opposed to democracy for the people. The facts, in brief, are: The interest democratic movement strives to secure is completely different from the interest imperialism defends; imperialism moves with its own economic, political and geopolitical agenda while the agenda of democratic movement is opposed to that of the imperialists; democratic movement is for people’s rights while imperialism never ensures people’s rights. A deviation from this stand makes a democratic movement an appendage of imperialism, takes away democratic character and essence of the movement. The Rohingyaa people should take this – the question of imperialism – into their consideration; they should decide their path free from any provocation and adventurism as provocation and adventurism aids imperialism and co. – enemy of people.

Suicide rate said to spike among Ahwazis

Nouri Hamza

Ahwazi rights groups worried about the suicide trend; highest rate was among Ahwazis aged 18-25.

Several workers at a sugar processing plant in the Haft Tepe district, located about 15 km south-east of Susa city in the northern Ahwaz region, have attempted to commit suicide by dousing themselves with Benzene and setting themselves on fire. Their colleagues intervened, rescuing them from certain death.

The incident took place after the workers had been laid off from the factory. This work is the only source for them to earn their living.

Security forces in Susa city have arrested the workers who attempted suicide. They are Karim Al-Kathir, Ali Al-Kathir, Yehia Saadi, Hamza al-Kathir and Faris Saadi.

As is usual for protests in Ahwaz, the Iranian media have ignored the incident.

In Abadan, a child killed himself after desperate poverty forced his mother to sell his bicycle. Living in destitution, the bicycle was sold so as to be able to buy bread for the family.

The wave of suicides is widespread; bodies of youth, of both sexes, dead as a result of suicide, have been found throughout the Ahwaz region.

Speaking on the harrowing tallies related to suicide in Ahwaz, Reza Rafiee, the head of an ambulance service in northern Ahwaz, said that six people per week commit suicide in Ahwaz. In other words, in Ahwaz, every 28 hours a person dies from suicide.

Experts familiar with the issue say that the reasons behind these frightening figures are related to political causes and repression by security forces in the region. They also point to the mechanisms used by the Iranian state apparatus to justify shocking brutality against the population.

Based on on-field follow-ups, most of those who have committed suicide are young, unemployed men. They also include high school students. Most are not drug users. The investigations revealed that people were subject to harsh and inhuman treatment by the authorities. They were barred from even earning a living and enjoying their most basic rights, including opportunities to secure a job, lodging, food, water and access to medical care.

The experts also cited several social and psychological factors, including the lack of social support, solitude, rampant poverty and the crushing depression of life in the slums.

Explaining the root causes of suicide, Dr. Youssef Abu-Hamidan, a specialist on behavior, says, “When a person suffers from severe untreated depression, it may lead to suicide. Some are driven to suicide by a sense that the whole society is unjust, and that they confront a conspiracy of repression that targets them.”

Reviewing the near-daily suicides in Ahwaz, it must be noted that the repression the Ahwazis suffer is the work of the Iranian regime. In addition to conscious policies of discrimination, the regime’s policies fuel racism against Arabs. The policies of the Iranian state are clearly aimed at obliterating the Ahwazis, who are deprived of their political, social, economic and cultural rights.

The suicides reflect the conditions of the Ahwaz people. According to an expert in this regard, when an Ahwazi throws himself from a bridge, he wants to turn the world’s attention to his peoples’ plight; he is protesting the dire situation in the region. He wants the world to pay attention to what is happening in his homeland, in particular, the practices of the occupiers against the people.

When an Ahwazi Arab sets fire to himself, he is announcing to the world that there is no way out for his people. The policies of the government have deprived them of access to even their most basic necessities. On the other hand, the same government provides all that the Persian settlers need for them to prolong their stay in Ahwaz. This support is offered consciously to promote the colonization of Ahwaz.

Other experts, on mass suicide, say that this phenomenon is generally a response to political or religious conflicts, in which an oppressor holds all the power. It is done to win support from the public opinion at home and abroad.

Among the factors driving the Ahwazis to despair is the desertification of their homeland. Water is precious, but the Iranian regime has pursued wasteful and reckless development strategies that have poisoned resources. There is no water for agriculture or drinking. This comes as the Iranian state has seized control of the Ahwazi dams, diverting the course of the rivers to the central Persian areas.

In addition, the systematic denial of any type of employment to Ahwazis, even though all oil and gas are in Ahwazi lands, forces Ahwazis to become the poorest people in the wealthiest area. Such contradictions take their toll on the people.

Suicide has become the desperate act of the Ahwazis to express their rejection to the political, socio-economic status quo. It is their way through which they speak out against Iranian policies in their homeland.

Cambodia’s autocratic regime desperately tries to legitimise its rule

John Roberts 

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen last week called a “Consultation Forum” in Phnom Penh’s Peace Palace to involve 20 political parties that failed to gain seats in the July 29 national elections in a new “culture of dialogue.”

The presidents of the 16 parties that showed up were offered positions as advisers to the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) government, which won all 125 seats in the new National Assembly. This rigged election came after the CPP won all 58 seats in the country’s upper house or Senate in February.

The forum was a desperate effort by the CPP regime to legitimise its one-party rule and avoid punitive sanctions that the US and European Union threatened in the lead up to the July 29 poll.

Brussels and Washington have demanded that the main opposition party, the pro-Western Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP) be reinstated and its jailed leader Kem Sokha released. The CPP-controlled Supreme Court dissolved the CNRP last November and Sokha was jailed on trumped-up treason charges.

Having suppressed its main rival, the CPP focussed its election campaign on a bid to prevent a low turnout. In the end, the government claimed an 83 percent turnout, up on 2013, with the CPP gaining 4,889,113, or 77.36 percent, of the valid votes counted. No one should credit this sham result. Even the official result pointed to widespread dissatisfaction, with 596,775 ballot papers, or 9 percent of votes cast, spoiled, up from 1.6 percent in 2013.

The pretext for banning the CNRP was the party’s alleged links to Washington-funded organisations, including the National Democratic Institute (NDI), and involvement in a plan to bring down the government in a “colour revolution.” At the same time, the NDI and media outlets linked to Voice of America and Radio Free Asia, set up to promote US imperialist interests, were forced to cease operations in Cambodia.

The CNRP undoubtedly has ties to US imperialism and its various agencies. However, it is a measure of the political bankruptcy of the CPP that it is compelled to resort to blatantly anti-democratic methods to ensure its grip on power. The CNRP has been able to falsely posture as the defender of workers and peasants precisely because of government’s continuing attacks on living standards.

The CPP has ruled since the 1979 Vietnamese invasion that toppled the Pol Pot regime. Hun Sen’s ruling clique was shaken in 2013 when the CNRP won 44 percent of the vote and 55 seats in the then 123-seat national assembly. In regional elections in June 2017, the CNRP increased its vote by over 13 percent while that of the CPP declined by almost 11 percent.

The regime calculated it would be voted out of office in last month’s poll.

Following the November court ban on the CNRP, Hun Sen drove its 55 legislators out of the parliament and allocated their seats to minor parties. The CPP installed their own cronies in 489 positions of commune chief and 5,007 positions of councillor that had previously been occupied by the CNRP.

The CPP and the CNRP represent rival factions of the capitalist class. Both support the transformation of Cambodia into a cheap labour platform for foreign investors. Some 700,000 workers are engaged in the garment industries, which account for 70 percent of the country’s exports, as well as in footwear, natural rubber, fish and other industries.

In 2013 and 2014, Hun Sen used the security forces to violently suppress the struggles of textile and garment workers over poor wages and appalling working conditions. Hun Sen only began to offer limited concessions when CNRP sought to posture as a defender of these workers.

The CNRP represents sections of the ruling elite frustrated by the domination of the Hun Sen regime and their exclusion from business opportunity, profits and power. The CNRP is oriented to Washington, which has provided aid to the opposition as a means of placing pressure on the ruling party.

The CPP government has sought to maintain and improve relations with the US and EU, which in 2016 were the destination for $US10.1 billion, or 61 percent, of its exports. Washington, however, is hostile to the government’s orientation to Beijing, on which it relies for aid, investment and political support. Hun Sen has championed Beijing’s interests inside the 10-member Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) against Washington’s drive for ASEAN support for its anti-China drive.

Chinese President Xi Jinping was the only major foreign leader to congratulate Hun Sen on the CPP’s victory in the July poll. While the US announced aid cuts after the February upper house election, Chinese Defence Minister Wei Fenghe visited Cambodia, promising increased defence cooperation and military aid.

Virtually all the $2 billion foreign direct investment (FDI) flowing into Cambodia annually comes from Asia. The leading investors are China, South Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia and Japan. China, however, provides more FDI than all the others put together and accounts for more than $20 billion worth of accumulated FDI stock.

At the same time, Cambodia depends heavily on the US as the country’s biggest single market, taking more than $US3 billion in exports. China accounts for only 6 percent of Cambodia’s exports.

Concerned that Cambodia could move closer to China, the Trump administration has not imposed major economic penalties, such as ending its tariff-free export status. When the election results were announced on August 15, the US State Department responded by imposing limited extra visa restrictions on select officials.

However, as it escalates its confrontation over trade and other issues against China, Washington could also turn on Beijing’s partners and allies, including Cambodia.

Sharp rise in right-wing attacks on Palestinians and Israeli peace and rights activists

Jean Shaoul 

Last weekend saw violent attacks on Palestinian-Israelis and Israeli peace activists. Ten people were hospitalised with cuts, lacerations, fractures, and other injuries after being attacked by Israeli Jews.

Three Palestinian-Israeli citizens were sitting on the beach at Kiryat Haim, in the northern port city of Haifa, when a young man approached them and asked if they were Arabs. Just minutes after they answered that they were, he returned with nine youths, armed with metal rods, chains, clubs and knives, and attacked them.

Yair Elalouf, a Jewish Israeli who came to their aid and called the police, said that if he and his friend hadn’t intervened, “they [the attackers] would’ve murdered them.” He said that at least 70 to 80 people witnessed the attack, but none of them intervened or called the police even though the assailants “had brutally beaten them with the clubs for 3-4 minutes, and one of the attackers used an iron chain, maybe of a motorcycle or a bike.”

The victims—Dr Muhammad Yousefeen from the Ichilov Hospital at the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, a 28-year-old nurse and a 20-year-old man—said the attack was racially motivated, adding that the attackers swore at them and said, “You are Arab dogs, don’t stay here.”

They thanked Elalouf later at the police station, saying, “Without him, we wouldn’t have stayed alive” and they went to see him to thank him again. He said, “They took my phone number, wanted to invite me to Shfaram [their neighbourhood] to eat with them, and wanted to come to my house with their families. I told them they are more than welcome.”

He added, “People ask me all the time, ‘Did you know they were Arabs?’ Of course I knew, but it doesn’t matter who they were. I would do the same for anyone. If it is an Ethiopian, an Arab, or a Jew. It does not matter. If someone needs help, he should receive it. I wish the whole country thought like this.”

Elalouf’s attitude contrasted sharply with that of the police, which was one of indifference. While the police later arrested two suspects, they released them and put them on house arrest following a court appearance. The judge criticized the police for failing to examine the video footage of the incident thoroughly or produce adequate evidence to link the suspects to the attack.

In a second incident, five Jewish Israelis set upon two Palestinian-Israeli construction workers in Binyamina, south of Haifa, with knives and clubs. While the police claimed the attack was not a hate crime, the two Palestinians, who were taken to the hospital with cuts and bruises, said the attackers called them “Arab terrorists.”

One of the victims told Ynet that a girl “called the police and claimed we wanted to rape her. A few minutes later, more people showed up and one of them stabbed me. We ran away and went to the police. When I got to the station, I fell, they called an ambulance and I was taken to hospital. This incident could have ended in tragedy. I could have been shot because someone said ‘terrorists.’”

Again, the police tried to make out it was just a brawl and had nothing to do with racism. The Palestinian who was lightly wounded contradicted this, saying, “I was surprised when the police said a fight broke out. The attack was nationalistically motivated. We didn’t hurt anyone, and we don’t know the people that hit us. I wonder why the police are attempting to shake off all responsibility. This incident is severe, we saw death facing us.”

In a third incident, 15 masked settlers from Mitzpe Yair, an illegal outpost, attacked activists with Ta’ayush (Co-existence), a volunteer group of Jewish Israelis and Palestinians working for “a future of equality, justice and peace,” near Hebron in the West Bank. The peace activists were documenting illegal settlement construction in a nearby outpost and acts of vandalism against residents of a neighboring Palestinian village. Five of the activists, all Israeli Jews, needed hospital treatment for their injuries. Cameras and other equipment were damaged.

The previous week, a 40-year-old army reservist was recorded on camera hitting a member of Ta’ayush, who was accompanying Palestinian farmers in the Hebron Hills area to their fields to protect them against settlers who carry out a constant campaign of intimidation and violence. The reservist was heard saying, “There are events by ‘anarchists against fences,’ there is the ‘ugly parade’ and the ‘traitor parade’—which one are you?” He was discharged from the army because of the incident.

A bill is currently going through the Knesset that will criminalize photographing and documenting the Israeli army and prohibit the dissemination of footage of the army on social and mainstream media to prevent any criticism of, or sanctions against, the military’s activities.

Racially motivated incidents are appearing with increasing frequency, as well as settler violence against the Palestinians to which the security forces turn a blind eye. A report into incitement on social media for the year 2017 published by 7amleh, the Arab Center for Social Media Advancement, records 445,000 calls for violence, hate speech posts and curses against Palestinians. One out of nine posts about Palestinians contained a call for violence or a curse. Fifty thousand Israeli social media users wrote at least one inciting post against Palestinians.

7amleh noted that while Facebook has intensified its efforts to suspend, delete and ban Palestinian accounts and pages under the pretext of “incitement”, 82 percent of Israeli incitement takes place on Facebook, with 2017 witnessing a large increase in the number of right-wing Facebook groups and pages that incite against Palestinians. These include: The Shadow (an extreme right-wing Israeli singer), Roaring for the Right, Against Extreme Leftist Media, Reclaiming Jewish Nationality, Fighting for the Land of Israel and The Lies of the Leftists (all translated from Hebrew) as well as “the rising incitement perpetrated on Facebook pages of mainstream Israeli media.”

This climate of hostility has been deliberately whipped up by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud-led coalition government. Netanyahu famously warned his supporters on Election Day in 2015, when he thought his Likud Party might lose power, against the Arabs, who he said were “coming out in droves” to vote.

A study published in May by the Coalition Against Racism in Israel provides a list of examples indicating the degree to which the use of racist language among Israeli political leaders, as well as rabbinical authorities, has become commonplace.

The nationality law, enshrining Israel’s status as the nation-state of the Jewish people, not the state of all its citizens irrespective of religion or ethnicity, is also fanning the flames of racial hatred. Its passing follows the Trump administration’s move of the US embassy to Jerusalem in May and support for the murder of 171 unarmed and defenceless Palestinians and the wounding of thousands more during protests at the Gaza-Israel border by the Israel Defense Forces since March 30.

Israel’s right-wing parties, all led by nationalist forces or former Likud Party members, including the Zionist Union that includes the Labour Party, have encouraged and fostered racism in pursuit of the Greater Israel policy. The advocacy of communalist and ethno-religious politics, including ethnic cleansing, has involved countless attacks on Palestinians, Israel’s own Palestinian citizens and migrant workers, and now Jewish Israelis who support them.

As the gap between rich and poor has grown, the state has increased its reliance on right-wing settlers and extreme nationalist zealots, who provide the basis for the emergence of fascistic tendencies within Israel, to divert the growing anger over declining living standards and social inequality along reactionary lines.

Further evidence of official criminality surfaces as Grenfell fire inquiry resumes

Robert Stevens 

The Grenfell fire inquiry resumes next week after its summer recess, with further evidence surfacing of the criminality of those who ignored warnings that the tower was a death trap.

The inquiry will not bring justice. It is the creature of the Conservative government and, under the provisions of the 2005 Inquires Act, has no powers to prosecute anyone. Its fraudulent character was epitomised by chairman Sir Moore-Bick’s insistence that issues of a “social, economic and political nature” will not feature in its deliberations.

Issues that have emerged during the recess include the revelations this month by ITV News that it has seen documents proving official warnings about fire safety at Grenfell Tower were ignored just months before the June 14, 2017 fire that resulted in the horrifying deaths of 72 men, women and children.

The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea council (RBKC) and the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO), which managed the building on its behalf, were served a fire deficiency notice from the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority (LFEPA) in November 2016. They were also given, months earlier, a deficiency notice from an independent Fire Risk Assessment that flagged up multiple failures at Grenfell, requiring urgent action by the KCTMO.

ITV reported that the fire safety audits revealed “problems with damaged or poorly fitted fire doors, fire doors that didn’t self-close, and raised questions about how the refurbishment had affected the operation of the building’s smoke venting system and the fire-fighter’s lift controls.”

The “warnings from the independent assessor were issued in June 2016, one year before the fire, with deadlines for action,” reported ITV. The assessor, as part of a routine inspection during the buildings refurbishment, recommended that action be taken to remedy more than 40 “high risk” issues at Grenfell Tower within two to three weeks.

Nothing was done by the KCTMO on more than half of the issues identified, with ITV reporting, “In October [2016], the fire risk assessor wrote to the KCTMO asking why action still hadn’t been taken on more than 20 issues he had identified in his June report.”

LFEPA’s fire deficiency notice was dated November 2016, with a deadline for remedial work to be finished by May 2017—just one month before the fire.

This evidence reveals a criminal level of indifference towards the basic safety of residents in a tower block able to house around 600 people.

The broadcaster points out that “based on inspections of the building after the fire by experts for the Grenfell Tower Inquiry, there appears to be no evidence action was taken on many of the failings.”

Sandra Ruiz, the aunt of 12-year-old Jessica Ramirez, who died in the fire, told ITV, “It makes me really angry that somebody would have received that information and didn’t act on it.”

The issues cited in the fire audits have already been identified by Dr. Barbara Lane at the public inquiry. Lane was tasked with informing the inquiry as to why a small kitchen fire on the fourth floor of Grenfell was able to spread in a matter of minutes to engulf the entire 24-storey building, leaving many with no chance of escape.

The authorities didn’t act on the reports then and refuse to take any responsibility now. In response to ITV’s report, RBKC passed the buck to the public inquiry and the police investigation, knowing that they will do nothing. “This will be a matter for the public inquiry and to comment further could risk prejudicing the police investigation,” said RBKC. Neither the public inquiry nor Metropolitan Police investigation into the fire made any statement.

Nothing has been done to apprehend those responsible for the social murder committed by the authorities at Grenfell. The level of inaction is staggering. In nearly 15 months not a single person has been charged or even arrested. Since announcing in July that all they have done is to complete three interviews in relation to Grenfell, the police have said nothing more.

Many families made homeless by the fire have still not been rehoused. As of August 16, of the 204 households who lived in the tower, 53 households were still in emergency accommodation, 41 were in temporary accommodation, while 110 have moved into permanent accommodation. Of 129 households evacuated from the wider area, eight were in emergency accommodation, 74 in temporary accommodation and just one household moved into permanent accommodation.

Thousands of other public buildings around the UK are clad in flammable material of the type that resulted in the Grenfell fire becoming an uncontrollable inferno. Almost nothing is being done to make any of these structures safe. This led the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the UK’s human rights watchdog human rights, to declare the government in breach of its duty to protect lives under Article 2 of the European convention on human rights and schedule 1 to the Human Rights Act 1998.

It warns, “Combustible cladding is still present in many other buildings as well, including schools, leisure centres and hospitals… Estimates of the number of buildings affected run into the thousands, with the estimated costs of replacing combustible materials running into many millions of pounds. All those costs stem from the state’s failure to provide a building construction and fire safety system that is fit for purpose.”

The only thing the ruling elite is doing is developing a carefully-orchestrated campaign, led by the Royal Family, to present a picture of everyone working in common purpose for the Grenfell community. The day after the Inquiry resumes, the BBC will screen an episode of its DIY SOS series that will feature Prince William chipping in to help construct a new building for the Dale Youth Boxing Club that was previously located in Grenfell Tower.

This is nauseating. William and his family have nothing in common with those being patronised with such stunts. A hard hat and high visibility vest cannot disguise the fact that he is a representative of the same British state responsible for the Grenfell atrocity. He resides just two miles from the burnt-out husk, but he may as well live on another planet.

Worth tens of millions of pounds, this privileged scion of the aristocracy lives in Kensington Palace. Thirteen other Royal parasites, including Prince Harry and Megan Markle, live in the same splendour.

Those guilty of social murder at Grenfell Tower must be arrested and charged, including former London Mayor Boris Johnson, Prime Minister Theresa May and her predecessors, David Cameron, Gordon Brown and Tony Blair. Those instrumental in the decision to add the cladding to Grenfell must also be arrested and charged.

We demand:

• Justice for Grenfell means no cover-up and no inquiry whitewash!
• Arrest the political and corporate criminals responsible!
• Stop the scapegoating of firefighters!
• Quality public housing is a social right!
• For an emergency multibillion-pound programme of public works to build schools, hospitals, public housing and all the infrastructure required in the 21st century!

The Grenfell Fire Forum, initiated by the Socialist Equality Party, will be discussing these issues at its next meeting on Saturday, September 1, at the Maxilla Social Club in North Kensington, London. All are welcome to attend.

Grenfell Fire Forum meeting 
Saturday, September 1, 4 p.m.
Maxilla Social Club, 2 Maxilla Walk
London, W10 6SW (nearest tube: Latimer Road)

Amid NATO threats, Russia launches largest war games since World War II

Alex Lantier

This September, hundreds of thousands of Russian, NATO and Chinese troops are being mobilized in dueling war games across Eurasia. These exercises, the largest in Russia and Europe since the end of World War II, come amid an escalation of military conflicts and tensions directly posing the danger of a clash between nuclear-armed powers.

Today, as the Russian Navy mounts its largest deployment in the Mediterranean Sea in decades, Moscow is launching eight days of naval-aerial exercises in that region. The exercise involves 25 ships and 30 aircraft, including Tu-160 strategic bombers, whose capabilities include continental nuclear strikes. The Russian Defense Ministry advised that areas covered by the drill will be blocked off and “declared dangerous for navigation and flights.”

On September 11, Russia and China will launch the Vostok-18 (“East-18”) drills in eastern Russia’s trans-Baikal region. Vostok-18 is to surpass in size even the 1981 Zapad-81 drill, the largest war game carried out by the Soviet Union after World War II. It is to involve a staggering 300,000 troops, 1,000 aircraft, and 36,000 vehicles on the Russian side, together with 3,200 troops, 30 aircraft and 900 vehicles from China. Mongolian troops will also participate.

On September 3, 2,270 NATO troops will participate in Exercise Rapid Trident 2018 in Ukraine, on Russia’s borders. This is only a prelude, however, to what will likely be the largest NATO war game in Europe since the end of the Cold War: Trident Juncture 2018, from October 25 to November 7 in Norway, again on Russia’s borders. This will involve 40,000 NATO troops, together with 130 aircraft and 70 warships. They are to be spearheaded by an unprecedented German contribution of 8,000 troops, 100 tanks and 2,000 combat vehicles.

The vast scope of these exercises is a warning to working people everywhere. In the capitals of the major powers, behind the backs of the people, cabals of state and military officials are planning wars that would devastate the planet and kill billions. These exercises come as tensions in various flashpoints created by decades of US-led NATO wars reach new heights, and the danger of direct conflict between NATO, Russia and China is openly discussed.

These flashpoints include:

• The breakdown of US talks with North Korea, which borders on eastern Russia and which Trump threatened last year with “fire and fury like the world has never seen,” that is, with nuclear war. Now Washington is warning it may resume military drills in South Korea, which last year involved 23,000 US and 300,000 South Korean troops in practicing “pre-emptive” attacks targeting North Korea.

• Russian warnings that UK intelligence is preparing a chemical attack in Syria’s Idlib region, the last holdout of NATO-backed Islamist rebels, as a provocation for Washington, London and Paris to justify another unprovoked bombing of Syria, like this April. “We have sent a strong warning to our Western partners not to play with fire,” said Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, as US guided missile destroyer USS Ross arrives in the Mediterranean, facing off against the Russian flotilla.

• The killing in a terror bombing yesterday of Alexander Zakharchenko, the leader of the Russian-backed separatist Donetsk People’s Republic in east Ukraine. The Russian foreign ministry said it views this as an assassination carried out by the NATO-backed Ukrainian regime in Kiev.

Main responsibility for the war danger lies with the imperialist powers, above all the United States and the major Western European powers. For over a quarter century since the Stalinist dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, they have escalated aggressive military interventions across Eurasia, from Yugoslavia to Iraq and Syria, through to Afghanistan and beyond. These wars cost millions of lives and shattered entire countries, as Washington sought to maintain its failing global hegemony.

Washington’s threats against Russia and China came into the open in January when it published a new National Security Strategy, dropping the pretense that it was waging a “war of terror” and naming Russia and China as targets. Presenting the document, US Defense Secretary James Mattis branded Russia and China as “revisionist powers” threatening a US-led world order and said “great power competition, not terrorism, is now the primary focus of US national security.”

Moscow and Beijing are declaring that their exercises are a response to the US National Security Strategy and stepped-up US military activity worldwide. Russian state media cited foreign policy commentator Mark Sleboda, who said the exercises are a signal to Washington and “a response to their national security strategy, as well as a response to US and NATO posturing in the South China Sea, in the Taiwan Strait, as well as … the permanent stationing of troops that we are seeing on Russia’s western border.”

Sleboda bluntly stated that Moscow and Beijing are planning joint missile defense exercises to prepare for potential global nuclear war, as they “foresee that any strategic nuclear conflict that embroils one would, naturally, involve both.”

The Chinese Defense Ministry has stated that the exercises aimed “to strengthen strategic military partnership between the two countries, deepen friendship and cooperation between the two militaries and further boost the two countries' joint capability to deal with security threats.”

The scale of the Russian-Chinese exercises appears to be a warning addressed to military strategists and ruling elites in the imperialist countries, that Moscow and Beijing earnestly believe they could be on the brink of all-out nuclear war.

François Heisbourg, the well-known strategist at London’s International Institute for Strategic Studies think-tank and the Fondation de recherche stratégique in Paris, Tweeted: “This new exercise goes beyond what may be useful for prestige purposes. It involves 30 percent of Russian active duty military & must be costly at a time when Russia’s defence budget is under strain. This only makes sense if large-scale war is viewed as a high probability contingency.”

Jonathan Holslag of the Free University of Brussels told the South China Morning Post the exercises are a “signal of deterrence,” adding: “It shows that, while there is still a lot of distrust between Moscow and Beijing, Moscow sees no other choice but to work with China, especially as relations with the US remain unstable and Chinese financial support is needed to mitigate the effects of Western sanctions.”

The policy of Moscow and Beijing, rooted in the bankrupt nationalism of the post-Soviet capitalist oligarchies in both countries, offers no way forward in opposing the imperialist war drive. These regimes are incapable of appealing to anti-war sentiment in the international working class. Rather, they oscillate between risking an all-out war with the imperialist powers that could cost billions of lives and begging the United States and its allies, which Moscow dubs its “Western partners,” for a deal.

There are indications that, as Trump threatens Europe with trade war, Moscow has some hope of splitting NATO and wining over the European imperialist powers against Washington. Indeed, Berlin has indicated it may be open to Moscow’s proposals for talks on Syria including Turkey and France, Germany’s main partner in plans to militarize the European Union, and excluding Washington. This plan is bankrupt, however: it entails backing EU countries’ plans to plunge hundreds of billions of euros to build up their military machines which, as the NATO exercises show, are aimed at Russia.

As at the beginning of the 20th century, rival capitalist governments are teetering on the brink of world war, this time involving nuclear weapons. This drive to war cannot be stopped outside of a conscious intervention by the working class. The main danger is that masses of people are not aware of the immediacy of the risk. This is why the WSWS stresses the urgency of building an international anti-war movement in the working class, based on an anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist perspective.