Governments skimp on funds to fight the coronavirus, open cash spigots for the banks

Andre Damon

The 72 hours between the close of stock markets Friday and the end of the day Monday saw a disastrous expansion of the deadly coronavirus throughout the world. The number of cases rose in several European countries, while those in the United States grew nearly five-fold.

People walk past an electronic board showing Hong Kong share index outside a local bank in Hong Kong, Tuesday, March 3, 2020. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

Over that period, six people died from the virus in the United States after experts confirmed “community transmission” in three separate locations. A genetic study found that the coronavirus had been propagating through the population in Washington state for as much as six weeks, meaning that between 150 and over a thousand people had likely been sickened without being detected.

But despite this disastrous news, on Monday the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up by 1,294 points—its biggest one-day point gain ever.

Nor was the market rebound based on any improvement in economic conditions. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development warned Monday of a global economic contraction in the first quarter of this year, while cutting its projection for economic growth for the entire year to the lowest level since 2009.

Rather, the markets were responding to something else: mounting pledges by central banks that they would cut interest rates and carry out asset purchases, placing an unlimited supply of cash at the disposal of the financial markets.

On Monday, before the US markets opened, Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda pledged to “offer sufficient liquidity via market operations and asset purchases.” The Japanese central bank moved immediately to pump nearly $5 billion into the financial markets.

Kuroda was joined by French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, who announced that the G7 economies would take “concerted action” in response to the epidemic, raising the prospect of a coordinated cut in interest rates by major central banks. The European Central Bank said later that it could cut interest rates to below zero and initiate a new round of asset purchases.

These announcements followed the statement Friday afternoon by Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, who pledged to “use our tools and act as appropriate to support the economy.” This was clear signal to the markets that the Federal Reserve is likely to cut interest rates even before its scheduled meeting on March 17–18, and do so in tandem with other central banks.

Only a pittance is being provided to slow the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, which threatens to kill millions of people, but unlimited funds are being made available to bail out the financial elite. While the Fed stands ready to pump trillions of dollars into Wall Street, the Trump administration has requested just $2.5 billion to fight the coronavirus outbreak, half of which will be transferred from other programs.

Governments are responding to the coronavirus pandemic the same way they dealt with the 2008 financial crisis—by giving trillions of dollars to the financial oligarchy while doing nothing for the great majority of the population.

The most striking characteristic of the response to the outbreak of disease in the US is the stunning lack of preparedness. Despite having had weeks of advanced warning, the Centers for Disease Control was totally unprepared to carry out large-scale testing for the virus, allowing it to spread more widely and potentially costing untold numbers of lives.

The disastrous response to the crisis has been conditioned by the systematic defunding of public health care infrastructure in the United States, part of the dismantling of social infrastructure that has accompanied the relentless, decades-long upward redistribution of wealth.

Just like the 2008 financial crisis, the ruling class is responding to the global coronavirus crisis by defending and expanding its own interests. A decade ago, tens of millions of families lost their homes, while the rich and super-rich were bailed out and made even richer.

The Federal Reserve and the US Treasury loaned nearly $7 trillion to the financial system, which was used to prop up over $30 trillion in financial assets. That set into motion the biggest financial bubble in human history, with stock market values quadrupling since 2009.

Once again, the ruling classes are responding to a new crisis—the most dangerous outbreak of infectious disease in a century—entirely on a class basis.

The central banks and governments know that it will be the working class and poor who will bear the overwhelming brunt of the disease. While the wealthy have the luxury of telecommuting or not working at all, workers will be forced—either by the threat of being laid off or the devastating impact of lost wages—to keep working in factories, warehouses, medical offices and retail facilities, exposing themselves to infection.

The ruling elite will ensure that it has access to the best medical care, while workers will languish in cramped and ill-supplied hospitals. Those who are among the 87 million Americans who are uninsured or underinsured will face the agonizing choice of foregoing care or facing financial ruin.

Workers must respond to the crisis, with no less determination than the ruling class, on the basis of their own class interests. As the International Committee of the Fourth International’s February 28 statement made clear:

The working class must demand that governments make available the resources required to contain the spread of the disease, treat and care for those who are infected, and secure the livelihoods of the hundreds of millions of people who will be affected by the economic fallout.

The statement continued:

In demanding that capitalist governments implement these emergency measures, the international working class does not abandon its fundamental aim: the ending of the capitalist system. Rather, the fight for emergency action will raise the consciousness of the working class, develop its understanding of the need for international class solidarity, and increase its political self-confidence.

The days since the publication of this statement have only underscored the dangers posed by the disease and the lengths to which the ruling elites will go to defend their wealth and privilege at the expense of society.

US, South Korea, and Japan: Recognising the Value of Alliances

Sandip Kumar Mishra

On 24 February 2020, South Korean Defence Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo met his American counterpart, Secretary of Defence Mark Esper, in Washington. The meeting did not result in a breakthrough on the issue of cost-sharing for US troop presence in South Korea. There have been six such inconclusive meetings between the two countries in the past few months.

US President Donald Trump is of the belief that Japan and South Korea must contribute to monetary burden-sharing for the presence of US troops in their countries. During his 2016 election campaign, Trump clearly stated that Japan and South Korea had not been paying "enough" for their own security, and labelled them "free-riders." After coming to power, he reiterated on multiple occasions his intention to try and impose the entire cost of these alliances on Japan and South Korea.

There are around 50,000 US troops in Japan and 28,500 in South Korea. This presence is part of US' obligations under the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security with Japan and South Korea which was signed in the early 1950s. Of the total costs, Japan directly bears around US$ 2 billion, and South Korea, around US$1. In addition, there are several other indirect mechanisms through which Japan and South Korea pay the US to sustain troop presence in their respective countries, such as the compulsory annual purchase of US defence equipment. Between 2008 and 2016, South Korea made defence purchases worth US$ 22.5 billion from the US. These mechanisms also extend to trade deals, which are deliberately framed in favour of the US. 

There are also political costs to sustaining this alliance. For example, there are frequent reports of US troops misbehaving with civilians and Japanese and Korean defence personnel. The areas where US troops are stationed have witnessed several occasions of civil unrest. Korean and Japanese movies and novels have depicted the troops in a negative light as a reflection of popular resentment. Criticism has also been mounted on the basis of reported restrictions on Japanese and Korean defence decision-making on operational issues as a result of turf tensions with US troops. In response, South Korea has in fact gradually begun to take charge of the Combined Forces Command's peace and war-time controls.

Clearly, Japan and South Korea do not calculate the costs of their alliance solely on the basis of these issues. A thorough cost-benefit assessment of the value of the relationship sustains their relationships. They share a commitment to maintaining a regional order in which democracy, free market economics, human rights, and cooperative security are primary concerns, and the alliance with the US helps defend and expand these principles.

However, this value is apparently lost on President Trump, who has thus far been unable to see beyond a mechanical and immediate economic reciprocity. He does not appear to be interested in sustaining the existing order, and sharing its costs with US allies. After all, US troop presence in South Korea and Japan not only provides security to these allied countries but also augments US' regional military presence, particularly with regard to its contestation with China. More importantly, the US alliance system has a broader political goal: to help expand the influence of like-minded states in the region, and work together as a bulwark against revisionist and disruptive tendencies seen emerging from China, North Korea, and Russia. Of course, it may be useful to have a debate on the specifics of alliance cost-sharing – but this should not be at the cost of overshadowing other equally, if not more, important aims. Under Trump, the US has essentially imposed its interpretation of costs on Japan and South Korea, its long-term allies in the region. This displays either a lack of understanding, or a deliberate disregard for the real value of the alliance system. This may lead to narrow economic benefits for the US in the short-term, but significant political losses will be incurred in the long-term.  

The Poverty Line is Too Damn Low

Shawn Fremstad

Earlier this month, the Trump administration announced that it is seeking public comment on producing “additional measures of poverty.” While the request has received little to no attention in the media, it offers an important opportunity to tell the government to adopt a modern poverty measure that reflects what it really takes to make ends meet in today’s economy.

The federal government currently reports on poverty each year using two different measures: 1) the Official Poverty Measure (OPM), and 2) the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM). According to the OPM, which set the poverty line for a family of four at $25,465 in 2018, 11.8 percent of Americans are poor. According to the SPM, which set the poverty line at $28,166 for family of four in 2018, 12.8 percent of Americans are poor. A major limitation of both the OPM and the SPM is that they use outdated poverty thresholds that fall below both broad public consensus and expert views on the income needed to not be poor.

In the notice, the administration says that it is “evaluat[ing] possible additional alternative measures of poverty distinct from the OPM and SPM” and that these additional measures “will not be intended to replace the OPM or the SPM” or “intended for use to estimate eligibility for government programs.” Despite these disclaimers, there is no reason why an alternative measure that improves on the OPM and SPM could not eventually displace one or both of them, especially if it better reflects broad public understanding of what it takes to make ends meet in today’s economy.

The administration’s notice does not propose any specific alternative measures, but it does make clear that they are considering both income-based and consumption-based measures of poverty. The former determines whether a household is poor by comparing its income to a poverty line, while the latter compares the amount a household estimates it spent on goods and services to a poverty line.

The notice includes 14 questions that the administration says it is particularly interested in hearing from the public on. Four of these questions are about poverty thresholds, the dollar amount that a family’s resources are compared to in order to determine whether it is counted as poor or not. Because both the OPM and SPM use poverty thresholds that are far too low, it is especially important that any additional measures of poverty have more adequate poverty thresholds than these measures.

This could be done most simply by adopting a poverty measure that sets the poverty threshold equal to 60 percent of median equivalized disposable income, the same threshold the United Kingdom currently uses as its main poverty measure. This would produce a poverty threshold of roughly $44,000 for a family of four today, compared to the OPM’s threshold of $25,465 and the SPM’s of $28,166.

Other questions the notice specifically asks for input on include: 1) what types of income and spending to count in determining whether a household has income above or below the poverty threshold, including whether to count: a) the value of health insurance; b) out-of-pocket spending on health care, transportation, and child care; and c) the value of education; and 2) whether to address the problem of survey misreporting. Other questions that are relevant, although not specifically mentioned in the notice, include: 1) whether student loan and other mandatory debt should be subtracted from income (as recently recommended by an expert commission in the United Kingdom); 2) whether to take the extra costs of disability and social care into account when measuring poverty; and 3) how to ensure the homeless and others who are less likely to be captured in household survey data are included in poverty counts.

The Conservatives swept the Parliamentary Election in Iran

Akbar E. Torbat

The conservatives swept the parliamentary elections held on February 21, 2020, in Iran. The election was for the eleventh parliament (Majles) since the 1979 Iranian revolution. The conservatives (or “Principlists”) obtained about two-thirds of the seats, which will give them the control of the Majles to challenge the so-called “moderates” who want friendly relations with the West.  This election,like the ones before,was symbolic because major political parties that oppose the clerical regime are banned, and their members are disqualified from running for elections. Iran currently does not have secular parties that are supported by masses. Only small Islamic or quasi-Islamic parties organized by the clerics or key persons associated with them are active in the elections.

Vetting of the Candidates

The candidates who want to run for elections ought to believe in the Islamic system of government under the rule of Velayat-e Faghih (Guardianship of the Jurist), currently Ali Khamenei. The Supreme Religious Leader’s authority, as defined by the Islamic Republic constitution (Article 110), supersedes the authorities of all organs of the government.  Hence,democratic principles such as separation of powers between the three branches of the government do not effectively exist. The Guardian Council is a 12-member body that monitors and upholds Islamic laws. The Council screens applicants based on the ideological requirements of the regime, which contradicts the fundamental norms of democracy. Applicants who do not express allegiance to such ideology are disqualified.

In this election, about 16,000 persons applied to be on the ballot, from whom 5,232 or 33% were selected by the Guardian Council to run. The rest,including 75 incumbent representatives,were disqualified. The number of disqualified applicants was the largest this time as compared to the previous elections.

In this election,the competition was mainly between two political factions that support the Islamic government. One faction that is known as principlist (osoolgara) relies upon impoverished Iranians’ support who depend on the government employment and/or receive meager welfare payments. Principlists want to stick to the traditional Islamic values and follow the egalitarian goals of the revolution. Another faction that is referred to as Reformist (Eslahtalab) relies on the affluent Iranians who want to preserve the regime but gradually change it in favor of their own class.Before the election, some polls showed most Iranians did not belong to either of the two factions and did not want to participate in the election.In reality, those who do not support the regime’s ideology do not have anyone on the ballot to vote for.Consequently, the voters had two options, boycott the election or choose between bad and worse candidates chosen by the regime. The problem for the government was to show that people would participate in such an election. Before the elections, the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei,who skillfully manipulates public opinion by mixing religion and politics in his speeches,emphasized that it was the religious duty of all qualified Iranians to participate in the elections even if they did not like him.

The Outcome of the Election

Despite the boycotts by some political groups, the rival factions within the regime participated in the elections.The assassination of Iranian General Ghasem Soleimani by the US,caused some voters to come out to show their anti-American imperialism sentiments.However, the turnout was low as compared to previous parliamentary and/or presidential elections. Also, the nationwide demonstrations against the government for raising the gasoline prices in November and the Coronavirus outbreak were contributing factors for lower participation. According to the government officials, there were 57,918,159 qualified voters from whom 9,600,000 were in the capital Tehran, and 3,931,766 were the first-time voters. The results of the election were announced on February 23.The number of participants in the country was 24,512,404 or 42.3%. The number of male voters was 52%, and females were 48% in the elections. In the capital Tehran, there were 2,539,763 voters or 26.2% participation.

The 290-seat Majles has 285 directly elected members and five seats reserved for minority religions. The Principlists gained vastlyat the expense of Reformists’ loss, who had much fewer candidates approved by the Guardian Council. Reformists claimed the Gradian Council was biased against them and engineered the election in favor of the Supreme Leader Supporters. Principlists won 191 seats, while Reformists won 16 seats, and independents 34 seats. Principlists won all the 30 seats in Tehran. In the previous parliamentary election in 2016, Reformists gained 41% of the seats compared with 29% for Principlists and 28% for independents.Some candidates who had served under the former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s administration were elected to the new Majles, while he had not endorsed any slate of candidates.

The outgoing Majles turned outto be a disaster, as its Reformist fraction lost credibility.Embarrassingly, some of the representatives were involved in financial corruption, embezzlement, drug use, or other unlawful matters that led to their disqualification by the Guardian Council. At last,120 representatives of the outgoing Majles could not return to the new Majles; 75 of them were disqualified, and the rest either did not participate or were not re-elected.

Hassan Rouhani,who was supported by the Reformists, became the worst president in the reign of the Islamic Republic. Because of his rapprochement with the West, Rouhani has been given the nickname of “Diplomat Sheikh.” The European governments and the Democrats in the U.S. backed Rouhani since he was a top cleric inside the regime who wanted to warm up relations with the West. However, Rouhani and his Foreign Minister Javad Zarif became the puppets of the West. Rouhani’s blunder to dismantle the major parts of Iran’s nuclear facilities without getting any benefits for Iran was a catastrophic action. As a result, Rouhani lost his meager social base among the Reformists, and his government has now survived by the support from the Supreme Leader, who is afraid Rouhani’s dismissal could end the clerical oligarchy. Rouhani himself has said he wanted to resign from the presidency several times butwas discouraged by the Supreme Leader.

As a result, the election showed that the pro-West strategy of Reformists in the Majles worked against them. Instead of protecting people’s interests, they protected Rouhani in the wake of his disastrous nuclear agreement. Their lack of decisive action to preserve Iran’s nuclear program, preventing corruption in the financial institutions,and not paying attention to workers’ unpaid wages negatively impacted their re-election chances.

Overall, the Reformists were defeated because of:a.The failure of Rouhani in ending the economic sanctions, despite dismantling major parts of Iran’s nuclear program.b. Failure of their neoliberal economic reforms. c. Lack of interest of their supporters to participate in the election. d. Corruption in the banking system and in the privatization of government-owned enterprises. 5. Disqualification of some of their candidates by the GuardianCouncil.

As it appears, there is no hope that the election’s outcome will oblige the ruling clergy to make any changes to democratize the regime.

The Manufactured Feminism

Sanya Darapuri

We live in a world where strong visuals fill our brains through screens that surround us at all times. As such it becomes impossible to prevent the inception of an idea that may or may not have the potential to influence our psyche. In most cases visuals do leave a profound impact on how we perceive the world. These visuals have created a strong culture of exhibitionism where ‘how we look’ has taken the better of the ‘who we are’.

From other institutions, Film and Fashion industry is most superior in its contribution to visuals and perception building. For the same reason it has immense responsibility in bringing forth the right message across its wide-reaching audience. While it has created much space for the aspirations of a ‘new woman’, there is also a trend that has shrewdly hegemonized the perception of a ‘liberated woman’. A huge part of the industry is committed to establishing that nudity is tantamount to a woman’s expression of liberation. But coming from a giant profit-making industry, one can’t help but think that this idea is any less influenced by the values and forces that drive these industries to create markets for whatever they sell. Right when the issue of objectification of women in media started taking a central position in the mainstream discourse, a new interpretation that completely altered the narrative was promulgated by these industries. This involved reassuring women that revealing bodies on screen had nothing to do with commodification but was rather empowering in view of the several restrictions imposed on women in a sexist, male-dominated world. This was done in an attempt to safeguard the markets that thrived on the erotic and sexual depiction of a woman’s body. As Laura Mulvey has pointed out in the ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ that women’s appearances are “coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness”.

Feminism seems to have borrowed a lot of ideas from this very same school of thought that glorifies women’s sexuality. There is too much focus on revealing skin and bare bodies as a part of their cause. In the pop culture everytime a woman is seen wearing clothes and doing actions that explicitly project her sexuality she is said to be strong and bold. But is this strength justifiable when it is only stemming from how a man desires to see a woman i.e. a sexual object.

However, a blatant expression of this desire by a man will only come across as being chauvinistic, so it calls for a careful manipulation that makes this desire appear innocuous and unobjectionable. What better way than feminism embracing it?

Men simply want to rid themselves off the blame of orchestrating a culture where a woman’s worth is gauged by how much she caters to his sexual satisfaction. Psychology defines this through the concept of ‘projection’, where rather than taking ownership of an unacceptable motive you attempt to externalize the problem by attributing it to someone or something else. In other words, “Men don’t ask women to show their bodies, women do it in the name of choice, and comfort.”

It is of extreme importance for a capitalist mind to ensure that their sense of fashion becomes the expository of feminism so that the credibility of their markets goes uncontested. In other words, capitalism is ‘co-opting’ feminism. And the success of this is reflected in the growing need of modern women to wear smaller and smaller clothes to assert their liberty. But this is only reinforcing the sexual inequality that has existed in this world for the longest time (for we don’t see men’s clothing reducing in size). Moreover, it allows for an unbalanced transaction that takes place between the woman’s body and the man’s eye, where the latter is the sole profiteer.

Under the garb of feminism, what actually seems to be operating is a synthesis of patriarchy, chauvinism, misogyny and capitalism.

Feminism has to survive the implicit paradoxes that have clouded the perception of real empowerment. The ‘how we look’ should be independent of the forces that quantify us. Our so called ‘choices’ should genuinely be our ‘choices’ and not be governed by the ‘invisible hand’ that is skillfully creating a culture of consent against our own sensibilities. Our freedom should not be regulated by someone else’s necessity but our own. Thrust should be on emancipating women through substantial and material empowerment that goes beyond their body.

Malaysia’s political crisis deepens as King declares new prime minister

Joseph Santolan

Over the past week, sections of the elite looking to continue a policy of race-based crony capitalism carried out a political coup in Malaysia as the ruling coalition collapsed in infighting and betrayals. Attempting to put an end to the machinations and impose a government by fiat, the Malaysian king declared one of the leading coup plotters, former Interior Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, as the new prime minister.

Muhyiddin, whose break with the Pakatan Harapan (PH) ruling coalition a week ago set the political crisis in motion, now stands at the head of an ethnic Malay political alliance that brings the widely detested United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) back to power. Mahathir Mohamad, who resigned as prime minister a week ago, is contesting the installment of Muhyiddin.

The crisis in Malaysia remains unresolved, but the illusions fostered in the 2018 election that hope and change could be achieved through Pakatan Harapan are shattered.

UMNO-led alliances ruled Malaysia from its formal independence in 1957 until it was ousted by Pakatan Harapan in 2018. Playing on anti-Chinese chauvinism, UMNO served the interests of a thin layer of Malay crony capitalists allied to the ruling coalition, through a range of monetary controls and preferential government subsidies.

Its leading representative was Mahathir Mohamad, prime minister of Malaysia from 1981 to 2003, who implemented the racist New Economic Policy which established preferences for Malays, who comprise a majority of the population. The policy covering jobs, business and education systematically discriminated against the country’s substantial Indian and Chinese minorities.

The victory of Pakatan Harapan (Alliance of Hope) in the May 2018 election brought to power a multi-racial coalition, with the promise of putting an end to the discriminatory racial policies of UMNO and its Barisan Nasional coalition.

The current political crisis is the result of the unstable and unprincipled character of the PH, which brought together the ethnic Chinese Democratic Action Party (DAP) and the People's Justice Party (PKR) of Anwar Ibrahim with the United Malaysian Indigenous Party (Bersatu) of Mahathir.

In 1998, then Prime Minister Mahathir and his deputy Anwar had a vicious falling out as a result of the political turmoil in the country in the wake of the Asian Financial Crisis. Mahathir had insisted on maintaining his policy of currency and capital controls to defend Malay capitalists, but Anwar, who was also finance minister, supported the IMF demands to open up the economy, measures which would have bankrupted Mahathir's cronies.

Mahathir expelled Anwar, who responded by leading protests against the Prime Minister's corruption. Mahathir had Anwar arrested. He was savagely beaten by the police, causing him permanent physical harm, then tried and convicted on trumped-up charges of sodomy and corruption.

Support for the opposition parties of PKR and DAP grew, particularly among urban Malays based on the peninsula and among the ethnic Chinese. In the 2013 election the opposition won the popular vote, but lost the election as a result of a longstanding UMNO gerrymander. Najib Razak, who had become the head of UMNO, remained prime minister.

In 2016, under a great deal of pressure from Washington, Najib signed the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, which required him to carry out some liberalization measures. Mahathir, seeing in this an attack on his pro-Malay policies, broke with UMNO and founded a new party, Bersatu. However, Bersatu was an inadequate political vehicle for the national aspirations of Mahathir and he needed to form a new coalition to regain power.

As the 2018 elections approached, Najib and UMNO had become widely despised as a result of the 1MDB corruption scandal. Billions of dollars in government money had gone missing, and Najib was alleged to have personally pocketed hundreds of millions.

Under the leadership of Anwar, the PKR and DAP struck a devil’s bargain with Mahathir to form the PH, making Mahathir their proposed Prime Minister. Mahathir, they calculated, would take Malay votes away from UMNO and the Islamist Parti Islam se-Malaysia (PAS). As part of the bargain it was agreed that he would pardon Anwar, who had been convicted for a second time on bogus sodomy charges. This would pave the way for Anwar to return to parliament and take over as prime minister from the 92-year-old Mahathir half way through the term of office.

The majority of the votes secured by PH came from DAP and PKR, which received 89 seats compared to the 32 which went to Mahathir's allies, but Mahathir stacked his cabinet with a majority of people loyal to him. Among those he appointed from the DAP and PKR were Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng (DAP) and Minister of Economic Affairs Mohamed Azmin Ali (PKR). He made his ally in Bersatu, Muhyiddin Yassin, Interior Minister. Mahathir secured a pardon from the king for Anwar, and in October 2018 Anwar took office as an MP.

A significant factor contributing to the downfall of UMNO was mass social anger at skyrocketing prices and low wages. The PH government entered office with great illusions, particularly among young people, that the new multi-racial coalition government would extend democratic rights and improve living conditions.

The coalition between Bersatu, looking to continue and expand policies of race-based cronyism, and DAP and the PKR, looking to implement IMF measures on the economy, was inherently unstable. None of the members of the coalition sought to defend the interests of the working population.

The alliance with Mahathir split the PKR. Anwar began pushing Mahathir more aggressively to honour his promise to step down. Mahathir was scheduled to step down in the latter half of 2020, but Anwar was demanding a firm timeline. Economic Affairs Minister Azmin began angling for control of the PKR. In 2019 a video of two men in bed was circulated on the internet and Azmin was accused of having sex with a man. Anwar, himself the victim of bogus sodomy charges, rather than defend Azmin publicly, suggested that he should resign. By December, their supporters were engaging in a massive brawl at the PKR youth congress.

Bersatu began to push back against the role played by the DAP Finance Minister, who was working to undo the race-based preferential policies of UMNO. Mahathir delivered a speech at the Malay Dignity Congress and openly played the race card claiming that it was Malay disunity that had allowed DAP—part of his own coalition—to take power.

On February 21, Bersatu threatened to pull out of the PH if Anwar continued to pressure Mahathir. Anwar backed down. Bersatu, the minority member of the PH, was looking to rule without the PKR or the DAP. Azmin reached out to Interior Minister Muhyiddin, offering the services of his faction of the PKR, in the formation of a new alliance.

On Sunday, February 23, they staged what the Straits Times called a series of “highly choreographed” meetings with UMNO and PAS. Bersatu, the PKR faction, UMNO and PAS would constitute a new majority and Azmin arranged for them to meet with the king to recognize their coalition with Mahathir as their head.

Mahathir, however, wanted nothing to do with UMNO and Najib Razak. Presented with Muhyiddin and Azmin’s coup, he resigned as head of Bersatu and as Prime Minister. Mahathir has a history of using dramatic resignations to mobilize support and maintain his hold on power.

Declaring that there thus was no government, the king installed Mahathir, the resigned Prime Minister, as interim Prime Minister. The king stated that he would poll the MPs to determine where the true majority lay. Mahathir sought to use his unelected office to hold together a government entirely loyal to him until the next election, and on Wednesday he held a press conference to declare his “non-partisan unity government.” Mahathir spoke minutes before Anwar staged a press conference to announce that he had secured the majority needed to form a government. Confronted with their rival claims, Anwar instructed everyone to abide by whatever decision the king would reach.

The king declared that his personal poll had been unable to discover a clear majority. Mahathir announced that he would call a special session of parliament to determine who in fact had a majority. Everyone—Mahathir, Anwar, the king, the coup plotters—was scrambling to avoid calling an election.

On Friday the alliances shifted again. UMNO and Anwar—seeing the summoning of parliament as a means for Mahathir to stay in power—declared that his move was “unconstitutional” and “disrespectful to the king.” The parliamentary speaker declared Mahathir's special session had not been legally summoned.

The Malaysian king is a sultan serving as the monarch on a rotational basis—every five years another one of the country’s nine sultans is made king. The current king summoned an emergency session of the “Conference of Rulers,” to consult with the other eight sultans, and then declared that he would meet with each of the party leaders to determine who had a majority.

As Mahathir refused to ally with UMNO, Muhyiddin put himself forward as the front man for the coup plotters, and with the backing of UMNO, PAS, Bersatu and Azmin’s section of the PKR he had the support of a total of 96 MPs, trumping Anwar’s 92.

The PH responded by abandoning Anwar on Saturday, hoping that if they restored Mahathir as Prime Minister that he would bring in the small parties of Sabah and Sarawak loyal to him and they would outnumber Muhyiddin. Anwar accepted his sidelining, declaring “I will be taking a step back ... so that we can avoid the country being further dragged into this power struggle and into an old system which has been rejected by the people.”

As Mahathir came forward to declare that the reconstituted PH had secured a majority, the king intervened, abruptly declaring that he had determined that Muhyiddin had a majority and swearing him in at 10.30 in the morning on Sunday March 1. The king issued a statement that “His Highness hopes this political crisis would end.” Najib Razak, disgraced head of UMNO, publicly extended his congratulations to Muhyiddin.

Whatever the immediate twists and turns, the political crisis in Malaysia will only sharpen. Every section of the ruling elite is engaged in a vicious, frantic game of political backstabbing. The machinations on all sides have a fundamentally authoritarian and anti-democratic character. Regardless of who wins out, the government that is being formed is in no way a reflection of the democratic will of the people, not even its limited and distorted expression in the 2018 elections.

Fueling the desperate manoeuvres on all sides is the awareness in the ruling class of the mounting social anger in the working population of all races in Malaysia, amid an international resurgence of the class struggle and rapidly worsening crisis of the global economy. The ruling elites are engaged in a bitter struggle to defend their narrow interests and how best to suppress working class opposition.

Afghanistan peace deal begins to unravel as Kabul rejects prisoner swap

Bill Van Auken

Within barely 24 hours of the US government and the Taliban signing the so-called “Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan,” Washington’s puppet government in Kabul, which was excluded from the negotiations that produced the deal, has rejected one of its provisions.

The president of the Kabul government, Ashraf Ghani, announced that he would not accept an exchange of prisoners that was to have served as a “confidence-building” measure. The exchange was to be carried out on March 10, the date set for the beginning of “intra-Afghan negotiations” involving the Taliban, the Ghani regime and potentially other Afghan political actors. The agreement states that these talks are to produce a “permanent and comprehensive ceasefire,” along with a “future political roadmap of Afghanistan.”

While the deal proposed the release of 5,000 Taliban prisoners—roughly half of the number held by the US and its puppet regime—along with 1,000 prisoners held by the Taliban, Ghani told reporters on Sunday, “The government of Afghanistan has made no commitment to free 5,000 Taliban prisoners,” adding, “It is not in the authority of the United States to decide; they are only a facilitator.”

U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, left, and Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban group's top political leader shack hands after signing a peace agreement between Taliban and U.S. officials in Doha, Qatar, Saturday, Feb. 29, 2020. (AP Photo/Hussein Sayed)

This defiance by a titular head of state, who could not remain in power for a week without US backing, is a measure of the puppet regime’s concern that it has few bargaining chips in the “intra-Afghan” talks, and the fact that it is not willing to give up one of them, the fate of imprisoned Taliban fighters.

The success of such talks is one of the conditions attached to the agreement signed by Taliban deputy leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar and US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad in the Qatari capital of Doha on Saturday.

The main basis of the deal is the promise of a withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan in exchange for a commitment by the Taliban to deny the use of Afghan soil to Al Qaeda or any other group that could “threaten the security of the United States and its allies.”

The signing of the agreement, presided over by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, constitutes an unmistakable admission by Washington that the nearly 19-year-long war it has waged in Afghanistan, the longest war in US history, has produced an unmitigated debacle.

After sacrificing the lives of nearly 2,400 US troops, along with the wounding of tens of thousands more, and spending well over $1 trillion, Washington is signing a deal it could have reached with the Taliban 18 years ago without sending a single soldier.

The deployment of some 800,000 US troops in Afghanistan over the course of two decades, the dropping of vast quantities of munitions on the impoverished nation, and the killing of at least 175,000 of its people have left the US and its puppet government in control of less than half the country, while the Taliban holds sway over more territory than at any time since it was overthrown by the illegal US invasion of October 2001.

The Taliban had demanded an immediate pullout of all US troops, but the Doha agreement calls for a phased and “condition-based” withdrawal, with a promise that their number will be reduced by July of this year from the current level of approximately 14,000 to 8,600, roughly the same number that were deployed there when Trump took office in 2016. The agreement states that this will be followed by a “complete withdrawal of all remaining forces” by April of next year.

The deal has no doubt been crafted at least in part to serve the electoral interests of President Donald Trump, who campaigned in 2016 on the claim that he would call a halt to Washington’s “endless wars.” A partial draw-down of troops in the run-up to the vote in November would allow him to claim fulfillment of this campaign promise, while leaving sufficient forces in place for a potential continued occupation or even another buildup to be carried out after the elections.

Unconfirmed reports state that secret clauses in the agreement include the retention of a US Special Forces and CIA contingent on the ground in Afghanistan. In an op-ed column published in the Washington Post Sunday, US Defense Secretary Mark Esper wrote that “the United States will continue its financial and military support to the Afghan government and its security forces.”

He continued, “There are other details to the plan’s implementation, and the administration looks forward to briefing them to Congress in the coming days.” Esper had flown to Kabul for a ceremony with Ghani on Saturday as the deal was being signed in Doha.

Further complicating the proposed “intra-Afghan” negotiations are sharp differences within the Kabul regime itself. Just last month, results were announced for a presidential election held last September, with Ghani proclaimed the winner amid charges of wholesale fraud. Ghani’s principal opponent, Abdullah Abdullah, who was given the position of “CEO” after the last fraudulent election, has refused to accept Ghani’s victory, threatening to set up a parallel government.

Abdullah denounced Ghani for secretly sending a delegation to Doha for talks with the Taliban on upcoming negotiations. “Sending a team from the Presidential Palace to Doha, without consulting with other people in Afghanistan, as representatives of Afghanistan … these were the issues which caused the absence of a big number of politicians in [Saturday’s] ceremony” in Kabul, Abdullah said.

Among those absent were the Afghan warlords Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, leader of the Hizb-e-Islami, and Abdul Rashid Dostum, who holds the post of first vice president. Also staying away were former president Hamid Karzai, the head of the High Peace Council, Mohammad Karim Khalili, and the second deputy chief executive, Mohammad Mohaqiq.

These divisions raise the prospect that any negotiations with the Taliban will be carried out by rival political factions jockeying for positions in a post-Ghani government. Until now, the Taliban has refused to negotiate with the Kabul government, describing it as a “puppet regime,” a characterization that has been confirmed by Washington’s signing a deal with the Islamist movement without any participation by Ghani’s administration.

The Taliban has proclaimed the Doha agreement as a victory over the US military occupation. Taliban leader Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada issued a statement Saturday calling on his followers to uphold “real Islamic law” and for “the Mujahideen of the Islamic Emirate” to become “more active and stronger.”

The Trump administration has jettisoned the hypocritical “human rights” justifications for the imperialist war put forward by the Democratic administration of Barack Obama, which raised troop levels in Afghanistan to 100,000 to no avail. Professed concerns about the Taliban’s retrograde Islamist ideology, which led during its rule to girls being barred from schools and women from working, have given way to a view that the Taliban leadership, which is staunchly anti-Iranian and had entered into negotiations with US oil companies in the 1990s, are men with whom the US can do business.

The prospects for the agreement signed in Doha leading to a US withdrawal from Afghanistan are far from certain. US imperialism’s catastrophic intervention in the country dates back more than four decades to the CIA-orchestrated war by the mujahideen against a Soviet-backed government in Kabul. That war ultimately claimed a million lives and turned millions more into refugees.

The war begun in 2001, launched on the pretext of combating terrorism and capturing Osama bin Laden, had been prepared well in advance. It was aimed at projecting US military force into the energy-rich region of Central Asia in the wake of the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Washington’s drive for hegemony in the country, which borders Iran and China and is in close proximity to Russia, will continue.

Also continuing to drive the Afghan conflict are the conflicting interests of the region’s two nuclear-armed powers—India, which has backed the Kabul government, and Pakistan, whose military Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) provided sanctuary to the Taliban leadership. Saturday saw India’s foreign minister attend the ceremony in Kabul, while his Pakistani counterpart was at the signing in Doha.

Far from inaugurating peace, any retreat from the US debacle in Afghanistan would help pave the way for a far more dangerous eruption of US militarism, as Washington shifts its global strategy from the “war on terror” to preparations for war against its “great power” rivals, in the first instance, nuclear-armed China and Russia.

Coronavirus accelerates job cutting in New Zealand

Chris Ross & Tom Peters

As world economic growth falls to its lowest level since the 2008 global financial crisis, the wages, jobs and conditions of the working class are under escalating attack in country after country. The rich, who have profited from inflated stocks and property investments, remain insulated from the effects of the crisis.

In New Zealand, a wave of job cuts that began towards the end of last year has accelerated dramatically due to the coronavirus, which has greatly disrupted trade with China, New Zealand’s largest export market.

The Labour Party-led government boasted about unemployment falling from 4.2 to 4 percent in the last quarter of 2019. However, while the number of unemployed people officially fell by 3,000 to 111,000, in the same period labour force non-participation increased by 18,000 people—who are not counted as unemployed because they are not actively looking for work.

The economic outlook has sharply deteriorated in recent weeks. The spread of the coronavirus internationally, combined with the US-China trade war and the Ardern government’s ban on inbound travel from China, could trigger a recession.

Finance Minister Grant Robertson told Radio NZ on February 26 that “growth will be hard to come by” in the first half of 2020, due to the impact on tourism, forestry, education and other export industries. Economist Shamubeel Eaqub estimated that “15,000 tourism jobs and another 15,000 export sector jobs are most exposed to the current China shock” and “some 45,000 jobs are exposed directly” to a decline in imports.

The tourism industry, which employs 8.4 percent of NZ’s workforce and accounts for 20 percent of export earnings, is suffering a significant downturn. New Zealand Chinese Travel and Tourism chair Simon Cheung told Stuff an estimated 300 tour bus drivers were temporarily jobless due to the travel ban, with many resorting to Uber driving, which pays less than the minimum wage. Air New Zealand is asking staff to take unpaid leave due to reduced flights. Restaurants and other businesses are also cutting staff and reducing hours.

Forestry Industry Contractors Association CEO Prue Younger told the Otago Daily Times on February 26 that “we’re about a week away from the industry really falling to bits.” NZ’s third largest export is severely affected by the slowdown in China and increased competition from Europe. Around 1,500 workers in logging businesses could lose their jobs. Most are low-paid, living week-to-week, and have no savings.

Wood processors are also axing jobs. Carter Holt Harvey will close its Whangarei sawmill in April with around 111 job cuts. The town’s economy is expected to lose about $5 million annually. Pacific Pine Industries closed its sawmill in Putaruru in December with 60 job losses. Workers were told over the phone the plant would not reopen after 30 years of existence. Spectrum Group Ltd’s RH Tregoweth sawmill in Te Kuiti has confirmed 35 job cuts.

In the education sector, Massey University announced plans this month to stop offering science courses at its Albany campus, in a restructure aimed at saving $18 million. About 50 staff could lose their jobs and hundreds of students would be affected. The university also wants to stop teaching computer science and engineering at its Palmerston North campus.

Albany-based Professor Dianne Brunton told the New Zealand Herald she had seen “staff members… in floods of tears, because they don’t want to see their colleagues go, and see what we’ve built here destroyed.”

More cuts are likely. Universities and other training providers face multi-million dollar losses due to 11,000 Chinese students barred from entering New Zealand. Auckland University and Victoria University of Wellington have announced a hiring freeze.

Retailers are also cutting back, mirroring a wave of store closures in Australia. Bunnings Warehouse closed two stores in Waikanae and Te Aroha on December 27 with 35 redundancies. Last month Cotton On gave 12 staff less than two weeks’ notice of two store closures in Porirua. FIRST Union didn’t oppose the closures and only criticised the multinational clothing company for not “tak[ing] the time to close two small stores properly.”

Other recent announcements include:

* General Motors will end sales, design and engineering operations in Australia and New Zealand and retire its Holden brand of vehicles. Thirty-one dealerships in NZ will close, with 600 job cuts across Australia and NZ and up to 1,500 in Thailand. Worldwide, auto companies are competing ferociously to cut costs and are planning 100,000 layoffs in 2020.

* Mars Petcare will close its factory in Whanganui, which employs 150 people, at the end of the year, moving production to Thailand. Last October, Manufacturing and Construction Workers’ Union general secretary George Larkins told Stuff the union had previously supported “flexible” rosters to maintain company profits and would now “explore the current redundancy provisions” to ensure smooth layoffs.

* Imperial Tobacco will shut down its cigarette manufacturing plant in Petone, Lower Hutt, axing 122 jobs, due to a decline in smoking. The E tū union accepted the closure, promising to “guide” workers through “the process.” Petone has been hit hard by de-industrialisation, including the loss of 114 NZ Post jobs and the closure of Unilever’s washing powder factory that employed 100 people in 2015.

* Healthcare NZ, which is contracted by the public health system to provide care for disabled people, is considering cutting 200 jobs. This has sparked protests by workers in several towns, with the Public Service Association appealing for the proposal to be reconsidered.

The Labour-led government’s response to the crisis has been marked by indifference to the plight of workers. It announced that an unspecified number of forestry workers could take up jobs in the Department of Conservation, but no details are confirmed.

The government has refused to scrap the 13-week “stand-down” period before someone made redundant can get the poverty-level Jobseeker Benefit, forcing workers to rely on charity or apply for emergency grants from the Ministry of Social Development.

In almost every case, the trade union bureaucracy, which supports the Labour Party, has accepted layoffs and factory closures without calling industrial action, let alone seeking to mobilize the working class nationwide against government and corporate austerity. As they did following the 2008 financial crash, the pro-capitalist unions are enforcing cuts to maintain profitability and global competitiveness.

This underscores the urgent need for workers to rebel against the unions and form new organisations—rank-and-file committees controlled by workers—to unify their struggles across different industries and internationally. The fight for decent jobs, wages and conditions requires a new political perspective, in opposition to Labour and every other party, to put an end to the capitalist system and reorganise society on the basis of socialism.

Record fall in key China production index

Nick Beams

The first data to reflect the hit to the Chinese economy of the coronavirus so far this year have come in and they make for sober reading.

China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced over the weekend that the manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI), fell to 35.7 in February, down from 50 in January.

This was an all-time low, below that recorded during the global financial crisis. A PMI of less than 50 indicates a contraction in economic activity.

Wiki commons K.Kendall

An export orders sub-index fell to 28.7, down 20 points from the previous month, because of cancelled and delayed orders, according to the NBS.

A related index that tracks purchasing plans in service industries also plunged to a record low of 29.6, indicating major contractions in transport, construction, and consumption spending.

In a note on the latest data, Larry Hu of Macquarie Capital wrote: “Today’s PMI data suggest that things are really bad, and the government is willing to report that.”

He warned the annualised growth rate for the first quarter could be lower than what has been, at least until now, the “consensus” forecast of 4 percent. The government may even report a contraction for the first three months, the first such event since the Cultural Revolution in 1966.

If such a fall eventuates, it will have a major effect on the world economy because China accounted for around 40 percent of all global growth last year.

Even before the virus outbreak China had recorded a drop in its growth rate to 6.1 percent, the lowest in 30 years, amid expectations that it would decline further in 2020.

In a bid to halt the coronavirus slide, China’s president Xi Jinping has told local officials that low-risk areas should “resume full production and normal life,” but there is not much sign of this.

While the NBS has announced that medium to large-scale enterprises had recorded a “work resumption rate” of 78.9 percent, the ANZ banking group has said these firms are operating well below their capacity utilisation. Based on migration data, it said the economy was operating at only 20 percent of capacity with just 50 percent of migrant workers back at their jobs.

According to the Wall Street Journal, other indications of economic activity, including coal consumption by power stations, and data on home sales and movement at ports “broadly suggest economic activity remains at low levels that are usually seen only during holidays.”

Subway activity in eight major cities last Thursday was only one fifth of usual levels. As of the weekend, 12 of China’s 31 provinces still had in place emergency-level health provisions that limit travel.

An indication of the global effect of the Chinese contraction is contained in figures from the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade. It has issued a record number of 3325 force majeure certificates, giving companies legal protection when they are unable to meet contracts because of circumstances beyond their control.

The certificates, covering contracts worth a combined $38.5 billion since the beginning of February, include steelworks, electronics companies, car firms and auto parts suppliers.

The effects of the virus are now starting to weigh on the global economy, with the forecast of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) just 10 days ago that it would only bring a reduction of 0.1 percentage points in global growth, now widely declared to be outdated.

The 36-member Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is preparing a new interim report which it says will point to “more serious consequences.”

Capital Economics has cut its forecast for global growth by 0.4 percentage points to 2.5 percent, a level the IMF regards as a recession for the world economy. But it has warned that if the outbreak becomes a global pandemic then world output could fall by 0.5 percent, equivalent to the drop experienced in the global financial crisis.

There are warnings of a “doom loop” when the disruption of supply chains leads to a cut in demand, exacerbating the downturn.

The chief economist at UniCredit, Erik Nielsen, told the Financial Times that a global recession in the first half of the year “is suddenly looking like a distinct possibility.”

Italy, the European country most adversely affected by the virus so far and the eurozone’s third-largest economy, has announced a €3.6 billion stimulus package to try to mitigate its effects. This is on top of €900 million worth of measures in the most severely affected regions in the north of the country, announced last week.

Before the outbreak, Italy was already on the brink of a recession, with growth in the first quarter expected to be negative following a contraction in the last three months of 2019. The Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said the economy needed “shock therapy.”

The European Central Bank has yet to signal its intentions. The ECB president Christine Lagarde has said that the outbreak is not yet at a stage where it would have an effect on inflation, meaning further price falls, that would require a monetary policy response.

With ECB interest rates already in negative territory, there is little further stimulus the central bank could provide and, in any case, further cuts in rates are not going to bring about an increase in production.

The US Fed has indicated that it is ready to cut rates. A statement issued by the Fed last week declared that it was “closely monitoring” developments and would “use our tools and act as appropriate to support the economy.” The issuing of the statement was unusual as the Fed does not generally comment on monetary policy between meetings.

The Financial Times reported that in a conference call with reporters, before the statement issued by Fed chairman Jerome Powell, a Treasury official was reluctant to speak about the risks to economic growth posed by the virus. The official maintained that the most likely outcome was V-shaped, that is, a short-lived downturn followed by a recovery.

This scenario, regarded as “conventional wisdom” little more than a week ago, has since been largely dismissed, with some analysts describing it as “nonsense.”

The opening of Wall Street today is being anxiously awaited with all indications pointing to a continuation of the bloodbath that saw the S&P 500 index fall by 13 percent over the previous seven trading days, wiping off $3.6 trillion from share market values.

Idlib war escalates as Turkey announces military operations against Syria

Ulas Atesci

Over the weekend, Turkey intensified its conflict with the Syrian government forces in Syria’s Idlib province, announcing a military offensive and shooting down two Syrian jets. The reactionary nine-year, US-led proxy war in Syria is escalating into a war between the Turkish and Syrian states, threatening to start a war between the entire NATO alliance and Syria’s ally, Russia.

On Sunday, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said Turkey’s armed forces had launched “Operation Spring Shield”—an undeclared war—against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, after a Syrian strike killed at least 34 Turkish soldiers Thursday inside Syria. Akar said Turkish forces had “neutralized … a drone, eight helicopters, 103 tanks, some 70 howitzers, three air defence systems and 2,212 Syrian government troops” since Thursday.

Shortly afterwards, the Defense Ministry said, “We destroyed two SU-24 regime jets downed after attacking our jets.” It also claimed to have bombed Syrian air defence systems, and Turkey’s state-owned Anadolu Agency reported that the Turkish army bombed Al-Nayrab military airport in Aleppo with armed drones on Sunday.

This was just a day after the Russian Foreign Ministry said, “Both sides confirmed their goal to reduce tensions ‘on the ground’ while continuing the fight against terrorists,” after days of talks in Ankara. However, it is apparent that Turkey and Russia are pursuing opposed aims and preparing for war.

Syrian state news agency SANA confirmed the shootdown of two Syrian aircraft by Turkey, “while the two aircraft were carrying out a mission against armed terrorist organizations in the Idlib area.” The pilots reportedly parachuted safely.

The Russian Defence Ministry responded that it could not guarantee the safety of Turkish aircraft over northern Syria, after Damascus shut Idlib province’s airspace. Amid an increasingly aggressive offensive by Turkish-led forces receiving statements of “solidarity” from both Washington and NATO, there is a risk of a new retaliatory Syrian or Russian air strike on Turkish troops.

Since the beginning of the February, Turkey has lost more than 50 soldiers in Syria, fighting to defend its military outposts and Al Qaeda-linked proxies in Idlib against Russian and Iranian-backed Syrian government troops.

While Ankara accuses Damascus and Moscow of violating the 2018 Sochi agreement by fighting to retake Idlib, including Turkish military posts there, Moscow has charged that Turkey has failed to fulfill its pledge to separate “radical” Islamist militias from “moderates.”

The Turkish government’s claims to only be defending “moderates” and civilians against indiscriminate Syrian attacks are blatant lies. Idlib’s most powerful “rebel” group is Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which both the United Nations and Turkey designate as a terrorist group, and which is led by the former Syrian affiliate of Al Qaeda, upon which the NATO powers have relied for years in the Syrian war.

Turkish and international media endlessly seek to whitewash this group. Just last week, Turkish stated-owned TRT World published an article titled “Can Hayat Tahrir al Sham gain international legitimacy?” Citing its leader Abu Muhammad al Jolani’s interview with the International Crisis Group, it claims: “The group now eschews much of Al Qaeda’s ideology after decoupling from the group in July 2016.”

While using these forces against the Syrian regime, Ankara is also seeking direct support from its NATO allies against Russia, risking a clash between nuclear-armed powers. On Saturday, after meeting with his US counterpart Mike Pompeo in Qatar, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu told reporters that Ankara is asking Washington for Patriot missiles to challenge Russian control of Syrian airspace.

Asked Saturday about Ankara’s request for anti-aircraft missiles, Trump replied, “We are discussing this issue with President Erdoğan.” This is another turnaround, after Washington refused to sell Turkey Patriot missiles and removed it from the F-35 fighter program when Turkey decided to deploy Russian S-400 anti-aircraft missiles.

Yesterday, Erdoğan also reportedly spoke to French President Emmanuel Macron to demand “NATO’s concrete and clear solidarity.”

At issue also is the horrific anti-refugee policy led by the European imperialist bourgeoisie. Erdoğan has opened Turkey’s western borders to more than 4 million refugees so they can travel on to Europe, hoping to force the European powers into supporting his policies, at which point he would again seal the borders. Erdoğan aims to win NATO support not only for Turkish war aims in Syria, but also for plans to resettle Syrian Arab refugees in majority-Kurdish regions of Syria. This would cut across Kurdish militas’ attempts to set up a Kurdish pro-state in the region.

Also, after Erdoğan declared, “We are not obligated to take care of so many refugees,” a fascistic attack targeting Syrian homes and workplaces took place this weekend in Elbistan, in Turkey’s southern province of Kahramanmaraş.

Amid widespread popular opposition to Ankara’s war in Syria, President Erdoğan made his first public remarks on Saturday following Thursday’s disastrous losses in Syria. The speech principally aimed to prevent any eruption of social opposition to war amid growing social inequality, declining living standards and a worsening economic crisis inside Turkey and internationally.

Erdoğan declared, “The main target is Turkey, not Syria.” Conflating Turkey’s ongoing occupation of northern Syria targeting US-backed Kurdish militias with its military presence in Idlib, he said: “If we do not clear our borders from terrorists now, we might have to fight bigger wars inside Turkey later on.”

Erdoğan also laughingly shared his conversation with Trump, sparking angry comments on social media. On Twitter, more than 200,000 people almost immediately used a hash tag “Why are you laughing Erdoğan?” to express their opposition to war.

The targets of the social anger include not only the Erdoğan government, but also the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP). While CHP has tactically criticized Turkish military operations in Idlib, it has supported the war mandates in the parliament for years and bears direct responsibility for the Turkish government’s war in Syria. It also promotes chauvinist, anti-Syrian propaganda.

The CHP has signed a joint statement on Thursday together with its far-right ally the Good Party, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its government coalition ally, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). It asserted a “right of reprisal” against “attacks on our soldiers.”

The Kurdish-nationalist Peoples’ Democratic Party’s (HDP) “no” votes on war mandates in parliament, based on opposition to military operations targeting the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the main US proxy force in Syria, are not based on a principled, anti-imperialist or anti-war position.

The dangerous escalation between Turkey and Russia is leading to stepped-up attacks on press freedom After a right-wing nationalist gang tried to raid the homes of three Sputnik Turkey employees in Ankara on Saturday, the journalists and Sputnik-Turkey’s chief editor in Istanbul were detained, questioned and, hours later, released.

One released journalist said, “We were completely absurdly charged over an article that we did not write and have nothing to do with,” a reference to the ‘Stolen Province,’ an article on the southern border province of Hatay, which joined Turkey in 1939 after a referendum that Syria refused to recognize.

Last month, Turkish state media outlets like TRT World published reports questioning Turkish-Syrian borders, showing maps of the “Aleppo Vilayet in the Ottoman Empire” on the basis of a “National Pact” declared by Turkish nationalist forces during the independence war. It “covered current Turkish territories, the Ottoman Aleppo Vilayet and Ottoman Mosul Vilayet, which corresponds to present-day northern Iraq.” Yesterday, the pro-government Daily Sabah also published an article titled “Crimea: Story of a twice stolen peninsula.”

Opposing imperialist war and defending refugees are tasks of the international working class. The only way out of the growing danger of war, including between nuclear-armed powers, is to build an international anti-war movement in the working class, across the Middle East and internationally, on the basis of an internationalist socialist program.