Capitalism vs. The World

James Rothenberg

The love of money is a sin…the root of all evil.

• Judeo-Christian biblical tradition –

O believers Do not devour one another’s wealth by evil means except through trading by mutual consent.

• Islamic tradition –

Sharing wealth is a divine duty, but wealth gained and spent for one’s behalf is evil.

• Hindu tradition –

Is our toleration of the dominating global capitalist system the greatest work-around in recorded history?

work-around (noun): a plan or method to circumvent a problem without eliminating it.

– Merriam-Webster –

——————————————————

Test cases for our survival:

The global climate has recently been getting warmer, forewarning more frequent and severe storms, threatening many life forms, coastal habitations, resources, and food production.

The warming we see is but a tiny picture of an ever changing big whole, with a history of reversals.

Global wealth inequality has created an underclass of billions, forewarning social and political unrest, threatening rebellions and wars.

Inequality is a feature of the human condition due to people’s innate differences in adaptation, aptitude, and desire.

State secrecy and surveillance of citizens has reached a fascistic level, forewarning loss of personal freedom and liberty.

States have a responsibility to monitor citizen activity to maintain order for the general good.

Nuclear weapons show no signs of going away, forewarning devastating consequences of their usage.

Nuclear weapons have proved to be an effective tool for maintaining world hierarchal order.

In each of these cases, U.S. capitalism comes down on the italicized side of the equation. It is not in the nature of capitalism to tolerate any loss of private profit, whether it be diverting capital from proven profitable production, allowing the world’s poorest countries to prosper from their own above and underground wealth resources, de-coupling its interests from a state founded in support of it, or allowing competing nations and ideologies a chance to rival our economy.

As the name implies, socialism places people ahead of capital, working people as distinct from people that prosper off of other’s work. Relatively few people prosper off of other’s work, yet these few people have, in their hands, an inordinate amount of the world’s wealth. And these few people have, in their hands, the means to set the conditions under which the workers of the world must sustain themselves. You don’t have to be a fan of socialism to see that capitalism favors the billionaire (with trillionaires not far off) and that it is incapable of dealing with existing survival threats.

It will take a new way of thinking to address existential threats, and it must involve the many over the few. People do not wish to fight in wars, thirst for water, starve for food, breathe dirty air, or withstand the elements for lack of shelter. People of any one country have to see in other countries their brothers and sisters. Less a utopian desire, it is a remedy for one nation’s leadership lying and misleading its citizens into thinking that they have enemies intent on harming them.

People don’t fight people in wars. They put on uniforms and fight for big shots. States fight states. The citizen must be led into it. This is a propaganda role states give to themselves and it has proven effective through centuries of use. Tell the people what they’re afraid of, tell them they’re fighting for the “good”, and refer to them as “heroes” of the state. Then all they have to do is obey.

It’s a big thing to imagine, but if international socialism replaced capitalism, with workers in all the world’s countries having control over their economy, war would become less inevitable. Certainly there could be no capitalist, imperialist war. One can react dryly to capitalism’s cynical program of mustering young men and women off to war, and then giving veterans 10% off.

Speaking glowingly of an “American way of life” when large numbers of these Americans are under the control of the whims of others (those that have a job) for their very existence is a hypocrisy that can only be maintained through sheer repetition. The modern corporation is the antithesis of democracy. It’s purposely structured that way —  by law, the kind we’re taught to have reverence for — to protect it from unhappy workers and outsiders. And, yes, polls confirm most workers are unhappy. Worldwide.

That some people don’t want to be boss, and are happy to work for others with less responsibility, is not an argument for the beneficence of capitalism. It’s an indication of the accommodation workers have made to an exploitive economic system that does not invite worker participation. Perhaps the only thing you’re free to do is quit.

U.S. capitalism has taken all three branches of government and swallowed them whole. There’s much talk about election interference lately. Their’s, not our’s. Their’s is relatively puny compared to our’s but leaving aside the international kind, for a look at real interference we need go no further than money as a predictor in all our own elections. You almost can’t go wrong by betting on the party’s candidate that spends the most money in the campaign.

Are we presently living in a pre-fascist stage? It’s safer to say we’ve entered a post-democratic age because capitalism is inherently anti-democratic, and little in our national life has been spared from its abuse. It’s not for a lack of evidence that there is reluctance to move away from it. That’s due to long term demonization and the failed examples of socialist experiments.

The irony in the “failed example” argument is that it presents the United States as a neutral outside observer, merely keeping track of history’s winners and losers for the record. This is the record that can be portrayed to the American public as an example of the superiority of our system. It has been wildly successful because the failures are real and the results of this one-sided record are plain to see. Today’s aspiring presidential hopefuls can be openly-almost anything, but they still can’t be openly atheist, or socialist. Not and get tens of millions of votes.

There is a fuller record, one that takes into account the United States’ role in actively undermining independent people’s movements, socialist or otherwise, at home and abroad. We have stopped at nothing (bribery, arming right-wing militias, economic strangulation, torture, sabotage, and outright murder) to put down this sort of uprising against the existent economic and political arrangement that the United States refers to as responsible world order.

We can make ironical use out of the “exceptional nation” theme that has served to justify pretty much all of our behavior. That is, justify it to the home population at which it is aimed. Foreign populations might find it perplexing.

If we are so exceptional, why concern ourselves with what lessers have been able to achieve? Surely we can do better with the ‘hardest working and most talented people on earth’. For one thing, a U.S. socialist experiment would have the advantage of not having the reigning world superpower working overtime to snuff it out.

Vladimir Putin vs Liberalism 1:0

James M. Dorsey

Certain that Western and liberal democratic leaders would limit themselves to verbal denials, Russian president Vladimir Putin knew he was kicking into an open goal when he declared on the eve of the Group of 20 (G20) summit in Osaka that liberalism had “outlived its purpose.”

He may even have anticipated that US president Donald J. Trump would go further and in his own way endorse the Russian president’s assertion.

When asked at a news conference to respond to Mr. Putin’s remarks, Mr. Trump opted to denounce America’s liberals by focusing on American municipal leaders who oppose his policies, including his clampdown on migration.

Mr. Putin “sees what’s going on. If you look at what’s happening in Los Angeles…and San Francisco and a couple of other cities which are run by an extraordinary group of liberal people, I don’t know what they are thinking, but he does see things that are happening in the United States that would probably preclude him from saying how wonderful it is. I’m very embarrassed by what I see,” Mr. Trump said.

In a nod to illiberal governance, Mr. Trump went on to say that “you don’t want it to spread and at a certain point, I think the federal government may have to get involved. We can’t let that continue to happen.”

Mr. Trump’s response was not a one-off remark. His empathy with illiberalism was also evident in his refusal to seriously take Mr. Putin to task for alleged Russian interference in US elections despite the conclusion by US intelligence and special counsel Robert Mueller that there had been extensive meddling.

Similarly, during a breakfast meeting at the G-20 with crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, Mr. Trump praised the Saudi leader for doing a “spectacular job.”

He praised Prince Mohammed as “a man who has really done things in the last five years in terms of opening up Saudi Arabia” and described the prince’s enhancement of some women’s rights as a “a revolution in a very positive way.”

Mr. Trump made no mention of the fact that Prince Mohammed had imprisoned activists who had campaigned for things like the lifting of a ban on women’s driving as well as scores of critics and dissidents.

The activists, some of whom have asserted that they have been tortured, are standing trial on charges of undertaking “coordinated and organized activities… that aim to undermine the Kingdom’s security, stability, and national unity.”

Like virtually all Western and liberal democratic leaders at the G20, Mr. Trump played down Saudi Arabia’s lack of transparent accountability for last October’s killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi as well as the conduct of the Saudi-United Arab Emirates-led war in Yemen.

The leaders made sure that Prince Mohammed, the host of next year’s G20, was not isolated as he was at their gathering last year in Buenos Aires.

A senior official tempered outgoing British prime minister Teresa May’s call for accountability in a one-on-one with Prince Mohammed by noting that the two leaders had “concluded by agreeing on the importance of the relationship” and of “regional stability” with no apparent qualification.

Perhaps because the targeting in 2018 of two Russians with a nerve agent occurred on British soil, Ms. May took a tougher stand than most in a frosty meeting with Mr. Putin.

“The prime minister underlined that we remain open to a different relationship, but for that to happen the Russian government must choose a different path. The prime minister said the UK would continue to unequivocally defend liberal democracy and protect the human rights and equality of all groups, including LGBT people,” a spokesperson for Ms. May said.

By and large, however, Western and liberal democratic leaders seemed to lend credibility to Mr. Putin’s assertion on liberalism by failing to put their money where their mouth is.

They were equally soft gloved in their interactions with Chinese president Xi Jinping when it came to liberal values such as human rights.

There was no apparent mention, at least no public mention, of China’s brutal clampdown on Turkic Muslims in the troubled north-western province of Xinjiang.

The incarceration in re-education camps of an estimated one million Uyghurs amounts to the most frontal assault on a faith group since World War Two’s Nazi assault on Jews.

Likewise, there was overall little that went beyond strong verbiage in the response by liberal democratic leaders to Mr. Putin’s attempt to fuel polarisation in the West by asserting that liberalism “presupposes that…migrants can kill, plunder and rape with impunity because their rights… have to be protected.”

As a result, European Council president Donald Tusk’s retort put little, if any meat, on the response of liberal democratic leaders and seemed more like paying sharp-tongued lip service to values such as human rights

“For us in Europe, these are and will remain essential and vibrant values. What I find really obsolete are authoritarianism, personality cults, the rule of oligarchs. Even if sometimes they may seem effective,” Mr. Tusk said.

Human rights imperialism, social media censorship and the fraud of Facebook’s “Oversight Board”

Kevin Reed

On June 27, Facebook published a report entitled “Global Feedback and Input on the Facebook Oversight Board for Content Decisions” on the progress of its plan to create an international review committee to oversee its censorship regime. A careful examination of this report shows that the real purpose of the planned Oversight Board—contrary to Facebook’s pretensions of creating an “external appeals process” and safeguarding “free expression and safety for all users of our platforms”—is to expand and systematize social media censorship in defense of world capitalism.

In publishing the report, Brent Harris, Facebook’s Director of Governance and Global Affairs, explained that the company was closing a six-month “global consultation” period and turning to the selection of the 40 members of its Oversight Board. Harris writes that the selection process will include “engaging consultants and executive search firms” to begin nominations. Indicating just how “open” and “diverse” the board will be, Harris adds, “Facebook will select the first few people and those members will then help select the remaining people.”

Mark Zuckerberg speaks at 2018 Facebook conference. [Credit: Anthony Quintano]

The heavily footnoted 37-page report is a summary of the responses of 2,000 people from 88 countries who attended 28 “workshops, roundtables, and town halls” on five continents to discuss Facebook’s Oversight Board proposal. Facebook representatives also met with “250 people through one-on-one meetings” that included “experts from multiple disciplines in both the private and public sector.” None of these corporate and government “experts” are named in the report.

Additionally, Facebook received 1,206 responses to a public online questionnaire and accepted essays from private individuals and white papers from civil society organizations and individuals on the membership, decision-making process and rules of the board. Lastly, Facebook prepared a comparative analysis of eight “oversight models” currently in use across business and government, including those of the academic research community and the US Court of Appeals system. All of these items have been gathered together and published in a 180-page appendix to the main report.

The proposal for the creation of a Facebook Oversight Board began with an announcement by company CEO Mark Zuckerberg in November 2018. At that time—in an ongoing response to pressure from the US political establishment over “fake news” and unsubstantiated claims of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election—Zuckerberg outlined his concerns about “interference in elections,” “misinformation” and “polarization and extremism” on Facebook.

In his “Blueprint for Content Governance and Enforcement,” Zuckerberg was explicit in proposing the creation of an “independent body” that will have binding authority to remove content that seeks “to divide us.” In other words, under conditions of a global movement to the left by masses of people, Facebook planned to create a committee to ensure that its censorship of the working class and revolutionary socialist ideas has the imprimatur of an ostensibly impartial body.

Zuckerberg’s blueprint was followed last January with the publication of a Draft Charter for the Oversight Board. The draft included a series of eleven questions regarding the membership and decision-making process of the board along with Facebook’s own “suggested approach” to the questions.

Following a range of responses by the corporate media and non-government organizations (NGO) to both Zuckerberg’s blueprint and the draft charter—some expressing enthusiasm and others skepticism—Facebook initiated its “global consultation” process. Among the more perceptive responses referred to the Oversight Board as a “faux regulator,” lampooned it as an “empty gesture” and, in a Washington Post column, editorial writer Molly Roberts mocked Facebook as having “declared sovereignty” with its phony Supreme Court-like proposal that does not allow the public to vote on anything.

What all of these bourgeois critics lacked—and are opposed to—however, is an objective assessment of the corporate entity called Facebook and the political and ideological motives behind the drive to create a global censorship infrastructure within the world’s largest social media platform. No one should accept for one second Facebook’s or Zuckerberg’s claim that an Oversight Board is going to halt or even mediate the company’s ongoing censorship practices—including the unilateral removal of posts or scrubbing of accounts without explanation.

Facebook is a global US-based corporation with 37,700 employees headquartered in Menlo Park, California and with offices in 22 US cities as well as 47 other corporate centers and 16 data facilities across six continents. As of this writing, Facebook’s Wall Street value stands at approximately $550 billion. This is greater than the Gross Domestic Product of all but the top 20 countries of the world.

The majority of Facebook stock is controlled by the following individuals and organizations: Mark Zuckerberg owns 28.4 percent, the venture capital firm Accel Partners owns 11.4 percent, former Facebook employee Dan Moskovitz owns 7.6 percent, the Moscow-based Digital Sky Technologies owns 5.4 percent and former Facebook employee Eduardo Saverin own 5 percent. The balance of 42.5 percent ($234 billion) is shared among a combination of individuals, institutional investors, mutual funds and exchange traded funds.

Despite the negative investment implications of the “fake news” furor and the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal—Facebook will likely settle a $5 billion fine with the FTC for violation of a 2011 consent decree—the company earned a net profit of $22 billion in 2018, up by nearly 40 percent over 2017. The expectations on Wall Street remain high for 2019, as global user numbers continue to climb.

Facebook’s primary platforms are Facebook (2.4 billion users), Instagram (1 billion users) and WhatsApp (600 million users). It is by far the most popular social media company in the world with more than 80 percent of its users outside the United States. For masses of people in countries around the world—especially those that are less developed—Facebook is more than a social media platform; it is the internet.

Herein lies the contradiction facing Facebook, the big technology sector of the economy including Google, Amazon and Apple and the entire ruling elite that has reaped billions since the financial crisis of 2008. On one hand, the world capitalist system depends upon the enormous financial performance of the tech sector, including the growing adoption of wireless broadband internet service, smartphones and social media by the world’s population.

Additionally, the ongoing production and management of these technologies are based upon ever greater forms of exploitation of the international working class from the high-tech assembly factories in Asia to Amazon’s sweatshop warehouses in Europe and North America. This is the basis upon which the enormous profits of these companies have been generated and is expected into the future.

However, on the other hand—as the international class struggle is reemerging and masses of people are gravitating toward socialism—the ruling elite is terrified that these technologies will also become the instruments of social and political struggle in the hands of the masses against the capitalist system itself.

These objective factors form the backdrop of the discussions taking place about Facebook’s “content decisions.” Knowing that they cannot overtly censor left-wing and oppositional views on their platforms, the social and political forces behind Facebook are seeking to erect an infrastructure based upon the same language used for decades by US imperialism to cover its criminal war aims, regime change operations and occupational conquests. The American ruling establishment is directing Facebook to proceed with an international censorship regime under the cover of spreading “democracy,” “freedom” and “human rights.”

That the Facebook Oversight Board project corresponds to the global interests of US imperialism is proven by the participants involved directly in the initiative. Although none of the private and public sector “experts” who were interviewed for the project are mentioned by name, several key individuals and organizations are credited in the document for their contributions. The following biographies are significant:

· Zoe Mentel Darmé is Facebook’s Manager of Global Affairs and Governance; she is credited with writing the Oversight Board report. Darmé has been with Facebook since December 2018 and was clearly brought on for the purposes of this project.

Prior to her employment at Facebook, she worked for six years at the United Nations as a Policy and Planning Officer, specializing in the Office of Rule of Law and Security Institutions in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO). This department, which traces its roots back to the US-dominated arrangements after World War II, has been involved in every operation of American imperialism since the dissolution of the Soviet Union and integration of the countries of the former-USSR and the Eastern Bloc into the world capitalist system.

On her LinkedIn page, Darmé boasts of her work in various UN departments and functions, including drafting “a wide variety of strategy papers, reports, funding proposals and other documents necessary for the smooth conduct of divisional business” as Communications/Programme Officer for the Police Advisor to the UN DPKO.

· Kevin Steeves is, according to Facebook, an independent researcher credited with helping Darmé write the Oversight Board report. Steeves promotes himself on LinkedIn as an Independent Advisor and Consultant on Global Affairs, Peace and Security from Alsace, France.

Prior to working as Director of the imperialist think tanks European Implementation Network in Strasbourg and Chatham House in London, Steeves also worked in New York City for nine years as a Policy Officer and Special Assistant for the UN’s DPKO. In the late 1990s and early 2000s he worked for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), a major post-war institution of American and European imperialism dedicated to “arms control” and “human rights.”

In 1999, Steeves was a professional consultant for the OSCE in Croatia with an office in Zagreb involved in securing Western imperialist interests in the former Yugoslavian territory under the cover of protecting “national minorities” and promoting “democratic institutions” and defending “human rights.”

· Noah Feldman is currently a professor of Law at Harvard University. According to the Facebook report, Prof. Feldman is the author of two white papers that have been the basis of the Oversight Board concept and he has worked with Zuckerberg directly on the project since the original announcement of November 2018. The Facebook report says, “Core features of Feldman’s white paper remain, and he has been advising Facebook on the Board throughout its development.”

After graduating from Yale Law school in 1997, Feldman worked as a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice David Souter. He is currently an adjunct fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, a think-tank of US imperialism going back to World War I and a fellow at New America Foundation, a more recent organization established to support US imperialist interests that includes Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of Google’s parent company, Alphabet.

After the invasion of Iraq by the Bush Administration in 2003, Feldman distinguished himself by working on the Iraqi Constitution which was drafted and approved in 2005. Feldman provided liberal justifications—including the publication of documents such as “The new Iraq: An Experiment in Islamic Democracy”—for the overthrow and brutal execution of Saddam Hussein and the transfer of the Iraqi oil fields to the imperialist petrochemical monopolies such as British Petroleum and Exxon-Mobile.

These are among the most significant and known individual contributors to Facebook’s plans for a censorship Oversight Board. There are undoubtedly more “experts” whose names have yet to come to light. It is also worth mentioning the participation of the corporate law firm Baker McKenzie and the marketing agency George P. Johnson (GPJ).

Baker McKenzie, which has specialized in human rights law and boasts its progressive credentials by having elected a female chair of its global executive committee, represents “venture capital funds, investment banks, tech powerhouses, household names, multinational technology companies, famous consumer brands, world-leading automotive companies and private equity houses.”

GPJ is multinational corporation that specializes in corporate branding and “event marketing.” With deep roots in corporate America that go back to the early twentieth century, GPJ counts among its clients the big three American auto companies as well as Toyota and Nissan and the tech companies IBM, Cisco Systems, Siebel and Intel.

Behind all the talk by Zuckerberg and Facebook executives about aligning social media content decisions with “democratic ideals and enlightenment philosophy of free thought and free expression” is a strategy to safeguard the interests of corporate America and the global agenda of US imperialism in every corner of the globe. The creation of an Oversight Board for Facebook—like so many local police department oversight committees that have supervised a steady increase in police violence and murder of working class and poor people across the US—is so much window dressing behind which the censorship of social media content will be intensified.

The defense of free speech and the right to utilize social media tools to organize the growing struggles of the working class and youth against unemployment, poverty, low wages, college debt, police violence and war cannot be trusted to any faction of the ruling establishment or giant tech company. Only the working class can defend the most basic democratic rights through an internationally coordinated struggle against the capitalist system and for socialism.

UK: GCHQ/MI5 admit illegally spying on millions

Trevor Johnson

The domestic spy agency MI5 and the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) intelligence gathering unit have been forced to admit in court that they are acting illegally in their use of bulk data, gathered by intruding into the lives of millions of innocent people. MI5 “has been unlawfully retaining innocent people’s data for years.”

Their admissions were the result of a court case brought by the civil rights organisation Liberty. The basis of Liberty’s case against the spy agencies is that government surveillance practices breach human rights law.

By early 2018 the government had been forced to accept that clauses of the Investigatory Powers Act (IPA, also known as the Snoopers’ Charter) would have to be changed to be in accordance with European human rights legislation. But it also redefined what was meant by “serious crime” in order to give the spy agencies as much leeway as possible.

The IPA was the government’s response to the fact that US National Security Agency whistle-blower Edward Snowden had made it public knowledge that Britain’s security services were colluding in illegal mass surveillance and collecting of data.

GCHQ worked with the NSA on PRISM, monitoring internet communications via Google, Yahoo, etc., and ran Tempora, storing most internet communications made via fibre-optic cables since 2011. The UK, as one of the “five eyes,” had access to Xkeyscore, an analytical tool that allows for collection of almost all internet activity.

GCHQ’s MILKWHITE program of storing data on people’s metadata from the usage of smartphone apps was made available to MI5, as well as the Metropolitan Police and other forces and no doubt the international spy agency MI6.

Rather than ending this illegal behaviour, the government response was to widen the spy agencies’ remit by means of the IPA. The IPA makes legal a level of intrusion into the lives of innocent people that was not deemed necessary in the course of two world wars, the troubles in Ireland and other domestic crises.

It has now been confirmed that from the day the IPA became law, the activities of the spy agencies continued to operate outside its boundaries and are therefore illegal. This was supposedly “concealed” for years from the Investigatory Powers Commissioner’s Office (IPCO), which is charged with overseeing their activities.

The IPCO claims that warrants for bulk data gathering would have been withheld had it been told in advance that the spy agencies were acting illegally. However, this claim is made suspect both by the fact that warrants are still being authorized and that the extent of the illegality and who is responsible are still being hidden.

The usual claims are made that these details could not be revealed without impeding the agencies’ targeting of serious crime, even though it is not serious criminals whose rights have been infringed but millions of innocent people.

MI5 knew it was breaking the law for three years before informing those charged with its oversight. It claimed to have lost control of its data storage operations and that there were “ungoverned spaces” on its computers on which it apparently did not know what was being held.

Home Secretary and failed Tory leadership contender Sajid Javid bizarrely claimed that the law-breaking was reason to have confidence that everything was as it should be: “It is of course paramount that UK intelligence agencies demonstrate full compliance with the law. In that context, the interchange between the commissioner and MI5 on this issue demonstrates that the world leading system of oversight established by the Act is working as it should.”

The investigatory powers commissioner, Lord Justice Fulford, whose position was created to give the snoopers’ charter a thin veneer of “independent” oversight, similarly claimed that he was “reassured that MI5 has taken immediate steps to introduce a series of mitigating actions in the light of that thorough review ...”

Liberty condemned the government and spy agencies for refusing to disclose details of the breach, what information had been put at risk and for how long. Megan Goulding, a lawyer representing Liberty, said the case showed how “fatally flawed the oversight system for security services is.”

“In creating the snoopers’ charter, the UK government has attempted to legitimise the most sweeping and intrusive mass surveillance powers to be found anywhere in the democratic world. These powers allow the state to collect the messages, location and browsing history of innocent, ordinary people” without any grounds for targeting them.

Martin Chamberlain QC explained that the IPA “provides for a wide expansion of bulk secret surveillance powers” which breached the European Convention on Human Rights protecting privacy and freedom of expression. He warned of the “inherent dangers” of bulk hacking powers, by which the intelligence services could take “remote control of a device, for example, to turn mobile phones with cameras into recording devices ...”

Vulnerabilities built into software to allow law enforcement access cause “real and significant risks” that third parties could exploit.

All claims that judicial oversight would curtail the spy agencies when the IPA was passing through Parliament were for public consumption only. Sir James Eadie QC, representing the government, said in a written submission, “The powers under challenge are of critical importance to, and are effective in securing, the protection of the public from a range of serious and sophisticated threats arising in the context of terrorism, hostile state activity and serious/organised crime.”

Recent experience has shown to the contrary that the authorities look the other way when confronted with not just threats, but the targeting of ordinary people by terrorists and others whose presence is repeatedly used to justify the introduction of a police state surveillance apparatus. The claims of “hostile state activity” by foreign powers are largely inventions of the government and their agencies, used to justify the ever-increasing powers of the state apparatus and the drive to militarism and war.

Mass protests resume against Sudan’s junta

Jean Shaoul

Tens of thousands protested in the capital Khartoum Sunday, demanding Sudan’s military junta hand power to a civilian-led government in a rally dubbed the “march of millions.” They were joined by thousands more in cities across the country seeking justice for the victims killed in the months-long movement for democracy.

Protesters were met with tear gas, stun grenades and live ammunition that killed at least seven people and injured 181 more, according to the Sudan News Agency. This comes almost one month after security forces launched an assault on the two-month long, mass sit-in outside the defense ministry headquarters in Khartoum, killing at least 128 protesters, including 40 people whose brutalized bodies were dumped in the Nile, injuring nearly 1,000 more and raping many women.

Part of the sit-in near the army headquarters in Khartoum in April [Credit M. Saleh]

That assault on peaceful protesters was led by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagolo, vice president of the Transitional Military Council (TMC) and head of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), an offshoot of the Janjaweed, notorious for its brutal suppression of the Darfur rebellion. Dagolo aspires to take the place of former dictator Omar al-Bashir, his former patron, deposed by the military in April.

Since the June 3 crackdown, the capital has been in virtual lockdown. All access to the internet and social media has been blocked to prevent the spread of information. Opposition groups have been refused permission to organise public forums. The on-off talks between the military and opposition groups over the composition and powers of a civilian-fronted transitional government were cancelled.

The June 3 rampage came in the wake of Dagalo’s trip to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia, and trips by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the head of the TMC and Sudan’s de facto ruler, to Abu Dhabi and Cairo, where he received advice on how to drown a revolution in blood from Egyptian dictator General Abdel Fattah El-Sisi.

While the Trump administration has viewed the instability caused by the military crackdown with some concern, it has supported the main allies of US imperialism in the Middle East and the Horn of Africa, who fear for their own shaky regimes, in their bid to shore up Sudan’s military dictatorship. The Saudi monarchy and Emirati sheiks have pledged $3 billion to prop up the TMC. In turn, the RSF has sent thousands of its members to fight in the Saudi-led assault on Yemen.

Since then, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, Washington’s key ally in the Horn of Africa, and the African Union (AU) have been trying to negotiate a deal between the TMC and the Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC), an umbrella coalition made up of some 20 opposition groups that includes the Sudanese Professionals’ Association (SPA) that has organised many of the strikes.

While TMC spokesperson Lieutenant General Shams El Din Kabbashi said on Saturday that the council had rejected Ethiopia's proposal, which the opposition coalition had accepted, it had agreed “in principle” to the AU’s plan, although he gave no details about its proposals.

The European Union has issued pro forma statements calling for a return to civilian rule, but its chief concern is to ensure that the authorities continue to uphold a filthy $400 million deal—at least some of which has found its way to the RSF to police Sudan’s borders—aimed at preventing the migration of Sudanese people to Europe.

The June 3 crackdown served to destroy any illusions among protesters that the military represented a benevolent force that would usher in a new era of democracy and prosperity. Within weeks, demonstrators took to organising neighbourhood protests and were regularly back on the streets of Sudan’s towns. On June 23, a Sudanese court ordered telecom operator Zain Sudan to restore internet services in response to a civil suit, although it is unclear what impact the ruling has had.

In the days before the rallies, the TMC sought to prevent the FFC from publicizing the rally, blocking it from giving a press conference, and arrested the head of a teachers’ committee and a leading member of the FFC.

Last Monday, dozens of students rallied outside the National Ribat University near the Ministry of Defence headquarters in Khartoum, chanting “civilian rule.” Security forces used batons to beat the students and break up the demonstration.

Sunday’s mass protests took place on the 30th anniversary of the coup that toppled Sudan’s last elected government, bringing former president al-Bashir to power. Al-Bashir’s ouster by the military was carried out in a bid to prevent the four-month long protests from overthrowing the regime of the tiny venal clique that has ruled Sudan since independence from Britain in 1956.

Organised by the FFC, the protesters were determined to show their opposition to the military, turning out despite the junta’s threats to respond with force.

On Saturday, RSF chief Dagalo had warned that he would not tolerate any “vandalism” at the protests, saying, “There are people who have an agenda, a hidden agenda, we don’t want problems.” He said he would hold the FFC “fully responsible for any spirit that is lost in this march, or any damage or harm to citizens or state institutions.”

He later tried to justify the killing of unarmed civilians by claiming that there were snipers among the protesters who had injured at least three members of the armed forces and several civilians. The claim was dismissed by the organisers of the march, who pointed out that Dagolo had used similar accusations to justify the June 3 bloodbath.

Eye-witnesses in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur, said that the RSF had not only violently suppressed the protests, but had actively instigated clashes, with one witness tweeting, “Thousands assaulted in Nyala market with whips and canes by RSF forces, as well as verbal assault to draw them into violence. Market has been shut down and surrounded by RSF vehicles, as well as some police vehicles. Anyone walking around the market is attacked.”

Other witnesses reported that the armed forces had opened fire at crowds in el-Obeid in North Kordofan, Kadugli in South Kordofan and Kassala, the capital of Kassala state.

UK dominated by the privately educated and Oxbridge graduates

Thomas Scripps

“Power rests with a narrow section of the population—the 7% who attend private schools and the 1% who graduate from Oxford and Cambridge.” These are the findings of a report by the Sutton Trust and Social Mobility Commission.

Elitist Britain, based on a survey of 5,000 individuals, details the stranglehold on the commanding heights of British society maintained by a tiny ruling elite. According to the study, these “influential people” are overall five times more likely to be privately educated than the average population.

When those educated in selective state grammar schools—overwhelmingly dominated by the upper classes—are included, the disparity grows even wider. The elite are also eight times more likely to have attended a top Russell Group University and twenty-four times more likely to have gone to Oxbridge (Oxford or Cambridge) Universities.

Just 7 percent of the population as a whole attend private schools, while only 5 percent attend grammar schools. Only 19 percent of the current working population has attended any university, 6 percent have gone to a Russell Group University and less than one percent to either Oxford or Cambridge.

By contrast, in politics and the judiciary, the private and grammar school educated account for 46 percent of Members of Parliament, 79 percent of the House of Lords, 73 percent of civil service Permanent Secretaries, 73 percent of public body chairs, 43 percent of select committee chairs and a massive 85 percent of senior judges.

Twenty-four percent of MPs went to Oxbridge, as did 38 percent of Lords, 56 percent of Permanent Secretaries, 40 percent of public body chairs, 33 percent of select committee chairs and 71 percent of senior judges. Well over half of all these groups went to Russell Group universities.

It is the same story in the army and the police, where 64 percent of senior members of the armed forces and 45 percent of police chiefs are from private or grammar schools. Sixteen percent of senior armed forces officers and 13 percent of police chiefs went to Oxbridge.

And if anyone wishes to know why this system of grotesque, all-encompassing class privilege is so rarely criticized by the media, 68 percent of newspaper columnists went to a private or grammar school, 63 percent of the most influential news media figures and 49 percent of BBC executives. Forty-four percent of newspaper columnists have Oxbridge backgrounds, as do 36 percent of the most influential media figures and 31 percent of BBC executives. Over 70 percent of all these groups attended at least a Russell Group University.

To complete the cultural picture of privilege, 25 percent of pop stars and 56 percent of the richest figures in TV, Film and Music went to a private or grammar school. In sport, 43 percent of men and 35 percent of women playing international cricket for England went to private school, as well as 37 percent of male British rugby union internationals and an extraordinary one in three Olympic medalists.

In business, 41 percent of the CEOs of FTSE 350 companies were educated in private or grammar schools and 15 percent went to Oxbridge.

These figures do not take account those educated in the top Comprehensive schools in the country, monopolised by families rich enough to afford the premium for houses in their catchment areas.

The report’s findings are hardly surprising. They confirm what workers and youth across Britain come to understand through their daily experiences: that positions of influence in society are a closed shop dominated by a rarefied elite. But Elitist Britain does highlight the incredible personal closeness of this narrow layer. The elite are not simply of the same socio-economic class; many of them likely attended the same classes at school and all mix together at dinner parties, resorts and the like.

As the study’s authors explain, “The most common pathway into the elite is attending independent school followed by Oxford or Cambridge, making up 17 percent of the whole group, and forming a strong ‘pipeline’ into the highest status jobs. Those who attended independent school and any Russell Group university comprise over one in four of the elite as a whole (27 percent).”

In some cases, these individuals are members of aristocratic families that have ruled Britain for generations.

The two contenders to replace Theresa May as Prime Minister, Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt, are not only both privately and Oxbridge educated, they are both related to the Queen. In Johnson’s case, this is thanks to his descending from the German Prince Paul Von Wurttemburg, a descendant of King George II. Hunt, meanwhile, is the Queen’s 5th cousin. The former Prime Minister, David Cameron, another Oxbridge graduate, is a fourth cousin to the Queen.

The Daily Express also reports that Hunt is “related to Sir Oswald Mosley, who became leader of the British Union of Fascists and whose father was as a third cousin to the 14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, father of Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, who served alongside King George VI as Queen.”

Other studies have found that almost one in five MPs are landlords, including 28 percent of Tory MPs and 11 percent of Labour MPs. This compares to less than 3 percent of the overall population. The proportion of MPs with backgrounds in manual occupations fell from 37 percent in 1964 to 3 percent in 2015—almost all of this decline taking place within the overwhelmingly privileged middle class leadership of the Labour Party. One quarter of MPs had an occupational background in politics, 22 percent in corporate business, 15 percent in finance, 14 percent in law and 10 percent in media.

These facts tear to pieces the farce of “representative democracy” in Britain. They confirm Karl Marx’s observation in the Communist Manifesto: “The executive of the modern state is nothing but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.”

The government, the judiciary, the security services and the media are all manned by the same ruling elite to ensure their continued control of society.

The shock at the “scandalous” figures of Elitist Britain registered in the liberal media is feigned. The hopeful references to “equal opportunities” and “diversity” legislation are a cynical fraud. The fact that a privileged few dominate positions of influence is not a flaw in an otherwise fair system to be tinkered with and fixed. This is the natural development of a society based on capitalist relations of production and the resulting extreme levels of inequality. Far from an “engine of social mobility,” the education system is a tried and tested mechanism for excluding the majority of the population from the running of society.

Appeals for gender balances or greater representation of ethnic groups in top positions, as championed by the purveyors of identity politics, obscure this fundamental class reality and serve as vehicles for the advancement of competing layers within the upper middle class. Schemes to promote a token contingent of working-class individuals into top universities and professions do nothing to challenge the dominance of the upper classes—who look down on their poorer fellows as, in the words of Oxford graduate Toby Young, “small, vaguely deformed” interlopers.

The sole progressive way forward is a socialist transformation of society, which brings an end to social inequality, makes high quality education available to all and establishes a genuine participatory democracy among working people.

Russian-Georgian tensions escalate amid Iran war crisis

Clara Weiss

Since June 20, tens of thousands of people have protested in Georgia’s capital Tbilisi against Russia and for closer ties with the US. In response to the protests, the Russian government has banned air travel to Georgia, a popular destination for Russian tourists.

Political map of the Caucusus region

The protests began on June 20, the same day that US President Donald Trump called off military strikes against Iran at the last minute. Between five and ten thousand people gathered near the Georgian parliament building to protest the invitation of Sergei Gavrilov, the speaker of the Russian Duma (parliament), and a number of other Russian deputies by members of the ruling Georgian Dream party. Gavrilov addressed the Georgian parliament as part of an Inter-Parliamentary Assembly of Orthodoxy in Russian, and reportedly sat in the chair of the president of the parliament.

Protesters denounced the invitation of the Russian deputies as a sign of “Russian occupation,“ and waved American and Georgian flags. They reportedly burned portraits of Russian President Vladimir Putin and a Russian flag and some protesters tried to storm the parliament building. There were violent clashes with police, who cracked down on the protests, using rubber bullets. Several people were wounded and about 300 people were arrested. The protests were the biggest since 2012, when a severe government crisis rocked the country.

The protests are ongoing. One of the main demands is the resignation of Interior Minister Giorgi Gakharia, who is considered a close ally of Bidzina Ivanishvili, the country’s richest man. Both are seen by the pro-US opposition as the main lobbyists for a rapprochement with Russia.

The protests are supported by the main opposition parties—the United National Movement (UNM) and the European Georgia Party (an off-shoot of the UNM). The UNM played the central role in the US-backed “color revolution“ in 2003 that brought to power Mikhail Saakashvili. In 2008, Saakashvili, backed by the US, launched a five-day war against Russia. The two countries have not maintained diplomatic ties since. Saakashvili, who is now living and politically active in Ukraine, has encouraged the protests from afar.

The Kremlin responded to the protests by banning Russian air travel to and from Georgia. The 1.5 million tourists who come to Georgia every year from Russia are an important source of income for the country, which depends for almost 8 percent of its gross domestic product on tourism.

This week, the Kremlin announced that it was considering a ban on Georgian wine. The Russian trading standards body, Rospotrebnadzor, has already introduced tighter checks on wine imports from Georgia. A complete ban on wine imports was in place between 2006 and 2013. Since the ban was lifted, Russia has become the most important export market for Georgian wine and agricultural products.

The Polish foreign ministry, which works closely with US imperialism in the military build-up against both Russia and Iran, has openly endorsed the protests. The Lithuanian and British ambassadors to Georgia have likewise expressed their support for the protests, denouncing the Russian ban on air travel and calling upon people to go to Georgia, in a social media campaign using the hashtag #SpendSummerinGeorgia.

Numerous American bourgeois news outlets and think tank publications, including Foreign Policy, Time magazine and the New York Times, have covered the protests with overt sympathy for the pro-US opposition.

Under pressure from both the protesters and foreign governments, the ruling Georgian Dream party has announced reforms to the electoral system, long demanded by the pro-US opposition, and announced early parliamentary elections for 2020.

Behind the ferocious conflicts within the Georgian ruling class over its relationship to Russia stands the escalating war crisis in Iran. A US war against Iran threatens to blow up not only the Middle East, but also the adjacent South Caucasus, with the potential of spilling over into the North Caucasus, which forms part of the Russian Federation. Experts have long warned that a war against Iran could reignite the latent military conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh region and lead to another open war between Georgia and Russia.

The Caucasus is of major geostrategic significance because of both its vast energy reserves and its geopolitical location as a bridgehead between the Middle East and Europe. The restoration of capitalism and the break-up of the region into small nation-states, all ruled by virulently nationalist bourgeoisies that are dependent on imperialism, has transformed the South Caucasus into a military and political powder keg. For the past three decades, US imperialism and the European Union have consistently worked to manipulate and intervene in power struggles within the countries’ ruling classes to bring the region under its direct control, including through the 2003 “Rose Revolution“ in Georgia.

Of the three states in the South Caucasus, Azerbaijan and Georgia have developed the closest military ties with US imperialism. Azerbaijan, in particular, has become a close military ally of Israel and the US in the build-up against Iran, which is home to some 20 million Azeris in the north. Armenia, which houses Russia’s only remaining military base in the South Caucasus and has traditionally maintained the closest ties to the Kremlin, saw mass protests last year that brought to power the Western-backed Nikol Pashinyan. He has since vowed to develop closer ties with the West while taking a belligerent stance on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with Azerbaijan.

Under these conditions, there is little question that Washington views the current Georgian government, which has attempted to develop closer relations with Russia, as a threat to its interests, placing a question mark over Georgia’s complete subservience in a potential war against both Iran and Russia.

Georgian President Salome Zourabishvili was elected late last year on the platform of developing a more pragmatic relationship with Russia. A French citizen and descendant of the Georgian aristocracy, she reportedly holds monarchist views and studied at New York’s Columbia University under the late Zbigniew Brzezinski, one of US imperialism’s foremost geostrategists. She supported the 2003 US-backed “Rose Revolution“ and was foreign minister under Saakashivili from 2003 to 2004.

However, while Zourabishvili is in favor of Georgia joining both the EU and NATO, she has recently objected to a permanent US military base in the country, saying it would be “perceived as a provocation.“ Her statement prompted a massive backlash, not only from the opposition parties but also from the ruling Georgian Dream party, which was quick to distance itself from her. The vice-speaker of the parliament from the Georgian Dream party insisted that “any military cooperation with the United States is a priority for our country,“ adding, “This country is our main partner and ally.”

Speaking on behalf of Saakashvili’s United National Movement parliamentary faction, Roman Gotsiridze said, “The foreign ministry must immediately confirm that the statement that we allegedly do not want a US military base is a government position, or refute it,” adding, “If she [Zourabishvili] continues like this, she will end up impeached.”

The stepped-up pressure on the Georgian government by the Western-backed opposition to take a more belligerent stance toward Russia is in line with the preparations for an imminent war against Iran. The US has systematically tried to draw Georgia into its war preparations and has worked to undermine the relatively close economic relations between Georgia and Iran.

In 2012, still under Saakashvili, the US reportedly spent $5 billion on 20 hospitals and several airports in Georgia that could be used for US troops in case of war against Iran. Under pressure from Washington, Georgia unilaterally suspended its free visa regime with Iran in 2013. The country also froze some 150 bank accounts of Iranian companies and individuals and suspended direct flights between Tbilisi and Iran.

After the conclusion of the Iran nuclear deal, a free visa regime with Iran was reinstated in 2016. According to media reports, up to 300,000 Iranians travel to Georgia every year under the visa regime, not only for holidays, but also to flee the devastating economic and social impact of the US economic warfare against Iran. Many also try to become residents of Georgia so as to move further to other EU countries. In recent months, the Georgian government has toughened its stance on Iranian immigrants to the country. Out of over 6,000 immigrants who were deported in the first half of this year, roughly half were from Iran.

EU meeting on Iran ends with no agreement to prevent US war

Alex Lantier

On Friday, diplomats from Germany, Britain, France, the European Union, China, Russia and Iran met in Vienna for talks on the 2015 Iranian nuclear treaty, a year after Washington unilaterally scrapped the agreement. No agreement emerged from the meeting on the central issue: the growing danger of a US war against Iran.

Last week, amid an ongoing US military build-up in the Persian Gulf, US President Donald Trump announced that he had pulled back from launching air strikes on Iran that would have caused hundreds of deaths only 10 minutes before they were to begin. On Friday, at the G20 summit in Osaka, he indicated that US war threats would escalate, declaring that “there’s no rush” to ease tensions with Iran.

“There’s absolutely no time pressure,” he added. “I think that in the end, hopefully, it’s going to work out. If it does, great. And if doesn’t, you’ll be hearing about it.”

It is clear that Washington’s unilateral scrapping of the 2015 treaty and its imposition of sanctions targeting Iranian exports were a prelude to a new US war drive. Prior to the Vienna summit between representatives of the remaining signatories to the 2015 treaty, Iranian officials warned that it was the “last chance.”

“I think this meeting can be the last chance for the remaining parties … to gather and see how they can meet their commitments towards Iran,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi told the Fars news agency. He added that US sanctions against Iran “lack any legal basis” and are a “desperate” measure.

On Friday, during the G20 summit in Osaka, Chinese President Xi Jinping starkly warned that the Persian Gulf, the center of the world’s oil supply, is “standing at a crossroads of war and peace.” According to China’s Xinhua news agency, Xi said, “China always stands on the side of peace and opposes war. All parties must remain calm and exercise restraint, strengthen dialogue and consultations, and jointly safeguard regional peace and stability.”

Xi’s statement came after his June 5 summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, where China and Russia vowed to “protect” their ties to Iran and “firmly oppose the imposition of unilateral sanctions” by anyone.

Nonetheless, despite the danger of all-out war across the Middle East, and potentially the entire world, under conditions where Iran and Russia are already engaged in a bloody eight-year proxy war against US-backed militias fighting for regime-change in Syria, the Vienna summit failed to reach any deal.

“It was a step forward, but it is still not enough and not meeting Iran’s expectations,” Iran’s representative in Vienna, Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, said of the talks.

Araqchi said the sticking point was the EU’s refusal to defy crippling US sanctions on Iran’s oil exports that are strangling its economy. Araqchi criticized the Instex (Instrument to Support Trade Exchanges) institution set up in Paris by Germany, Britain and France to finance EU-Iran trade without using the US dollar. Up to now, the EU powers and European companies have refused to trade with Iran through Instex, citing fears of US retaliation.

“For Instex to be useful for Iran, Europeans need to buy oil or consider credit lines for this mechanism. Otherwise, Instex is not like they or we expect,” Araqchi said.

Even as it faces US trade war threats, China is defying US sanctions on Iranian oil and greeting Iranian oil tankers in its major ports. It is expected to import 200,000 barrels per day from Iran, according to industry estimates cited by the Financial Times.

Asked in Vienna whether China would obey Trump’s order to cut Iranian oil exports to “zero,” Chinese Foreign Ministry official Fu Cong said, “We reject the unilateral imposition of sanctions, and for us energy security is important … We do not accept this zero policy of the United States.”

The EU, Berlin, London and Paris are pursuing a different policy—capitulating to US threats and demanding that Iran take no action, even as Washington sends thousands of troops and an armada of warships to the Persian Gulf to threaten it.

In Vienna, EU diplomat Helga Schmid merely confirmed that Instex is “operational” before demanding Iran’s “full and effective implementation” of the 2015 treaty. She thus echoed demands this week from EU Council President Donald Tusk, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron that Tehran abide by the treaty, even after Washington has discarded it and threatened to bomb Iran.

Araqchi rebuffed these calls, warning that Iran could act on its threat to restart uranium enrichment and make more than the 300kg limit on uranium specified by the 2015 treaty. “I don’t think the progress made today will be enough to stop our process, but the decision will be made in Tehran,” he said.

This statement reflects growing anger with the EU in Iranian ruling circles. After German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas visited Tehran earlier this month to demand that Tehran observe the 2015 treaty, while warning that Europe “cannot work miracles” in foreign policy, the Iranian press mocked him. “The impotent cannot work miracles,” wrote the daily Resalat, while the daily Javan caricatured him as an officer doing a Nazi salute and asked, “What was the point of his visit?”

The Vienna talks underscore the failure of whatever hopes remained, after nearly 30 years of bloodletting after the first US war against Iraq in 1990-1991, that rival capitalist governments’ diplomatic maneuvers can avert a new imperialist war in the Middle East. Instead, even broader disasters are being prepared.

Amid its continuing economic decline compared to powers like China and Germany, Washington is resorting more aggressively to its military to try to restore its former global hegemony. Yet a US war with Iran, a country with three times the population and four times the size of Iraq, would dwarf even the horrific 2003-2011 US occupation of Iraq, which left a million dead. After a decade of bloody proxy wars in Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen, such a war would even more rapidly move toward a global war between the world’s major nuclear-armed powers, threatening the survival of humanity.

The EU powers’ attempts to whip Iran into line with US demands do not reflect agreement with Washington’s Iran policy. Behind the scenes, US-EU tensions are surging. At a NATO defense ministers’ meeting Thursday in Brussels, when newly installed acting US Defense Secretary Mark Esper said he would tolerate no further actions from Iran, his French counterpart, Florence Parly, reportedly replied by demanding that Washington not involve NATO in military action in the Persian Gulf.

The EU powers plan to spend hundreds of billions of euros on a future independent European army, and Washington has sent repeated diplomatic communications in recent weeks threatening to cut off military cooperation with the European Union. Plans for an EU army are more and more clearly bound up with the rivalry between the United States and Europe over the trillions of dollars in oil money, critical positions on world markets and control of military bases at stake in the new round of imperialist wars of plunder that are being prepared.

Nevertheless, amid growing opposition from workers across Europe to police state policies and austerity measures intended to finance Europe’s military build-up, EU politicians are downplaying US war threats against Iran. Macron declared Thursday that he shares the US “strategic objective” in Iran, namely, preventing “Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.” He decried any Iranian moves to abandon the nuclear treaty.

Macron also contested Russian reports, backed by radar data, that the US drone shot down by Iran over the Persian Gulf was hit over Iranian territorial waters. He said the information available to French authorities indicated it was “in the international zone,” as alleged by Washington.

London has already announced the dispatch of a hundred British commandos to the Persian Gulf to join the military build-up against Iran.