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12th World Congress 2020

Resolution on the Middle East

Revolution strikes back, war clouds loom

Saturday, 8 February 2020 10:00 (UTC)
ISA
World Congress
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This document is one of the resolutions from the 12th World Congress of ISA (formerly the CWI), which took place in January-February 2020. Following a certain delay due to pressing work and interventions into the stormy world situation, it was uploaded to our archive in July 2020, for the benefit of our readers. Documents were agreed on World Relations, Western Europe, Central & Eastern Europe, Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and on women’s struggles and socialist feminism.

A revolutionary wave is again rocking the Middle East and North Africa. This is occuring in the context of a global wave of mass movements and the re-worsening capitalist crisis. After years of dominant trends of counter-revolutions that shed rivers of blood across the region, in the form of imperialist military interventions, sectarian conflict and re-asserted dictatorships, the masses have once again taken the initiative in a series of countries, testing their strength and terrifying the ruling classes.

Capitalism is incapable of bringing any semblance of stability to the region. The economic situation experienced by the masses is heading from bad to worse, and the region continues to lead the world both in terms of youth unemployment and income inequality. Millions continue to live under the yoke of military dictatorships and medieval oligarchies. As the fires of war are still raging in Yemen, Syria and Libya, the rivalries between competing powers are reaching new heights, threatening to engulf the region in a new spiral of military clashes and human destruction. These conflicts are forcing mass displacements of people, yet scientists warn that another 7 to 10 million people in the Middle East and North Africa could be forced to leave their homes over the next decade as a result of climate change.

Around the time of the first revolutionary wave in 2010–2011, the CWI (now renamed as ISA) explained that the mass movements could not last indefinitely and that they would bump into serious challenges and retreats due to the lack of a genuine far-sighted revolutionary leadership. But we also highlighted that despite the serious weakness of the left in the region, the counter-revolutions would not be long-lived and that the processes of revolution were bound to re-erupt, with renewed and even more far-reaching rebellions by the working class and youth.

An essential feature of the last year has been a marked upturn in the class struggle in important parts of the region. 2019 started in the midst of a revolutionary uprising in Sudan. The next month, the Algerian masses rose up in an unprecedented mass movement. In just nine days, two of the Arab world’s most entrenched autocrats were gone. Since then, the independent action of the masses has reasserted itself as a key factor in the political situation in a series of countries, often reproducing slogans from the so-called Arab Spring and targeting the “system” in its entirety. Unmistakably, important sections of the Arab masses are regaining confidence to fight back. Measured by population, about three quarters of the region has experienced protests over economic issues over the last year, according to Haaretz.

An appraisal of the age demographics of this new wave of protests sheds light onto one of the reasons for this revival. The majority of protesters arrested in Egypt in October were in their late teens and early twenties, too young to have played an active role in the 2011 revolution. Similarly, many of the Iraqi protesters are teenagers under the age of 20. A new generation, less directly wounded by the trauma of past defeats, is playing a catalyzing role in pushing this new wave of struggle forward.

Capitalism is locking millions of young people across the region out of any job prospect, a situation that has worsened considerably since 2010–2011. The IMF lowered its projected growth rate for 17 of the 20 economies in the region in April 2019, and this is only set to get worse, considering the global economic slowdown. Foreign investment has flattened out over recent years and in parallel, many countries of the region have experienced an explosion of public debt, which has increased by an average of 10% of GDP each year since 2013.

In general, there is widespread anger at the parasitic and super-corrupt capitalist elites across the Middle East, which is also reflected in large levels of hatred for the political rulers — which are often one and the same. The slogan “all of them means all of them” in Lebanon perfectly encapsulates this mood. The elections in Tunisia have shown that even in the country brandished by bourgeois commentators as the poster-child of a supposedly successful market-driven transition to “democracy”, the post-2011 political settlement already lies in tatters, as all the parties associated with it have been electorally vomited out by big sections of the population.

Renewed protests in Egypt

The development of renewed struggles in Egypt, the most populated country in the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region, has significant regional and international implications. Although small in scale, the spontaneous outbreak of explicitly anti-Sisi protests in Cairo and many other cities in September was the largest, boldest and most public defiance to the regime since the military coup. Along with the increasing number of acts of insubordination by workers, they are the tip of the iceberg of the erosion of Sisi’s legitimacy. This phenomenon has taken place as Sisi’s regime has “driven a violent economic bulldozer that has wiped out the middle class and run over the poor”, to paraphrase a Jordanian journalist.

Though the call for a ‘million march’ did not materialise, the September events, taking place after years of systematic repression, can be the beginning of the breakdown of the “fear factor” and therefore a turning point in the process of revolution and counter revolution in that country.

Tahrir square was blocked by the army and more than 3000 were arrested, but the army didn’t dare to unleash lethal repression. This “calculated” repression betrayed a probable mixture of anxiety, confusion and disagreements at the top over how to react to the discontent in society. The police raided the offices of the Mada Masr news website in the end of November, after it reported that Sisi’s son, Mahmoud al-Sisi, was about to be sent away to Russia to serve as military envoy after his failure to “handle” the protests.

Sisi’s victory in last April’s referendum to allow him to stay in power till 2030 was aimed to camouflage the decrease in his popularity. The 90% support he got in this referendum was overshadowed by the extremely low turn-out: 44%. In the immediate aftermath of the coup, and polarization in society, Sisi did manage to win over sections of the population with promises of “stability” and “security”. But this was a shallow and temporary support.

Egypt’s economic growth in recent years was not transformed into stability let alone improvement — 4 million people have fallen into poverty between 2015 and 2018, while 60% suffer from poverty according to World Bank figures. The $12 billion loan received from the IMF was accompanied by new cuts in subsidies and price hikes. The tourism sector, which provides livelihood to significant parts of the population, never recovered to its pre-revolutionary levels of income. These conditions allowed the breakaway tycoon Mohamed Ali to spark rage among workers and the poor when he exposed the corruption and wealth of Sisi’s family and the ruling elite. As the masses regain strength and confidence, the fractures at the top will grow.

Two months after the protests, Sisi appointed 16 new provisional governors, 11 of them coming from the security apparatus. Generals have taken over the management of coastal cities, including Alexandria. This move came before an anticipated cabinet reshuffle that is expected to involve massive changes. According to Youm7, a pro-regime newspaper, the final list of candidates will be approved by the security apparatus.

The question of who can potentially lead the next wave of protests in Egypt, and in which direction, is crucial. There’s no doubt that sections of the ruling class and the military will try to derail struggles to safe channels. Although having suffered serious blows by Sisi’s heavy repression, the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist forces can reemerge in the context of a persisting political vacuum; the regime’s repression granted them the status of martyrs, which can contribute to blurring their counter-revolutionary role.

The regime’s brutal crackdown and the widespread social despair has also meant that deadly terrorist attacks have been a regular occurence all through Sisi’s years of rule, especially in the Sinai Peninsula. Several human rights organizations have highlighted how much Egypt’s overcrowded prisons have become an important recruiting tool for ISIS and other sectarian groups. Yet periods of mass revolutionary upsurge in Egypt have shown the potential to unite Muslim and Christian workers and youth in action, and to push back not only against the reactionary poison of terror groups, but also against the conditions that nurture them.

The left in Egypt, including workers’ leaders, paid a heavy price for supporting the coup or Morsi’s government during the stormy events of 2013. Those fatal mistakes flowed from the false assumption that the revolutionary process should go through a “democratic stage” led by capitalist and pro-capitalist forces. This idea will come back on the table again as the November 2020 parliamentary elections approach, and even more so once Sisi’s throne begins to shake. The political independence of the working class is a crucial principle for the socialist left in Egypt to influence events, and to block the inevitable attempts of the counter-revolution to regain the upper hand.

Ferment in Jordan

In Jordan, the last few years have seen an extended social ferment against the background of dire economic conditions, made worse by IMF-dictated austerity measures and Trump’s brutal sanctions on the UNRWA (UN agency for Palestinian refugees, which operates many schools and health centers in Jordan). From mass consumer boycotts to mass demonstrations and a general strike in 2018 which led to the dispersal of the government, the Jordanian working class has come to the fore.

Importantly, right-wing pro-capitalist Islamist opposition forces have been less central in these developments than before. A one-month popular teachers’ strike — the longest strike to date in the public sector — ended in October, after the government was finally compelled to agree to relatively significant pay rises. The strike was organized in response to miscalculated repressive measures against earlier teachers’ protests, and it ended as the regime was facing a potential flare-up of a much broader political crisis, and the king intervened to allow more concessions.

Recently, there have been protest marches of unemployed youth across the country and sit-ins in the capital `Amman, as official unemployment figures soared in recent years to just below 20%. Reflecting the depth of the crisis in what used to be described an “island of stability” in the region, the king is faced with growing opposition also from bourgeois circles, including former state and military officials, and from among the rural tribes that historically have been a major pillar of support for the monarchy. The development of mass movements in neighbouring countries will increase the confidence and militancy of sections of the Jordanian working class in the next period.

Lebanon — “All of them means all of them”

Lebanon saw its most important mass movement to date with the uprising of October 17th, inspired by its sister-movement in Iraq. An estimated two million enraged people (a third of the population) of all ethnic and religious backgrounds poured to the streets. The movement brought to the surface a generalized hostility to the ruling elites and an unprecedented challenge against the sectarian, confessional-based political system.

This was reflected in the composition and in the widespread usage of the Lebanese flag. The usage of national flags was a strong feature in the 2011 “Arab Spring” across the region and is still the case. While it has reflected a relatively weakened pan-Arab nationalist consciousness, it also serves as a counterweight to sectarian division. This is a phase in the direction of the development of distinct independent class consciousness. Internationalism is also once again a strong feature in the current revolutionary wave, with Lebanese and Iraqi protesters repeating variations of the slogan “from Iraq to Beirut, one revolution”!

In Lebanon, mass protests, including celebration-like rallies, with DJs and MCs, showed a strong hatred of the national and sectarian elites and a cross-sectarian class solidarity, including chants of solidarity with the 1.5 million Syrian refugees. The geographical spread, involvement of workers and poor communities, and the cross-sectarian nature of this movement indicate the depth of class rage against the background of poverty, inequality, corruption, broken infrastructure, power cuts, water shortages and mass unemployment (officially a single digit figure, but about 25% of the working age population is unemployed, and around 40% of youth under 25). Also, significantly, vocal demands for women’s rights surfaced in the movement.

Fundamentally this has been a generalized uprising against the dire conditions imposed by a crippled neo-colonial capitalist system — characterized by one of the starkest wealth inequalities in the world — in a small country devastated by decades of imperialist meddling, aggression, wars and occupation, deep sectarian divide and civil war.

While the unions organize only a small fraction of the working class, a protest general strike (in fact a type of “people’s strike”, as seen in various movements internationally) was organized on October 21st, implying the potential power of the working class. Thus the masses brought to an end a government cabinet that had only been established a scant few months earlier. Yet, the declaration of Hariri’s “national unity” government’s resignation, coming after the masses declined token concessions, bumped into demands for greater change.

In the aftermath of the 2006 Israeli invasion and the 2008 global economic crisis, followed by the effects of the Syrian civil war with a massive inflation of the local population, the Lebanese economy was plunged into a rapidly worsening crisis. In its strategy to deal with the crisis, the Lebanese bourgeoisie recently turned again to its French and western imperialist patrons. The CEDRE conference (“PARIS IV”) in April 2018 continued the logic of its predecessor events since the beginning of the century: imposing harsh neo-liberal measures as conditions for liquidity, given mostly in loans — already Lebanon has a government debt of 150% of GDP, one of the highest in the world. Trump’s much boasted “highest ever” economic sanctions in 2019 against any business alleged to be linked to Hezbollah only further destabilized the economy.

Unlike the Western-backed so-called “Cedar Revolution‘’ of 2005 — which brought an end to Syrian military presence — the recent mass protests are stirred and led by neither of the two main pro-capitalist political camps, nor any sectarian leaders. Both the Western-backed Sunni billionaire Sa`ad Hariri’s bloc and the Iranian-backed right-wing populist Shi`ite Hezbollah’s bloc, fearing a social revolution, have been thrown into a direct conflict with the masses at this stage. Hezbollah populist leader Nasrallah began by attempting to pose as sympathetic to the protests, and eventually moved to fully oppose the movement, blaming the crisis on a foreign plot. Sections of the protesters replied with the chant: ”all of them means all of them, and Nasrallah is one of them". Hezbollah’s popular support has weakened in recent years against the background of its sectarian pro-Assad intervention in Syria, its endorsement of neo-liberal policies at home, and the depletion of its coffers resulting from US sanctions on Iran, which compelled Hezbollah to cut on its charity programs. Very importantly, the recent movement included a significant participation of Shi`ites from the Beqaa Valley and the south.

However, Hezbollah still maintains significant social reserves among the poor Shi`ite and some other sections, portraying itself as a champion of the poor and a defence force for the Lebanese people against the Israeli war machine and imperialist aggression. Currently it is on the defensive, but there is a serious danger that it may turn to more aggressive attempts to divide and repress the mass uprising at a later stage. Already there have been incidents of physical assaults by Hezbollah and Amal supporters against protesters.

In general, the capitalist state and sectarian elites have so far feared that more brutal repression of the movement will backfire. But at any phase of retreat of the unorganized masses, more open attempts at repression and sectarian division may be attempted by the state or organized sectarian forces. Despite the scale of the movement and cross-sectarian unity, the violent sectarian clashes that aborted and suffocated the limited protests of 2011 must still serve as a serious warning.

Faced with an official trade union federation (CGTU) conspicuous by its absence, the mass movement in Lebanon has encouraged the building of new, independent trade unions — as is the case among journalists and media workers, in the NGO sector, among teachers and others. These are vital steps to rebuilding a militant and organized labor movement, severely weakened by years of corruption and sectarianism.

Given the lack of a revolutionary leadership to help point the way forward, the idea of a government of “technocrats” has gathered support. While the masses are giving this slogan a different content than the one intended by the ruling class, this could ultimately serve to derail the revolution. The call for a revolutionary constituent assembly for a completely new Lebanon, a socialist Lebanon, should be the answer. The democratic organizing of the movement via local and national action committees is an urgent task, along with steps to advance the launching of a new broad cross-sectarian working-class party around a revolutionary socialist program. If bold initiatives are taken, the conditions are currently there for the potential rapid growth of such a party.

The “Iraqi Spring”

In Iraq the unprecedented “Tishreen Revolution” (meaning, October-November revolution) took the form of a mass revolt, with Baghdad’s Tahrir Square serving as a revolutionary center, consciously echoing the Egyptian revolution. This is the broadest mass movement in the post-Saddam era. Hundreds of thousands stormed the streets against the central government, state corruption, breakdown of public services, unemployment and the costs of living. The movement spread from Baghdad to the predominantly Shi`ite southern cities, but it takes a clear stance against the sectarian divide. Sunni youth travelled to Baghdad to join demonstrations, and solidarity vigils for the protesters slain in Shi`ite provinces were organized in schools and campuses in the Sunni province of Anbar and even in Mosul.

Heavy repression by the central government and its more brutal handling of the Iranian-backed, predominantly Shi`ite militias of the Popular Mobilization Forces (including machine gun fire) resulted in over 450 protesters killed and 20,000 injured in Mid-December. A partial internet blackout was used to sabotage mass communications and means of organizing. Yet, the mass uprising refused to capitulate. A protest ‘general strike’ was organised on 17 November, boosted by the mobilisation of the youth.

Prime minister al-Mahdi, a puppet in office for merely a year, already gave the impression at the end of October that he was willing to follow his Lebanese counterpart and resign, but reportedly this was strongly opposed by his Iranian “bosses”. A few weeks later he was forced out by the continued protests, which didn’t stop after his resignation.

The end of the anti-ISIS civil war in 2017 allowed more “breathing space” for the working class and oppressed strata in Iraqi society to raise demands for improvement in living conditions, and the situation very rapidly translated into an eruption of class rage. As precursors to the current movement, there was an explosion of social protests in Baghdad and Basra in 2018. There were other outbursts of mass rage even before the declaration of the territorial defeat of ISIS, such as the mobilization of about a million supporters of the populist Shi`ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr around calls for change and against corruption in 2016.

But the spread of the current movement is sharply greater, and it seems to be largely spontaneous and not dominated by any political force — one students’ banner in November stated: “No politics, no parties, this is a student awakening!” This anti-political sentiment reflects the alienation from the sectarian-dominated political establishment but also a sense that there’s no political alternative on offer.

In the 2018 parliamentary election, the Alliance Towards Reform (aka Sairoon/Forward) came first. Despite a low turnout of 45%, their 1.5 million votes were significant. The political alliance is led by the party of al-Sadr — who has portrayed himself in recent years as an adversary of both Washington and Tehran — in collaboration with the Iraqi Communist Party and various liberal elements. Al-Sadr, himself responsible for deadly sectarian violence against Sunni civilians in the previous decade, turned to express a mass sentiment in opposition to the sectarian divide, to foreign powers meddling, state corruption and poverty. Sairoon became the largest parliamentary faction after the election, but in May last year it reached a deal with the pro-Iranian Fatah faction. This allowed the formation of Mahdi’s now hated government, in exchange for a ministerial post in the governing coalition.

Al-Sadr was hesitant to call for Mahdi’s resignation. During the uprising he still tried to negotiate with Mahdi a cabinet reshuffle, with his associates taking some of the posts. He also appeared in a video on September 10th, sitting at a religious ceremony between Ayatollah Khamenei and Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani. The Communist Party resigned from parliament only at the end of October. Though supporting the protest movement, they don’t participate in it under their own banner. Al-Sadr deployed his men, Peace Brigades (Saraya al-Salam), to the squares as “security guards”. But the Sadrists’ attempt to belatedly appear as a strong opposition to Mahdi’s government, while their movement was essential in the forming of said government, has undermined their credit.

In the northern Kurdish autonomous region, the mass unrest of recent years receded, particularly after the failure of the Kurdish bourgeoisie to implement the result of the 2017 independence referendum. The fears that the anti-sectarian sentiments in the rest of Iraq may be used as a cynical pretext for attacks on the already curbed autonomy rights seem to play a role. But this may change if the Iraqi movement manages to show some gains against the central government.

The opposition to sectarianism is particularly important in the Iraqi movement, given how repression and bloody sectarian conflict have cut across and limited the process of revolution since 2011. The sharpened opposition to sectarianism is also the result of the masses’ opposition to the consolidation of the sectarian character of the Iraqi state, with the integration of the sectarian Popular Mobilization Forces into the state.

The spark for the “Tishreen Revolution” was the sacking of the Iraqi general `Abdel-Wahab a-Sa`adi as a commander of the state’s “Counter-Terrorism Service” — a move seen as a dictation from Tehran against a popular national figure that was considered non-sectarian. Iranian flags were burned in protests. The Iranian imperialistic meddling, one of the results of the barbaric US-led imperialist invasion of 2003, is opposed bitterly not only among the Sunni population but also among sections of the poor Shi`ite. The uprisings in both Iraq and Lebanon are definitely a blow to the geo-political interests of the Ayatollah regime in Tehran, which itself fears the spread of mass protests within Iran.

In the US capitalist press, the recent mass convulsions are framed as beneficial to the US imperialist anti-Iranian agenda, and thus the Trump administration shed crocodile tears at the suffering of the Iraqi masses. However, this cynical attempt is unlikely to fool the Iraqi masses, who know in their flesh the decades of US-led imperialist economic and military offensives against the Iraqi people. Interviews with 1,250 protesters in Baghdad and the southern cities showed that the US is trusted only by 7%. In fact, the masses revolted against the savage neo-liberal measures imposed via a “shock doctrine” by the imperialist occupation, and later by the slavish and decadent national bourgeoisie, whose immense corruption (one of the worst globally, according to Transparency International) is one of the factors behind the eruption of this mass revolt. In the context of a global recession on the horizon, the economic room to maneuver by the central government on a capitalist basis is meager. Thus, the Iraqi working class’s experience and thirst for change currently pushes for further radicalized conclusions in opposition to capitalism and imperialism.

Iranian turmoil

A sudden increase in the price of gasoline by the Iranian government ignited a new wave of insurrectionary protests against the regime, which rapidly spread across over a hundred cities and towns, including Tehran and among the Arab and Kurdish minorities. Banks and gas stations were set on fire. Tehran’s bazaar was shut down in protest. The regime responded with harsh repression, killing over a hundred protesters, and cutting off international internet communications. “Death to the dictator”, the shout that reverberated in the mass 2009 Green Movement and in the waves of protests in 2011 and 2017–2018, was among the popular slogans.

Although recent years’ protests have not yet reached the numerical strength of the 2009 movement, which mobilized millions of people in the streets, they represent a potentially far greater danger for the reactionary Ayatollahs’ regime. This is due to their geographical spread across the country, tendency toward bolder actions, and crucially, a more working-class composition and no illusions in any wing of the regime.

After Trump took the US out of the ‘nuclear agreement’ of the P5+1 with Iran in 2018, the brutal escalation of imperialist US sanctions dramatically worsened the position of the already crisis-ridden Iranian economy. Nasty stagflation is strangulating the economy — following Trump’s move, Iranian channels for oil export were narrowed and the economy slowed, while the inflation rate skyrocketed, reaching a record peak of over 50% for a while in 2019. The unbearable material pressure was exacerbated by the dysfunctional government handling of recent major earthquakes and floods. An explosive ground for the eruption of mass discontent against the regime was created.

The experience with the ‘moderate’ wing of president Rouhani, since he was first ’elected’ and was celebrated in the streets in 2013, shattered such illusions. Rouhani couldn’t deliver on the hopes of the masses for improvement in living conditions and democratic freedoms.

The rival ‘hardliner’ wing of the regime, around the billionaire Supreme Leader Khamenei and the ’Revolutionary Guards‘, attempted to channel popular rage at Rouhani and the ’moderates'. This had little effect, and the entire ruling class trembles today from the potential of a cross-ethnic mass uprising, influenced by the uprisings in Iraq and Lebanon.

Trump’s recent attempt to extort the Iranian rulers into renewed negotiations was openly rejected — his one-sided exit of the ‘nuclear deal’ crashes the logic of any new deal. From the point of view of US geo-strategic imperialist interests, Trump’s inconsistency and arrogant approach, playing around a neo-conservative agenda, has injected further instability to the whole region.

The regime managed to quell the previous wave of protests in Iran via a combination of heavy repression and an effective appeal and mobilization of its own base via anti-imperialist demagoguery in the face of the Trump-led sanctions, provocations and aggression. The regime still maintains a significant base, which is undermined but mustn’t be underestimated. Previously, the intervention in the movement of counter-revolutionary elements, openly monarchist and pro-US, seriously played into the hands of the regime.

Importantly, there were signs of opposition to US and western imperialism in the recent movement, which may help cut across the appeal of the regime that portrays the uprising as a foreign plot by the US, Saudi Arabia and Israel. A consistent anti-imperialist position, along with emphasis on international solidarity with the mass movements across the region, is key to disarm the regime’s propaganda machine — particularly while the regime is intervening against the uprisings in Iraq and Lebanon.

Khomeini’s counter-revolution against the mighty revolutionary struggle of 1978–1979, after liquidating the revolutionary left, banning the workers’ unions, and consolidating itself during the Iran-Iraq war, has managed to hold onto power ever since. It’s done this by relying on heavy oppression of the working and middle classes and by nurturing a false image of defending the Iranian people and the Muslim masses in the region against western imperialism. But that image has been seriously eroded for quite some time.

The large Iranian working class objectively remains a key for any successful revolution in Iran today. The immediate task of the movement is broadening and organizing at a local, regional and national level. This should be done around a program of toppling the capitalist clerical regime of the mullahs and their paramilitary organizations, taking control over the central hubs of the economy and convening a revolutionary constituent assembly to launch a new democratic, socialist Iran, with full guarantee for personal liberties and equal rights for minorities. Along with opposition to all imperialist aggression, an appeal by the rising workers and youth of Iran to the masses internationally can help effectively mobilize solidarity and dramatically boost an international wave of revolution.

Regional antagonisms

When Trump took office in 2017, he rhetorically challenged Obama’s administration “softness” in the Middle East, while shaking off Bush Jr.'s legacy in the Iraq War of de-stabilizing the whole region, at a serious cost for US capitalism. This contradiction itself stemmed from the changed reality for the US ruling class, no longer in a “unipolar” world order, presiding over a heavily indebted economy and mass social fermentation at home. The US masses had been bitterly disillusioned by the experience of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. US capitalism was no longer in a position to launch any similar military campaign with “boots on the ground”, not least as that would unleash a militant mass opposition movement domestically.

Despite zigzags, Trump’s regime ultimately continued the strategic shift led under Obama — against the background of decreasing dependency on Middle Eastern oil — to move military attention away from the Middle East, towards eastern Asia and China. Every junction along the way exposed again and again that the loud barkings from the White House aren’t backed with the same bite, in contrast to Bush Jr.‘s neo-con “War on Terrorism” and regime-change agenda. In Syria, Trump gave in to Russian imperialism’s move to re-assert its dominance. Across the region, China is creeping in economically and diplomatically, exploiting the weakened US influence.

Iran was part of Bush Jr.’s “axis of evil”. But the latter’s invasion of Iraq, meant to install a solid pro-US imperialist puppet regime, only ended up boosting Iran’s regional position and extending its sphere of influence into Iraq itself. Trump’s administration wavered between contemplating a “regime change” in Iran and the idea of forcing Tehran into signing a new deal. It turned to a strategy of combining severe economic attacks and leaning on the proxy military activities of Israel and of the Saudi-led Arab-Sunni axis. To lower the political and economic costs for US imperialist intervention in the region, Trump has pushed to consolidate an anti-Iranian Arab military front in the form of a neo-colonial “Arab NATO” (Middle East Strategic Alliance). Ad-hoc military coalitions are one thing, but it is very doubtful this project can develop very far, given the rivalries and different priorities of the states involved.

Trump’s sudden announcement of a military pullout from northern Syria after an October 6th phone call with Erdoğan, against the Pentagon’s advice, led to a fiasco. Three week later, hundreds of US troops and armored vehicles were deployed to Northern Syria from Iraq and Kuwait to “protect” the Deir Ezzor oil fields, allegedly from ISIS. At the end of November US troops conducted a joint military operation against ISIS, with SDF fighters they abandoned just before. But the Turkish military invasion, and the consequent deal between Erdoğan and Putin, reshaped the reality on the ground: the Syrian regime and Russian troops returned to the region for the first time since 2012, at the expense of the US geo-strategic position. The re-deployment of US troops is not only about oil — it’s about losing ground.

Trump’s attempt to completely withdraw US troops from Syria — the second failed attempt since the end of 2018 — was perceived by the Israeli and Sunni Arab rulers as a serious blow to their interests. In such a scenario, not only would they be left “on their own” to tackle the ongoing basing of Iranian and pro-Iranian forces in Syria, but Trump’s move also signalled to them a general warning on the limitations of their very alliance with US imperialism. Already under Obama, the ‘nuclear deal’ soured relations between the superpower and its regional allies. Trump moved to rewarm relations, with a pretension of giving an emphatic backing to the regional anti-Iranian axis. This could not alter the more profound trends, particularly in the Syrian arena following the heavy Russian intervention.

At the same time, despite strengthening its regional military and political grip, an Iranian regime more desperate, due to the sanctions and mass fermentation, is driven into sharper collision with its regional adversaries. It may also turn to relaunch its military nuclear project, possibly as a means to force concessions from western imperialism.

The Israeli regime’s series of air strikes against Iranian and pro-Iranian targets in Syria were made more extensively and openly in the recent period, along with bombings attributed to Israel against targets of the Shi`ite Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq. The Israeli regime is attempting to limit the upgrading of the military capabilities of Hezbollah in Lebanon and any Iranian military forces based in southern Syria. Iran, Hezbollah and the Assad regime are eager to deter the Israeli regime, limit the effect of its military attacks and, for propaganda reasons, flex their military muscles. Even though currently neither the Israeli regime nor the Iranian regime and its allies have any interest in the eruption of a full-scale military confrontation, including a renewed clash between Israel and Hezbollah, the current dynamic is of a dangerous escalation and the situation is volatile. Further episodes of military escalation are inevitable, and even a major conflagration cannot be ruled out in the next period.

Israel-Palestine

The conflict with Iran has led in recent years to a stronger overlap of interests between the Israeli regime and its Sunni Arab counterparts. Netanyahu boasts of an historical warming up of relations under the sponsorship of the Trump administration. However, that process is restrained by two major problems: the Palestinian question, and the undermined domestic position of the region’s dictatorships in the face of movements or potential movements of the masses. The reactionary Arab rulers cannot fully disregard the solidarity of the masses in the region with the plight of the Palestinians. It is not an accident that 25 years after the alliance between Israel and Jordan became formal in a peace agreement, the Jordanian King now warns that the relations between the states are at their worst low.

Trump’s old promise for the “deal of the century” between Israel and the Palestinians was rapidly exposed as a cynical code name for a series of provocative measures to boost the Israeli occupation. The recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, without recognizing the Palestinians’ right for a capital in East Jerusalem and for a state in general, was quickly followed by political and financial attacks on the UNRWA and the Palestinian refugees, as well as a recent declaration that the Israeli colonial settlements in the occupied West Bank and Eastern Jerusalem are not “in violation of international law”. This is on top of the recent formal US recognition of the Israeli annexation of the Golan Heights occupied in the 1967 war. Those declarations merely remove masks from the role of US imperialism in relation to the conflicts in the region. They cannot alter Arab and Palestinian positions, apart from further underminingr the ideas of a “two-state” solution and of Israeli-Arab normalization.

A factor in the political crisis and the divide opened up in the Israeli ruling class is the more provocative, arrogant and inflexible national and geo-strategic approach of the Netanyahu regime. Netanyahu is embroiled in corruption scandals and leaning more on right-wing populism and alliance with far-right elements.

The September Israeli election saw the running of the former head of the Histadrut (main union umbrella organization), Amir Peretz, at the head of the Labor Party on the basis of a social-democratic campaign, putting class issues at the fore and even talking about being in favor of a “class struggle, not ethnic struggle”. This is coming hypocritically from a figure who was the Security Minister during the Israel-Lebanon war of 2006, and a minister in Netanyahu’s government during the 2014 Gaza war. The left elements in this campaign were not enough to either weaken the effect of a “lesser evil” vote for the Blue-White generals-led alliance against Netanyahu, nor to impress broad layers among the working-class, who may appreciate Peretz’ ability to express class anger but are no longer taking him seriously. However, these developments do give a new indication for the potential for new developments of left-leaning populist elements in the very right-wing mainstream Israeli politics.

In parallel, the Arab-Palestinian based ‘Joint List’ managed to regain most of its 2015 share of votes in September, but with far less enthusiasm and hope — it was in a large part a protest vote in response to the racist incitement campaign by Netanyahu at the eve of the election. Despite necessary opposition to racism, the occupation and national oppression, this political alliance (essentially a cross-class nationalist alliance between left-wing and right-wing forces) advanced a very narrow program of national and democratic demands.

Since it contained reactionary elements which oppose and threaten women’s and LGBT rights, it could not be relevant to the important “LGBT Strike” and “Women’s Strike” movements that developed in Israel in 2018, and could not help strengthen the link between those who protested against the Nationality Law. As a nationalist force, it could also not be relevant to the Ethiopian-descent anti-racist protests. In a period of growing discontent, the task of forming a new left, working-class oriented, broad Jewish-Arab party is urgent. In parallel, opportunities are slightly reopening for the growth of our forces on the Marxist left.

The tensions around the Israeli-Iranian conflict, the acute Gaza crisis and the “threat of a bi-national state” in the context of the Israeli-Jewish population losing a clear majority between the river and the sea (historic Palestine) are all serious causes of concern for the Israeli ruling class. In the current circumstances in the Middle East and the aftermath of the rise of Hamas rule in Gaza in the previous decade, they’re more resistant to territorial concessions today. But in a post-Trump, post-Netanyahu, and most likely a post-Abbas context, the Israeli ruling class may attempt to stabilize the national conflict with a new deal with the PLO and Palestinian Authority, which may include some new concessions and recognition of the Palestinian Authority as a formal state, of course without the content of any independent national state. In the context of a capitalist Middle East, a “two-state” solution in reality means constructing a puppet enslaved statelet in the shadow of a major regional power, one of the strongest military forces globally. This would guarantee immense material and political inequality and no solution to the national aspirations of the mass of the Palestinian refugees as well. This is a non-starter.

This does not mean that a “one-state” program may offer a “better” contemporary solution, as in fact it disregards the deepened national schism, suspicions and strong national consciousness among the two national groups. While standing emphatically against the brutal oppression and expropriation of the Palestinians, a program that guarantees the right for existence, self-determination and equality for both nations is required as a starting point.

But a solution can only be achieved in the context of a “socialist spring” across the region.

At the height of the revolutionary wave of 2011, the Israeli regime’s military aggressions against the Palestinians were kept slightly more in check. But the trends of counter-revolutions in the region, along with the relative growth of the Israeli economy, allowed the Israeli ruling class and the Netanyahu regime to stabilize for some years — only to be drawn into a more acute political crisis in the recent period. The further development of mass struggles across the region, and the development of popular movements among the Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line, as well as among Israeli workers and youth, are key to potentially overcoming the stark political vacuum on the left in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, and the region in general.

In the Gaza Strip, under the direst conditions, the “Great March of Return” movement against the barbaric blockade (imposed by Israel and Egypt, in collaboration with the Fateh-controlled PA) and for Palestinians’ rights continued. Having started in 2018, it continued heroically despite deadly repression against the unarmed protesters, with hundreds killed and tens of thousands injured. It managed to secure some relief measures, but nevertheless inevitably lost momentum. It became more dominated by the right-wing Islamist Hamas and by desperate counter-productive measures, such as arson balloons. Yet, popular anger at the dead-end strategy, policies and repression by the local pro-capitalist and authoritarian Hamas administration also surfaced at times, including several days of protests by thousands across several locations against the costs of living in early 2019. Lacking any perspective for an effective strategy to overcome the blockade and the national oppression of the Palestinians, the Hamas administration is relying on financial crumbles from Qatar, on arrangements with the Egyptian regime (and indirectly with Israel), and on an exaggeration of their own military capabilities.

In between direct military confrontations, the Israeli regime relies on the Hamas administration to maintain order in the Strip. Following the November round of military escalations, there have been reports of some renewed indirect talks between Israel and Hamas about an attempted prolonged ceasefire and the idea of some economic concessions, among other things. Those are very limited, and cannot reach far in the present circumstances. The severe crisis has set up a quite explosive situation, as manifested with three rounds of serious military escalation in 2019. Without a serious change in Israeli and Egyptian policies, a major conflagration may eventually erupt again.

In the meantime, far-right Islamic Jihad is attempting to enter the political vacuum among those disillusioned with Hamas, including via the false promise of reactionary firing of projectiles into Israeli working-class communities, which only feeds Israeli nationalist reaction.

The 84 year-old president Abbas is extremely unpopular. A consistent majority wants him to resign, and Fateh and the PA are riddled with divisions against the backdrop of popular anger, manifested clearly in a series of popular struggles in recent years by workers and youth. From the point of view of the PA bureaucracy, new parliamentary and presidential elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council may be a means to regain some popular confidence and political stability, and to advance its return to the Gaza Strip. But the real trajectory is for further destabilization, given Israel’s aggression and intransigent stance, the lack of serious concessions on the table for Gaza, political rivalries and slow economic growth.

Among millions of Palestinians there’s rejection of the sectarian rupture between the administrations in Gaza and the West Bank enclaves, and thus the idea of a reunited Palestinian Authority with a “national unity” government seems to be seen as a way forward. But on the basis of the strategy and policies of both right-wing factions of the national movement, no genuine advance could be made in the struggle for national and social liberation of the Palestinian masses. But new elections could also serve to spur new developments on the left, as generally more room is opening for initiatives by independent Palestinian activists on the left in both Gaza and the PA West Bank enclaves.

Lessons and aftermath of the war in Syria

The civil war in Syria — which in many aspects is still ongoing and may even re-erupt on a larger scale — is a warning for the revolutionary masses in neighboring Lebanon and the rest of the region. The degeneration of the massive protest movement against the Assad regime into a sectarian civil war was far from an automatic process. The instinctive urge of the bulk of the masses in different parts of Lebanon today to unite across ethnic and sectarian lines is a feature that was evident in almost all the mass movements in the region in 2011, including in Syria itself.

The most decisive factor in the turn of the tide was the absence of any cohesive working-class oriented political forces, powerful enough trade unions and ultimately a sizable revolutionary party that could unite the workers, peasants and urban poor from different confessions around a socialist program. This allowed the Assad regime and all the involved forces from all camps of reaction to reassert, exploit and fan ethnic and religious divisions, portraying themselves falsely as “protectors‘’ of minorities. Various reactionary forces — from western imperialist powers to Jihadist militias — managed to regain the initiative in a whole number of countries after the initial revolutionary upsurge. The revolutionary process was derailed, the masses became preoccupied with daily survival and demoralization took root. But things did not come back to ”stability".

The Assad regime had at the time of the 2011 uprising a stronger social base, in some regions of Syria, compared to Mubarak in Egypt or Ben Ali in Tunisia. But this factor was far from decisive. Russia’s massive military intervention was key for the regime’s survival, alongside the mobilization of Iranian forces, Hezbollah and other Shi`ite militias.

Russia’s foreign policy is the continuation of Putin’s domestic politics. Apart from reasserting control over what Russian imperialism considers its own traditional sphere of influence, the aggressive intervention in Syria allowed Putin’s regime to strengthen its ties with not only Assad’s allies but also with his rivals.

Since 2015, the Saudi regime has been developing its economic ties with Russia. In October 2019 Putin paid a visit to the king in Riyadh, shortly after Trump’s withdrawal of forces from northern and eastern Syria. Purchasing of Russian weapons, including missile defense systems, were on the agenda. Russia has already managed to get weapon deals with Turkey, Egypt, Iran and of course Syria. The Saudi regime is looking for a say in Syria’s future deals and arrangements.

The UAE, an ally of the Saudi regime in Yemen, reopened its embassy in Syria. A plan of financial aid for Syria’s reconstruction from the Gulf state is on the table and in discussion with Russia. The aim is to push back against the rival regional powers — mainly Iran, but also Turkey and Qatar — by economic means

Since 2017, ISIS has lost its “caliphate” in Syria and Iraq as a result of the joint military offensive of world and regional capitalist powers. Last October its leader al-Baghdadi was killed in a US raid in northern Syria. The CWI (now renamed as ISA) had explained that the fascistic methods of ISIS were bound to quickly alienate big sections of the Sunni masses. But while these are very serious blows to ISIS, it does not mean the end of the group’s activities, nor the removal of the conditions that enabled this hyper-sectarian, extreme counter-revolutionary force to grow.

In Iraq and Syria it is still estimated to have 11–15,000 soldiers. In Syria alone, there are more than 30 detention camps that hold thousands of ISIS fighters, sympathizers and other associated detainees. Moreover, ISIS still has affiliates in many countries across Asia, Africa and elsewhere.

The Turkish invasion of Syria brought in its wake Turkish-backed jihadist groups that reportedly opened some of the prisons and released ISIS members. This does not mean the immediate regrouping of ISIS. However, as long as the conditions that feed Islamic fundamentalism are still there — social desperation, religious sectarianism, imperialist exploitation and mass discontent among the Sunni population — there is a possibility for them to make a comeback in some form, particularly in the context of Rojava being under renewed attack.

The main reason for the Turkish invasion in northern Syria was to boost Erdogan’s domestic support, but also the entrenched fear that the Kurds in Syria claiming their democratic rights would encourage the more than 20 million Kurds living within Turkey’s borders to demand their own rights. The Turkish invasion met with no real resistance from the Syrian and Russian armies on the ground. The regime of Bashar Al-Assad, and of his father before that, tried many times to do what the Turkish regime is doing now — forcefully change the demographic character of northern Syria at the expense of the Kurds.

Iran, one of the main allies of Assad, has similar concerns, and does not want the Kurds in Iran being next in fighting for autonomy. Therefore the Turkish invasion of the northern Syrian territories, although not the other powers’ favorite scenario, does not threaten their interests as much as a Kurdish autonomous entity would, by galvanizing movements in all four countries where the Kurdish population lives.

Throughout history the Kurdish people have been repeatedly betrayed and massacred by imperialist forces and local regimes their leaders first allied with. This is something that the Kurdish leadership should have known and prepared for. Instead, they alternately trusted US and Russian imperialism, as well as Assad. The leadership of the Kurdish movement should have, from the beginning of the war in Syria, tried to reach out to the working classes and the poor communities in the rest of Syria, Turkey and the region. They should have come into coalition with them against imperialism and against all the reactionary regimes in the region, on a secular and internationalist socialist program. The building of a society that will respect the right of self determination for the Kurds and other national and religious minorities cannot be realized on the basis of capitalism. It can only be a voluntary socialist confederation of Middle Eastern states. Although it might appear distant today in Syria, this task has to be continuously taken up by the left and the working people internationally, as well as by the Kurdish forces in Kurdistan and in the diaspora.

After more than 10 years of growth, the Turkish economy is facing recessionary waves. Last year, Turkish workers saw their purchasing power drop by more than 30%; growth in the economy is sluggish and unemployment is rising. Erdoğan’s Pyrrhic victory in the 2016 referendum has been shaken further by the results of the municipal elections in 2019, through which the ruling AKP lost all major cities. This situation has created adverse shocks to Erdoğan’s party; one after another, its historical cadres are either leaving or being expelled from the party.

The popularity that the CHP (the republican party) had gained after the municipal elections has already started to fade. The lack of a clear political opposition to Erdoğan has meant that the barrage of nationalism, neo-Ottomanism, and internal repression during the invasion in Syria managed to temporarily bring back the popularity of Erdoğan close to the popularity he had during the 2016 elections, at 48%. The new scapegoat for all the problems of the Turkish working class is Syrian refugees. The Turkish invasion in Syria killed two birds with one stone, stopping the Kurdish forces from developing while also presenting Erdoğan as acting to solve the refugee problem and therefore the economy. However, the costs of a long-term occupation and the unresolved imbalances in the Turkish economy will inevitably come back to haunt the regime in the future.

Similar short-term boosts to morale and the economy are the intended goal of the Turkish regime with its threats towards Greece and Cyprus. Erdoğan is using the excuse of securing the rights of Turkish-Cypriots to drill in the Exclusive Economic Zone of the Republic of Cyprus (RoC). The deal concluded in November between the Tripoli-based Lybian government of National Accord and the Turkish government, which traces a corridor between the Turkish and Libyan coasts in waters claimed by Greece, marks a new escalation in the maritime dispute between Greece and Turkey. This is happening against the background of a scramble for energy reserves in the area and of a renewed civil war in Libya, itself fuelled by the intensifying competition between foreign powers.

The protection of the interests of the energy tycoons from Italy, France, and the US has strengthened the western imperialist armed forces in the Eastern Mediterranean. This is celebrated by the local governments of Greece and RoC, led in the previous years also from the left, Syriza and AKEL. It’s also changing the mood of people that had traditionally anti-imperialist and anti-NATO feelings towards support for the imperialist meddling. The left and working people have to draw conclusions from the ongoing imperialist tensions in the Middle East, as well as from the sham alliances that are formed and dissolved in the area: in case of a “hot” episode of conflict to safeguard the drilling of the multinationals, it is the working people of Cyprus, north and south, and of the whole area who will pay the price once more.

Saudi Arabia: a colossus with feet of clay

The drone strikes on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities last September, knocking out over half of the country’s daily oil production overnight, were the most devastating blow ever imposed on the ‘jewels of the Saudi crown’. They exposed that behind the aggressive posturing of Mohamed Bin Salman’s foreign policy lies a colossus with feet of clay. The whole idea of Saudi Arabia as a secure anchor of stability in the global energy market, protected by massively expensive weaponry, has been undermined forever. US imperialism’s muted response to an attack on the most critical energy facility existing on the planet has also revealed the limits of the US “security umbrella” policy in the Persian Gulf, at the heart of the Carter Doctrine.

This episode has exposed the actual reach of the Saudi regime. Unlike Iran, Saudi Arabia cannot rely on a vast array of battle-hardened militias across the region. On top of that, its economy has entered troubled territory. Foreign investment has been on a decade-long decline and oil prices have dropped over the past five years, while the costs of bankrolling Sisi’s Egypt and the immense cost of the Saudi-led war in Yemen need to be paid.

Even the much vaunted “sale of the century”, the partial sale of the Saudi state-owned oil company Aramco (which tops the list of the 20 fossil fuel companies responsible for one-third of all greenhouse gas emissions), part of a sweeping privatization push by the Saudi monarchy, has raised just enough money to cover the latter’s fiscal deficit for about the coming six months.

As the public sector can no longer absorb unemployment as it did before, the regime has engaged in moves towards the “Saudisation” of the workforce, in an attempt to curb growing unemployment rates among Saudi nationals. Yet many private businesses are reluctant to move away from the mass pool of extremely cheap, pliable and unorganized migrant workers at the source of their profits. Meanwhile, the youthful and booming Saudi population is yearning for decent jobs and democratic change, fuelling the fire burning under the seats of the Saudi rulers.

The prominent role played by women in the new wave of the revolutionary process in the Middle East and North Africa, and the sweeping changes their demands entail, also represents a thorn in the side of the Saudi regime, standing in sharp contrast with their real but very limited alleviations of the suffocating oppression endured by women in Saudi Arabia. In part, these “reforms” are a reaction to the international wave of radicalization and mass action on gender issues in recent years, which have exposed even more than before the reality of life for women in what remains the most gender-segregated country in the world.

More generally, the much-publicized “liberalization drive” by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is a classic attempt to implement controlled reforms from the top in order to preempt mass explosions from below. It is combined with a perpetuation of methods of mass intimidation, as illustrated by the intensification of the regime’s recourse to brutal executions in recent months, or by the much-publicized dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in late 2018.

Bin Salman’ siege on Yemen has turned into an unmitigated disaster, most of all for the Yemeni people. In 2019 alone, close to 400,000 Yemenis were displaced from their homes across the country. 80% of the country’s population of 24 million is facing severe food shortages and living on the edge of famine, and close to 100,000 Yemenis have died as a result of the Saudi-led intervention since 2015. Reports have indicated that even if the five-year war in Yemen were to end today, it would take two decades for the country’s children to reach even the much lower level of malnutrition they suffered before the conflict.

Billions of dollars and tens of thousands of bombs have not brought the Saudi regime any closer to the goal of defeating the Houthis today than in March 2015, when the military onslaught started. In fact, the Houthis’ military capabilities are much more developed today than back then. Whether it’s about firming up Hadi’s position, ensuring Saudi “national security”, or curbing Iranian influence, the imperialist-sponsored Saudi intervention has failed on every front and led to an increasing import of the conflict onto Saudi soil itself.

Over the last few years, Qatar, Jordan, Morocco and Sudan have all pulled out or scaled back their military presence in Yemen. The revolutionary movement in Sudan in particular has forced the withdrawal of 10,000 Sudanese troops fighting in the country onto the agenda, thus depriving the Saudi-led war effort of precious ground forces. It is in this context that the Saudi regime has quietly reopened behind-the-scenes negotiations with the Houthis. However, any deal cut between the two sides is unlikely to be long-lasting, submitted as it is to the broader conflict raging between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Having moved out of the anti-Houthi front in the North, the Emirati regime has also been trying to extricate itself from the conflict, pursuing its separate agenda in the south by arming and using separatist militias as proxies to carve up its own area of influence. In August 2019, the Saudi and Emirati proxies turned their guns on each other: open military clashes erupted in Aden between the Emirati-backed separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC) and the forces loyal to the Saudi-backed puppet government of Mansour Hadi. The precarious power-sharing deal concluded between the two camps is nothing but a desperate plaster on the open wound which has arisen within the Saudi-UAE alliance.

This takes place in the context of a resurgence of the national question, sharpened by the war. A majority of Yemeni southerners long for an independent south; at the same time, many do not trust the right-wing, Emirati-aligned and unaccountable politicians of the STC. Socialists should champion the right for self-determination of southern Yemenites, but also link this aspiration to a struggle for job creation and a living wage, for housing and education, for land rights, for full access to water and electricity, and against the war and the foreign imperialist interference in the region’s affairs. Such a program can forge unity of all workers and poor against the wealthy reactionary elites and corrupt warring factions on all sides, and undermine the social breeding ground on which they recruit their foot soldiers. A voluntary and fraternal alliance of South and North Yemen, as part of a democratic socialist confederation of the Arabian Peninsula, is the only way to free the region from the scourges of war, famine and misery.

Conclusion

The recent period saw the reemergence of important mass movements and even revolutionary crises, unprecedented in character, with the epicenter located in countries less affected in the 2011 revolutionary wave. The general situation remains very contradictory. Despite the immense power of mass struggle and the initial marginalization of sectarian schisms, class solidarity and a working class revolutionary strategy have not consolidated in the form of mass political grouping on the left, and there is a clear lack of left points of references for the mass movements.

The idea of a “general strike” is currently being raised in the movement more in the form of a “people’s strike”. But the rapid mass unionization of millions at the height of the Egyptian revolution in 2011 should serve as a reminder of how breakthroughs in the class struggle may develop exponentially in this period. This is not an automatic process, and small initiatives may play a critical role. The working class in the region objectively has the decisive potential to radically transform that picture — not least, the enormous and young working classes in Iran, Egypt and Turkey. It is this objective potential which underlines the trends of mass uprisings as part of a revolutionary process.

The ruling classes across the region are correct to fear the masses’ intervention in their “order”. Both their attempts to brutally repress and deter the masses, and their attempts at some material or political concessions — including Bin Salman’s moderate “palace revolution” — are quite limited at the end of the day. With the new generation being pressed by unbearable conditions, and at the same time gathering and sharpening conclusions from the experience of other movements locally and internationally, revolutionary processes are bound to reassert themselves, often on a higher level than before.

The huge gap between the objective crises in the region, the massive thirst for a deep change, and the current stage of class consciousness and organization, only underlines the importance and urgency of the task of assembling and consolidating revolutionary socialist forces in the region — the only way out. The CWI (now renamed as ISA) has modest but determined forces in the region — with a greater geographic spread than a decade ago — and is placed to increase its profile, expand and take part in advancing vitally needed left initiatives in the next period.

Uploaded to our archive in July 2020.

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Resolution on the Middle East (08 Feb 2020)

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