US President Barack Obama outlined his long-awaited ‘strategy’ on Wednesday night to ‘degrade and ultimately destroy’ the Islamist group ISIL that has established an Islamic State (IS).
Obama vowed to ‘eradicate’ the group. He said: ‘My fellow Americans, tonight I want to speak to you about what the United States will do with our friends and allies to degrade and ultimately destroy the terrorist group known as ISIL.’
However, Obama does not limit US air strikes to Iraq alone. He continues: ‘Moreover, I have made it clear that we will hunt down terrorists who threaten our country, wherever they are. That means I will not hesitate to take action against ISIL in Syria, as well as Iraq. This is a core principle of my presidency: If you threaten America, you will find no safe haven.’
It turns out however that he refuses to make an alliance to fight IS alongside Syrian president Assad, and in fact Russia’s Foreign Minister Lavrov may well be 100% right, when he predicted that Obama sees that fight against IS in Syria as another way of attacking Assad, and removing him, by building up the anti-Assad forces that ISIL emerged out of in the first place.
For three long years, Assad’s forces have driven the Islamist ‘rebels’ back despite them being heavily armed, equipped and trained by the US, UK and Saudi Arabia. Included in these Islamist ‘rebel’ groups are the very same ISIL fighters that Obama now says he wants to eradicate.
Rather than form a common front with Assad against their joint ISIL enemy, Obama added: ‘In the fight against ISIL, we cannot rely on an Assad regime that terrorises its own people – a regime that will never regain the legitimacy it has lost. Instead, we must strengthen the opposition as the best counterweight to extremists like ISIL, while pursuing the political solution necessary to solve Syria’s crisis once and for all.
‘Across the border, in Syria, we have ramped up our military assistance to the Syrian opposition. Tonight, I call on Congress again to give us additional authorities and resources to train and equip these fighters.’
He intends to bomb ISIL in Syria without the permission of the Syrian government, and also beef up the Islamist forces that are still fighting Assad.
When Cameron and Obama attempted to drum up support for a US bombing raid on Syria a year ago it was the British working class, and the US working class that made it impossible for Cameron to get parliamentary consent and forced Obama to pull back from putting it to Congress, as he feared it would be the last thing he would do.
Obama is determined that this will not happen again. This is why he has announced that he does not need the support of the US Congress to bomb Syria.
His ‘running dog’ Cameron has echoed this with a parallel statement that he does not need to get the support of the House of Commons for the same venture. The need of imperialism to reorder the Middle East and grab its oil has produced ‘democratic leaders’ who are determined that Congress and the House of Commons will not have any control over their warmongering activities.
Turning his fire against Russia, Obama continued: ‘It is America that has the capacity and the will to mobilise the world against terrorists. It is America that has rallied the world against Russian aggression, and in support of the Ukrainian peoples’ right to determine their own destiny.’
This again is rubbish. The US and UK helped to form, train and arm the Islamist movements to overthrow Assad. Qatar and Saudi Arabia supplied the cash.
Their actions produced the terrorists that they are now collectively terrified will return to the UK and the US and bomb and behead UK and American citizens. Again on the Ukraine, it was the US that supplied the $5bn that financed the fascist movements that organised the February 21 coup that began the mass slaughter in the Ukraine.
In fact, Russia’s actions have always been defensive and not offensive. As Putin said – Russia could have been in Kiev in a week if it had wanted to.
Obama and Cameron are playing a dangerous game.
The way to answer them is through building parties of the Fourth International all over the world to lead the world socialist revolution to its victory, replacing bloodsoaked capitalism and imperialism with world socialism.
