The Iran nuclear pact and US imperialism’s drive for global hegemony

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry sits across from Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in Vienna, Austria, on July 13, 2014,

before they begin a bilateral meeting focused on Iran's nuclear program. [State Department photo/ Public Domain]

By Keith Jones

After 20 months of negotiations, the Obama administration last week reached agreement with Iran, China, France, Russia, the UK and Germany on a 15-year accord to “normalize” Iran’s civil nuclear program. Should this agreement survive the opposition of sections of the US ruling elite, it will constitute a significant tactical shift on the part of US imperialism, one with potentially far-reaching implications.

Since the 1979 Iranian revolution toppled the Shah’s bloody US-backed dictatorship, implacable opposition to Iran has been a constant in US foreign policy. During the past 12 years, Washington dramatically intensified its campaign of bullying and threats. Having ordered the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, respectively Iran’s eastern and western neighbors, George W. Bush twice came close to launching war against Iran.

In 2009, the Obama administration sought to bring about regime-change in Tehran via a “Green Revolution” fomented through unsubstantiated claims of a stolen election. Two years later, Washington cajoled its European allies to join the US in imposing the most punishing economic sanctions ever deployed outside a war.

Now, in exchange for sweeping concessions from Iran, Washington has agreed to suspend the economic sanctions and provide Tehran a 15-year path to “normalize” its civil nuclear program.

Obama has stipulated that last week’s agreement with Tehran is limited to the constraints on its civil nuclear program. Yet Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry and other leading US officials have also made clear that they view the agreement as exploratory, a means to test Iran’s intentions. Their policy of “engagement” with Iran is a strategic bet that through a combination of continuing pressure and inducements, including an influx of Western investment, US imperialism will be able to harness Tehran to its predatory agenda.

The Republican Party leadership, the Wall Street Journal and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) are publicly opposing this shift. They are demanding that Obama extract iron-clad guarantees of Tehran’s submission and warning against sidelining the US’s traditional Mideast client states, above all Israel and Saudi Arabia.

The public bluster of the Republicans, however, is not necessarily an indication of the real intentions of the main decision-makers in the Republican Party. To some extent, the Republicans’ opposition can prove useful to Obama in prying further concessions from Tehran. That said, it is far from certain the Iran nuclear accord will be implemented, let alone endure.

The nuclear accord and the fractious ruling class debate over it are a reflection of the mounting problems that US imperialism faces as it seeks through aggression and war to offset the erosion of its relative economic power and to confront multiplying challenges to its global hegemony.

There is deep dissatisfaction within the US ruling class over the outcome of the three major wars the US has waged in the broader Middle East over the past decade-and-a-half. In Ukraine, Washington has thus far been stymied, with the sanctions imposed on Russia failing to produce the desired results. To the Obama administration’s dismay, many of its closest allies, led by Britain, defied the US and signed up as founding members of the Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Development Bank earlier this year.

All of this has left the Obama administration and the US ruling class groping for an effective, integrated plan of attack.

Certain things can be said concerning the trajectory of US imperialism, the strategic calculations that underlie the proposed shift in US relations with Iran, and the implications of this shift:

* Obama and the entire US ruling elite are determined to maintain US global hegemony through military force.

There is something decidedly ominous about the president’s repeated proclamations over the past week that the failure of his diplomatic turn to Iran would result in war. These comments underscore that Washington is far from renouncing violence and point to the explosive character of global relations.

* Central to American imperialism’s global strategy is dominance over Eurasia, the vast land mass that is home to almost two-thirds of the world’s population.

In pursuit of this aim, Washington has long viewed Iran as an especially significant prize. The country stands at the intersection of three continents (Europe, Asia and Africa), commands the Straits of Hormuz, through which 40 percent of the world’s exported oil flows, straddles two of the world’s most energy-rich regions (Central Asia and the Middle East), and itself possesses the world’s second largest natural gas and fourth largest oil reserves.

* Washington’s trumped-up conflict with Iran over its nuclear program was never just about Iranian-US relations. Nor was it solely about control of the Middle East. It always involved the broader question of US relations with the world’s major powers.

Even as US dependence on Mideast oil has declined, Washington has stepped up its efforts to maintain control over the Middle East so as to ensure domination over a region that supplies many of its principal competitors in Europe and Asia, including China and Japan, with much of their oil.

* When Obama claims, as he has repeatedly done, that for US imperialism war is the only alternative to a nuclear deal with Iran that realizes many but not all of Washington’s objectives, he is, for once, not lying.

Had the sanctions regime started to unravel, Washington would have faced a demonstrable challenge to its pretensions to world leadership, one that it could not walk away from without suffering a major geo-political defeat. In response, it would have been obliged to extend the sanctions--in other words, retaliate against the “sanctions-busters” by freezing their overseas assets and denying Iran access to the US-European controlled world banking system. Or, in order to avoid such action, which could quickly spiral into a military confrontation with China or Russia, the US would have been compelled to render the issue moot by abandoning the sanctions in favor of all-out war.

The Pentagon has long been planning and gaming such a war. And while the American people know nothing of these plans, in various think tank reports it is openly admitted that a war with Iran—a country four times the size of Iraq and with nearly three times the population, and which has significant state and foreign militia allies—would quickly envelop the entire Middle East. It would further inflame the US-stoked Sunni-Shia sectarian conflict and, at the very least, tie down much of the US military for a protracted period. Last, but not least, such a war would incite rising popular opposition in the US, where class tensions are already fraught after decades of social reaction.

Obama is arguing that US imperialism has a cheaper, more prudent alternative. One, moreover, that, as Defence Secretary Ashton Carter boasted Sunday, “does nothing to prevent the military option” in the future.

* The agreement with Iran has been designed to give the US the maximum leverage over Iran and the maximum strategic flexibility. Should Tehran prove insufficiently pliant or should circumstances change, the US can initiate procedures to automatically “snap back” the sanctions and pivot back to confrontation with Iran.

Moreover, all of Obama’s arguments in favor of the nuclear accord—his assertion that it is better to “test” Iran’s intentions than immediately embark on a war that could prove hugely damaging to US imperialism’s strategic interests—are predicated on Washington’s supposed right to wage pre-emptive war against Iran.

* The Obama administration sees Western engagement with Iran as a means of preventing Tehran from being drawn into closer partnership with China and Russia. China is already Iran’s biggest trading partner and Russia its most important military-strategic partner.

A further US priority is to see if it can enlist Iranian support in stabilizing the Middle East under Washington’s leadership. The US and Iran are already at least tacitly allied in supporting the Iraqi government and Iraqi Kurdish militia in opposing ISIS in Iraq.

The Obama administration has also served notice that it intends to use the nuclear agreement to pressure Iran to assist it in reaching a political agreement in Syria that would see Bashar al-Assad’s Baathist regime replaced by one more amenable to US interests. Reversing previous US policy, Obama announced last week that Tehran should “be part of the conversation” in resolving the Syrian conflict.

* Longer term, the supporters of Obama’s Iran gambit aim to “turn” Iran, transforming it into an advance post of US imperialism in the Middle East and all Eurasia. That means to return the country to the type of neo-colonial subjugation that existed under the Shah’s regime.

Toward this end, Washington plans to probe and exploit the deep fissures within Iran’s bourgeois-clerical regime. It is keenly aware that the reins of Iran’s government are now in the hands of a faction (led by ex-president Hashemi Rafsanjani and his protégé, the current president, Hassan Rouhani) that has argued since at least 1989 for a rapprochement with Washington and has longstanding close ties to European capital.

* The Iran nuclear accord only intensifies the contradictions in US foreign policy, laying the basis for future shocks.

While exploring engagement with Iran, Washington is seeking to placate its traditional regional allies by showering them with offers of new weapons systems and increased military and intelligence cooperation. These actions threaten Tehran, which—notwithstanding the relentless US media campaign aimed at depicting it as an aggressor—already faces a massive military technology gap, not just with Israel, but with Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies.

Nor can the US afford to stand idly by as the European powers scramble to get back into Iran. On Sunday, Germany’s Vice-Chancellor and SPD leader Sigmar Gabriel arrived in Iran at the head of a German business delegation. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius has said he will soon follow.

To secure support from the US ruling elite, Obama is stressing that he has only agreed to lift the latest round of US sanctions on Iran. Other sanctions imposed in the name of opposing terrorism remain, meaning US corporations continue to be effectively barred from doing business in Iran.

If the US is not to lose out in the race to secure Iranian assets, it must either move forward with rapprochement—over the strenuous opposition of Washington’s current Mideast allies--or revert back to confrontation and demand the Europeans and others follow suit.

* Other strategic calculations, many of a pragmatic and short-term character, also appear to be bound up with the Obama administration’s decision to consummate a deal with Iran now. One cannot make firm judgments about these calculations, as events are moving rapidly and Washington’s policies are fraught with contradictions.

However, it was striking that in the lengthy interview Obama gave to the New York Times last week, the US president praised President Vladimir Putin, saying the agreement with Tehran could not have been reached without Russia’s strong support. He added that he had been “encouraged” by a recent phone call Putin made to talk about Syria. “That,” declared Obama, “offers us an opportunity to have a serious conversation with them.”

Is it possible that Obama is considering responding positively to Putin’s pleas for a ratcheting down of tensions over Ukraine in exchange for Moscow’s abandonment of Syria’s Assad? Could this be bound up not just with the crisis of US policy in the Middle East, but also with growing tensions between Washington and Berlin? Could this be intended as a shot-across-the-bow to Germany?

The US ruling elite has reacted with dismay to Germany’s cavalier role in the recent negotiations between the EU and Greece—not out of any concern for the Greek masses, but because of Berlin’s bald assertion of its new role as Europe’s disciplinarian.

Should the US ruling elite ultimately opt to move forward with the Iran deal, it will be from the standpoint of better positioning itself to withstand challenges to its dominance, including through military means, from its more formidable opponents, not only Russia and China, but also Germany, Japan and the other imperialist powers.

This article first appeared on World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) on 21 July 2015, and was republished with permission.

Steunbetuiging van Podemos aan Syriza

“Wij staan zij aan zij met het Griekse volk.” Dat zegt de Spaanse politieke partij Podemos in een Engelstalige mededeling, die wij hieronder integraal overnemen.

In view of the situation in Greece, and following the breakdown in the negotiations by the Eurogroup, Podemos wishes to communicate the following:

1.- Last Monday, the Greek government presented a proposal to the Eurogroup which included important concessions and was unanimously welcomed by the lenders as being reasonable and viable. In the following days, however, the international creditors led by the IMF did not accept the Greek government’s proposal to tax the wealthiest sectors of society, restructure the debt and launch an investment plan to revive the economy. Instead, they demanded to raise VAT on basic services and food and required further cuts on pensions and wages. In their effort to demonstrate that there is no alternative to austerity, the creditors only seem to accept the money of the poor, and insist on imposing the same logic and measures that led the country into a humanitarian disaster. The Greek economy is asphyxiated. To keep strangling it is the precise opposite of what must be done.

2.- Facing such blackmail and extortion, the Greek government has reacted to the ultimatum in an exemplary manner: by calling on the people to decide their own future in a democratic and sovereign way. Unlike the Spanish governments of 2011 and 2012, the Greek government has refused to violate the popular mandate derived from the January election. All the attempts at coercing, intimidating and influencing this vote by unelected powers, especially by the European Central Bank -which is willing to suffocate the Greek financial system to influence the outcome of the referendum-, constitute a flagrant and unacceptable violation of the democratic principle. We say that Europe without democracy is not Europe: all democrats should join their voices in denouncing these intolerable interferences and pressures. Democracy is incompatible with letting unelected powers govern and decide for us. It is democracy what is at stake.

3- With their intransigence, the creditors have demonstrated that they have no interest at all in solving the Greek debt crisis; their aim is rather to subject and overthrow a democratically elected government so as to prove that there is no alternative to the politics of austerity. Their blindness is such that they are willing to put at risk the integrity and the stability of the financial system and the European project itself, exposing them to speculative attacks whose price will ultimately be paid also by the citizens of other countries. We will say it once and again: they will be the ones to blame, they will be responsible for the consequences of this disaster.

4- Syriza did not create the tremendous economic crisis that affects Greece. It was the governments of New Democracy and PASOK, the friends of our PP and PSOE, who falsified data and accounts, surrendered the sovereignty of the country to the Troika, and handed Syriza an economic and social catastrophe that is necessary and urgent to reverse.

5.- Many international actors have already distanced themselves from the dogmatism of the creditors. Hundreds of thousands of people across the world have expressed their solidarity with the Greek people in their defense of the democratic principle. We demand that the Spanish Government and the European institutions respect the sovereignty and dignity of the Greek people, and that they consequently guarantee that the referendum takes place in conditions of freedom and complete normality. The democratic will and the fundamental rights of the Greek people, which have been systematically attacked during the long years of austerity, must be respected.

There are two contradictory fields in Europe: austerity and democracy, the government of the people or the government of the market and its unelected powers. We stand firm on the side of democracy. We stand firm with the Greek people.

US officials consider nuclear strikes against Russia

U.S. Air Force Gen. Philip M. Breedlove, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe and commander of U.S. European Command, talks at a press conference July 31, 2014, Gaziantep, Turkey.

(U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Nicole Sikorski/Released)

By Niles Williamson

US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter is meeting today at the headquarters of the US European Command in Stuttgart, Germany with two dozen US military commanders and European diplomats to discuss how to escalate their economic and military campaign against Russia. They will assess the impact of current economic sanctions, as well as NATO’s strategy of exploiting the crisis in eastern Ukraine to deploy ever-greater numbers of troops and military equipment to Eastern Europe, threatening Russia with war.

A US defense official told Reuters that the main purpose of the meeting was to “assess and strategize on how the United States and key allies should think about heightened tensions with Russia over the past year.” The official also said Carter was open to providing the Ukrainian regime with lethal weapons, a proposal which had been put forward earlier in the year.

Most provocatively, a report published by the Associated Press yesterday reports that the Pentagon has been actively considering the use of nuclear missiles against military targets inside Russia, in response to what it alleges are violations of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty. Russia denies US claims that it has violated the INF by flight-testing ground-launched cruise missiles with a prohibited range.

Three options being considered by the Pentagon are the placement of anti-missile defenses in Europe aimed at shooting Russian missiles out of the sky; a “counterforce” option that would involve pre-emptive non-nuclear strikes on Russia military sites; and finally, “countervailing strike capabilities,” involving the pre-emptive deployment of nuclear missiles against targets inside Russia.

The AP states: “The options go so far as one implied—but not stated explicitly—that would improve the ability of US nuclear weapons to destroy military targets on Russian territory.” In other words, the US is actively preparing nuclear war against Russia.

Robert Scher, one of Carter’s nuclear policy aides, told Congress in April that the deployment of “counterforce” measures would mean “we could go about and actually attack that missile where it is in Russia.”

According to other Pentagon officials, this option would entail the deployment of ground-launched cruise missiles throughout Europe.

Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Joe Skewers told AP, “All the options under consideration are designed to ensure that Russia gains no significant military advantage from their violation.”

The criminality and recklessness of the foreign policy of Washington and its NATO allies is staggering. A pre-emptive nuclear strike against Russian forces, many of them near populated areas, could claim millions of lives in seconds and lead to a nuclear war that would obliterate humanity. Even assuming that the US officials threatening Russia do not actually want such an outcome, however, and that they are only trying to intimidate Moscow, there is a sinister objective logic to such threats.

Nuclear warmongering by US officials immensely heightens the danger of all-out war erupting accidentally, amid escalating military tensions and strategic uncertainty. NATO forces are deploying for military exercises all around Russia, from the Arctic and Baltic Seas to Eastern Europe and the Black and Mediterranean Seas. Regional militaries are all on hair-trigger alerts.

US officials threatening Russia cannot know how the Kremlin will react to such threats. With Moscow concerned about the danger of a sudden NATO strike, Russia is ever more likely to respond to perceived signs of NATO military action by launching its missiles, fearing that otherwise the missiles will be destroyed on the ground. The danger of miscalculations and miscommunications leading to all-out war is immensely heightened.

The statements of Scher and Carter confirm warnings made last year by the WSWS, that NATO’s decision to back a fascist-led putsch in Kiev in February, and to blame Russia without any evidence for shooting down flight MH17, posed the risk of war. “Are you ready for war—including possibly nuclear war—between the United States, Europe, and Russia? That is the question that everyone should be asking him- or herself in light of the developments since the destruction of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17,” the WSWS wrote .

In March, Putin stated that he had placed Russian forces, including its nuclear forces, on alert in the aftermath of the Kiev putsch, fearing a NATO attack on Russia. Now the threat of war arising from US policy has been confirmed directly by statements of the US military.

These threats have developed largely behind the backs of the world working class. Workers in the United States, Europe and worldwide have time and again shown their hostility to US wars in Iraq or in Afghanistan. Yet nearly 15 years after these wars began, the world stands on the brink of an even bloodier and more devastating conflict, and the media and ruling elites the world over are hiding the risk of nuclear war.

US President Barack Obama is expected to escalate pressure on Russia at the G7 summit this weekend, pressing European leaders to maintain economic sanctions put in place in response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea last year. The latest outbreak in violence in Ukraine this week, which the US blames on Russia, is to serve as a pretext for continuing the sanctions.

Speaking to Parliament on Thursday, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko warned of a “colossal threat of the resumption of large-scale hostilities by Russian and terrorist forces.” He claimed without proof that 9,000 Russian soldiers are deployed in rebel-held areas of Donetsk and Luhansk, in eastern Ukraine.

“Ukraine’s military should be ready for a new offensive by the enemy, as well as a full-scale invasion along the entire border with the Russian Federation,” Poroshenko said. “We must be really prepared for this.” He said the Ukrainian army had at least 50,000 soldiers stationed in the east, prepared to defend the country.

Poroshenko’s remarks came a day after renewed fighting in eastern Ukraine between Kiev forces and Russian-backed separatists resulted in dozens of casualties. This week’s fighting marked the largest breach to date of the cease-fire signed in February.

Kremlin spokesman Dimitry Peskov told reporters on Thursday that Russia believed the previous day’s hostilities had been provoked by Kiev to influence upcoming discussions at the G7 summit this weekend and the EU summit in Brussels at the end of the month. “These provocative actions are organized by Ukraine’s military forces, and we are concerned with that,” he stated.

Each side blamed the other for initiating fighting in Marinka, approximately nine miles west of the rebel stronghold of Donetsk. Yuriy Biryukov, an adviser to Poroshenko, reported on Thursday that five Ukrainian soldiers had been killed in the fighting, and another 39 wounded. Eduard Basurin, deputy defense minister and spokesman for the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), told Interfax that 16 rebel fighters and five civilians had been killed.

Ukrainian forces also fired artillery at the rebel-held city of Donetsk on Wednesday. Shells landed in the southwest districts of Kirovsky and Petrovsky, killing 6 people and wounding at least 90 others. The city’s Sokol market was severely damaged, with several rows of shops burned to the ground.

Responding to Wednesday’s developments, members of the fascistic Right Sector militia have been called to mobilize for battle. Andrey Stempitsky, commander of the militia’s paramilitary battalion, posted a message on Facebook calling on those who went home during the cease-fire to “return to their combat units.” He warned that the Right Sector would “wage war, ignoring the truce devotees.”

This article first appeared on World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) on 5 June 2015, and was republished with permission.

Aalsmeer: vastgeroest in een monistische politieke cultuur?

 Bloemenveiling FloraHolland. Foto: Mediabank I amsterdam

Vandaag trad waarnemend burgemeester Jeroen Nobel (PvdA) aan in de ruim 30.000 inwoners tellende Nederlandse gemeente Aalsmeer. De gemeente verwierf wereldbekendheid door de bloementeelt en vooral de bloemenveiling, de grootste ter wereld. Recent was burgemeester Jobke Vonk-Veder (CDA), die de gemeente als onbestuurbaar had bestempeld, voortijdig afgetreden. Waarnemend burgemeester Nobel kreeg van Commissaris van de Koning Johan Remkes (VVD) een opdracht mee die kort samengevat luidt: onderzoek hoe de huidige [verziekte] Aalsmeerse bestuurscultuur kon ontstaan, en initieer een traject gericht op verbetering.

Wie het woord 'bestuurscultuur' googelt krijgt snel in de gaten dat er in meer Nederlandse gemeenten wat schort. Om er maar enkele te noemen: Amsterdam, Maasdriel, Zoetermeer, Den Bosch, Den Haag, Zutphen, Roermond, Leiden, Oldenzaal, Utrecht, … Nu de landelijke overheid de afgelopen jaren steeds meer overheidstaken heeft gedecentraliseerd moeten burgers meer dan ooit kunnen rekenen op een volwassen lokaal bestuur dat zijn opdracht op een kwalitatief goed niveau kan vervullen, met sterke bestuurders en een zelfbewuste gemeenteraad die op hoofdlijnen aanstuurt en scherp controleert.

Leidt de wet Dualisering van 2002 tot instabiliteit?

Waarom rommelt het binnen veel Nederlandse gemeenten? Heeft dualisering wat te maken met de politieke instabiliteit in gemeenteland? De wet Dualisering Gemeentebestuur van 2002 veranderde de verhouding tussen gemeenteraad en college. De raad moest kaders stellen voor het beleid, het college kreeg als taak dat beleid uit te voeren en het was aan de raad om daar toezicht op te houden. Wethouders waren niet langer lid van de gemeenteraad. Raadsleden zouden minder moeten vergaderen, meer tijd krijgen voor volksvertegenwoordigende taken, en konden beschikken over instrumenten als enquêterecht, fractieondersteuning en ambtelijke ondersteuning.

Het proces van dualisering verloopt in veel gemeenten blijkbaar erg moeizaam, en de wet heeft tot veel kritiek geleid. Maar uit een uitgebreid evaluatieonderzoek van bestuurskundige Merel de Groot van de Universiteit Twente blijkt dat die kritiek onterecht is. Om de dualisering te evalueren is het van belang te kijken naar het feitelijk verloop van gemeentelijke besluitvormingsprocessen en het feitelijk gedrag van raadsleden en wethouders. Tijdens een symposium op 11 april 2012 dat ter gelegenheid van de 10e verjaardag van de wet werd georganiseerd door het Ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken en Koninkrijksrelaties werden daar een aantal behartenswaardige uitspraken over gedaan.

Minder dominante wethouders, maar veel colleges blijven de baas spelen

Volgens prof. mr. J.W.M. Engels van de Universiteit Leiden heeft de dualisering geleid tot minder dominantie van wethouders op het politieke gebeuren. Vooral hun greep op de eigen fractie is verminderd. Voor de dualisering hadden wethouders volop ruimte voor gecontroleerde coalitiepolitiek door besluiten voor te koken en de burgemeester* politiek buitenspel te zetten. Sommige colleges opereren nog te defensief richting raad en focussen te sterk op de competentieverdeling. De raad wordt bijvoorbeeld overvoerd met leesvoer en zoetgehouden met nutteloze informatiebijeenkomsten, foute cursussen en ceremoniële werkbezoeken, terwijl de wezenlijke informatie vaak te lang of zelfs volledig wordt achtergehouden. Blijkbaar is de ambitie van veel colleges nog gericht op het behouden van de politieke leiding, aldus Engels.

In het kader van de dualisering moet de raad het meeregeren loslaten, sturen op hoofdlijnen (en het begrip 'kaderstellen' vermijden), zich in de controle maximaal laten bijstaan door rekenkamer, accountant en extern onderzoek, en als volksvertegenwoordiging meer in samenspraak met de burgers de politieke agenda bepalen. Voor Engels is het nog onderontwikkelde gevoel voor de nieuwe werkelijkheid op het gebied van integriteit een zorgpunt. Het omgaan met (de schijn van) belangenverstrengeling, vooringenomenheid, geheimhouding en vertrouwelijkheid blijkt nog teveel te steunen op klassieke, of - erger nog - eigen opvattingen over de normativiteiten die daarin van belang zijn, aldus de professor.

Afspiegelingscollege in Leiden, breed college in Maasdriel

Het Leidse D66-raadslid Jeffrey van Haaster liet in de discussie weten dat Leiden in 2010 resoluut afstapte van de monistische wethouderscultuur en een afspiegelingscollege vormde met een uit slechts 16 punten op twee A4-tjes bestaand coalitieakkoord. Buiten de 16 punten zijn de coalitiepartijen vrij, zodat het debat niet in eigen fractie wordt gevoerd maar in de raad, met meer ruimte voor inbreng van de burger. Nu niets tevoren is dichtgetimmerd kunnen coalitie- en oppositieraadsleden schitteren in hun controlerende en volksvertegenwoordigende rol, aldus Van Haaster. Waarnemend burgemeester Dick de Cloe van Maasdriel herkende de punten van Van Haaster en liet weten dat Maasdriel vandaag een breed college kent dat steeds naar meerderheden zoekt.

In Aalsmeer, waar de coalitie steunt op 12 zetels tegen 11, is er - net als in een aantal andere Nederlandse probleemgemeenten - van dualisering nog weinig terecht gekomen. De website van de gemeente Aalsmeer zegt wel dat “de gemeenteraad het beleid bepaalt en controle uitoefent op de uitvoering” en het college het beleid uitvoert, de realiteit is dat B&W van Aalsmeer zowel coalitie als oppositie in hun greep hebben. De CDA-bestuurdersvereniging zegt ijskoud dat de aanwezigheid van de wethouder in de fractievergaderingen belangrijke voordelen heeft, maar als de fractie meeregeert “de Trias Politica gewond” is en “machtsmisbruik op de loer” ligt.

Lokale CDA-voorzitter bepleit suprematie van “de integere elite”

Voor CDA-Aalsmeer voorzitter Hermen de Graaf die Elsevier** citeert, is “het duale stelsel” mislukt. Versterking van “de authentiteit van het leiderschap,” terug naar “acceptatie van leiderschap,” weg van “de vetocratie die ons nu terroriseert” en “luisteren naar de integere elite die het beste met de mensheid voor heeft”, dat zijn de griezelige zaken die De Graaf bepleit.

In Aalsmeer wordt het beleid nog altijd bepaald door het college. De wethouders formuleren samen met de coalitiefracties het collegeprogramma. Aalsmeer heeft geen boodschap aan de wet Dualisering. De raad mag vragen stellen, zelfs moties indienen, maar het coalitieakkoord wordt uitgevoerd. De raad mag meepraten over de programmabegroting en de voorjaarsnota, maar het beleid ligt vast en wordt te vuur en te zwaard verdedigd door de coalitiefracties.

Ziedaar de Aalsmeerse bestuurscultuur. Vastgeroest in een achterhaald monistisch politiek model.

*)  In Nederland wordt de burgemeester aanbevolen door de gemeenteraad, voorgedragen door de minister van binnenlandse zaken en benoemd door de regering
**) Elsevier is een uiterst rechts ogeoriënteerd opinieblad, en zowat de spreekbuis van de PVV van Geert Wilders

The bin Laden assassination and the lies of the “war on terror”

President Barack Obama talks with members of the national security team at the conclusion of one in a series of meetings discussing the mission against Osama bin Laden,

in the Situation Room of the White House, May 1, 2011. Gen. James Cartwright, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is seen on the screen.

Photo: Pete Souza, The White House

by Patrick Martin

The 10,000-word essay by Seymour Hersh on the US killing of Osama bin Laden, published Sunday by the London Review of Books, is a devastating blow to the entire narrative of the US “war on terror,” as it has been elaborated by both the Bush and Obama administrations.

The central thrust of Hersh’s exposure—that the Obama administration systematically lied about the raid by US Navy Seals that killed bin Laden on May 1, 2011—has been rapidly confirmed by other media outlets, including several that are hostile to Hersh and supportive of the White House.

NBC News reported, citing three unnamed sources, two of them in US intelligence, that a “walk in” from Pakistani intelligence told the CIA where Osama bin Laden was hiding a year before the US raid, and that the Pakistani government knew that bin Laden was hiding in Abbottabad, a headquarters town for the Pakistani military.

Several Pakistani news outlets reported the name of the former intelligence official who tipped off the CIA about bin Laden, identifying him as former brigadier Usman Khalid of the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, the Pakistani military intelligence service, who has been moved to the United States and is working with the CIA. They also confirmed that Pakistani officials at the highest level were aware of bin Laden’s presence and identified one intelligence official, Ijaz Shah, as the man who arranged to house bin Laden in Abbottabad, at the direction of then-president Pervez Musharraf.

It has also been revealed that many of the key allegations made by Hersh—the Pakistanis holding bin Laden, the Saudis paying the expenses, the “walk in” providing bin Laden’s location to the CIA, the Pakistani cooperation with the raid by the Navy Seals, the US plan to claim bin Laden had been killed by a drone-fired missile—were previously made by R. J. Hillhouse, a US college professor and blogger on national security issues, in several postings during August 2011. Hillhouse now says that Hersh’s story “has been spot on,” but that she had different sources within the military-intelligence apparatus.

There are continued attempts in the US media to rebut Hersh’s account by focusing on various alleged inconsistencies, and US officials and the White House have denounced the Hersh exposure while refusing to deal with any of its substantive charges. In other words, the military-intelligence apparatus and its media apologists proceed as they always do in response to exposure of US government crimes, with a mixture of stonewalling and character assassination.

Seymour Hersh is a courageous journalist with a record of exposing official crimes, going back to the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War. He has relatively few resources—above all his reputation for being willing to defy the official media consensus in order to report truthfully. He stands in sharp contrast to a media establishment where every significant report on the national security apparatus is cleared in advance with the government, and where most “exposures” are leaks planned and directed by the military-intelligence apparatus.

After the killing of bin Laden, the American media swallowed the official story without question. No official notice of instruction was required. The newspaper editors and the network executives knew immediately what it was they were not to investigate, and they proceeded accordingly.

The principal response of the media to Hersh’s revelations has been to bury them. After limited coverage on Monday, there was very little further commentary on Tuesday. CNN subordinated any references to the story to a manufactured terror scare over alleged threats posed by the Islamic State to the US “homeland.”

The reaction is itself a reflection of the explosive and far-reaching implications of Hersh’s exposures. The assassination of bin Laden, after all, was proclaimed by the Obama administration as its greatest foreign policy achievement, used to drum up support for the US military and intelligence apparatus and its illegal activities. The entire apparatus of the media, including Hollywood in the form of the CIA propaganda movie Zero Dark Thirty, was mobilized for this purpose. The entire narrative was a monumental fiction.

At issue, moreover, is not just the murder of bin Laden. Indeed, there is little doubt that the US government decided to kill the Al Qaeda leader to forestall a trial at which bin Laden could testify about his longstanding relationship with sections of the Saudi state and US intelligence agencies.

Ever since the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, American foreign and domestic policy has been founded on the lie of the “war on terror.” Under that scenario, vicious terrorists attacked America out of the blue, killing nearly 3,000 people, and forcing the US government to go to war against them in response.

This lie required covering up the real origins of the 9/11 attacks, in the CIA recruitment and training of Islamic fundamentalist terrorists—including Osama bin Laden—for the war in Afghanistan against the Soviet military occupation. It required covering up the ongoing connections between the US intelligence agencies and Al Qaeda, which have resurfaced again in Libya and Syria, where Al Qaeda forces have been a key element in US-backed operations for “regime change.”

The 9/11 attacks provided the pretext not only for US wars abroad, but for the enormous build-up of police-state powers within the United States: the creation of the Department of Homeland Security; the Pentagon’s Northern Command; the vast expansion of spying on telecommunications and the Internet; and dress rehearsals for military-police dictatorship like the crackdown that followed the Boston Marathon bombing.

All these actions are driven by the deepening social, economic and political crisis of American and world capitalism. It is impossible to maintain democratic forms of rule in a society where a tiny fraction of the population monopolizes virtually all the wealth. But the steady drive towards a dictatorship of the financial oligarchy, directed against the democratic rights of the American people, is passed off as an effort to defend ordinary Americans from the threat of terrorism.

Certain conclusions can be drawn. Lying on a staggering scale is an essential feature of American foreign and domestic policy. There are profound class reasons for this. The fundamental role of the US government is to defend the interests of a rapacious financial aristocracy, a few tens of thousands of the super-rich, while pretending to represent the American people as a whole. Lying is therefore intrinsic to its operation.

The corporate-controlled media plays a central role in this process of mass deception. The government is able to lie on a colossal scale and get away with it, in large measure because of the uncritical parroting of these lies by the television networks and leading “mainstream” newspapers like the New York Times and the Washington Post .

If the American government and its media accomplices have lied so brazenly about the assassination of bin Laden, absolutely nothing they say about anything can be believed.

This article first appeared on World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) on 13 May 2015, and was republished with permission.

Persvrijheid, vandaag de dag een mythe?

Rupert Murdoch, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, News Corporation, USA; Co-Chair of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2009

captured at the Annual Meeting 2009 of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, January 30, 2009. Photo: Monika Flueckiger, Flickr

In 1993 riep de Algemene Vergadering van de VN 3 mei uit tot de jaarlijkse Internationale Dag van de Persvrijheid. Dat gebeurde om het belang van persvrijheid te onderstrepen en lidstaten te herinneren aan hun verplichtingen die voortvloeien uit de Universele Verklaring van de Rechten van de Mens (UVRM).

Die UVRM-verplichtingen komen erop neer dat overheden moeten zorgen voor een "orde" die de mensenrechten beschermt. De meest essentiële daarvan zijn: men moet burgers op gelijke wijze behandelen en het recht op vrijheid van mening en meningsuiting vrijwaren.

Frankrijk blokkeert websites die 'terrorisme' uitlokken

Met de aanslag op Charlie Hebdo in Parijs en de schietpartij bij het cultuurcentrum Krudttøndens in Kopenhagen maakte het jaar 2015 voor wat persvrijheid betreft een valse start. Maar het totale beeld is zorgelijk: in ruim een derde van de Europese staten staat de veiligheid van journalisten onder druk. Journalisten in Oekraïne werden vermoord, in Griekenland door de politie aangevallen en in Macedonië met de dood bedreigd. En dichter bij huis: Franse wetgeving voorziet in het blokkeren van websites die [het rekbare begrip] 'terrorisme' uitlokken.

Veelal roepen overheden de nationale veiligheid in. Maar het blijft onduidelijk in welke mate dit overheidsoptreden nodig, proportioneel en onderhevig was aan rechterlijk toezicht.

Misbruik van macht en incompetentie blijven bedekt

In meerderheid blijft laster in Europa strafbaar. Dat belemmert de vrijheid van meningsuiting en leidt tot zelfcensuur. Publieke omroepen moeten afrekenen met bemoeizucht van de politiek. Zelfs landen die van oudsher bekend staan om sterke, onafhankelijke verslaggeving, kennen vandaag een uitzonderlijke mediaconcentratie en een schimmige relatie tussen politieke en media-elites. Journalisten moeten steeds meer strijd leveren om machthebbers rekenschap te laten afleggen.

Het gevaar is duidelijk. Zonder vrije en betrouwbare verslaggeving blijven misbruik van macht en incompetentie bedekt, en een gezonde competitie van ideeën achterwege. Dat gaat ten koste van vooruitgang en pluraliteit, en leidt tot stagnatie en onmacht. Zaken die we in Europa, dat nog altijd moet afrekenen met economische en sociale problemen, kunnen missen als kiespijn.

Een wereldwijd probleem

Maar het probleem doet zich overal ter wereld voor. Het Vlaamse Mondiaal Nieuws (MO*) meldt dat medewerksters Nicaragua, Israel en Gambia werden uitgezet of na bedreiging moesten ontvluchten. Het concludeert: “Als het soort berichtgeving dat MO* brengt - kritische, maar vooral eerlijke verhalen over de impact van lokale en mondiale tendensen op het leven van gewone mensen - al zo bedreigend is dat overheden overgaan tot dit soort drastische maatregelen, dan is er duidelijk iets mis met de democratie, de vrijheid en de mensenrechten in die landen.”

Digitale media moeten adverteerders in de ogen kijken

Blijft de druk op vrije meningsuiting en daarmee op de democratie beperkt tot het nationale niveau? In Nederland is op lokaal en regionaal niveau sprake van teloorgang van de pers, en elders in Europa zal het wel niet veel anders zijn. Onderzoeksjournalistiek is zowat uitgestorven. Nederland kende in 1985 nog 19 uitgevers van regionale kranten, nu nog vier.

Tegelijk zien we de komst van nieuwe digitale media. Die moeten woekeren met de middelen die ze hebben. Nieuws komt meestal rechtstreeks uit de koker van de grote persagentschappen. Zij die niet onderdeel zijn van de traditionele uitgevers leiden een leven dat enkel gevoed wordt door advertentie-inkomsten. Wie wil overleven zal zijn adverteerders - en daarmee vaak “de macht” - in de ogen moeten kijken.

Zorgelijke ontwikkeling

Op lokaal niveau lijdt de vrijheid van meningsuiting misschien nog meer dan op nationaal niveau aan erosie, en zijn de media voor zover nog aanwezig genoopt tot zelfcensuur. Lokale overheden worden net als nationale overheden dus steeds minder in bedwang gehouden door wat in Amerika zo mooi checks and balances heet. En daarmee staan de mensenrechten, waaronder het recht op gelijke behandeling, onder druk. Nu nationale overheden steeds meer zaken overdragen aan het lokaal bestuur is dat een zorgelijke ontwikkeling.

US and Japan tighten military ties in stepped up war drive against China

Japan's Abe Sells Trade Deal to Congress With War Apology - Bloomberg Business

By Nick Beams

US preparations for war against China have been considerably increased with the signing of a military agreement with Japan in Washington on Monday.

The agreement was formalised ahead of tomorrow’s address by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to a joint session of the US Congress—the first ever such address by the head of a Japanese government. The significance of the visit and the agreement for US objectives was highlighted by the fact that Obama spent most of Tuesday closeted in talks with Abe ahead of the congressional address.

The agreement allows for greater co-operation between US and Japanese armed forces and increases the likelihood of direct American military intervention should Japan and China come into armed conflict over disputed territory in the East China Sea.

It is in line with last year’s “reinterpretation” of the Japanese constitution by the Abe government which extends the conception of “self-defence” to include joint military action with its allies, particularly the US, should it come under attack.

The “reinterpretation” was the outcome of a concerted push by the United States for Japan to scrap any constitutional restrictions on its military activity. Washington is accelerating its drive to integrate its allies in the Asia-Pacific region into its operations directed against China as part of the “pivot to Asia” of which Japan and Australia form two key foundations.

It also dovetailed with the aims of the right-wing nationalist Abe government to remove the shackles on Japanese military action under the so-called “pacifist clause” of the post-war constitution. Immediately following last year’s “reinterpretation,” Abe delivered an address to the Australian parliament in which he laid out the perspective an increased global role for Japan.

No direct mention of China was made in the statements accompanying the signing of the Washington agreement but there is no doubt it was the target.

A senior US defence official was reported as saying it was a “big deal” and a “very important” moment in the US-Japan alliance before going on to cite an “increasing” threat from China’s ally North Korea. For the US, the North Korean “threat” is a convenient cover for its military measures directed against China.

Establishing a potential trigger for war, the agreement specifically confirmed an earlier US commitment to side with Japan, if necessary by military means, in its conflict with China over the Senkaku (Diaoyu) islets in the East China Sea. The dispute over the uninhabited rocky outcrops, which has been on-going for several decades, escalated in 2012 when the Japanese government nationalised them in a clear provocation against China.

Secretary of State John Kerry made clear the US regards them as under Japanese control. Calling the new defence ties an “historic transition,” Kerry said: “Washington’s commitment to Japan’s security remains ironclad and covers all territories under Japan’s administration, including the Senkaku Islands.”

In line with the rising drum beat denouncing its increased “assertiveness” in the region, Kerry issued a threat directed against Chinese activities throughout the region.

“We reject any suggestion that freedom of navigation, overflight and other lawful uses of the sea and airspace are privileges granted by big states to small ones, subject at the whim and fancy of the big state,” he said.

Echoing his remarks, Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida emphasised what he called the “rule of law,” adding that “we cannot let unilateral action to change the status quo be condoned.” In the US interpretation, the “rule of law” means the assertion of its unfettered right to engage in military activity in any part of the world.

China has not imposed any restrictions on the freedom of navigation in the region, nor has it any need to do so given that it contains the sea lanes vital for its economy.

But it is seeking to push back against US military pressure and the continuing daily naval and air operations that underpin the Pentagon’s so-called Air/Sea Battle Plan for all-out war, potentially involving the use of nuclear weapons, directed against the Chinese mainland. One can only imagine the outcry from Washington and the threats of military retaliation that would accompany any equivalent Chinese military action off the coast of San Diego.

In another thinly-veiled reference to China and its growing economic power, Japanese Defence Minister Gen. Nakatani said that since 1997, when defence arrangements were last revised, “the security environment in the United States and Japan has changed dramatically.”

Speaking to the New York Times, Michael J. Green, a senior member of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank with close ties to the US military, made clear the far-reaching implications of the agreement.

“With China’s growing assertiveness and North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, Japan, like a lot of allies, wants to be there for us so we’ll be there for them. It allows the US military to plan Japan in, so that when we turn to them and say, ‘Can you deal with our left flank?’ the Japanese, in principle, now can do that.”

The tighter US-Japanese military arrangements directed again China under the Obama administration’s “pivot” are being accompanied by economic measures, at the forefront of which is the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). Obama is seeking to secure congressional fast-track authority for the signing of the agreement with Japan and 10 other countries in the region.

The TPP, which will cover countries producing around 40 percent of the world’s economic output, is an integral component of the US drive to re-establish its global economic dominance, which has been undermined over the past three decades.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Monday, Obama set out its strategic significance.

“If we don’t write the rules, China will write the rules in that region. We will be shut out—American businesses and American agriculture,” he said.

The TPP is being promoted as a free trade agreement. It is nothing of the sort. Together with a similar agreement under negotiation with Europe, it is aimed at asserting US global economic primacy.

This was made clear by Obama’s trade representative Michael Froman in an article published in the leading American journal Foreign Affairs last November, the very title of which, “The Strategic Logic of Trade,” made clear that for the US, its economic and military policies are two sides of the same coin.

The aim of Obama’s trade policy, he wrote, was to position the US at “the centre of a web of agreements that will provide unfettered access to two-thirds of the global economy.”

US economic policy has always been directed to expanding its position in global markets and securing access to profitable sources of raw materials and investment outlets. But it was one thing when these objectives were pursued under conditions of economic expansion. Under worsening global economic stagnation since the eruption of the financial crisis in 2008, this struggle now takes place in transformed conditions.

This means that the global battle for markets, profits and resources will increasingly assume military forms, just as it did in the decade of the 1930s, leading to World War II. Now the drive towards a new world war is well underway, with the US-Japan military agreement another major step in that direction.

This article first appeared on World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) on 29 April 2015, and was republished with permission.