Good News from the Middle East

The Forging of Arab Anti-imperialist Unity

Ray O Light

The brutal unprovoked war of terror unleashed by U.S imperialism with George W. Bush at the helm against the people of the world from Iraq to Afghanistan, primarily represents a rapacious drive for further control of the world’s oil and natural gas resources and transportation routes, in relation to the peoples of the Middle East and other oil rich lands and vis-à-vis their rival imperialist powers, most notably the E.U. countries. Iraq, currently the focal point of U.S. imperialism insatiable drive for super profits, is only surpassed by Saudi Arabia for known oil reserves. With over 300,000 U.S. troops in occupied Iraq (including the military contractors), permanent new military bases in Bahrain and Qatar, Halliburton moving their world headquarters to Dubai and U.S. military leaders acknowledging their plans for continued deployment of U.S. occupation troops in Iraq for many years to come, U.S. imperialism strives to fully control the oil of the Middle East.

Standing against their "hopes" of world oil domination is the heroic resistance of the Iraqi people, inflicting daily blows on the occupation armies and dashing the "dreams" of the neo-cons of Washington D.C. on the "rocks of reality" of a people fighting for independence and sovereignty. Four years after George Bush declared victory and "mission accomplished" in Iraq, U.S. imperialism is in a Vietnam like quagmire in both Iraq and Afghanistan, bogged down and overextended, and more isolated in the world than they have been for many decades.

Very encouraging is the recent news that, in early April 2007, the third preparatory "Conference Towards a Resistant Arab People’s Alliance" was held in Cairo, Egypt and attended by representatives of movements in Arab countries such as Jordan, Yemen, Lebanon, Egypt and Syria.

In an excellent statement published following the conference, participants of the conference agreed to many principled points of unity including:

  • "We assert that the national Iraqi resistance is the legitimate representative of the Iraqi people, and it is the continuity of the independent Iraqi state."

  • "Arab resistance has grown in Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine. In Iraq, the historical victory of the Iraqi people’s resistance has foiled the plans of the occupation and its collaborator government, and [laid the basis] for the defeat of American-Zionist project."

  • "We, as a Resistant Arab People’s Alliance, refuse all submissive solutions for the Palestinian cause, starting from the Camp David agreement to the most recent Mecca agreement…"

  • "The conference condemns any US preparations of aggression against Iran, and as the conference recognizes the Iranian right to develop a nuclear project, and values the Iranian support for Hezbollah and the Palestinian resistance, the conference condemns the Iranian role in splitting the unity of Iraq, the Iraqi people and the unity of its resistance…" [Critical Support – Excellent!]

  • "Under the slogan: One enemy, One resistance, the conferees stress the necessity to rally all resistance capabilities in all its different streams (Leftist, Nationalist, and Islamist) in one front to defeat the colonialist Zionist project in the region, establish a new Arab renaissance project, and to face the enemy’s attempt to employ current differences between these resistance movements in order to split and defeat it."

    • Since 1970, U.S. imperialism has applied a "two pillar" policy in the Middle East, namely playing off the Israeli settler state and the Arab reactionary regimes and their key agent, Yasser Arafat, helping both to stay in power and U.S. imperialism to remain solidly entrenched as the hegemonic imperialist power in the Middle East, with is vast treasure house of oil reserves.

    "Toward a Resistant Arab People’s Alliance" is an extremely encouraging development in spreading the growing resistance of the peoples of Iraq and Arabia and hastening the day when the working and oppressed peoples of Arabia will achieve national liberation and socialism and live free of the domination of U.S. imperialism, the settler Zionist state of Israel and the Arab Reactionary regimes serving the designs of U.S. and world imperialism. Such an advance in Arabia will serve to advance and propel the worldwide struggle of freedom and socialism.

    We call both within the USA and internationally for support for the Iraqi Resistance and its role on the frontline of the global struggle against imperialism, headed by U.S. imperialism.

    (A full copy of the Resistant Arab People’s Alliance statement can be obtained by contacting Ray O. Light at: Boxholder DLD-354, 58 Batterymarch St., Boston, MA 02110, USA)

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