Old-fashioned imperalism alive and well throughout the Middle East

I unreservedly condemn acts of terrorism including those which took place in Pakistan and Australia recently. 

However, Western imperialism (US and EU) bears the main responsibility for the instability and blood-shed in the Middle East.

This position has been consistently held by the Irish Anti-War Movement amongst others.

In this regard, the West’s policy on Afghanistan since 1979 is quite instructive.

After the Soviet Union’s invasion of that year, the US was to the fore in prosecuting a proxy war against its cold war enemy by supplying arms to the Mujahidin in order to curb Soviet influence in the oil rich Middle East.

Many of these arms would eventually find their way to the emerging al-Qaeda network led by Bin Laden.

The West had no qualms about this until the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan and the resistance began to pursue their own agenda which threatened Western interests in the region.

On the issue of Iraq the hypocrisy and double standards of the West in promoting democracy and self-determination is just as evident.

The US-backed the coup in 1963 which brought the dictator Saddam Hussein to power.

When the Shah of Iran was toppled by popular revolution in 1979 the West backed Iraq in a war against Iran.

When this war ended in stale mate there was a vacuum with the West eventually taking a calculated decision that Iraq under Saddam was the greater threat to their interests (oil) in the region.

The subsequent Western imperialist occupations of both Iraq and Afghanistan and the unconditional backing of Israel by the US to the tune of over $3bn per year, provided the conditions which have in turn eventually tragically led to the rise of the terrorist organisation Islamic State.

What is happening in regard to the Middle East is nothing short of old-fashioned imperialism.

The alternative was glimpsed during the Arab Spring of 2011 when the Arab masses in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere rose up independently of the US and other world powers in the hope of creating new democratic and just states.

Kieran McNulty

Lios Rua,

Cahermoneen

Tralee,

Co Kerry