Re: [Marxism] Obama influencing Middle East elections

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

My read from afar is that the Obama speech had little effect on the Lebanese
elections, but may have in fact given a major shot in the arm to the Iranian
opposition, a shot in the arm that need not necessarily be reactionary in
its affects.

Actually, the administration's role in the Lebanese vote was basically
standard Bush-Cheney rum tum tum. The State Department reminded voters that
US aid programs for Lebanon hang in the balance as you vote, The US
ambassador warned during the overnight before the vote (when campaigning was
illegal FOR LEBANESE) that the "world" (now becoming one of my favorite
misnomers for the US and NATO) would judge them by how they voted.

I think this thuggish intervention alienated about as many voters as the
speech would have pleased, and perhaps convinced some voters that the
speech, which sounded good, was a crock.

Also, as Pascoe's post indicated, the item
http://joshualandis.com/blog/?p=3263
is quite revealing, showing that the Hezbollah candidates received a clear
majority of the votes, while losing in a majority of the districts. The
factor of the gerrymandering of districts and the underrepresentation of the
Shia in particular, as was suggested by the contributor on this thread who
preceded Pascoe, was a substantial factor.

In Iran, though, I think that Obama's speech definitely helped the Iranian
opposition. That is because the speech raised the possibility that detente
is possible without Iran capitulating on the nuclear issue. This meant that
many Iranians, who tend to rally around defense of the country when this is
the issue. Also note that the US State Department and other agencies are not
making threats. In the past, I remember well the opposition in Iran as being
portrayed as people who would greet US invaders and bombers with flowers and
thanks. I remember the New Republic trying to convince us that the student
opposition was trying to bring back the deposed and deceased last shah's son
to head a constitutional monarchy.

That is, that these were protests in favor of the US coming in to take over
the country and put things right. 

Obama's speech, by avoiding such themes, and stressing a certain respect for
Iran (however hypocritically) relieved the pressure to rally to Ahmadinejad
for patriotic reasons. It further legitimized a push to seize more
democratic space for all the currents that exist in the country. 

The opposition which is trying to elect Mussavi is very polyglot. It is
dominated at the top by mullahs and others who favor more neoliberal
economic methods. But it is also encouraging more labor resistance. The
students tend in many cases to have illusions about neoliberalism too and
fantasies about the United States, despite their hostility toward
Bush-Cheney, whose continual threats gave more legitimacy to the Mullah's
regime as necessary to defend the country.

So the situation will be more complex than the one which came out of Obama's
soft cop performance at the American summit, in which he felt forced to give
added legitimacy to Chavez and Morales, including the restoration of normal
relations and a condemnation of extra-constitutional attempts to remove
Morales. This accelerated the push toward the OAS rejection of the exclusion
of Cuba. And it did no harm to the Indian forces who were moving toward a
major fight against Garcia, which has not yet ended and certainly not yet
been defeated. (People who look back at what was written at the time of the
summit will note that I predicted that this would mean trouble for Garcia,
though I looked at the challenge primarily in electoral terms.)

The average left radical anti-Obama view is that his speeches are bound to
succeed in silencing the masses unless leftists expose them as not only
raising no ideas anyone should respond to and being completely fraudulent,
but that EFFECTIVE STRUGGLE IS IMPOSSIBLE AS LONG AS PEOPLE HAVE ANY
ILLUSIONS IN OBAMA. 

Thus we can end up giving ourselves mental hernias trying to demonstrate
such unfacts as that Obama's speeches are really the same politically as
Hitler's. This amounts to creating illusions to counter illusions. 

In fact the illusions that Obama's speeches can inspire can ONLY be defeated
and dispelled in mass struggle. 

Obama's speeches, aimed at restoring US credibility in a situation where the
relationship of forces has shifted worldwide more against US imperialism,
can and I think sometimes do create progressive illusions that make struggle
easier as well as reactionary ones that make it impossible. And again it is
in struggle that the oppressed can rise above their illusions.

The extreme weakness, in their own mood and also on the level of leadership,
of the US oppressed and exploited at this point should not be taken as our
model for the entire world in assessing Obama's impact. This is not the
state of Latin America today or even of the Middle East. Here, people can
take some of the recognition that Obama has given to Chavez and Morales, the
Iranian nation, and the Palestinian cause and run with it. There is no
opportunist crime in doing so.
Fred Feldman



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