Tuesday, March 4, 2025
3662. A Blow up in the White House: Factional Differences in the U.S. Governing Class and Cracks in NATO
By Kamran Nayeri, March 3, 2025
Note: This essay was originally published today in the socialist Critique of Political Economy (نقد اقتصاد سیاسی) edited by Parviz Sedaghat in Iran. The free translation is by the author.
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The blow-up of the prearranged signing meeting of a treaty between President Donald Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday afternoon, February 28, dramatically demonstrated that the war in Ukraine has never been about the right to self-determination of the Ukrainian people; rather it has been a proxy war between Western imperialism and Russian imperialism to maintain and expand their sphere of influence. Zelensky had been invited to the White House to sign an economic agreement that Trump views as a precondition for continued U.S. aid to Ukraine. Under the agreement, Ukraine would have committed to give the United States access to rare earth minerals. Trump is seeking to secure a stable source of them for U.S. industries including electronics, space, nuclear, and defense industries. The United States itself lacks a significant amount of rare earth and China is the world’s main supplier. However, China is also the main rival of United States. For his part, Zelensky wanted to include in the treaty language that would commit the United States support from military threats from Russia. The signing of the treaty was generally thought of to pave the way for a ceasefire and to an end to the war in Ukraine. However, differences of opinion about the causes of the war between Zelensky and Trump, as well as Zelensky's demand for the U.S. military support for Ukraine, led to a dispute between them, which I will in a moment.
But first, let’s consider that Zelensky’s general acceptance of Trump’s demand regarding U.S. access to Ukraine’s minerals negates his claim that the Ukrainian government is an independent actor representing self-determination of Ukrainian, specifically in its war with Russia. The language and intent of the treaty and the blow up between the two parties at the White House showed that Zelensky had been and remains dependent on U.S. imperialism in the war and even before it. Essentially, the start of this war, as I have documented it (Nayeri 2022) was due to Zelensky’s insistence backed up by Washington that Ukraine should be admitted into NATO, the military arm of Western imperialism. The Democratic Party and the mainstream of the Republican Party follow the Wolfowitz Doctrine first formulated on February 18, 1992, in response to the collapse of the Soviet Union which argued for continued Cold War policies against Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union, including by NATO expansion. However, Trump represents a dominant trend in today's Republican Party that does not adhere to this doctrine and in fact want to do away with tensions with Russia. The dispute in the White House revolved around this disagreement between Trump and Zelensky, who had enjoyed the support of the Biden administration under this doctrine.
The main reason for the start of the war
Putin cited the expansion of NATO during a speech at the start of the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
On February 24, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin ordered an invasion of Ukraine in a speech in which he outlined the key reason as follows:
“…the expansion of the NATO to the east, moving its military infrastructure closer to Russian borders. It is well known that for 30 years we have persistently and patiently tried to reach an agreement with the leading NATO countries on the principles of equal and inviolable security in Europe. In response to our proposals, we constantly faced either cynical deception and lies or attempts to pressure and blackmail, while NATO, despite all our protests and concerns, continued to steadily expand. The war machine is moving and, I repeat, it is coming close to our borders.”
Encouraged by the U.S. and European allies, Zelensky has been pushing for membership of Ukraine in European Union and NATO. At the of Munich Security Conference on February 19, 2022, five days before the Russian invasion, he asked once again for NATO membership.
Founded in 1949 with 12 member states, it was a critical part of Western imperialism’s Cold War against the Soviet Union. In response, the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc self-proclaimed socialist republics of Central and Eastern Europe formed Warsaw Pact military alliance in May 1955.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Warsaw Pact was also dissolved. Still, the United States not only did not dissolve NATO, but also expanded it to the borders of Russia and even used it in its occupation and war in Afghanistan. NATO today is the armed arm of Western imperialism. This anti-Russian policy is as Wolfowitz Doctrine that was formulated after the collapse of the Soviet Union (Goldgeier 2016). A number of American foreign policy experts, including John Mearsheimer (2019), an American political scientist and international relations scholar had warned that this doctrine was particularly dangerous in Ukraine, where the U.S. in 2014 manufactured the overthrow of Viktor Fedorovych Yanukovych, pro-Russia president.
Biden's foreign policy was in continuation of Wolfowitz Doctrine in n the Ukraine war as the U.S. gave full political, diplomatic, and military support to Zelensky. The US goal was to isolate Russia politically and inflict economic and military damage on it under the guise of defending democracy and confronting Putin painted as a threat to all of Europe. The Russians themselves have a favorable view of Putin and he has enjoyed greater popularity in Russia than his contemporary U.S. presidents have had in their country (Statistica, February 24, 2024).
The United States and NATO have been involved in all strategic aspects of the Ukraine war, and the United States has mainly provided advanced weapons to the Ukrainian army ( see the list of US military assistance provided by the State Department (State Department , January 20, 2025). To ensure public support, Zelensky was provided with numerous opportunities to attend policy forums in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere. Zelensky, in turn, claimed that his country was being attacked and occupied by “unprovoked” Russia and requested numerous assistance, especially military assistance with increasingly advanced and aggressive weapons. Then Biden and his European allies in NATO provided what Zelensky had asked for. In this way, the war in Ukraine continued with the U.S. and NATO providing Ukraine with strategic guidance and intelligence and arms while the Ukrainians did the fighting and dying. All doors to diplomatic solution to the war , Ukraine in this war were shut donw as Putin was demonized as another Hitler and a menace to world peace.
In the U.S. policy circles there has never been a unanimous agreement on Wolfowitz Doctrine. A small group of Republicans in the US Congress preferred what has been termed by their opponent as isolationism. Instead, imperialist “internationalism” that required U.S. military intervention around the world had the upper hand with influential Democrats being its main proponents (Stephenson 2023).
Trump is seeking to reshape U.S. foreign policy that combined deliberate and blatant threat of use of economic and military power on the one hand and on the other attempts to reduce tensions with adversaries as he did with North Korea. resolve regional crises. He also wants to de-escalate tensions with Russia.
On February 13, Trump called for talks with Russia and China on nuclear disarmament, citing the "enormous costs and dangers of nuclear weapons" (Ruiz, Lucas and Geoff Wilson). It is clear that such negotiations, whether on nuclear disarmament or on the Ukrainian war with Russia and China were not even conceivable with Democrats during the Biden presidency .
The differences between these two wings of American imperialism are also visible in the economic arena. Democrats want economic modernization based on new industries and technologies that rely on greater capitalist state intervention in the economy. Republicans oppose state intervention in the economy, and Trump, in his second term, has pursued efforts to shrink the government bureaucracy by imposing tariffs to protect old domestic industries (Nayeri 2019, section 3). The New York Times, in some of its articles, has with some justice called these policies mercantilist.
At the White House meeting Zelensky as usual called for the U.S. and Trump to guarantee Ukraine's security. However, Trump refused had already indicated his intention to de-escalate tensions in US-Russia relations and his opposition to Ukraine's membership in NATO (which is also one of Putin's demands in any peace negotiations). In his dispute with Zelensky at the White House meeting, Trump reminded Zelensky that he was not in a position to impose demands on him or on Putin. He recounted that Zelensky has problems recruiting to his army to fight Russian and that Ukraine would not have been able to fight Russians without U.S. backing “even for two weeks.” "You put yourself in a bad position. You don't have all the cards in your hands. You are gambling with the lives of millions of people. You are gambling with World War III."
The divide in Western imperialism and NATO
After the dispute between Trump and Zelensky, many European leaders announced their support for Ukraine in the war. But the European Union is economically smaller than the United States and has a lower per capita income, thus much less ability to help finance the war, and more importantly, militarily, the militaries of the European countries combined are not comparable to that of the the United States. Zelensky even faces problems at home. Half of the Ukrainian people want the war to end (Vigers 2024). It is not without reason that NATO Commander General Mark Rutte immediately urged Zelensky to establish good relations with Trump. The British Prime Minister announced during a meeting with Zelensky that they would jointly with France will prepare a proposal for a ceasefire in Ukraine for Trump.
The dispute in the White House is a sign of the intensification of the governmental crisis in the United States, which itself is due to the relative decline of U.S. imperialism. In the recent period, every four-years when power has been transferred from one party to another, the new president has changed key policies of the previous president in the opposite direction. This creates instability for building an economic infrastructure for the future of U.S. capitalism. For example, Biden created subsidies for buyers of electric cars to increase demand to smooth the transition to an economy based on new industries and goods. Automakers have spent billions of dollars building capacity to produce electric vehicles. But Trump eliminated these subsidies and withdrew the United States from the toothless Paris Agreement to combat the climate crisis.
The crisis of global leadership and the future of humanity
At the beginning of the Ukrainian war, I argued that it is a crossroad for humanity. The working people have no interest in this inter-imperialist war. The Russian army must withdraw from Ukraine and the Ukrainian government must adopt a neutrality policy focusing on its internal sources of development. Scientists in relevant fields have warned that if humanity does not solve the existential crises of climate chaos, the Sixth Extinction, recurrent pandemics, and nuclear holocaust, it will face the risk of the collapse of civilization and possibly the end of humanity. However, solving these crises requires the cooperation of the entire world, especially the most powerful countries that contribute to these crises the most. The crisis of the decline of U.S. imperialism and the emergence of a multipolar world has made the possibility of world capitalist governments to cooperate in solving these existential crises. To the contrary, along with the rise of China on the global level and other regional powers, it has increased rivarly between capitalist/imperialist powers. The only hope for humanity is to create independent power for the working people throughout the world, especially in key countries in North America, Europe, and Asia. To create such a power, it is necessary to politically break with capitalist governments, institutions, parties, and create independent self-organized and self-mobilized organizations to address these crises and aim toward a post-capitalist world. I have argued that Ecocentric Socialism provides a vision for such action and transition.
References:
Gallup. " Half of Ukrainians Want Quick, Negotiated End to War ." November 19, 2024.
Mearsheimer, John J. “ Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West's Fault : The Liberal Delusions That Provoked Putin .” June 2019.
Nayeri, Kamran. " A Future for American Capitalism or The Future of Life on Earth?: An Ecosocialist Critique of the 'Green New Deal .'" Our Place in the World: A Journal of Ecosocialism. March 25, 2019.
Goldgeier, James M. “The U.S. Decision to Enlarge NATO.” 2016.
Ruiz, Lucas and Geoff Wilson. "What Trump Got Right about Nuclear Weapons—and How to Step Back from the Brink." Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. February 24, 2025
State Department. US Security Cooperation with Ukraine. Fact sheet. January 20, 2025.
Statistics. Vladimir Putin's approval rating in Russia monthly 1999-2025. February 24, 2025.
Stephenson, Heather. "US Foreign Policy Increasingly Relies on Military Interventions."
Vigers, Benedict. “Half of Ukrainians Want Quick, Negotiated End to War.” Gallup, November 19, 2024.
Saturday, February 15, 2025
3661. Development and Ecosystems (توسعه و زیست بوم)
By Kamran Nayeri, Leftist Co-Thinking, January 29, 20
کامران نیری، توسعه و زیست بوم
هم اندیشی چپ
ژانویه 2025
3660. Interview with Rebel Fagin about Ecocentric Socialism
By Kamran Nayeri and Rebel Fagin, Radio Rebel, January 12, 2025
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| Rebel Fagin |
I was interviewed by Rebel Fagin for about 40 minutes in the studio about Ecocentric Socialism in January 12, 2025. Fagin has been broadcasting his show called Radio Resistance from KBBF 89.1 FM, the first bilingual radio station in the U.S. fromSanta Rosa, California. His show is syndicated throughtout Californa. A year earlier, he had interviewed me about my just published book Whose Planet? Essays on Ecocentric Socialism.
Here the interview. If the link does not work, copy and pasted it in a new browser.
3659. Trump Aims to Erase Palestine
By Malik Miah and Barry Sheppard, Socialist Action,February 10, 2025
With a smiling Benjamin Netanyahu at his side, Trump announced the Palestinians in Gaza would be displaced (ethnic cleansing), and then the U.S. would take over Gaza and turn the Strip into a beachfront Riviera on the Mediterranean Sea.
Israeli government officials took turns praising Trump. Opponents of Netanyahu have also expressed openness to Trump’s plan — something once only advocated by the far right.
Trump said that the Palestinians would willingly leave Gaza to be dispersed in surrounding Arab countries (mainly Egypt, although he didn’t name it, but did so in other statements), something the Palestinians as well as Egypt reject.
Trump has stuck to his plan in the face of domestic and international criticism, which Trump doesn’t care about. He also dismisses international agreements against the displacement of peoples out of their countries, and international “laws” (which cannot be enforced anyway).
An article in the New York Times of February 7 points out that Trump’s plan “is the latest example of how government officials on the right in both the United States and Israel now speak publicly about a shared goal: the takeover of Palestinian land.”
According to the Times, Itamar Rabinovich, former Israeli ambassador to Washington said, “It’s the most rightwing government we’ve ever had in Israel — and there never was a U.S. administration that shared these views to this extent.”
The fig leaf “two state” proposal that had been supported by the U.S. for decades, but never got off the ground, has been relegated to “the dust bin of history” by Trump.
Trump’s proposal has shaken up the Arab countries. Hours after Trump spoke, Saudi Arabia said that there would be no accord with Israel, since it remains firm that a precondition is Palestinian statehood.
To understand what Trump means when he says the Palestinians would willingly be displaced, we should recall another statement Trump recently made, that “Israel should finish the job in Gaza.”
Taken together with his new statement, what Trump means is that the U.S. will give 100 percent backing to Israel to use any means to intensify its genocide and physical destruction of Gaza when it’s war resumes, to the extent that remaining Palestinians will have no choice but to leave.
We have seen Israel beginning to use starvation as one of its means, but to back off when the U.S thought that was going too far, but now this will be resumed, and humanitarian food and other aid to Gazans will be restricted or eliminated if Israel so deems, in the full knowledge that it will be backed by the U.S.
Already, the administration’s drastic downsizing of the United States Agency for International Development means the cutoff of food, tents, and medical treatments for Palestinians the U.S. has been giving.
When Gazans have been so pulverized they have no choice but to leave, this will put pressure on Egypt to accept them, and the U.S. will use whatever means it deems necessary, from cutting off economic aid, sanctions, etc. to force Egypt to do so.
Trump is also working with Israel to accomplish the same thing in the West Bank, with Jordan the country into which Palestinians will be dispersed. Like Egypt, Jordan rejects this.
The Times article has a subhead title, “Israel and the U.S. Talk of Annexing West Bank”. Trump said he would make an announcement about this in the next weeks. There is little doubt that Trump would recognize Israel annexation.
His administration has ordered all government documents and statements to expunge any reference to the “West Bank” and “occupied territories,” and to refer to the area as “Judea and Samaria”, the Biblical terms Israel uses.
He also reversed (toothless) sanctions Biden put on West Bank Israeli settlers who have used violence to terrorize Palestinians, and seized their land.
A few years ago the Israeli Knesset adopted a law that said that in all of “Eretz Israel”, meaning Biblical Israel, only Israeli Jews have the right to self determination. Trump officials echo this definition of the “land of Israel”. It is vague what it includes today, but it at least includes the land the present state of Israel rules, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.
Genesis, the first book of the Bible, says that God gave the land between the Euphrates River and the Nile to the Jewish people.
Israel itself has never recognized any border, not the “Green Line”, and not the borders Israel today rules over. The Syrian Golan Heights has already been annexed to Israel and a part of Lebanon may be included.
Today, the annexation of what is now called Judea and Samaria is on the agenda. Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations Elise Stafanik says that Judea and Samaria are a Biblical part of Israel.
Annexation of the area, whether de facto (in practice) or de jour (in law), will allow Israel to intensify its confiscation of Palestinian land, snd greatly increase its military campaign there, with the aim of making life for Palestinians here also, like in Gaza, so miserable that they will “willingly” leave into Jordan.
These are the plans of the Trump and Israeli governments. The only way they can be stopped is by mass resistance.
First of all, by the Palestinians. The temporary cease-fire in Gaza revealed that Hamas, which organizes the resistance there, is very much alive, as the videos of young Hamas fighters controlling streets has shown. This is another example of when a whole people is attacked, “killing of one fighter causes two more to join” as the saying goes.
The sections of the U.S. mainstream media has reluctantly recognized that Hamas remains the only government in Gaza.
The same fact of continued resistance is true of Hezbollah in Lebanon. Fighters in the West Bank from a number of organizations continue to resist.
The Arab people have been aroused, shaking even the comprador bourgeois governments, who fear their own people. They are an ally of the Palestinians and will make their voices heard.
The pro-Palestinian movement in the U.S. and in the West has been proved to be correct, and should once again engage in mass action. There is new ammunition to counter the false charge of anti-Semitism used against us that has been the excuse for repression of the movement.
Opposition the Israel/U.S. axis is more obviously not anti-Semitic.
This is the true axis of evil in the Mideast. It can be defeated.
Sunday, November 10, 2024
3658. Arundhati Roy on Israel/U.S. Genocidal War in Gaza/Palestine
By Arundhati Roy, October 2024
Arundhati Roy, the internationally celebrated author and human rights activist's speech upon receiving the PEN Foundation’s annual Pinter Prize in October 2024, Roy announced that she’d be donating her prize money to the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund.
Named for the late British playwright Harold Pinter, the PEN Pinter Prize and the Pinter International Writer of Courage awards have been distributed annually since 2009.
Transcription into Farsi is by Abdi Kalantari.
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