US-Saudi Ties: Drenched in Blood, Oil, and Deceit

By Joyce Chediac

Why do Donald Trump and the CIA disagree about the recent killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Turkey?

The CIA concluded that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler, personally ordered the murder and dismemberment of Khashoggi. In an extraordinary statement for a U.S. president, Trump disputed the CIA findings. He said it didn't matter if MBS-as the Saudi ruler is known-was or was not involved in the Khashoggi killing, and that U.S.-Saudi relations are "spectacular."

Trump's statement reflects his narrow cultivation of business relations with MBS, while the CIA's announcement reflects the view that that MBS has become a liability for the U.S. ruling class as a whole. The spy agency, which has deep ties to Saudi intelligence, fears that bin Salman's reckless and impulsive actions could jeopardize the security of the whole Saudi ruling clique, endangering U.S. ruling class interests in Saudi Arabia and the entire Middle East.

For decades, Saudi Arabia has been one of the most strategic and valuable U.S. client states, and the CIA wants to keep it that way. Support for Saudi Arabia is completely bi-partisan. This partnership is drenched in blood, oil, and deceit.

A review of U.S.-Saudi ties shows that Saudi Arabia anchors the U.S. empire in the Middle East. The kingdom, with the greatest oil reserves in the world, is a source of fabulous wealth for U.S. oil companies. The Saudis use their oil capacity to raise and lower world prices to further U.S. foreign policy aims. In the 1980s, for example, Ronald Reagan, got the Saudis to flood the market with oil to reduce the world price as part of an economic war against the Soviet Union.

The kingdom willingly uses religion as a cover for imperialism's aims, exporting thousands of schools, mosques, and other centers that preach intolerance and recruit jihadists for U.S. wars. It allows the U.S. to invade other Arab countries from its territory and has funded covert CIA actions on three continents. It is treated like a cash cow for U.S. corporations and banks. It uses its vast stash of petrodollars to buy billions of dollars in Pentagon weapons at inflated prices, as well as other high-price U.S. products and services.

The country is ruled as the personal fiefdom of one family, the al-Sauds. The government is one of the most repressive and misogynistic in the world. There is no parliament or legislature. The first elections, and then only on a municipal level, took place in 2005, 73 years after the country was formed. Women were only allowed to vote in 2015. These incontestable facts go unmentioned by U.S. officials, Democrats and Republican alike.

While Washington claims to be a protector of human rights abroad, the Pentagon has pledged to send in troops if a mass movement tries to overthrow the Saudi regime.

A country birthed by imperialism

Britain and France emerged victorious after World War I. They carved Western Asia into more than 20 countries, drawing borders to weaken and dismember Arab and other indigenous national groups, and to facilitate imperialist domination.

That's when Saudi Arabia was created. Its rulers, the al Saud and the Wahhabi families and followers merged into a political-religious alliance. The Saudi Arabia we know was established 1932, when the Saudis agreed to stop harassing other British protectorates, and to accept Britain's definition of their borders.

Saudi Arabia's rulers were among the first far-right Islamists assisted by imperialism. They set up an absolute monarchy and theocracy. The only constitution was the Koran as interpreted by the royal family. Slavery was legal until 1962.

Wahhabism, a form of Islam aggressively intolerant of other currents of that faith, and in opposition to secular governments, became the state religion. Saudi Arabia's control of the most important sites in Islam-Mecca and Medina- gave it prestige it had not earned in the Muslim world.

Enter U.S. oil companies and the Pentagon

In 1933, the kingdom granted Standard Oil of California (now Chevron) exclusive oil drilling rights. Huge oil reserves were discovered in 1938, promoting the formation of ARAMCO (Arabian American Oil Company) by Standard Oil and 3 other U.S. partners that later became Texaco, Exxon, and Mobil.

Saudi Arabia would soon be the country with the world's largest known oil reserves. It would be the greatest oil producer in the world. And U.S. companies were pumping it.

Diplomatic recognition soon followed. In 1943, President Roosevelt declared the security of Saudi Arabia a "vital interest" of the United States. The U.S. opened an embassy in the country the next year.

The Pentagon soon arrived to secure the oil. In 1950, the U.S. established the Sixth Naval Fleet as a permanent military presence in the Mediterranean. In 1951, after signing the Mutual Defense Agreement, the U.S. began arming the Saudi government and training its military.

Since World War II, the U.S. empire has been built on controlling the oil flowing from the Persian Gulf. Saudi Arabia was the linchpin of this control.

Waging holy war for Washington: 'Our faith and your iron'

Following World War II, a wave of militancy and nationalism swept the Arab world. Mass secular movements in Algeria and Iraq overthrew colonial puppets. South Yemen declared itself socialist. The Egyptian and Syrian people deposed imperialist client rule. Many of the new progressive regimes and liberation struggles were aided by the Soviet Union

The thinking of U.S. policymakers was, as Rachel Bronson puts it, "that religion could be a tool to staunch the expansion of godless communism."

Saudi rulers happily complied. The founder of modern Saudi Arabia told U.S. Minister to Saudi Arabia, Colonel William A. Eddy, "Our faith and your iron."

Arab anti-imperialism was especially inflamed by the 1948 destruction of Palestine and the creation of Israel. To undercut this, the Eisenhower administration set out to increase the renown of King Saud, making him 'the senior partner of the Arab team."

A State Department memo documents expectations that the Saudis would redirect Arab anger from Israel to the Soviet Union:

"The President said he thought we should do everything possible to stress the "holy war" aspect. [Secretary of State] Dulles commented that if the Arabs have a "holy war" they would want it to be against Israel. The President recalled, however, that Saud, after his visit here, had called on all Arabs to oppose Communism."

In the 1950s and 1960s, the Saudis gave shelter to extremists seeking to topple nationalist governments. The kingdom started funding a network of schools and mosques that recruited jihadists for the CIA in Soviet republics with Muslim populations, and in poor Muslim countries in Asia and Africa. This included " facilitating contacts between the CIA and religious pilgrims visiting Mecca ."

The oil weapon

Some members of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) have advocated using oil as a weapon to force Israel to give up Palestinian land. Saudi Arabia, the biggest oil producer of OPEC, has staunchly opposed this. While calling for "separating oil from politics," the kingdom has repeatedly raised and lowered world oil prices to advance U.S. foreign policy.

There have been exceptions. To maintain credibility among the Arab world, Saudi Arabia joined the OPEC oil embargos against the U.S. and other governments supporting Israel in the Arab-Israeli wars of 1967 and 1973. The 1967 embargo lacked OPEC consensus and was not effective. Saudi Arabia agreed to join the 1973 embargo only after the U.S. promised $2.2 billion in emergency military aid to Israel, giving it an advantage in the fighting.

The 1973 oil embargo did not cause international shortages, as many oil producers didn't honor it. However, U.S. companies used the embargo to hold back oil supplies, raise prices, and increase profits. Occidental Petroleum's 1973 earnings were 665 percent higher than those the year before. By the end of 1974, Exxon Corporation moved to the top of the Fortune 500 list. Four other oil companies-Texaco, Mobil, Standard Oil of California and Gulf-joined Exxon in the top seven rankings .

In 1970, the Saudis organized the "Safari Club," a coalition of governments that conducted covert operations in Africa after the U.S. Congress restrained CIA actions. It sent arms to Somalia and helped coordinate attacks on Ethiopia, which was then aligned with the Soviet Union. It funded UNITA, a proxy of the South African apartheid government fighting in Angola.

More recently, the Saudi government likely drove down oil prices in 2014 in order to weaken the Russian and Iranian economies as punishment for supporting the Syrian government.

However, the U.S. ruling class has had it both ways with Saudi Arabia several times. While the country is a key client state of the U.S., the Saudis have also served as convenience scapegoats. When energy costs spike, causing considerable hardship among U.S. working-class families, for instance, the U.S. rulers hypocritically and suddenly start talking about the Saudi royal family, its thousands of princes, their gold bathtubs, and other extremes paid for by petrodollars.

Manufacturing a Sunni-Shia rift

In 1979, a mass revolutionary upsurge in Iran overthrew the Shah, a hated U.S.-backed dictator, establishing the Islamic Republic of Iran. The new government nationalized Iran's huge oil reserves. That same year, an armed band of Sunni fundamentalists denounced the Saudi royal family and seized the Grand Mosque in Mecca, taking tens of thousands of religious pilgrims hostage. Hundreds of hostages were killed in the retaking of the mosque. Both events shook the Saudi rulers to their core. They responded by diverting attention to Iran. They began a religious campaign against Shia Iran, claiming they were enemies of Sunni Islam. They upped funding for Sunni jihadists worldwide, encouraging them to hate other strains of Islam, other religions, and secularism.

There was no significant conflict between Sunnis and Shias in the modern era. Saudi rulers fomented it in an attempt to turn Sunnis against the Iranian revolution. Since then, all national liberation struggles or groups fighting for some degree of independence that have Shia members have been falsely labeled as agents of Iran. These include Hezbollah-viewed by Arab progressives as the central force in the national liberation movement of Lebanon-the amalgam of forces fighting Saudi domination in Yemen, and oppressed Shia minorities in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

The Saudis bought out the ARAMCO oil company in 1980. But this did not make Saudi Arabia independent. The oil was still controlled by U.S. companies, especially ExxonMobil, through their ownership of oil pumping and other technology, oil tanker fleets, storage facilities, etc.

Funding the Mujahideen and the Contras

In 1978, the Marxist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan took control of the country in a coup. It promoted land distribution and built hospitals, road, and schools in one of the most underdeveloped countries in the world. It did this with the help of the Soviet Union. The new government banned forced marriages and gave women the right to right to vote. Revolutionary Council member Anahita Ratebzad gave the new government's view in a New Kabul Times editorial (May 28, 1978).

"Privileges which women, by right, must have are equal education, job security, health services, and free time to rear a healthy generation for building the future of the country … Educating and enlightening women is now the subject of close government attention."

Seeking to overthrow the Soviet-aligned government, the U.S. covertly supported rural tribes that were opposed to the recent social changes, especially women's rights and secularism. The groups attacked the new rural schools and killed women teachers. In 1979, the Soviet Union sent in troops to support the government.

From 1979-89 the Saudi kingdom recruited reactionary mujahideen forces and financed them to the tune of $3 billion. The CIA formally matched the Saudi funding.

In 1984, when the Reagan administration sought help with its secret plan to fund Contra militias and death squads in Nicaragua , the Saudi Ambassador to the U.S. pledged $1 million a month. Saudi Arabia spent a total of $32 million supporting the Contras. The contributions continued even after Congress cut off funding to the them.

U.S. would stop an internal revolution

In 1981, Ronald Reagan's Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger said that the U.S. would not let the Saudi government be overthrown, and that it would send troops to defend the Saudi regime if necessary: "We would not stand by, in the event of Saudi requests, as we did before with Iran, and allow a government that had been totally unfriendly to the United States and to the Free World to take over." The U.S. would intervene "if there should be anything that resembled an internal revolution in Saudi Arabia, and we think that's very remote."

This is a regime that allows no human rights or freedom of speech; where virtually all the work was done by migrants who are super-exploited and have no chance of becoming citizens; where all women are considered legal minors and require an appointed male 'guardian' to supervise them and give permission for getting married, obtaining a passport, traveling, enrolling in a school; where in some court cases, a women's testimony is worth half as much as man's.

Saudi Arabia, 9/11, and extremism

Decades of funding extremist centers to recruit shock troops for CIA wars helped create radical Islamist groupings and individuals. Al-Qaeda's founder, Osama Bin Laden, is a prime example. He was a Saudi citizen and a key recruiter of Saudi fighters to Afghanistan.

Fifteen out of the 19 hijackers on Sept. 1, 2001 were Saudi nationals. One might think that if the Pentagon were to retaliate against any country for the 9/11attack, it would be Saudi Arabia. Not so. While it took a few months to sort things out, the upshot was tighter security ties between Washington and Riyadh.

Instead, Washington sent troops to Afghanistan ostensibly to force the Taliban government to turn over Bin Laden, who was seeking shelter there (even though the Taliban offered to surrender Bin Laden). Ironically, another reason cited was to protect Afghani women from the Taliban that Washington installed. Many believe, however, that a more pressing reason for Wall Street and the Pentagon was that the Taliban government would not permit the U.S. to build gas and oil pipelines through Afghanistan to bring oil from Central Asia to the Arabian Sea.

In 2010,Wikileaks published secret Saudi diplomatic cables revealing that the Saudis had the dubious distinction of being the "most significant" source of funding for Sunni terrorist groups (like al Qaeda) worldwide.

Other published cables confirm how the the Saudis cynically use religious shrines in their control. Jihadists soliciting funds slip into the country disguised as holy pilgrims. They then set up front companies to launder and receive money from government-sanctioned charities.

In 2013, under operation Timber Sycamore, Saudi Arabia and the U.S. partnered to fund, arm, and train jihadists in Syria.

The wars on Iraq

As the Soviet Union neared collapse, the Pentagon took aim at governments in the Middle East that weren't fully under its thumb. Iraq was the first target. When Kuwait waged economic war against Iraq, including the use of slant drilling technology to penetrate the border and steal Iraqi oil, the Iraqi government sent troops into Kuwait. This was the pretext for the U.S. to form an imperialist coalition to invade Iraq. The Saudis officially requested the U.S to send in troops. The Pentagon stationed 500,000 soldiers in the kingdom, and used Saudi soil as a base to invade Iraq, and later to enforce sanctions and a no-fly zone.

The Sept. 11 attack served as a pretext to invade Iraq in 2003. The corporate media whipped up a hysteria that Saddam Hussein bore responsibility for the 9/11 attacks, even though the Iraqi government and al-Qaeda were on opposite ends of the Middle East political spectrum, had no relations, and did not cooperate. U.S. and British leaders fabricated "evidence" that Iraq had developed nuclear weapons and posed an imminent threat to the world.

Once again, Saudi Arabia proved essential. U.S. coordinated attacks on Iraq out of the Prince Sultan Air Base near Riyadh, where some 10,000 troops were stationed. U.S. Special Operations Forces operated out of the country, which tapped into oil reserves to stabilize oil prices.

Subsidizing the U.S. arms industry

For decades, the Saudis have bought large amounts of U.S. weaponry at inflated prices. These purchases peaked under the Obama administration when Saudi Arabia agreed to spend over $110 billion on U.S. weapons, aircraft, helicopters, and air-defense missiles. This made it the largest purchase of U.S. arms in history. These weapons are not for defense. The purchases are far more than is needed for any purpose for a country with 22 million people. In effect, the Saudis are subsidizing the U.S. arms industry. Most of the military equipment sits in the desert.

Of course, the arms are used when needed. When the people of neighboring Bahrain rose up against a backward and repressive regime and Saudi ally in 2011, the Saudi military rode across sovereign borders on U.S. tanks and crushed the uprising. There was no outcry from Washington.

Waging genocide in Yemen

Additionally, in 2015 Saudi Arabia started a war to dominate Yemen. The war is currently at a stalemate, with the Saudi bombings and blockade responsible for a cholera epidemic, indiscriminate civilian deaths, and starvation, in what the United Nations calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis. Tens of thousands of children have died from disease and starvation. The war is waged with U.S. arms. U.S. advisers provide intelligence and training on the ground. Until this month, U.S. planes were refueling the Saudi planes bombing Yemen.

The U.S. has also been conducting its own operations within Yemen as part of the so-called "war on terror." These operations include drone warfare, raids, and assassinations.

The Saudi rulers clam that the conflict in Yemen in a Sunni-Shia one. But Saudi Arabia didn't think twice in the 1960s about backing Shiite royalist rebels in Yemen-the grandparents of today's Houthis-against Sunni troops from Egypt supporting a progressive Yemini government.

A cash cow for U.S. corporations

Saudi Arabia continues to be a cash cow milked by U.S. businesses. The kingdom bought $20 billion in U.S. products last year, from Boeing planes to Ford cars. It recently signed a $15 billion deal with General Electric for goods and services, and put $20 billion into an investment fund run by the Blackstone Group.

U.S. banks love Saudi Arabia. The kingdom has paid $1.1 billion to western banks in fees since 2010. And truly giant bank fees are in the offing for JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley, who are working with ARAMCO to take that company public.

U.S. universities and corporations grease the wheels for these giant business deals by training the kingdom's managers and politicians, and promoting mutual interests. Many Saudi rulers begin their careers working for U.S. banks and businesses. Fahad al-Mubarak, who governed the central bank from 2011-2016 was previously chairman of Morgan Stanley in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Ministers, include those of finance and petroleum, got their degrees in the U.S.

The kingmakers in this oil-rich country have always been the princes of Wall Street. And the only god worshiped by the U.S.-Saudi unholy alliance is the almighty dollar.

This was originally published at Liberation School .

The US-Saudi Coalition Against Yemen: A Primer

By Valerie Reynoso

The ongoing crisis in Yemen continues to devolve into further calamity and chaos. Understanding the existing conditions of the region, however, means examining and grappling with the historical forces underpinning the current civil war. Most importantly, United States-backed actors, particularly the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, have vied for control of Yemen by any means necessary. Whether the incessant bombings of civilian infrastructure, or the targeting of innocent people themselves, the US-Saudi coalition has stopped at nothing to establish dominance. Through the billions of dollars of funding provided by the US, Saudi Arabia has inflicted wanton destruction on the Yemeni people with impunity.

From a national scope, the key actors in the conflict are the Houthis, Yemeni government forces, and al-Qaeda. The fall and subsequent breakup of the Ottoman Empire in 1922 resulted in the formation of two Yemeni states, leading to conflict between southern nationalist groups and the Yemeni government, with both sides suffering numerous casualties. The Ottoman Empire lasted for over 600 years and by 1849, it had dominated significant territory in northern Yemen, including Sana'a, which further satisfied its interests in Mecca and Medina. Following the decline of the Ottoman Empire, a Zaidi Shia Imamate called the Mutawakaliat Kingdom governed the northern kingdom of Yemen and southern Yemen was still divided and governed by several local sultanates. Sultanate rule in southern Yemen came to an end as a result of British colonial rule, through which British colonizers founded their own southern, settler state named the Federation of South Arabia. The Republic of North Yemen was formed in 1962 and in 1967, the People's Republic of South Yemen was founded after British colonial rule ended. The People's Republic of South Yemen was a Marxist republic which was significantly reliant on support from the Soviet Union. The decline of the Soviet Union in 1990 had a grave impact on South Yemen. In addition to this, in 1989, the president of North Yemen, Ali Abdullah Saleh, and the president of South Yemen, Ali Salim el-Beidh, met up and Saleh and the General People's Congress passed a key proposal to form a federation. Yemen was officially unified in 1990 with Sana'a as its capital; however, the newly-formed state was not equipped for an actual government nor means of distribution of power between the north and the south. El-Beidh believed that southern Yemen was being oppressed and he announced the new southern state, the Democratic Republic of Yemen. Despite this, Saleh defeated the southern rebellion in May 1994.

Although the rebellion failed, tensions remained high. Just under two decades later, in 2011 the Yemeni Arab Spring occurred, which consisted of protests by Yemenis demanding improved socioeconomic and political conditions as well as the resignation of President Saleh, due to his inefficiency in handling corruption and poverty. This was the same year that President Saleh signed a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) measure that gave him dispensation, and he shifted power to his former Vice President Hadi-an action that was also supported by the US, European Union, and the United Nations. In December 2011, the Houthis and the southern nationalist movement called the Hirak organized a Life March from Ta'iz to Sana'a in opposition to the GCC measure. Hadi officially became president in February 2012 through an election in which he was the only candidate. Subsequently, he granted immunity to 500 of Saleh's assistants. After making the unpopular decision of lifting fuel subsidies in July 2014, Hadi began to significantly lose support as a result of his attempt to appeal to the International Monetary Fund. The Houthis were outraged and demanded new subsidies and a new government, so in September 2014 they seized Sana'a, disintegrated parliament by January 2015, and sought to seize power in all of Yemen-resulting in Hadi fleeing to Saudi Arabia.

In March 2015, a Saudi-led regional coalition initiated Operation Decisive Storm with the goal of recapturing Houthi-dominated areas and restoring the Hadi administration. The justification for this operation was that Gulf States believed that the Houthis were backed fiscally, militarily and ideologically by Iran. Saudi Arabia's chief ally, the US, also continued its "counterterrorist operations" in the region and had lines of intelligence to the Houthis. In February 2015, the Houthis created a new Revolutionary Committee and released a Constitutional Declaration; in these, they stated that the Committee would lead the government, that rights would be protected by it and that National Dialogue Conference protocols would be put in place by a transitional government within two years, before submitting the draft of the constitution for a referendum. Afterwards, the Houthis initiated what they considered revenge murders throughout Yemen, and they had Ta'iz by the end of February. To this day, the Houthis are still fighting pro-Hadi, Saudi-backed coalitions.

In regards to casualties and other demographics concerning the well-being and migrations of the Yemeni population, thousands have died in Saudi and US drone strikes, are starving, and have diseases due to poor conditions as a result of the war. As of 2018, at least 10,000 Yemenis have been killed in the conflict and 7 million urgently need food assistance. The Geneva SAM Organization for Rights and Liberties stated that at least 716 human rights violations were committed against Yemenis in November 2017; said violations include murders, batteries, assault, unjust detentions, forced displacement, torture, and press censorship. Over 20 million people need immediate humanitarian assistance, with 11 million of these people being children. Over 400,000 Yemeni children suffer from life-threatening malnutrition. Furthermore, the UN Human Rights Office reported that of the Yemenis murdered, at least 1,184 of the victims were children, 3,233 of the total Yemenis killed were murdered by coalition forces, and an additional 8,749 people were injured. Each day, 130 Yemeni children die from severe hunger and disease. To put it another way, one child dies every 18 minutes. The International Committee of the Red Cross also reported that there could be at least a million cholera cases registered by the end of the year as a result of excessive force and bombings of civilian infrastructure. It is suspected that there are currently 913,000 cholera cases in Yemen, and at least 2,119 Yemenis have died due to the disease, as it spreads from lack of access to clean water and health facilities. Only 45% of the 3,500 health facilities are properly working in Yemen and at least 14.8 million Yemenis do not have healthcare. Moreover, two million Yemenis are displaced within the country and 188,000 have sought refuge in other countries nearby.

From a regional standpoint, Saudi Arabia is the key actor. Saudi Arabia has allied primarily with other pro-US Gulf states, pro-US Arab League states, and al-Qaeda to repress the Houthis, protect regional interests in Yemen and attempt to restore Hadi. Conversely, Iran allegedly supports the Houthis and opposes the pro-US Gulf states. Saudi blockades of Yemeni ports such as Hodeida, from which 80% of Yemen's food supply is imported, is the main cause of the famine and lack of medicine in the country. In addition to this, Saudi bombings of Yemeni water and sanitation infrastructure has led to the Yemeni cholera epidemic. Since the beginning of Saudi military intervention in Yemen in 2015, over 250 fishing boats were damaged or destroyed, as well as 152 fishermen murdered by coalition warships and helicopters in the Red Sea. According to emeritus professor Martha Mundy at the London School of Economics, there was significant proof that Saudi coalition strategy had the goal of destroying food production and distribution in Yemen, within the first 17 months of Saudi military invasion. Likewise, in 2015, Saudi expenditure increased by 13% to $260 billion with $5.3 billion of that amount being dedicated to military and security, particularly in regards to the current war on Yemen. Saudi Arabia spent around $175 million per month in efforts to restore former Yemeni president Hadi and repress the Houthis. Despite Saudi Arabia's claims that the motive behind intervention in Yemen is related to political restoration alone, one can readily see their interest in Yemen as a bridge and access point for numerous continents, as well as its many natural resources, fertile lands, water, and entry point to the Red Sea. Yemen is also geopolitically vital to the Bab-el-Mandeb oil route, and could serve as a substitute to the Strait of Hormuz with the building of an oil pipeline in the eastern region of Hadramawt-which would threaten Iranian hegemony and oil security, could block Iran from having access to the oil route, and could allow Saudi Arabia to possess a monopoly over it as a result of its geographic location. Given all this, it is clear that Saudi Arabia aspires to dominate Yemen in order to gain access to and ownership over its vast resources and strategic location.

Among Saudi Arabia's regional allies in the war on Yemen are the United Arab Emirates (UAE), al-Qaeda, Israel, Qatar, and Sudan. The Houthi forces who were in the Yemeni port of Mocha were ejected by UAE-backed Yemeni fighters in February 2017; the UAE is part of the Saudi-led coalition to defeat the Houthis. Given the conflicts between the Houthis and Saudi-backed coalitions, al-Qaeda jihadists used the issue to their advantage by seizing southern Yemeni land and enacting fatal attacks, particularly in Aden. A leaked US diplomatic cable from December 30 th, 2009, from former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, reveals that Saudi Arabia is the main funder of Sunni terrorist groups globally and that private donors in Saudi Arabia and other pro-US Gulf states are the prime financiers of al-Qaeda. Furthermore, Saudi colonialism in Yemen empowers al-Qaeda, seeing that al-Qaeda uses US drone strikes in the region to provide a replacement for justice and to galvanize recruits. In 2014, anti-Hadi rebel alliance member Colonel Aziz Rashid stated that he believed that Israel fought with the Saudi-led coalition in order to bring Hadi back to power, and that Israel had initiated strikes against the rebel fighters. Israel has a military base in the Dahlak archipelago of Eritrea and Massawa, which is within the range of the Yemeni rebels' missiles as well as nearby the Iranian military installation in Assab, Eritrea. Additionally, although Saudi Arabia does not recognize Israel as a state, they have fought together in a US-led campaign against Iran. Likewise, in 2015 approximately 1,000 Qatari Armed Forces soldiers were stationed in Yemen in alliance with the Saudi-led coalition against the Houthis. That same year, Saudi Arabia obtained an allegiance from the Sudan Armed Forces to help fight the Houthis in Yemen. Sudan committed to Saudi Arabia in its coalition because of its weakened economy at the time as a result of US sanctions on the Sudanese central bank that have been imposed since 1997; these sanctions made it more difficult for Sudan to access global financial markets and hard currency. Sudan also lost a third of its land and most of its oil with the secession of South Sudan in 2011, resulting in the decline of oil prices. Due to this, Sudan sought financial assistance from its Gulf Arab allies and is paying for this aid by joining the Saudi-led invasion of Yemen. Sudan used to have a close relationship with Iran for several years, e.g. in 2008 when Sudanese and Iranian officials signed a military cooperation agreement, or in 2013 when Iran increased construction of naval and logistical bases in Port Sudan. In 2014, this changed, as Sudanese authorities shut down Iranian cultural centers throughout the country with the justification that Iran was supposedly trying to spread Shiism in Sudan; however, Sudan was also becoming more aligned with Saudi Arabia during this time.

Regional powers and their pro-US Gulf state allies receive support from global powers primarily in the West, including the US, United Kingdom, and France. The Obama administration provided Saudi Arabia with over $115 billion in weapons, military equipment and training, much more than any other US administration in the history of the 71 year US-Saudi alliance has given. The military aid was made in 42 distinct deals, and most of the equipment has yet to be delivered. The arms offers to Saudi Arabia under former US President Obama consists of assets such as small arms, ammunition, tanks, attack helicopters, air-to-ground missiles, missile defense ships, warships, and sustenance and training of Saudi security forces. In November 2017, the US House of Representatives passed a resolution which recognized the role of the US in the Yemeni civil war, such as mid-air refueling of Saudi-led coalition planes and target selection; however, the resolution was a compromise and has not been authorized by Congress yet.

The US is also involved in a network of 18 documented secret prisons based throughout primarily southern Yemeni territory, which are managed by the UAE and dominated by Saudi officials, in which tortures have allegedly taken place. Over 2,000 Yemeni men have reportedly disappeared in the prisons, and survivors have claimed that they experienced torture and sexual assault while imprisoned. In June 2017, US involvement in the secret prisons was confirmed by US military officials, but they denied taking part in the torture of prisoners. According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, as of September 2017, US airstrikes in Yemen have more than doubled under the Trump administration, in comparison to the end of the Obama presidency, with 93 airstrikes compared to 40 the previous year. The US carries out at least one airstrike every two days. On May 21 st, 2017, Trump voiced support for action against the Houthis in Yemen, and accused Iran of supporting "terrorists" in Yemen as well as in other nations. The US also still has "counterterrorist operations" and some lines of intelligence to the Houthis, which the US refers to as "anti al-Qaeda."

The UK has also backed US operations in Yemen, such as providing intelligence and operational support for drone strikes, and on-ground British assistance in choosing targets and managing drone strikes. In early 2017, Tory MP Tobias Ellwood stated that the UK is involved in the US targeted killing program and that UK intelligence agencies work closely with that of the US. In the first half of 2017, UK sales of military equipment to Saudi Arabia reached £1.1 billion, according to figures from the Department for International Trade-which also showed that the UK sold £836 million of arms and military hardware to Saudi Arabia between April and June. British forces were also part of a presentation of the firestorm targeting systems utilized by the Saudi-led Gulf coalition forces in Yemen. The Yemen Data Project shows that 356 airstrikes have targeted farms, 174 targeted market places, and 61 targeted food storage places between March 2015 and September 2017. The UK also provided over £4.6 billion worth of fighter jets and arms sales to Saudi Arabia since 2015. UK military officers trained the Royal Saudi Airforce in the aforementioned targeted attacks. Aside from the UK, French President Emmanuel Macron admitted that France has formed relationships with all the Gulf states. In addition to this, Saudi Arabia is one of the prime clients of the French arms industry, which is evident given that François Hollande allowed the sale of arms worth 455 million euros to Saudi Arabia, the majority of which would be used in the war on Yemen. While US imperialism is the primary reactionary force in the Middle East, the legacy of French and British imperialism in the region lives on, 100 years after the Sykes-Picot Agreement.

In terms of conflict resolution, the UN Human Rights Council, the UN Security Council, and Human Rights Watch, have all made efforts to provide what they consider to be assistance to war-torn Yemen. The UN Human Rights Council conducted a report where they recorded the human rights violations of international humanitarian laws taken place in Yemen as of September 2014. They also have recorded civilian casualties due to coalition airstrikes. The Human Rights Council has advocated international investigation of what they consider to be a man-made catastrophe in Yemen. According to the deputy global director of Human Rights Watch, Philippe Bolopion, nations that arm Saudi Arabia have denied evidence that shows that the Saudi-led coalition is responsible for the deaths of thousands of Yemeni civilians and that nations that fund the coalition are complicit in these human rights violations. In September 2017, the Netherlands revised a resolution proposal to the UN Human Rights Council with the goal of gaining Saudi agreement to a UN investigation into alleged war crimes in Yemen. Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein, UN human rights chief, has requested that the 47 member nations of the council start an independent investigation into the war on Yemen. Saudi Arabia insists that the coalition forces are fighting terrorists, but Zeid countered that the majority of casualties are in fact Yemeni noncombatants.

The UN Security Council drafted a political strategy for Yemen. Unfortunately, such measures internationally legitimized the Saudi-backed military operations, mainly due to diplomatic exertions by the ambassadors of the GCC and the Jordanian government, which was represented by its delegate, Dina Kawar. Abdallah al-Mouallimi, the Saudi ambassador to the UN, guided the compromises and stated that Resolution 2216 is notable for having founded the idea that if Arab countries adopt a unified position, the decision would be internationally recognized. With the exception of Russia, 14 states supported the resolution. The resolution was issued under Chapter VII, which obligates enforcement and would require the Houthis to disarm themselves of weapons they obtained from military institutions and to retreat from Sana'a. In Resolution 2216, the UN Security Council stated that all countries should carry out urgent measures to prevent the export of weapons to all Yemeni parties. The Security Council also emphasized that all Yemeni parties and factions should resolve their issues nonviolently. Despite its rhetoric calling for peace, the resolution has served to further empower the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, making it easier for them to seize territories and ports in the nation. Most glaringly, the resolution has failed to ensure that issues among Yemeni parties and groups are dealt with nonviolently, especially given the murder of Saleh by the Houthis in December 2017.

No signs point to any of the UN-led measures having a tangible impact. Tensions have increased in the country following the Houthi-led murder of Saleh. US funding of Saudi coalitions in Yemen has increased under the Trump administration. President Trump proposed $110 billion-worth of arms to Saudi Arabia in June 2017. Said arms proposal would include seven THAAD missile defense batteries, 104,000 air-to-ground munitions, four new aircrafts, and much more. An increase in military aid to Saudi Arabia would result in more casualties, famine, bombings of infrastructure, and seizure of land and ports in Yemen; this proposal could also result in more violent backlash from the Houthis and its supporters. The International Red Cross stated that the fighting between the Houthis and Saleh's forces has resulted in at least 125 civilian deaths within five days of Saleh's murder. Saleh's abrupt death may further enrage Saudi Arabia because of the possibility of an increase of Iranian influence in the region, which would further increase their bombing of Yemen in an attempt to repress Houthis.

In all of this horrific war, the Yemeni people's voices remain silenced. The only chance the country has of seeing peace is for the complete withdrawal of all coalition forces, from the Saudi Arabia to other GCC members. It goes without saying that this includes any and all US presence. While the UN has made clarion calls for peace, its actions have proved impotent at best, and disastrous at worse. Sanctions issued against Yemen have engendered further famine, death, and destruction. Thus, much as coalition forces must withdraw, so too must sanctions come to a close. If, and only if, these two actions come to fruition, then the Yemeni people might have a chance to bring about peace, on their terms. Anything short of this will lead to the existing cycle repeating itself in one form or another. The only hope for Yemen lies with the Yemeni people, without the encroachment of the West or its GCC puppets.

References

The World Factbook: Yemen. Central Intelligence Agency, 12 Dec. 2017.

Ahmed, Bilal Zenab. The Yemen Primer: A History of Violence for Anti-Violence. Viewpoint Magazine, 25 July 2017.

Yemen: The North-South Divide. Al Jazeera, 8 Dec. 2017.

Hundreds of Rights Violations Documented in Yemen. Al Jazeera, 20 Nov. 2017.

Yemen Crisis: Who Is Fighting Whom? BBC News, 2 Dec. 2017.

Yemen An "Entirely Man-Made Catastrophe"-UN Human Rights Report Urges International Investigation. United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner, 5 Sept. 2017.

Red Cross: 1 Million Cholera Cases Likely In Yemen By Years End. Mint Press News, 29 Sept. 2017.

Weisbrot, Mark. Mass Starvation and an Unconstitutional War: US/Saudi Crimes in Yemen. Counterpunch, 22 Nov. 2017.

Craig, Iona. Bombed into Famine: How Saudi Air Campaign Targets Yemen's Food Supplies. The Guardian, 12 Dec. 2017.

Yemen War Caused Saudi $5.3bn: Minister. Press TV, 29 Dec. 2015.

Shakdam, Catherine. Saudi Arabia's Slaughter of Yemen Fueled by Oil Interests Not Democracy. Mint Press News, 30 Mar. 2016.

Spillius, Alex. Wikileaks: 'Saudis Chief Funders of Al-Qaeda'. The Telegraph, 5 Dec. 2010.

Friedersdorf, Conor. How America's Drone War in Yemen Strengthens Al-Qaeda. The Atlantic, 28 Sept. 2015.

O'Connor, Tom. Israel Military Bases within Range of Missiles, Yemen Rebels Warn. Newsweek, 29 Sept. 2017.

Qatar Deploys 1,000 Ground Troops to Fight in Yemen. Al Jazeera, 7 Sept. 2015.

Cafiero, Giorgio. Sudan Gets $2.2B for Joining Saudi Arabia, Qatar in Yemen War. Al- Monitor, 23 Nov. 2015.

Saul, Jonathan. Exclusive: Iran Steps up Support for Houthis in Yemen's War. Reuters, 21 Mar. 2017.

Bayoumy, Yara. Obama Administration Arms Sales Offers to Saudi Top $115 Billion: Report. Reuters, 7 Sept. 2016.

Webb, Whitney. US Troop Deployment To Yemen Has Little To Do With Al-Qaeda. Mint Press News , 8 Aug. 2017.

Total Crisis in Egypt: A Marxist Analysis

By Hamid Alizadeh

Sisi came to power in Egypt after millions of people took to the streets to protest over declining living standards and the rising instability and increasingly authoritarian nature of the Muslim Brotherhood government of Mohamed Morsi. He came to power promising political stability and the raising of living standards. But far from solving anything, Egypt under Sisi has entered its deepest crisis in decades.

Scratches on the Surface

Sisi's facade as the strong and intelligent military commander has been shattered time and time again as he has hopelessly failed to tackle even the most simple of problems. His violent crackdowns on protests to quash the revolutionary mood has only managed to embitter the masses even more. The random torture, arrest and disappearance of thousands of young people on the pretext of fighting the Muslim Brotherhood has in fact partially served to give a new lease of life to the Islamist organisation.

In the Sinai Peninsula a few hundred Islamists connected to ISIS and with next to no popular support, have been spreading terror and killing scores of civilians and armed personnel. The mighty Egyptian army has pathetically failed to do anything about it. In fact the army is killing more civilians than terrorists with its indiscriminate bombing. This is a completely counterproductive tactic which has only lead to more anger towards the army.

Together, with the rise of ISIS and Islamic fundamentalist groups in Libya, this insurgency is becoming a seriously destabilising factor in Egypt. The illusion that a powerful army could guarantee the safety of the people and act as a stabilising force has been totally undermined and it is clear that the generals are now worried about the morale within the army itself.

Two Left Feet

With regards to foreign policy Sisi has not been any more lucky. The relationship with its long-time US ally had been weakened due to Barack Obama's heavy criticism over Sisi coming to power. However, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states filled in the vacuum left by the US by stepping in with $31 billion worth of aid in the past 3 years. This was the key to initially stabilising the Sisi regime. When it came to paying back the Saudis, however, Sisi could not offer much. First he had to hastily draw back from early promises of support for the kingdom over their war in Yemen. Besides regarding the Houthis as a good buffer against Al-Qaeda and other Islamic Fundamentalist organisations, the Egyptian ruling elite knew that the unwinnable conflict in Yemen - where Egypt has already lost one costly war in modern times - would only lead to further instability. The Egyptian masses have no appetite to send their children to fight and die on behalf of the hated Saudi monarchy.

Then, in April, during a visit by Saudi King Salman, Sisi made the surprise announcement of handing over the Red Sea islands of Tiran and Sanafir to Saudi Arabia. This humiliating act of submission to the Al-Saud family caused huge uproar throughout Egypt. Small protests mushroomed all over the country leading to hundreds of arrests and a war of words began between Egyptian and Saudi journalists and TV presenters. In the end, sensing rising tensions, the ruling class had to retreat and a court reversed the decision. Needless to say King Salman was not pleased. The authority of the regime suffered a blow by this affair which also revealed serious fissures within the ruling class.

The Saudi-Egyptian crisis has since then further escalated. The final straw came over the summer as Egypt began a process of rapprochement with Russia . Seeing the relative decline in the role of the US in the region and the rise of Russia, the Sisi regime wants to use the renewed US-Russian conflict to its advantage by using Russia as a means of getting more concessions from the US. Hence the Egyptian navy held its first naval exercise ever with the Russian navy in September followed by other exercises in October. The Egyptian regime has also made several arms purchases from Russia as well as having discussed a possible joint strategy in Libya. All of this was topped by Egypt voting with Russia and against the Saudi/French proposals in the October UN security council meeting which discussed the situation in Aleppo, Syria.

As explained above, the war in Syria and the rise of ISIS and Islamic fundamentalist groups pose a concrete threat to stability in Egypt and the generals are eager to end the crisis as soon as possible. This puts them at odds with a Saudi regime which backs several Islamist proxies in Syria, one of which is ISIS itself. For the Saudis, defeat in Syria poses a serious threat to the future of the kingdom itself. The Saudis demand full loyalty as a minimum return for their financial aid but for Sisi the requests of the al-Saud's could have explosive domestic consequences. The Egyptian "betrayal" at the UN led Saudi Arabia, suddenly and without giving an official reason, to stop the vital supply of refined oil - a part of a $23 billion aid package - to Egypt in October.

A Perfect Storm

The economic shockwave coming from the sudden Saudi aid cut will have a devastating effect on the crisis-ridden Egyptian economy. This in turn will significantly deepen the general crisis of the regime. The decline in the world economy along with Egypt's political instability has driven its economy into a black hole. It was only kept floating just above the surface by the billions of Gulf dollars pouring in each year.

In 2015, investments were half ($14.5 billion) of their 2008 level ($28.5 billion). Foreign investments have collapsed from $13.5 billion to $6.5 billion in the same period. Due to the crisis, it is estimated that the state will be about $15 billion short of funds each year in the coming years. During the 2011-15 period, Egypt has seen an average yearly budget deficit of nearly 12 percent of GDP. In 2015 the public debt reached over 88 percent of GDP, and is projected to reach 94 percent this year.

The government has tried to establish many spectacular projects to find a way out of the crisis. An $8.2 billion dollar expansion of the Suez canal was supposed to double annual revenue from the canal to $13.2 billion a year, but in the context of declining world trade this is impossible. After blocking public canal revenue reports for a period, the August and September reports showed a 10% decrease (!) in canal revenue. Hence the bill for the expansion will be added to the debt of the near bankrupt state. This failure doesn't hold the government back from starting the pharaonic project of building a new Capital city outside of Cairo, the first phase of which will cost over $45 billion. Rest assured the workers and the poor of Cairo will not be the main beneficiaries of the new developments.

Declining Living Standards

The situation of the masses is deteriorating very fast. Official inflation has been floating at 15 percent this year, but will rise higher after the recent devaluation of the currency. Official unemployment levels remains around 13 percent, up from 11 percent in 2011, however just like then the real figure now is certainly higher. Just to remain at these levels, the economy must grow by 5-6 percent per year, yet since the 2011 revolution yearly growth has been just 2 percent, with the exception of 4 percent growth in 2015. Official poverty rates have also been steadily rising up to 27.8 percent in 2015 - the highest rate in 15 years and 2.5 percent higher than in 2010/2011. This year poverty is expected to grow at a far higher rate.

A new IMF "aid" package - with many strings attached - worth more than $12 billion is only worsening the conditions. The IMF is pushing for massive liberalisation and the cutting of the few benefits the Egyptian masses had. In August, electricity prices were raised by 20-40% under a five-year programme that will see power subsidies gradually eliminated. Petrol subsidies are next on the line.

A civil service "reform" will also attack the conditions of the six million people employed by the state and the 20 million who are dependent on public service employment as a source of income. Sisi was the man of the state apparatus with its armed forces of men and the army of bureaucrats, representing all those who felt robbed of their power by the revolution and who felt threatened by a Muslim Brotherhood government which wanted to take its own part of this gigantic network of patronage. It is amongst these layers that Sisi's strongest support is found and a consistent pressure to reduce its size and impose austerity will leave a serious mark on the regime. The debate about these "reforms" in parliament has revealed serious divisions within the regime. While a layer is pushing for liberalisation and attacks on living standards, another layer understands that these attacks could lead to a severe backlash. Yet within the confines of Egyptian capitalism, there is no other solution.

Already the regime has tried to sustain stability by spending vast foreign currency reserves to keep the Egyptian pound artificially high in relation to the dollar. In the context of a decline in the real economy the costs needed to keep the pound up have become even bigger, leading to an acute foreign currency crisis. By the end of October sugar started running out. While the authorities blamed mismanagement, it is clear that the sugar crisis was linked to the low dollar reserves. Sugar prices rose 100 percent. The fear of a spreading crisis led to rising prices on staple commodities while many less crucial products disappeared altogether from the shelves. This was clearly unsustainable. Pushed by the IMF the government had to let the currency float freely on the markets on 3rd November. This immediately resulted in a 50 percent devaluation of the Egyptian pound. Within hours fuel prices shot up 50 percent and other prices are expected to rise.

Anger and Desperation

A mood of anger and dissent is now present amongst the masses. In October a 30-year-old taxi driver named Ashraf Mohammed Shaheen, furious at the government and rising prices, set himself on fire in front of an army office in Alexandria. The news spread quickly on social media with hashtags (In Arabic) of #Bouazizi_Egypt, referring to the street vendor whose suicide sparked the Tunisian revolution.

A video of a Tuk Tuk driver spread like wildfire and became the topic of discussions throughout the country. In the video (Which is well worth watching in full below!) the angry driver sums up the situation very sharply:

"How [can] a state that has a parliament, security and military institutions, ministries of interior and foreign affairs, and 20 [other] ministries end up like this? You watch Egypt on television and it's like Vienna; you go out on the street and it's like Somalia. Before the presidential elections, we had enough sugar and we would export rice. What happened? The top echelon spent 25 million pounds to celebrate, while the poor cannot find a kilogram of rice (…) The government keeps saying that Egypt is witnessing a renaissance, and it collects money for valueless national projects while our education is deteriorating like never before,"

When the journalist asks him where he graduated he replies "I'm a graduate of a Tuk Tuk."

He then goes on:

"How come such large national projects are constructed while we have starving, uneducated human beings whose health is deteriorating. There are three ways for the country to develop, and they are education, health and agriculture. Is this Egypt which gave Britain loans in the past, was the second country in the world to construct railways and whose cash reserves were the biggest in the world? How could we end up like this? Chad, Sudan and Saudi Arabia were part of Egypt, and now a bunch of Gulf countries make fun of us? Those dealers have tricked people under slogans of patriotism, freedom and social justice. Their promises are as far as they could get from democracy and justice. Enough is enough."

The video was quickly removed from the webpages of Al Hayat and the media outlet even started clamping down on independently uploaded Youtube videos of the interview. In the mass media a barrage of accusations ensued against the Tuk Tuk driver, linking him with the Muslim Brotherhood. But this only enraged people even more with thousands of people coming to the man's defence. One woman uploaded a strong defiant video (See below) saying: "Oh president of the Arab Republic of Egypt, you are scared of us that much? (...) because the guy came out and said 'I want to eat and I want to drink?!'".

Another poor man from the rural Upper Egypt posted a video saying:

"This president is an employee like any other…we are tired…we have lost our breath…you want to leave peacefully leave, if not we will force you. (...) We will go on 11/11 ready to die (...) Our revolution demanded justice, freedom and bread and we've got none of it."

After years of almost uninterrupted mobilisations and struggles, the revolutionary movement has ebbed and flowed in the past two years. Tired of the lack of change and disoriented by the rise of the Sisi regime, a certain tiredness crept in. Yet the pressures mounting on the living standards are pushing the masses back onto the arena of struggle once more. In the city of Port Said thousands of people took to the streets (See video below) on 18 October to protest against the rise of rent, shouting slogans such as "house us or kill us" and "we want our rights".

The Ruling Class is Afraid

A whistleblower within the intelligence agency spoke to Middle East Eye about a serious concern amongst the ruling class of an explosive situation developing. The website writes:

"A high-ranking person within al-Mukhabarat al-Amma (General Intelligence Directorate), the country's top security service, told Middle East Eye that reports sent to the presidency late last month highlighted a sharp decrease in both the popularity of the leadership and public support for the state.

(...)

" 'An upheaval is feared in places where there is no awareness of the economic efforts the country is making and where basic services are zero,' he said. He added that dissent, in the form of small angry gatherings, could also suddenly emerge if services promised by the government abruptly ceased.

" 'Look, for example, what happened in Port Said last month or at baby formula distribution branches [in August],' he said."

"In October, thousands of Port Said residents took to the streets, condemning a sudden rise in housing costs. The previous month, dozens of families gathered in front of state-owned pharmaceutical companies to protest against a shortage of subsidised baby formula. The official suggested that these protesters were driven not by political motives but by the sudden end to benefits they had enjoyed."

As is often the case, the bourgeoisie, due to their overview on society come to similar conclusions to the Marxists - albeit from a different class angle. An explosive situation is developing amongst the masses which could burst out into a new stage of open struggle against the regime. Sisi came to power by posing as the defender of the revolution. He promised to solve the economic crisis, to bring stability and to represent the masses. But at each turn he has failed miserably. Far from that, he is now leading the most violent onslaught against living standards in modern Egyptian history. At the root of his problems is the crisis of capitalism which is in turn exacerbated by the parasitic nature of the Egyptian ruling class. With the decline of the economy any attempt to keep living standards afloat will lead to higher debt and a bigger backlash in the future. The IMF package promotes a "cold turkey" cure of getting rid of the debt by slashing subsidies and public employment. But this will only hit demand, thereby dragging the market further down and any end to the vicious debt circle further away.

The ruling class is not blind to the consequences of this. The mood of anger and desperation in the population has seriously alarmed the authorities. The Sisi regime is a counter-revolutionary regime, yet due to its weakness it could have only come to power by pretending to represent the revolutionary masses. The tiredness and relative demoralisation amongst the masses gave Sisi a bit more room to manoeuvre. Yet he has never been able to inflict a decisive defeat on the revolutionary masses. In fact Sisi's first government administration, led by Hazem Al-Beblawi, collapsed under the pressure of a strike wave involving hundreds of thousands of workers. The ruling clique are very keen to crush any mass movements which disrupt the political and economic equilibrium. Yet they have not been strong enough to take such a decisive step. In fact the base of the regime itself has been wavering.

Capitalist Egypt is in a deep crisis. The ruling class is staggering from one disaster to another. It has lost much authority, even amongst its own traditional supporters. Pushed by the attacks on their living standards the masses are being forced to take to the path of struggle again. Yet the main problem remains the lack of a revolutionary leadership to galvanise the movement and lead it to its logical conclusion: the overthrow of the capitalist system.

This was originally published at In Defence of Marxism.