 Welcome to another edition in the socialist.net video blog. This week we're joined by Hamid Alizadeh, the editor of Mobarizzi.org, the Iranian Marxist newspaper. Hamid today is going to be talking to us about the developments in Iraq over the past few weeks. So Hamid, we've seen in the past few months the rise of this group, the IS, the Islamic State. And in the last few weeks the bombing again in Iraq taking place. Can you explain some of the latest developments over the past week? Well, on Wednesday Barack Obama in an address to the American nation on live television announced basically the beginning of a new long campaign, military campaign basically. In Iraq. And this is quite, this could seem quite absurd coming from a president who was basically elected, one of the main points that he was elected on was on withdrawing troops out and being against the war in Iraq. And now he's forced, he's basically dragged back into Iraq. However, what will this do, what will this do to solve this? What are his plans? Basically what he said is not only is he going to do, he's going to have a sustained bombing campaigns inside Iraq but also in Syria he's going to, he said he's not going to send in ground troops for that he's going to depend on other forces which he doesn't really explain. Now this has led to basically, this has become kind of a farce basically because he was trying to go under big international support for this. He's trying to get European states, other Western states and also Arab states, especially the Gulf states and so on to send troops and to send resources basically to go in. But this is all kind of ground to a halt. Now they tried to paint it as if they got massive support for this but there's very little happening. The biggest successes they can talk about is Australia which is now sending 400 troops to Iraq which is not nearly as much as is needed to sustain such a campaign. The Brits have, David Cameron from Britain has said that he would join in. However there's no concrete proposals as to what, who and how. And the Middle Eastern states have been withdrawing one by one. Some of them the Gulf states have apparently agreed to sending some aerial support but not much more. The Egyptian government has said that he would help out although it doesn't say how. But on the other hand he demands that the US also start such a campaign in Libya where other Islamist forces are also, there's a big civil war going on in Libya and it's threatening to destabilize Egypt. Then they went to, John Kerry, the vice president went to Turkey which is supposedly a NATO partner and a close ally of the Americans. However in Turkey the government refused to send, to help in any way actively to help really and in fact also refused to allow the Americans to use their own military bases in Turkey for such a campaign. So basically the whole thing is disintegrating obviously. It's clear why is because it's basically a swamp, it's an adventure. It's not going to solve anything and any country that goes in there is going to be trapped for years and it's going to hemorrhage, it's going to be a hemorrhage on their budgets. And also it's going to cause a lot of internal dissatisfaction by another imperialist adventure which is basically what this is. A campaign in order to try to reimpose and dominate Iraq in the interest of imperialism is not going to be popular in these countries where the situation is already shaky and there's a lot of ferment going on beneath the surface. Thanks very much, Hamid. You discussed some of the instability that this new military campaign could create. Obviously the initial reason given for the campaign is the rise of the Islamic State and the kind of terror that we've seen them unleash across the region. Do you think this military campaign can actually solve that problem? Can they help get rid of the Islamic State and their influence in the region? Well, it's interesting how the Islamic State is portrayed as this big bogeyman and this big foreign enemy that's basically threatening civilization as if it's come from out of nowhere or from outside of this world. Whereas in fact the phenomenon of the Islamic State which is a barbaric formation is a direct result of the actions of imperialism every step of the way. In fact, before the American occupation of Iraq there was no Islamic fundamentalism in Iraq and in spite of what George Bush and Tony Blair was claiming there was absolutely no al-Qaeda or any other of these kind of organizations that had a foothold inside Iraq. In fact for most Iranians, Iraqis, life was much more stable and it wasn't this chaotic bloodbath which basically it is today with car bombings and murders, kidnappings and so on every single day. But with this occupation the Americans did two things. First of all, the living standards in Iraq collapsed. Unemployment, poverty, these things became a much bigger factor in fact than they were before which we have to remember. We're not supporting Saddam in any way but today's life for most Iraqis is much worse than the Saddam era and at the same time the Americans also destroyed the Iraqi state apparatus which meant that in order to dominate the country they had to rest on different gangs and tribes, on different militias, sectarian militias and in fact sectarianism became the way the Americans dominated Iraq. They had it enshrined in the constitution in all the elections in all the institutions of the state, sectarianism was the major part. It's like Iraq was nothing but different clans and in fact before this, especially in the Sunni areas, there was no Sunni identity it wasn't a major issue, people were seen as Iraqis and even the Shia parts of the country and the Kurds were oppressed to a logic. It didn't channel sectarian hatred as much as hatred towards the regime and sectarian violence was not any factor in Iraq and the Americans caused it basically and also encouraged it and in fact forced people to align themselves with different sects if you wanted to vote in Iraq, the Sunnis had such and such a part of the vote the Shias had such and such a part of the vote and there was no other kind of way around it and every time there was an attempt to overcome it the Maliki government which was installed by the Americans basically destroyed it, crushed it through sectarian means and especially in this situation, especially the Sunnis came to feel themselves and it's basically maybe not directly to the Islamic state but the US has facilitated its growth and probably also trained many of its fighters who was then further radicalized in the Syrian civil war and drifted into this issue and in fact I think what he's trying to do now by doing another campaign against basically the Sunnis is not going to change the situation and also who is he going to rely on in the ground because obviously you cannot just bomb yourself to victory and he's relying on several Shia militias Iranian special troops and the Iraqi army but which is not really a functioning army at this stage so basically he's trying to control the sectarian civil war by strengthening the one side even further so in fact it's not going to change anything and I would say that in the next period no one will be able to hold on to those areas no one will be strong enough to hold on to those areas because the people do not want to be occupied by what they see as increasingly enemy forces now in response to that the Americans have said that they are going to build new entities new arms and basically the Iraqi army is going to be split up and decentralize so each state or each province has its own army but that's just another recipe for disaster it's just again going to fuel up the sectarianism and all this even more so in my opinion there's well maybe the Islamic state will be defeated because obviously it cannot really so deep roots but that doesn't solve the situation whatsoever and in fact what the Americans have done and what they are increasingly doing is to throw the whole area and possibly the whole region into a situation of complete chaos which will take years and maybe decades to overcome Thank you Hamid you mentioned a bit about the effect of the Arab Revolution on the situation in Syria and Iraq and also discussed briefly the Syrian civil war and its influence in the situation do you want to perhaps give a bit more of a background to the current situation in the Middle East as a region? Yes, well I would say that obviously the Arab Revolution was an extremely strong movement deep roots, deep support amongst the population throughout the Arab world not only in those countries where it was successful however it's also clear that the Revolution does not proceed in one straight line from inception until victory and the most important mistake that the Revolutionaries especially in Tunisia and Egypt made was not to take power when they could, they had the chance several times to take out, to overthrow the whole old regime but they did not do so and in return power fell onto different reactionary forces in Tunisia was mainly Anahdha who was then pushed aside as well although they still play a role but that completely demoralized the Revolution in Egypt there were several governments in fact that had been overthrown there was the Tantawi government which was the military government which was then replaced by a Muslim Brotherhood government again another bourgeois government but with an Islamic face which was then again overthrown and the Sisi government took power and now also Sisi is showing to be not any different than all the rest for normal people although obviously he acts differently and he has his conflicts with the Muslim Brotherhood and so on but he's not decisively changing anything for the Arab masses who are still caught in this what do you call it in this situation of poverty deprivation of unemployment and of a lack of democracy basically many Arabs would say nothing has changed and that is not due to the weakness of the Revolution but the fact that the Revolution did not have the leadership which was far-sighted enough to take power into its own hand in fact at every stage it just gave power back it had power but it gave power back to different factions of the counter-revolution the old regime of the bourgeoisie of the representatives of Capital and Capitalism which is the main source of all these things and that has caused a certain how can you say an ebb in the movement a certain tiredness in the movement and in other countries as in Syria for instance the process has gone even further I would say the Syrian Revolution as itself as a real revolution as a revolutionary movement with wide support amongst the masses especially in the eastern parts of the country but because the Revolution did not have a proper program it could not attract the working class in the cities especially to the Revolution but it did not necessarily support Assad but it did not see a real alternative in the Revolution and in that situation of stalemate what happened was that gradually the different reactionary forces especially from Saudi Arabia from Turkey from the Gulf States and also US and Western imperialism saw their chance to intervene there and armed different groups although they didn't armed revolutionary groups but they armed the sectarian groups especially Islamist groups of different shades and by whipping up this sectarianism they basically they used it as one to to gather some people around but also to push away the revolutionary elements and this is a situation that has led to today where we have basically counter-revolution on both sides and the Americans have been a partner in doing this and they basically feel now this has spilled over into Iraq as well and this is causing a destabilizing situation but I would say that this question of this question of the Arab Revolution it should not be seen as an isolated in isolation and as a finished process because that is a revolution it does never go off in a straight line and in fact what we're witnessing here is very very harsh brutal lessons that the Arab masses have learned that if they do not take power the counter-revolution will of some shape and it will take revenge on them and this is a very harsh lesson but it's nevertheless one that the Arab masses will have to learn from and I would say that the key countries although in Syria and Iraq I would say revolutionary movements are excluded for the immediate and medium term situation but in the rest of the region the situation is not finished and the key to the situation in Iraq and in Syria lies in these countries the Egyptian Revolution although several times has been disappointed and I would say there is probably a certain tiredness in Egypt but none of the fundamental problems has been solved and also the revolution is very strong in the sense that it has confidence people know that they overthrew the Mubarak regime they overthrew the Tantawi regime effectively they overthrew the Morsi regime and even in Sisi's time they overthrew the Biblawi government in February and March of last year by massive workers movement which swept Egypt so this is an undefeated movement but also of course a movement that has not reached any practical conclusion so that means that there is going to be a period of ebb but at a certain stage the movement will rise again on a higher level and there will be another confrontation between revolution and counter-revolution and that will reignite the whole movement again in the Arab world but Egypt is not the only place in fact the other great working classes of the region are Turkey which is a deeply polarized country and Turkey was always put on a pedestal as being the main the wonder of the capitalist world along with China and Brazil and so on these were the countries that couldn't hang the general crisis of capitalism but today the Turkish economy is going down inequality is immense in Turkey and we have seen over the past few years especially in the Gazi Park protests a year and a half ago there is massive resentment underneath the surface and it is basically a powder cake waiting to explode the other country which is a key is Iran which also has a big working class which has been oppressed for decades but which in 2009 took its first step onto the arena there was a green movement which was in the initial stages of a revolutionary movement it was defeated although that wasn't a conclusive defeat and in fact the resentment, the hatred is building up under the surface and I would say that the Iranian society is moving towards a big explosion however the present government with the negotiations that they are having with the Americans and the prospects of opening up Iranian markets for jobs and investments and so on has kind of put this thing on hold waiting to see what's going to happen and they will reach a deal with the Americans because the Americans now need the Iranians in Iraq, in Syria and there is a deal that just needs to be signed and formalized basically but the Iranian masses are waiting for this that is a point of reference however once that's been reached the question of the American threat is out of the picture and the government is cooperating with them the question of bread will rise again and once they open up a bit on the lid and the pressure inside Iran there will be major explosions again that the working class will step into the scene again and that is the key to transforming the whole situation again the movements in these particularly in these countries will of course will change decisively the whole situation but I will just say one thing the final thing I wanted to say is that this is not just in these countries in fact in the whole of the Middle East there is instability and rage and anger underneath the surface and none of the states, the stateless or these puppet states which was initially put in by imperialism are safe countries like Jordan is a powder keg in Saudi Arabia many people might not know this but there is massive poverty and unemployment is rising and so on and the Gulf states there is no legitimacy left for the ruling classes so this whole thing is obviously this is a black reactionary situation in Iraq and Syria but at the same time the workers movements from other countries the movements in other countries is ready and once there is an explosion then the movement throughout the Arab world will again transform the situation in these countries as well