Only he is a Marxist who extends the recognition of the class struggle to the recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat. This is the touchstone on which the real understanding and recognition of Marxism is to be tested.

V. I. Lenin 

Economic & Philosophic Science Review 

No 1160  November 13 2002

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Northwest seminar Sat Nov 25. Rcts.

Colonial aggression aims of fascist USA mentality look sicker every day as seriousness of economic collapse brands monopoly capitalism the problem, not the solution, and distrust of Washington becomes universal. The ruling-class system worldwide is on its last legs, now a no-longer-needed historical anachronism. But without a Marxist scientific understanding of the complex forces bringing Western imperialist domination to a deserved end, and pointing the revolutionary way to proceed thereafter, - the pain and muddle of warmongering decay will drag on endlessly. This initial great weakening of capitalist imperialism is coming from bourgeois nationalist splits and conflicts. Fake-'left' refusal to grasp this would paralyse the socialist proletariat's role to come.

America's Nazi warmongering plans suffered serious setbacks in the US election results and at the United Nations Security Council.

Western imperialism's insane preparations to blitzkrieg its way out of its humiliating global economic crisis are as dementedly fixed as ever, but the cohesion and competence to see it through to World War III and another “triumph” for monopoly-capitalist "freedom" are more in doubt than ever.

More than 60% of the eligible electorate refused to turn out to vote in last week's US elections in spite of all the chauvinistic flag-waving crap about "America being under attack", and all the rest of the war hysteria being whipped up by both parties and every instrument of bourgeois ideology and media brainwashing.

As a vote of confidence in "our lads about to go out and die for their country”, the "victory" for the governing Republican Party of getting just 20% of the electorate out in support was a fiasco.

And how even more humiliating it might have been (had the Democrats actually OPPOSED the war instead of coming second with 19% for merely playing a limp war supporting role), is left to the imagination.

Like the astonishing half-million people who marched through Florence, Italy, at the weekend to demonstrate against Western imperialist warmongering the feebleness of the gung-ho blitzkrieging spirit in the USA is not in itself an answer to the insane monopoly-capitalist bullying aggression which is determined to destroy the global economy's supposed 'over-production crisis’ by war and to FORCE the Third World and the weaker imperialist powers to bear most of the burdens of the trade-war and slump which are about to devastate global living standards.

But the universal unease or ridicule about the sick project to invade and colonise oil-rich Iraq to "eliminate evil" when Western capitalist societies cannot solve a single one of their own ever mounting economic and social problems, and basically just ignore truly tragic large-scale disasters affecting other parts of the world such as the return of famine to Ethiopia, unending civil war and tyranny all over Africa, or the many other murderous or militaristic regimes around Asia or Latin America that Washington approves of, - is nevertheless a historic milestone.

The world’s population is now outgrowing the limitations of bourgeois ideology which is all total hypocrisy.

For centuries through colonial tyranny, capitalism has delivered riches to a few privileged Western layers and enough trickle-down wealth to the many on Earth for the 'free-market’ monopoly-imperialist racket to be tolerated widely so far.

But in a now wholly developed world (as far as ordinary people’s aspirations are concerned), an incurable economic crisis system is simply no longer tolerable. And the "excuses" offered for keeping Western domination of the planet going are rapidly proving to be just as unacceptable. The "terrorist" threat is growing in spite of the 'war on terror', Blair admitted last night. Meaning that the discontent behind the desperation is growing. Meaning that the 'war on terror' Western domineering attitude is CAUSING the world's problems,  not solving them.

These are hard-to-measure developments, and the final proof will only be obvious when this greatest-ever capitalist-imperialist crisis eventually concludes, either in renewed Western colonial military domination of the Earth or in universal socialist revolution.

But no scientific struggle to understand where world developments are heading can possibly proceed without, not just serious theoretical analysis, but, most importantly of all, a guide to practical class action for resolving the turmoil.

Marxism is the only applicable science, and it makes sense to see this half-hearted Western imperialist warmongering as entirely appropriate for the historical capitalist system, trying once more to resolve crisis with warmongering in the only way it knows how, but in circumstances where its whole economic domination global regime is now understood by almost everybody to be no longer remotely efficient or tolerable for the 'globalised' planet, especially in the process of renewed economic-crisis disasters yet again.

People everywhere are suggesting that renewed Nazi-imperialist blitzkrieging is the most idiotic response imaginable to Third World humiliation and pain which so far can only express itself most attention gatheringly via 'terrorist' outrages but which clearly has enormous genuine grievances lurking behind these spectacular one-off shows.

Instead of a "war on terror", it is being universally urged to have a war on the poverty, unequal trade, exploitation suffering, military humiliation, and all the other disadvantages which Third World countries toil under at the bottom of the pile.

As many questions are asked about the weapons of mass destruction, the defiance of UN resolutions, and the brutal aggression against neighbours by the Zionist colonists occupying Palestine as are asked about Iraq.

And if eliminating fiendish weapons of mass destruction is so good for the planet, then why would it not be a good thing for ALL powers to stop developing them, particularly the soaraway world leader the USA, the only country to have ever inflicted nuclear massacre on the world, and the imperialist might more guilty of invading, subverting, or otherwise interfering in the affairs of other countries than any other power in history, after having started life as a nation via the genocidal wiping out of the whole vast Red Indian culture tens of millions strong which populated the whole of North America before the colonising thieves came:

SOUTH DAKOTA, 1890(-?) Troops: 300 Lakota Indians massacred at Wounded Knee.

ARGENTINA, 1890 Troops: Buenos Aires interests protected.

CHILE, 1891 Troops: Marines clash with nationalist rebels.

HAITI, 1891 Troops: Black workers' revolt on US-claimed Navassa Island defeated.

IDAHO, 1892 Troops: Army suppresses silver miners' strike.

HAWAII, 1893(-?) Naval, troops: Independent kingdom overthrown, annexed.

CHICAGO, 1894 Troops: Breaking of rail strike, 34 killed.

NICARAGUA, 1894 Troops: Month-long occupation of Bluefields.

CHINA, 1894-5 Naval, troops: Marines land in Sino-Japanese War.

KOREA, 1894-6 Troops: Marines kept in Seoul during war.

PANAMA, 1895 Troops, naval: Marines land in Colombian province.

NICARAGUA, 1896 Troops: Marines land in port of Corinto.

CHINA, 1898-1900 Troops: Boxer Rebellion fought by foreign armies.

PHILIPPINES, 1898-1910(-?) Naval, troops: Seized from Spain, killed 600,000 Filipinos.

CUBA, 1898-1902(-?) Naval, troops: Seized from Spain, still hold Navy base.

PUERTO RICO, 1898(-?) Naval, troops: Seized from Spain, occupation continues.

GUAM, 1898(-?) Naval, troops: Seized from Spain, still used as base.

MINNESOTA, 1898(-?) Troops: Army battles Chippewa at Leech Lake.

NICARAGUA, 1898 Troops: Marines land at port of San Juan dal Sur. .

SAMOA, 1899(-?)  Troops: Battle over succession to throne..

NICARAGUA, 1899  Troops: Marines land at port of Bluefields.

IDAHO, 1899-1901 Troops: Army occupies Coeur d'Alene mining region.

OKLAHOMA, 1901 Troops: Army battles Creek Indian revolt.

PANAMA, 1901-14 Naval, troops: Broke off from Colombia 1903, annexed Canal Zone 1914-99.

HONDURAS, 1903 Troops: Marines intervene in revolution.

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC, 1903-04 Troops: US interests protected in Revolution.

KOREA, 1904-05 Troops: Marines land in Russo-Japanese War.

CUBA, 1906-09 Troops: Marines land in democratic election.

NICARAGUA, 1907 Troops: 'Dollar Diplomacy' protectorate set up.

HONDURAS, 1907 Troops: Marines land during war with Nicaragua.

PANAMA, 1908  Troops: Marines intervene in election contest.

NICARAGUA, 1910 Troops: Marines land in Bluefields and Corinto.

HONDURAS, 1911 Troops: US interests protected in civil war.

CHINA, 1911 Naval, troops: Continuous occupation with flare-ups.

CUBA, 1912 Troops: US interests protected in Havana.

PANAMA, 1912 Troops: Marines land during heated election.

HONDURAS, 1912 Troops: Marines protect US economic interests.

NICARAGUA, 1912-13 Troops, bombing: 20-year occupation, fought guerrillas.

MEXICO, 1913 Naval: Americans evacuated during revolution.

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC, 1914 Naval: Fight with rebels over Santo Domingo.

COLORADO, 1914 Troops: Breaking of miners' strike by Army.

MEXICO, 1914-18 Naval, troops: Series of interventions against nationalists.

HAITI, 19144 Troops, bombing: 19-year occupation after revolts.

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC, 1916-24 Troops: 8-year Marine occupation.

CUBA, 1917-33 Troops: Military occupation, economic protectorate.

WORLD WAR I, 1917-18 Naval, troops: Ships sunk, fought Germany.

RUSSIA, 1918-22 Naval, troops: Five landings to fight Bolsheviks.

PANAMA, 1918-20 Troops: 'Police duty' during unrest after elections.

YUGOSLAVIA, 1919 Troops: Marines intervene for Italy against Serbs in Dalmatia.

HONDURAS, 1919 Troops: Marines land during election campaign.

GUATEMALA, 1920 Troops: 2-week intervention against unionists.

WEST VIRGINIA, 1920-1 Troops, bombing: Army intervenes against mineworkers.

TURKEY, 1922 Troops: Fought nationalists in Smyrna (Izmir).

CHINA, 1922-7 Naval, troops: Deployment during nationalist revolt.

HONDURAS, 1924-5 Troops: Landed twice during election strife.

PANAMA, 1925 Troops: Marines suppress general strike.

CHINA, 1927-34 Troops: Marines stationed throughout the country.

EL SALVADOR, 1932 Naval: Warships sent during Faribundo Marti revolt.

WASHINGTON DC, 1932 Troops: Army stops WWI vet bonus protest.

WORLD WAR II, 1941-5 Naval, troops, bombing, nuclear: Fought Axis for 3 years; first nuclear war.

DETROIT, 1943 Troops: Army puts down Black rebellion.

IRAN, 1946 Nuclear threat: Soviet troops told to leave north (Iranian Azerbaijan).

YUGOSLAVIA, 1946 Naval: Response to shooting-down of US plane.

URUGUAY, 1947 Nuclear threat: Bombers deployed as show of strength.

GREECE, 1947-9 Command operation: US directs extreme right in civil war.

CHINA, 1948-9 Troops: Marines evacuate Americans before Communist victory.

GERMANY, 1948 Nuclear threat: Atomic-capable bombers guard Berlin Airlift.

PHILIPPINES, 1948-54 Command operation: CIA directs war against Huk Rebellion.

PUERTO RICO, 1950 Command operation: Independence rebellion crushed in Ponce.

KOREA, 1950-3 Troops, naval, bombing, nuclear threats: US and South Korea fight China and North Korea to stalemate; A-bomb threat in 1950, and vs. China in 1953. Still have bases.

IRAN, 1953 Command operation: CIA overthrows democracy, installs Shah.

VIETNAM, 1954 Nuclear threat: Bombs offered to French to use against siege.

GUATEMALA, 1954 Command operation, bombing, nuclear threat: CIA directs exile invasion after new government nationalises US company lands; bombers based in Nicaragua.

EGYPT, 1956 Nuclear threat, troops: Soviets told to keep out of Suez crisis; Marines evacuate foreigners.

LEBANON, 1958 Troops, naval: Marine occupation against rebels.

IRAQ, 1958 Nuclear threat: Iraq warned against invading Kuwait.

CHINA, 1958 Nuclear threat: China told not to move on Taiwan isles.

PANAMA, 1958 Troops: Flag protests erupt into confrontation.

VIETNAM, 1960-75 Troops, naval, bombing, nuclear threats: Fought South Vietnam revolt and North Vietnam; 1-2 million killed in longest US war; atomic bomb threats in 1968 and 1969.

CUBA, 1961 Command operation: CIA-directed exile invasion fails.

GERMANY, 1961 Nuclear threat: Alert during Berlin Wall crisis.

CUBA, 1962 Nuclear threat: Naval blockade during missile crisis; near-war with USSR.

LAOS, 1962 Command operation: Military build-up during guerrilla war.

PANAMA, 1964 Troops: Panamanians shot for urging canal's return.

INDONESIA, 1965 Command operation: Million killed in CIA-assisted army coup.

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC, 1965-6 Troops, bombing: Marines land during election campaign.

GUATEMALA, 1966-7 Command operation: Green Berets intervene against rebels.

DETROIT, 1967 Troops: Army battles Blacks, 43 killed.

UNITED STATES, 1968 Troops: After King is shot; over 21,000 soldiers in cities.

CAMBODIA, 1969-75 Bombing, troops, naval: Up to 2 million killed in decade of bombing, starvation and political chaos.

OMAN, 1970 Command operation: US directs Iranian marine invasion.

LAOS, 1971-3 Command operation, bombing: US directs South Vietnamese invasion; 'carpet-bombs' countryside.

SOUTH DAKOTA, 1973 Command operation: Army directs Wounded Knee siege of Lakotas.

MIDDLE EAST, 1973 Nuclear threat: World-wide alert during Middle East War.

CHILE, 1973 Command operation: CIA-backed coup ousts elected Marxist president.

CAMBODIA, 1975 Troops, bombing, gas: Captured ship, 28 die in helicopter crash.

ANGOLA, 1976-92 Command operation: CIA assists South African backed rebels.

IRAN, 1980 Troops, nuclear threat, aborted bombing: Raid to rescue Embassy hostages; 8 troops die in helicopter-plane crash. Soviets warned not to get involved in revolution.

LIBYA, 1981 Naval jets: Two Libyan jets shot down in manoeuvres.

EL SALVADOR, 1981-2 Command operation, troops: Advisors, overflights aid anti-rebel war, soldiers briefly involved in hostage clash.

NICARAGUA, 1981-90 Command operation, naval: CIA directs exile (Contra) invasions, plants harbour mines against revolution.

LEBANON, 1982-4 Naval, bombing, troops: Marines expel PLO and back Phalangists, Navy bombs and shells Muslim and Syrian positions.

HONDURAS, 1983-9 Troops: Manoeuvres help build bases near borders.

GRENADA, 1983-4 Troops, bombing: Invasion four years after revolution.

IRAN, 1984  Jets:Two Iranian jets shot down over Persian Gulf.

LIBYA, 1986 Bombing, naval: Air strikes to topple nationalist government.

BOLIVIA, 1986 Troops: Army assists raids on cocaine region.

IRAN, 1987-8 Naval, bombing: US intervenes on side of Iraq in war.

LIBYA, 1989 Naval jets:Two Libyan jets shot down.

VIRGIN ISLANDS, 1989 Troops: St Croix Black unrest after storm.

PHILIPPINES, 1989 Jets: Air cover provided for government against coup.

PANAMA, 1989-90 Troops, bombing: Nationalist government ousted by 27,1X10 soldiers, leaders arrested, 2000+ killed.

LIBERIA, 1990 Troops: Foreigners evacuated during civil war.

SAUDI ARABIA, 1990-1 Troops, jets: Iraq countered after invading Kuwait; 540,000 troops also stationed in Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, UAE, Israel.

IRAQ, 1990(-?) Bombing, troops, naval: Blockade of Iraqi and Jordanian ports, air strikes; 200,000+ killed in invasion of Iraq and Kuwait; no-fly zone over Kurdish north, Shiite south, large-scale destruction of Iraqi military.

KUWAIT, 1991 Naval, bombing, troops: Kuwait royal family returned to throne.

LOS ANGELES, 1992 Troops: Army, Marines deployed against antipolice uprising.

SOMALIA, 1992-4 Troops, naval, bombing: US-led United Nations occupation during civil war; raids against one Mogadishu faction.

YUGOSLAVIA, 1992-4  Naval: Nato blockade of Serbia and Montenegro.

BOSNIA, 1993-5 Jets, bombing: No-fly zone patrolled in civil war; downed jets, bombed Serbs.

HAITI, 1994-6 Troops, naval: Blockade against military government; troops restore President Aristide to office three years after coup.

CROATIA, 1995 Bombing: Krajina Serb airfields attacked before Croatian offensive.

ZAIRE (CONGO), 1996-7 Troops: Marines at Rwandan Hutu refugee camps, in area where Congo revolution begins.

LIBERIA, 1997 Troops: Soldiers under fire during evacuation of foreigners.

ALBANIA, 1997 Troops: Soldiers under fire during evacuation of foreigners.

SUDAN, 1998 Missiles: Attack on pharmaceutical plant alleged to be 'terrorist' nerve gas plant.

AFGHANISTAN, 1998 Missiles: Attack on former CIA training camps used by Islamic fundamentalist groups alleged to have attacked embassies.

IRAQ, 1998(-?) Bombing, missiles: Four days of intensive air strikes after weapons inspectors allege Iraqi obstructions.

YUGOSLAVIA, 1999(-?) Bombing, missiles: Heavy NATO air strikes after Serbia declines to withdraw from Kosovo.

YEMEN, 2000 Naval: Suicide bomb attack on USS C Cole.

MACEDONIA, 2001 Troops: NATO troops shift and partially disarm Albanian rebels.

UNITED STATES, 2001 Jets, naval: Response to hijacking attacks.

AFGHANISTAN, 2001 Massive US mobilisation to attack Taliban, bin Laden. War could expand to Iraq, Sudan, and beyond.

The capitalist 'freemarket' can only ever be one vast monopoly imperialist culture, predatory by essence and incapable of progressing other than via conflict and conquest in one form or another.

Fear alone forced the 15-strong Security Council at the UN to line up behind the American plan for the continued bullying of Iraq backed by threats of military destruction, occupation, and dismemberment if the Baghdad regime fails to dance sufficiently well to the USA's tune.

But even though half intimidated by the threat of American military or trade vengeance, while also half wanting opportunistically to join in grabbing the spoils of war should it come (especially the other major imperialist would be giants represented, - France and Russia), -nevertheless the final Council resolution and commentary quite dramatically failed to give the US warmongers all they wanted, contrary to all the excitable capitalist press hype before and since.

For the warmongering to begin "with full UN approval” (i.e. after ferocious arm-twisting) could be delayed for as long as the end of February, 2003, (if approval is ever given at all), - a date already thought to be too late in the hot season for a desert war to be comfortable.

A unilateral American blitzkrieg could obviously be unleashed at any time, and that is what must be anticipated given the nature of the American imperialist crisis, facing the loss of all its exploitation power and military-political power on Earth as a result of economic collapse.

But a renewed go-it-alone Nazi colonialism raises far more daunting problems than it solves.

Firstly and overwhelmingly importantly is the possibility of FAILURE.

Saddam's opportunistic tin pot dictatorship may be the most vainglorious chauvinistic rubbish ever seen, but Arabic and Islamic nationalism are powerfully on the march everywhere, and they are forces far from easily dismissed in today's global anti-imperialist context. 

Why is Saddam what he is in the first place, and why did he feel the need to change from being a former American stooge to the anti-Western role he is alleged to be playing now?

The more interesting election 'triumph' last week (and more real) was not Bush's hollow victory but the success, astonishing in the circumstances and potentially very significant, of a brand-new Islamic nationalist party in Turkey's general election, a country crucial to the avoidance of US imperialist (and Zionist) failure in the Middle East by being easily the most powerful Muslim nation by far but also a longtime stooge of American imperialist interests in the region. So far, the new government has not had much coverage in the Western brainwashing media (other than soothing words about Turkey following its traditional line, etc).

But consider the background to this remarkable electoral shock, - as admitted by the Western capitalist press itself, written just before the result:

'Hello, Bursa!' he yells into the microphone. ‘How's it going, Bursa?'  The question gets a roar in reply from the largely young, largely poor crowd gathered in the main square of this medium-sized city south of Istanbul.

The answer is that it's not going very well for Bursa, which should be a prosperous town churning out textiles and cars.  Unemployment remains high two years after economic shocks sent Turkey running to the International Monetary Fund. Those in work have seen the value of their money fail, as inflation has risen and the exchange rate has fallen. Well over a million have no  jobs.

Standing in the middle of Uzan's rally is Ferdi Asian, a 20-year old who has found no job in the six months since he finished military service. He lives with his wife and child in one of the tens of thousands of semi-legal estates that surround Turkey's cities. It's a bleak place, the hard earth dotted with badly constructed buildings.

Asian's house is undecorated and cold, even though the Turkish winter is some way off. He says he has no hope of finding a job; none of his friends has a job; no new jobs are being created. His main problem is getting enough to eat.

'I have a child,' he says, ‘and I can't afford to buy food for him. He gets sick very easily because he can't get the necessary vitamins. How can you survive on tea and dry bread the whole time? Uza has the answers to Asian's problems. He tells the crowd, which has been entertained by pop stars before his speech and will be given free food after it, that he would throw the IMF, to which Turkey' owes $31 billion (£20.5bn), out of the country; that he would cut taxes, quadruple the number of universities, make school books free and give 200 square metres of land to anyone without a home.

As a political and economic programme, it is nonsense. But supported by his newspapers, his TV and radio channels, and his mobile phone network, Uzan now has a chance of being elected. He may have only 10 per cent in the polls - but that's three times the level of support commanded by Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit's party.

Voters will today wreak vengeance upon a government they believe has failed them; the fact that a man as implausible as Uzan is even being considered is a sign of how bad things have got.

Opponents of the party most likely to take power the Justice and Development party, which sprang from banned Islamist parties, feel the same way about the probable result. They don't believe Justice and Development has given up the Islamism that drove its leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to recite a poem with the lines 'Mosques are our barracks, minarets our bayonets, domes our helmets, the believers our soldiers'.

In constitutionally secular Turkey, that rhetoric goes down badly; Erdogan was found guilty of inciting religious hatred and jailed for four months. The speech and his history of Islamism - he was a leading light in the Welfare party eased out of government by the military in 1997 has led to attacks from the media, other political parties and the state. On Friday, the constitutional court gave the party 15 days to prepare a defence to an appeal from the chief prosecutor that Erdogan be forced from its chairmanship.

Above the stage at the party's biggest Istanbul rally a week ago, a huge Turkish flag fluttered beside an enormous portrait of Kemal Ataturk, founder of the Turkish republic, and an equally large picture of Erdogan.

Close to the ancient city walls of what was Constantinople, tens of thousands came to hear Erdogan speak. But there was no hint that this was a party inspired by religious faith. Murat Filit, a 27-year-old handyman, said: 'The party gets votes from all sections of society. If it didn't, it wouldn't have so many potential votes.'

Filit's wife Fatma, a teacher, agreed. 'It's wrong to classify people as Islamist or non-Islamist,' she said. 'This is the party of hearts.' But some of its supporters clearly expect an easing of restrictions on religious expression. Maeve Merti, a young woman wearing a headscarf, said she would vote for the party to be able to go to university wearing the scarf  now banned as an intrusion of religion into the secular sphere.

The party portrays its plans to ease the headscarf ban as a modernising, pro-European and democratising step. But its opponents fail to understand how having more citizens in headscarves can help Turkey move towards Europe.

The international community is relaxed about the prospect of a Justice and Development government except on one point: it would be taking over a huge country in a volatile area, burdened with debt and with a war likely to break out on its doorstep in the new year.

Following his conviction, Erdogan cannot stand for parliament; without a seat, he cannot be Prime Minister. Wrangling looms over who will decide who is to be Prime Minister - Erdogan or the President. But Erdogan will be the real power, should, as seems likely, his party win an outright majority.

Henry Kissinger asked whom he should call when he wished to speak to Europe; a similar question could apply to Turkey tomorrow. Driven by economic misery, the country seems set on making a leap into the unknown.

Anti-Western Islamic nationalist feelings' may be being just about contained for the moment, but in what direction must things be heading if now Turkey is being affected by the anti-imperialist revolt?

Of course there have always been revolts against the West, throughout the Cold War.

But in the underdeveloped Middle East, powerful bourgeois interests usually prevailed in the end to limit any socialist camp anti-imperialist penetration, typified by seemingly permanent Saudi reaction, Pakistani military dictatorships, Turkey's pro-Americanism, the Shah's autocracy, and Arafat's compromising, etc, etc.

Not any more. Paradoxically, it is now that the socialist camp has gone that the contradictions between Third World Middle East interests and crisis ridden aggressive American imperialist interests have started to prevail, and initially on a bourgeois basis, even more paradoxically.

Islamic nationalism is partly a forced response to the disasters of imperialist economic crisis, - as seen in even the shallow impressionistic coverage of Turkey above.

Further afield, nationalist hostility to crap Western imperialist domination is already worse, of course. Far worse.

As the extreme case, the EPSR will always repeatedly stress the heroic Palestinian example to the world's anti-imperialist future.

Once a fight against unspeakable tyranny has reached the point of widespread willingness to accept certain death in the struggle, then that liberation war is on the way to victory (short of sudden TOTAL genocide as a Zionist response).

Effectively, the whole Palestinian nation is now saying "Do your worst" to its Jewish colonisers, since nothing worse could now befall Palestine; and yet still the revolt grows, despite the unbelievable odds against it.

Inspired by this, Saudi Arabia of all places, together with Afghanistan of all places, gave birth to al-Quaeda.

As flakily feudal in form as much of this still may be, its anti-American influence is swelling into a vast ideological revolt by Middle East and Islamic nationalism against Western imperialist crisis.

Afghanistan has been blitzkrieged, - but to what effect???

The idea was supposed to be: "Now all you towel-heads are for it", etc, etc, as the American 'New World Order' supposedly put its foot down.

And propping up yet another tame pro-Western military dictator in Pakistan was supposedly the icing on the cake of the Western imperialist triumph. Now the towel-heads would be quickly wiped out everywhere, allegedly.

But what is the result???

Afghanistan remains the same unstable mess and danger that Western inspired warmongering made it more than 10 years ago in bringing down Afghanistan's socialist revolution, as the EPSR has regularly shown using repeated Western capitalist press admissions of American failure there. And even more alarmingly for Western imperialism, the Pakistan military dictatorship is now in trouble because of its pro-American stance, as is again the subject of further capitalist press speculation:

An Islamist cleric with Taliban sympathies was last night poised to become Pakistan's next prime minister after the country's religious groups agreed to form a coalition government with an alliance dominated by Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's party.

In a move that will deeply alarm Washington, Maulana Fazlur Rehman - once described as an over-fed cleric in plush turban and sunglasses - emerged as the coalition's candidate for prime minister.

Mr Rehman, 49, heads the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal alliance of six religious groups that did unexpectedly well in last month's general election in which no party emerged with an overall majority.

He was locked up last year after denouncing America's war in Afghanistan and wants all US bases in Pakistan to be closed down.

Last night, western observers were coming to terms with the fact that a man who once called on his followers to wage a "holy war"; against President George Bush could soon become prime minister of the world's newest nuclear power.

"We are watching carefully," one western diplomat said.

Yesterday, Nasrullah Khan, the head of the 15-party Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy, which includes the PPP, announced that it had reached an agreement with the leaders of the religious groups.

"We have a majority to form a coalition government," he told reporters in Pakistan's capital Islamabad.

The arrangement is a devastating blow to President Musharraf and returns his arch-enemy, Ms Bhutto, into the heart of governance.

President Musharraf had barred Ms Bhutto from standing in the election.

Yesterday, Farhatullah Babar, a spokesman for Ms Bhutto, said the new government would reverse a series of controversial constitutional amendments enacted in the run-up to the polls.

They formalise the military's role in government and give Gen Musharraf the right to sack the new prime minister.

"Musharraf must be a very worried man tonight," Mr Babar told the Guardian last night. "He over-manipulated the elections, and as a result the military government is now in trouble."
 
Mr Babar insisted that the new coalition "had the numbers" to form a majority in the 34-seat assembly.

The MMA did unexpectedly well in the October 10 elections, sweeping to power in the North-West Frontier Province and in Baluchistan, the two strategic tribal regions bordering Afghanistan where dozens of Taliban fugitives are still believed to be holed up.

The grotesque opportunist uncertainties of a Bhutto-Islamic alliance are obvious, and give the West some comfort.

But once again the big question is why have things gone this way, and in which direction are they moving, bearing in mind that the Musharraf military dictatorship was supposed to have stitched everything up in Pakistan in Western imperialism's favour.

And only the same answer can once more be found, - namely, that in a capitalist systemic crisis, it is precisely bourgeois interests which conflict, and inter-imperialist contradictions which prevail, ultimately.

Only in the breakup of the monopoly capitalist domination rackets does the socialist revolution get its chance to move forward.

It is precisely this which makes the otherwise pathetic UN Security Council hairsplitting so interesting.

Although a general warmongering imperialist conspiracy remains the way out of the crisis for all of the West, within that degenerate devastation to eliminate the world's alleged 'overproduction' problems, every scrap of old inter-imperialist rivalry is rekindled anew as the great powers battle to pass off the burdens of the slump not only collectively onto the Third World but especially vindictively onto each other.

The tortuous suspicions and chess-like moves around the final text of the UN resolution exactly reflect the colossally high stakes for which the imperialist warmongers will all eventually be playing, possibly in direct conflict with each other (inside various temporary regional alliances) at some stage or other.

The outcome at this moment was undoubtedly a success for France and Russia, playing off the rest of the Council members against America and Britain to let the "no war if we can avoid it" hypocrisy win the day, forcing the USA to go back to the Security Council for further instructions should Iraq be declared to be in default of its pariah-state penalty of not being permitted "weapons of mass destruction".

The sole aim of France, Russia, and China in this hypocritical farce was to embarrass the USA.

That it brilliantly succeeded further underlines how fragile in reality is this warmongering aggressive American stance, lacking any deep conviction.

Not only is Nazi colonial blitzkrieging rapidly looking like the anachronism that it is. The whole scene of high-faluting moralising imperialist warmongering, in general, increasingly strikes the labour-mobility and technology-emancipating world as naff and dated, - consumerism's philistine philosophical backwardness notwithstanding.

Speculating further down the road of possible American failure, what will happen if Iraq decides to play along with these humiliating UN inspections. and succeeds, moreover, in getting some kind of cheaply gained clean bill of health from Blix & Co, thereby having all sanctions lifted (as should follow), and thus putting Washington's "axis of evil" rhetoric even deeper into the dustbin of history?????

Or alternatively, if Saddam himself should step down for any reason, why is it anticipated that Iraq would have another Mubarak next, - at a time when even Egypt may itself no longer have a Mubarak??????

As once again the capitalist press itself has been speculating, forces hostile to Western imperialist domination are growing increasingly rampant everywhere:

The Muslim Brotherhood called on the President to ditch American aid, a demand that has considerable resonance in a country where many people believe that most of it goes straight into the pockets of corrupt businessmen. Egypt is the second largest recipient of US aid after Israel but Mubarak's critics say that many ordinary Egyptians, if not starving, are doing pretty badly.

"The poor have been getting poorer over the past 15 years; a prominent Egyptian intellectual told me.  The gap has widened enormously, with dire consequences on the structure of society and the economy.

This man, like all the Egyptians I talked to, was unwilling to be named for fear of the consequences. Egypt's human rights record is a familiar story of repression, detention without trial and torture. Amnesty International has recognised 47 prisoners of conscience, while thousands of suspected supporters of banned Islamist groups are held without charge.

Egyptian and foreign publications are regularly seized and censored, a circumstance that goes some way towards explaining the silence of many intellectuals. Fear of arrest is hardly conducive to creativity, and state censorship in Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries is responsible for the shocking statistic, noted in a recent UN report, that as few as 300 foreign books are translated into, and published in, Arabic each year.

Saad Eddin Ibrahim a 63-year-old Professor of Sociology, is serving a seven-year sentence after a trial at which he appeared in court in a rage.

Ibrahim first got into trouble two years ago, after his academic institution accepted a European Union grant, some of which was used to produce a film alleging voter intimidation in the 1995 parliamentary elections. He was convicted, with three co-defendants, at the end of July of accepting foreign funds without authorisation, disseminating false information harmful to Egypt's interests, and embezzlement

Ibrahim's jailing was -briefly seen as the moment when the Arab world finally found-its Nelson Mandela. But such hopes were quickly dashed by Mubarak's clever manipulation of anti-American feeling, combined with the petty jealousies endemic in countries where advancement still depends on patronage.

A lot of people are jealous of him," says Said. "He was spectacularly successful, a man who had his own institute, who was always in the media We gloat in the tragedies - of our friends." The whole episode is referred to dismissively in some circles as "a fight among the Mamelukes", a reference to the former slaves who rated Egypt until the beginning of the 19th century. According to this cynical formulation, Ibrahim and Mubarak are marionettes in a larger plot orchestrated by the American Government for some darker purpose of its own.

Yet it is hard to resist the suspicion that lbrahim's fate is linked inextricably to the looming crisis in Egyptian politics, the question of who is to succeed the country's 74-year-old president.

His real offence may have been to suggest openly that Mubarak is grooming his elder son Gamalto succeed him; Ibrahim is credited with coining the ironic term "jumlukiya" - a hybrid of the Arabic words jumhuriya (republic) and malikiya (monarchy) - to describe the President's supposed ambitions. 

Gamal is politely described as a leader in the Egyptian business community, a huge disadvantage in a country where all three long-serving presidents of the Republic - Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak - have been drawn from the army. Just as Syria's military coup in 1949 was seen as a model for the Free Officers who deposed the Egyptian monarchy three years later, the appointment of Bashar al-Assad to succeed his father Hafez as President of Syria two years ago has been widely interpreted as an unwelcome portent.

Lurking in the background of this increasingly unstable situation are the Islamists. Their influence declined dramatically after the Luxor massacre in 1997, when they came dose to destroying Egypt's tourist trade and alienated most of the population.

But they are still a force to be reckoned with and their role would become more significant if Mubarak were to be assassinated or die without nominating a successor. And this is where one of the most intriguing theories about Ibrahim's disgrace comes in.

There is no doubt that he had contact with the Islamists in his academic research, and it has been suggested that he facilitated meetings between the American Government and Islamic groups in Embaba, a poverty-stricken district of Cairo. "If Mubarak falls, the Americans would have someone to deal with," explained a prominent Egyptian human-rights activist

This potent mixture of rumour and speculation is a demonstration of how deeply Egypt's political and intellectual classes are divided; and how uncertain they are of the future. But they have missed a rare opportunity to spotlight Mubarak's regime, whose status as an American client state has muted criticism of its dismal human-rights record.

Once again it has been left to Edward Said, who has exchanged letters with Ibrahim in prison, to take an unequivocal stand on freedom of expression in the Arab world. "I think they have made an example of him," he says grimly.

Said regards Ibrahim as "a rather daring guy" who was prepared to talk about democracy, civil society and the rights of Egypt's ethnic and religious minorities. "If you live by your intellect, if you get too outspoken and independent, you are going to get hit," he says.

Yet Said's outspoken criticism has found few echoes among Egyptian intellectuals. "There has been very little defence of him in the Arab world," says Said. "It's disgraceful." On the contrary, Ibrahim has been dismissed as too close to the Americans - he holds dual Egyptian and American citizenship - while foreign condemnation of his trial has given Mubarak another opportunity to present himself as the victim of Western bullying.

When President Bush announced in August that he was suspending new aid worth $130 million (£83 million) to Egypt as a mark of his disapproval, the Cairo Times reported that the American action had united the country behind Mubarak. One of his advisers declared that the Egyptians "would starve before giving in to the dictates of the donor".

It highlights the fact that while Arab leaders may have little affection for Saddam, the crisis has presented them with an irresistible opportunity to grandstand before a domestic audience - and to divert attention from their own shortcomings. This is especially true of Egypt, which should be the great success story of the Middle East; in a region dominated by absolute monarchs and theocracies, it is that rarest of entities, an Arab democracy that has dared to make peace with Israel.

"Egypt is the only real society in the Arab world," says Professor Edward Said of Columbia University. Yet Said believes that Mubarak's Government is just as "corrupt and nepotistic" as other regimes in the Middle East, and he condemns its shameful record of suppressing dissent - a practice highlighted by the savage sentence recently handed down to the country's leading campaigner for human rights.

Finally, account must be taken of the greatest ultimate threat of all to American imperialist interests which will explode out of the American working class.

It is the whole point of history that the final price to be paid for imperialist warmongering adventures which have failed (for whatever reason) is to be overthrown by the victimised and exploited poor of one's own country.

Little news enters the Western press about class war in the USA, but the economic crisis continues to deteriorate rapidly; there was a sour election result for a supposedly all-conquering warmongering party; and the capitalist media do occasionally reveal that the gap between rich and poor in this grotesquely unequal global monopoly-capitalist system is as subjectively hurtful in America itself as anywhere:

THE NORTH wind cuts cold and sudden across the historic green of New Haven. It blows through the 'tent city' where the homeless huddle. And it blows round the spires and quadrangles of Yale University, one of America's richest Ivy League colleges.

The contrast is stark: Charlene Johnson, three months pregnant, emerges from her bivouac, worrying about the winter that lies between her and her due date. And all around are Yale's stone walls, elegant colonial churches and smart people walking past boutiques and coffee shops, carrying their course books

'You know what's underneath you?' challenges Rod Cleary, who was released from prison in Los Angeles after a conviction for gang fighting, found but lost a Job in New Haven, and has now been evicted.  'I'll tell ya: bones. This green was a cemetery once, you're sitting on a pauper's grave. And, man, that's what it's going to be again if we ain't careful.'

Charlene fell behind with her rent in June and took a bribe of $200 to move out of her digs, so the landlord could hike up the price. 'It seemed like I had some money for once, and it was summer.' Her son Nikolas was billeted with a friend and Charlene started looking for a place with her boyfriend, Scott, hopefully before the cold set in. Without success - Scott was laid off on Wednesday from a construction firm. 'Not enough work,' he says. 'And once you're out, you're a speck of dirt on the ground, and they walk over you.'

New Haven's tent city was established after the authorities closed down a homeless overflow shelter a few weeks ago. At sundown yesterday it was to be cleared by the police, with Charlene, Scott, John and 150 others sent on their way into what promises to be a vicious winter.

New Haven is a metaphor for the America which on Tuesday elects its Senate and House of Representatives. It is the country's fourth poorest city, where the ghetto laps at the walls of a university worth $11 billion (£7bn) in tax exempt endowments, educating America's next generation of rulers. A sign at the freeway turnoff advertises New Haven as the birthplace of President George Bush.

It is a city with the same infant mortality rate as Malaysia and a terrifying rate of deaths from Aids - one day care centre alone commemorated the loss of 600 clients at a memorial service on Wednesday. But it is located in America' richest state, Connecticut, which has, proportionally, more millionaires than any other.

This is the super-rich New York hinterland for those too wealthy even to feel the pinch on Wall Street. It is called the 'Zebra Coast', laid out in strips of black/white, black/white; poor/rich, poor/rich. And in New Haven the polarity is underpinned by the history of Yale University's engagement in the slave trade - currently being excavated by some of its own students.

'New Haven,' says the Rev David Lee of Varick Church in the city's northwestern ghetto, 'is a microcosm of America. It's the vicious cycle between rich and poor and the system of exploitation. The wealth is in your face all the time, something you can never aspire to. It's like being a kid in a candy store, being told you can look but you can't never have a lollipop.'

Statistics released last month by the government census bureau show that for the first time in 10 years the number of people caught in the poverty trap has suddenly increased. Unemployment is up from 4.2 per cent in 2000 to 5.7 per cent last year. While the middle class shrinks, the numbers living below the official poverty line of $18,104 a year for a family of four has shot up to 33 million - from 11.3 to 11.7 per cent. That's the first increase since 1992.

While President Bush's windfall tax breaks to the super-rich breezed through Congress (with Democratic help), the proposed rise in the minimum wage is frozen.

The proportion of children without health cover has increased from 63.8 per cent to 67.1 per cent. The poverty rate for children in the US is worse than in 19 'rich' countries, according to a study by the University of Michigan.

Income statistics showed the first significant decline in average income among blacks in two; decades; the white average also fell, and only Hispanics maintained their level.

Statisticians are struck by differences between this dive and the usual downward turns that accompany recessions. 'The poor are trailing further behind than in the past,' says Robert Greenstein of the Centre on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington. 'The increase in poverty is likely to be larger in 2002.'

Such is the power of money in Connecticut and its neighbours that the North-East was the only region in the country in which the mean income did not decline. But the price was paid here where

Elm Street, after skirting the mock-Oxbridge walls and towers of Yale, twists abruptly into New Haven's own nightmare.

Students have been given special maps, and advice not to venture past the CITGO gas station, where the ghetto begins. Houses are boarded up and gas stations take cash only -payable up front - and have bullet-proof glass and bars at the pay point.

Dixwell Avenue is where Lee tries 'to put a bit of hope back in people's eyes that's just been taken away'. He says: 'I can feel it, just over the past year; people is sinking back down. It's hard to keep people off drugs. It's hard to tell people not to go to crime, when they made that extra effort to straighten out, then got beaten back down again. I had a man in my congregation come to me on Sunday saying his daughter who is 13 was considering suicide.'

There is now a brutally simple barometer of poverty in modern America: HIV.  

At the Immanuel Baptist Church on Chapel Street, a few blocks from fancy restaurants where the young elite go for dinner, there was a service with a difference on Wednesday. The Aids Interfaith Network was commemorating the lives of 600 of its clients who have died of the disease since it was established 15 years ago.

Some of the congregation were living with HIV, a couple in wheelchairs; others were those who work with and for them.

Not only does capitalism remain doomed to the most catastrophic economic slump in the whole of civilisation's history, but it is already utterly culturally and philosophically bankrupt. Cynicism rules totally in all areas of civil, social, and economic life.

The conscious fight for Marxist revolutionary science about imperialist crisis is the only sane avenue left. Build Leninism. EPSR

World Revolutionary Socialist Review
(edited extracts from a variety of anti-imperialist struggles)

In a statement to RTE, a spokesperson for the IRA leadership
 said it was concerned at “sustained efforts”
 by the British to portray republicans as the problem.
 “The IRA is not a threat to the peace process  and will
not accept the imposition  of unrealisable demands”,
  said the spokesperson.

Last month, the pupils of Holy Cross returned to school after the long summer break. Anyone who witnessed, either directly or even through television film footage, the appalling scenes of Glenbryn loyalists attacking terrified schoolgirls as they made their way to Holy Cross last year, will understand the trepidation with which many parents and pupils viewed the new term.

Worse still, this term began against a background of loyalist intimidation identical to that which had preceded the blockade this time last year. Catholic homes in Ardoyne continue to be subject to sectarian attacks.

In other words, many of the same loyalists from Glenbryn who last summer had decreed that Catholic school girls were not entitled to walk to school, were this summer involved in ensuring that they were not allowed- to sleep peacefully in the beds at night, or play in their own back gardens tree from, fear of sectarian attack.

At the core of Tony Blair's speech is the notion of ‘trust'. Power sharing has to be suspended because unionists cannot 'trust' republicans. Republicans must therefore continue in demonstrating their ‘trustworthiness' to the satisfaction of insatiable unionism.

For the record, republicans have no reason to place their 'trust' in either Ulster's unionists or the British Government.

It is a colonial relationship that has overseen Irish people slaughtered, conquered, subjugated and impoverished. And when the British could no longer hold onto the whole of Ireland by force of arms, there was the imposition of partition and the creation of a sectarian anti-Irish state.

That state, in the interests of continued British rule, stamped its authority over the northern nationalist population with jackboot repression by regular state forces and by the pogrom and terror of irregular pro-state forces.

And in the late 1960s, when the gerrymandered unionistcontrolled state could no longer subdue the natives, the British Army was sent in to do it for them.

Under the direct rule of successive British Prime Ministers, Labour as well as Conservative, nationalists have been interned without trial, tortured in detention and jailed in non-jury courts, their homes have been constantly raided and their families abused.

Those who resisted were ambushed and executed in shoot to kill operations by the RUC and British SAS. Those who protested were killed or maimed with plastic bullets or occasionally, as in the case of Bloody Sunday, shot dead by the British Army.

Under the personal tutelage of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, loyalist death squads were reorganised, rearmed and redirected by British military intelligence and among those targeted for assassination were defence lawyers (Pat Finucane) elected political opponents (Bernard 0'Hagan) and election workers (Sheena Campbell).

And when that didn't appear to be enough, pro-British death squads indulged in the targeting of family members of republicans, shooting up family homes and killing elderly spinsters (Roseanne Mallon), or pregnant mothers (Kathleen O'Hagan) or the children of Sinn Fein councillors (Sean Lavery).

It didn't take September 11 for northern nationalists to develop "a complete hatred of terrorism". We've all been living, literally in a state of terror for the last 90 years -a state so anti-democratic that a civil rights demand of the right to vote and an equal share of unemployment in the `60s brought it to the brink of collapse.

It is a state so untenable that only massive military occupation and the suspension of even the pretence of democratic accountability could hold it together for a further 30 years.

To this day, nationalists and Catholics aren't just second class citizens but non-citizens, unable to sleep peacefully in their beds at night, attend church, work, play or even walk their children to school free from the fear of sectarian attack.

Let's consider the Good Friday Agreement, the historic compromise, the negotiated settlement, a pathway out of the discredited past and into a peaceful and just future in which all the children of this island can be cherished.

Republicans believe that the only way out of the tyranny 'of British rule and the atrocity of a sectarian state is through Irish reunification. It's a legitimate and rational evaluation. How else can democracy and equality be realised without dismantling the sectarian institutions of the Orange state and locating power with the people rather than with an absentee government? But we were, and are willing to be proven wrong.

The Good Friday Agreement was Tony Blair's "third way" - for the north of Ireland. The sectarian institutions of the state would be dismantled but not the state. A united Ireland could be achieved but only through the consent of a six-county majority.

Until then, the tyranny of British rule would be ameliorated by limited but inclusive local democracy, cross border institutions and involvement of the Dublin Government. Peace involved demilitarisation of the conflict by all participants.

The Good Friday Agreement was hammered out by the British and Irish governments, unionists, nationalists and republicans. It has been endorsed by the people North and South. It was heralded by Irish America. And it is an international treaty with legal obligations.

In his speech in Belfast last week, the British Prime Minister talked up his commitment. "I have spent more time on Northern Ireland, made more calls than any prime minister since 1922.

‘I have lost count of the number of people who have shaken their heads at me and quoted Churchill's remark about ‘the dreary steeples of Fermanagh and Tyrone'. But let me state this with passion. I have not regretted for one second the effort or the hassle or the compromise."

And no one should take that away from Tony Blair. As a British Prime Minister he is the first in many years to engage in something other than repression. But commitment can't be evaluated simply on time spent. It must also involve an assessment of the British government's willingness to implement the Agreement.

And on that front, not just republicans but also nationalist Ireland has found Tony Blair lacking. "For all the protestations of his impartiality," concludes the Sunday Business Post, "Blair has consistently supported a unionist agenda.

"He watered down the Patten Report on policing until it represented little more than a badge change for the RUC, refused to dismantle the vast British Army fortifications dotted along the border, and has already suspended the Assembly three times before this latest move.”

At the beginning of this process republicans, aware of unionist intransigence, cautioned the British government to become "persuaders" for the Good Friday Agreement.

The British Government is the single most powerful player in this process. It simply would never be enough for them to become champions of unionism and allocate responsibility to the Dublin Government to fight the corner for northern nationalists.

The British Government is not only the single most powerful player, historically, it has also been the single most powerful barrier to the realisation of democracy, peace and justice in Ireland. In the past, British imperialism denied Irish self-determination.

In the present, will British interference - suspension is not part of the Good Friday Agreement - act as a barrier to unionists developing democratic relations with their nationalist and republican neighbours?

Since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, unionists have adopted a stalling and thwarting strategy dubbed by Robin Livingstone of the Andersonstown News as "a carnival of preconditions".

‘First unionists demanded that the ceasefire be declared permanent; then they demanded quarantine, then they asked for decommissioning, next it was verifiable decommissioning; soon we were introduced to the concept of complete and verifiable decommissioning," writes Livingstone.

And now, after ail these obstacles have been cleared we arrive at the brick wall at  the end of the cul-de-sac called disbandment".

And throughout it all the British Prime Minister has pandered to unionist tomfoolery. Not once has the British government publicly stood up to unionists and said enough is enough, now get on with the business of making peace with your neighbours.

Instead, republicans have been left to bear the brunt of unionist intransigence while northern nationalists have been left to bear the brunt of unionist paramilitary violence. And then, last month, the Ulster Unionist Party endorsed a `wreckers' charter' and completely and verifiably capitulated to the anti-Agreement agenda of the Democratic Unionist Party.

The UUP threatened  to scupper the Assembly unless the British could deliver a return to the old Stormont, with a new inbuilt unionist majority by excluding the largest nationalist party in the North, Sinn Fein.

And what did the British Prime Minister do? He did the unionists' dirty work for them. He brought down the powersharing arrangements and then he adopted another rejectionist precondition - one that, as everyone knows, even the unionists, cannot be delivered.

"They know that IRA disbandment is synonymous with IRA surrender," writes Danny Morrison. "The double advantage for the unionists is that after all the hurdles the republicans have unexpectedly jumped through, here, at last, is a demand they cannot meet, and an excuse for unionists to halt the political process without being blamed."

An opinion poll commissioned by the BBC confirmed what everyone has long suspected, that the majority of unionists can't stomach power sharing with nationalists, whether Sinn Fein or the SDLP Trumped up nonsense about alleged republican ‘violence' is just a convenient smokescreen.

In a briefing statement to RTE, a spokesperson for the IRA leadership said it was concerned at "sustained efforts" by the British to portray republicans as the problem. "The IRA is not a threat to the peace process and will not accept the imposition of unrealisable demands," said the spokesperson.

As for Sinn Fein, as the Sunday Business, Post pointed out, "it has the support of the majority of the North's nationalists, has fulfilled to the letter all of its obligations under the Agreement, and is willing to share power with its former enemies immediately".

As Sinn Fein's Gerry Kelly pointed out, people don't have to trust each other to draw up a contract. We have a contract. It's the Good Friday Agreement.

Tony Blair, "the fork in the road has finally come"; as British Prime Minister, will you face down unionist rejectionism and implement the Good Friday Agreement or will you keep on endorsing a unionist veto?