As competition between imperialist superpowers China and the U.S. intensifies in the Horn of Africa, bomber-in-chief Barack Obama has laid the capitalist legal basis for a wider oil war in Somalia. The resulting devastation of the working class shows, more than ever, that we need communist revolution.
Oil Chokepoint: Bab el-Mandeb
Off the western flank of the Arabian Sea, the U.S. is hard-pressed to keep control over the oil shipment chokepoint at the strait of Bab el-Mandeb. The strait separates Djbouti and Yemen, between the Persian Gulf and the Suez Canal. Nearly four million barrels of oil pass through it every day (Business Insider, 11/3): “[H]e who controls Bab el-Mandeb has his fingers around the throats of both the EU and Asia’s economies” (Counterpunch, 11/17/11).
This area is of longtime geopolitical importance for U.S. hegemony. In 1991, the U.S. Army War College published an unclassified study that called Bab Al-Mandeb “a confrontation arena between the superpowers, which tried to establish and then promote their military presence and influence there.”
In the 1990s, the main U.S. rival in the area was Russia. Today it is China.
Somalia: From Bombs to Ground Operations
Somalia’s working class is caught in the crossfire of the imperialists’ fight to control Middle East oil. Barack Obama has expanded a mandate for war against Al Qaeda to include Somalia, a precedent that president-elect Donald Trump will be free to escalate (NYT, 11/28). As Obama rains bombs on Somalia and murders masses of workers, the scope of the operation is expanding. According to official statistics, the number of U.S. Special Operations forces on the ground has climbed from 120 in 2007 to 300 (Reuters 7/14). The tempo of their rampage has increased to six raids a month (Telesurtv, 10/16). After conducting a covert operation until 2014, Obama has folded these raids into the perpetual war waged under the post-9/11 “Authorization for the Use of Force.”
While the future of this conflict is unpredictable, U.S. bosses will need many more ground troops to hold off its imperialist rivals.
History of Imperialist Carnage
Imperialist designs on the Horn of Africa date back to the nineteenth century. Through occupations by British, French, Italian, Russian, and U.S. forces, the impact on workers has been the same: capitalist exploitation, instability, periodic famine. In 2006, after U.S.-backed warlords in Somalia were defeated by a group called the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), U.S. imperialism supported an Ethiopian invasion. As the ICU splintered, a faction called the Shabab emerged. Aligned with Al Qaeda, it became the main anti-U.S. force on the ground These little terrorists seek to impose their own brand of capitalist exploitation on the local working class, different only in scale from the big terrorists of U.S. imperialism.
In 2010, U.S.-fomented instability and outright slaughter have combined with drought to bring famine to Somalia. At least 250,000 workers and children have starved to death. Tony Lake, UNICEF director and Clinton-era national security advisor, budgeted ten cents per person a day to feed our class brothers and sisters through this crisis, a death warrant signed by a trusted henchman of U.S. imperialism (telesur.net 9/11/16).
Djibouti: New Scramble for the Horn
A rising China looms as the main threat to U.S. imperialism, and to U.S. control of Bab el-Mandeb in particular. The Chinese imperialists are building their first overseas military outpost in Djibouti, a tiny nation between Somalia, Eritrea, and Ethiopia. The Chinese base is eight miles from the only acknowledged permanent U.S. military base in Africa (WSJ, 8/19).
Dijoubti represents the latest example of China’s pivot toward Africa. Beyond the $200 billion spent on the continent in 2012, surpassing the U.S., China has pledged to invest $1 trillion by 2025 (CNN Money, 12/5/15). Chinese President Xi Jinping openly refers to the Djibouti base as a key in defending Chinese interests in Middle East oil fields. Xi’s top naval officers consider “steadily advancing overseas base construction” a top priority for Chinese capitalist (WSJ, 8/19). As the U.S. prepares for a wider ground war, direct clashes with China are a growing possibility.
Yemen: Obama’s War
Another country caught in the superpowers’ crossfire is Yemen, across Bab el- Mandeb from Djibouti and bordering Saudi Arabia to the south. Yemen is being torn apart in a proxy war between the Iran-backed Houthi rebels and the pro-Saudi/U.S. regime. A Saudi-led coalition has conducted indiscriminate air strikes across the country, killing thousands of workers. For the imperialists, the stakes are high; Saudi Arabia contains the world’s largest reserves of cheaply extracted oil. Obama and the finance capitalists he serves fear any threat to U.S. control over the world’s foremost profit center.
Fight for Communism
In years past, millions of workers and students looked to communism in their struggles against imperialism, colonialism, and capitalist exploitation in the Horn of Africa and beyond. Nationalism led these fighters down a dead end. Progressive Labor Party is proud to carry forward the banner of the struggle against imperialism and rebuild proletarian internationalism. Let the imperialists start their wars—the workers can and will finish them with communist revolution! We have nothing to lose but our chains!