International gathering in New York City fails to enforce its own decisions while regional wars expand in Europe and West Asia.
Next year will represent the 80th anniversary of the formation of the United Nations Organization in San Francisco which took place in the immediate aftermath of World War II.
Since 1945 the composition of the organization has been transformed as a direct result of the successes of the national liberation movements and socialist revolutions that came to power from the late 1940s through the modern period.
In its earliest phase, the overwhelming number of governments represented at the UN were colonial powers which welded political and economic power based upon the outcomes of the victories of the war. The bulk of the military clashes during the Second Imperialist War were in Europe, North Africa, Asia and the Asia-Pacific.
Despite the majority of people in the world since 1945 have been located in the regions of Africa, Asia-Pacific and Latin America, the West’s levels of influence and authority within the international relations of production and ownership have been highly disproportionate. This holds true even today during the third decade of the 21st century.
The 79th Session of the General Assembly held in New York City beginning in the week of September 23 was a clear reflection of the continuing domination of the imperialist states within North America and Western Europe. United States Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield’s articulation of the proposal for the allocation of two permanent seats on the Security Council for African Union member-states was devoid of veto power. The number of African nations and their populations and land masses far exceed those of Western Europe and North America combined yet they are literally disrespected and disregarded in the imperialist calculations related to the allocations of power within the august body.
Within the General Assembly, every year, a resolution is passed calling for the lifting of the decades-long U.S.-imposed embargo on the Republic of Cuba. Washington ignores these resolutions in the same fashion they have defied the majority of those governments that have supported the ending of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Instead of abiding by world sentiment for a ceasefire and a permanent solution to the Palestinian question, the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has supplied billions of dollars in military and intelligence assistance to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) to carry out the genocide in Gaza as well as in Lebanon.
Imperialism, Zionism and the Threat to World Peace
During the lead up and same week of the UNGA, there was an all-out assault on the people of Lebanon through the resistance movement of Hezbollah. A series of attacks using pagers and walkie-talkie devices killed and injured hundreds of people in Lebanon.
Hezbollah has expressed solidarity with the people in Gaza by intensifying its cross-border missile and drone strikes which have targeted military and infrastructural sites in northern occupied territories of Palestine. Due to the persistent engagements with the IDF, hundreds of thousands of Israeli settlers have been relocated from the northern areas of the country.
When Biden addressed the UNGA 79th Session he repeated his disingenuous platitudes about the U.S. policy in West Asia. He once again said the White House was in favor of a ceasefire in Gazaonetheless, his administration has not refrained from sending fighter aircraft, bombs and other weapons of genocidal warfare to Tel Aviv. Nearly 200,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since October 7 of 2023 while hundreds of thousands of others suffered injuries. Nearly everyone in Gaza is under threat of displacement, injury and death.
The war has also escalated in the West Bank where raids by the IDF and settlers serve to further kill, maim and imprison the Palestinians. Leaders within the Democratic and Republican parties are in reality opposed to the demands for a ceasefire let alone an arms embargo against the Zionist state.
Amid the expansion of the war in Palestine and Lebanon against the will of the peoples of the world, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin was allowed to address the UNGA on September 27. In his speech, he repudiated the UN and its resolutions in favor of the Palestinians.
Near simultaneously, the IDF escalated its bombing operations in densely populated areas in the south suburbs of Beirut as well as the East Bekaa Valley. Utilizing the most sophisticated fighter jets designed by the U.S., the F-35, Netanyahu ordered the launching of massive bunker-busting bombs against residential and commercial areas that encompass offices of the Hezbollah resistance movement killing top Lebanese leaders including Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.
The Biden administration has attempted to distance itself from the attacks on communication devices, targeted assassinations of political leaders and the bombing of neighborhoods in Lebanon. However, it is highly unlikely that the U.S. did not have advanced knowledge of these attacks. Israel serves the interests of imperialism in the West Asia and North Africa regions. It was the same colonial forces within the UN during May 1948 that voted to recognize the State of Israel as a “legitimate” entity within the world system. Although the Soviet Union voted in favor of Israeli recognition in 1948, their position would have been meaningless without the Western European states and North America which exercised the dominant voice within the UN.
Following the pattern of their sponsors in Washington, the IDF on September 29 bombed Yemeni infrastructural sites including the Ports of Hodeida and Ras Isa. These port cities are indispensable for the shipping of humanitarian assistance to Yemen, the least developed nation within the entire West Asia region.
Of course, Yemen is being targeted by the Biden administration and the Israeli government because of the uncompromising position of the Ansarullah Resistance Movement aimed at imposing through the Red Sea and contiguous waterways a blockade of vessels carrying cargo to Israeli ports. These actions by the Yemeni Armed Forces (YAF) are being conducted in solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza.
Such acts of solidarity with the Palestinians from the Lebanese, Yemeni, Iraqi and Syrian resistance forces are posing a challenge to the imperialist control of the strategic waterways and lands of West Asia. The Islamic Republic of Iran has been a source of support for the anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist movements throughout the region and the globe. Tel Aviv and Washington want to bring Tehran directly into the regional war they are anticipating.
The Threat of Regional and World War
These developments occurring during the UNGA 79th Session have revealed the prospects for a deeper global war that could involve several nations throughout West Asia and beyond. In the wars waged in the West and Central Asia regions over the last 45 years from Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Palestine, military activity has included psychological warfare, political destabilization, economic blockades, aerial bombings along with ground invasions and occupations.
There has been much damage done through aerial bombardments and shelling. Nonetheless, the attempted and actual overthrowing of governments since the Israeli and U.S. interventions in Lebanon beginning in 1982 has inevitably led to the direct occupation by the IDF and the Pentagon deployment of ground troops.
Since the wars of occupation of the 1990s and early decades of the 21st century, millions have lost their lives and suffered injuries. At present, there are more displaced persons in the world than any other period in history. The displacement of Palestinians and Lebanese people over the last year portends much for the entire West Asia region.
The imperialists are in a desperate situation on a geostrategic level. The requirements of recruitment and deployment of military forces in ever-expanding areas of several geo-political regions will come into conflict with the aspirations and desires of populations within the western states. These capitalist countries are already undergoing economic and political crises that threaten domestic upheavals stemming from class and national conflicts.
Despite the ruling class domination of both major parties within the U.S., the internal class struggle and demands for self-determination will not be contained under the emerging dimensions of a potential third imperialist war. The threats of wider regional warfare will not be restricted to West Asia.
Imperialism is waging a war to weaken the Russian Federation as well as containing the People’s Republic of China. With the advent of the deployment of hundreds of thousands of additional Pentagon and NATO troops in West Asia and its environs, Beijing and Moscow will not remain silent and removed from the center of efforts to determine the future of a reconfigured world system.
The peoples of Africa and Latin America are demanding genuine economic independence and territorial sovereignty from imperialism. The rejection of Pentagon and NATO military forces in some areas of Africa and Latin America will be a major factor in the quest for a multipolar transformation of international relations.
Just as the Berlin Conference of 1884-85 was not able to avoid the political trajectory which created the conditions for the first imperialist war between 1914-1918, the League of Nations founded in Geneva, Switzerland in 1920, failed as well to avoid the rise of fascism and monopoly capitalism which resulted in WWII.
The United Nations of the 21st century appears incapable of preventing protracted regional conflicts which could expand to another imperialist war. People in the U.S. and other western states must take a position against world war in order to bring about peace and mutual cooperation throughout the planet.
Abayomi Azikiwe is the Editor of Pan-African News Wire.
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