James Petras’ New Book: “The Arab Revolt and the Imperialist Counterattack”

As the Arab revolt spreads from North Africa to the Gulf and deepens its demands to include socio-economic as well as political demands, the Empire is striking back. The ruling military junta in Egypt has cracked down on the prodemocracy movement and looks to its autocratic “partners” in the Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula to drown the civil society movements in a blood bath.

While standing by the crumbling dictatorships elsewhere in the region, the United States, France and the United Kingdom raced to intervene when it seemed the revolt had spread to Libya. NATO was deployed, using the UN’s new “responsibility to protect” doctrine authorizing humanitarian intervention. Already NATO intervention has exceeded the UN mandate by bombing the Libyan capital and inflicting civilian casualties. Meanwhile, western governments openly pursue regime change in Libya while seeking to forestall it elsewhere.

These essays chronicle the growing militarization of US policy in North Africa and the Gulf and the historic confrontation between the Arab democratic revolution and the imperial backed satraps; between Libyans fighting for their independence and the Euro-American naval and air forces ravaging the country on behalf of their inept local clients.

FOR MORE INFORMATION AND TO ORDER

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Washington Faces the Arab Revolts:
Sacrificing Dictators to Save the State

Egypt’s Social Movements, The CIA and Mossad

Roots of the Arab Revolts and Premature Celebrations

The Euro-US War on Libya

Official Lies and Misconceptions of Critics

Libya and Obama’s Defense of the ‘Rebel Uprising’

Contextualizing the ‘Arab Spring’:
Networks of Empire and Realignments of World Power

APPENDIX:
Indicators of Social Well Being in Pre-invasion Libya

AUTHOR

James Petras is a Bartle Professor (Emeritus) of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York. He is the author of 64 books published in 29 languages, and over 560 articles in professional journals, including the American Sociological Review, British Journal of Sociology, Social Research, Journal of Contemporary Asia, and Journal of Peasant Studies. He has published over 2000 articles in nonprofessional journals such as the New York Times, the Guardian, the Nation, Christian Science Monitor, Foreign Policy, New Left Review, Partisan Review, Temps Moderne, Le Monde Diplomatique, and his commentary is widely carried on the internet. His publishers have included Random House, John Wiley, Westview, Routledge, Macmillan, Verso, Zed Books and Pluto Books. He is winner of the Life Time Career Award, Marxist Section, of the American Sociology Association, the Robert Kenny Award for Best Book, 2002, and the Best Dissertation, Western Political Science Association in 1968.

Some recent titles include Unmasking Globalization: Imperialism of the Twenty-First Century (2001); co-author The Dynamics of Social Change in Latin America (2000), Unmasking Globalisation (2001), System in Crisis (2003), co-author Social Movements and State Power (2003), co-author Empire With Imperialism (2005), co-author) Multinationals on Trial (2006). His most recent titles are The Power of Israel in the United States and Rulers and Ruled in the United States, (acquired for Japanese, German, Italian, Indonesian, Czech and Arabic editions), Zionism, Militarism and the Decline of US Power, Global Depression & Regional Wars, and War Crimes in Gaza and the Zionist Fifth Column in America. He has a long history of commitment to social justice, working in particular with the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement for 11 years. In 1973-76 he was a member of the Bertrand Russell Tribunal on Repression in Latin America. He writes a monthly column for the Mexican newspaper, La Jornada, and previously, for the Spanish daily, El Mundo. He received his B.A. from Boston University and Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley.