U.S.

Power in the Middle East: Not Declining

https://mepc.org/us-power-middle-east-not-declining

Thomas Juneau

Dr. Juneau is a senior analyst with the Department of National Defence, Government of Canada. He will
join the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa in July 2014 as an
assistant professor.1

It has become common to hear that American power in the Middle East is waning. The recent U.S.-
Russia deal on the elimination of Syria's chemical-weapons program, for example, has even led some to
talk of U.S. weakness in the region.2 This article instead argues that American power in the Middle East
is not declining but is, in fact, slightly increasing, due principally to U.S. military domination, the strong
positions of its regional partners and the stagnation or decline of its rivals. It is true that U.S. ambition in
the Middle East is diminishing, albeit only slightly. This is distinct, however, from power. A pronounced
and durable decrease in U.S. regional ambition, moreover, is not sustainable. Because of structural
pressures, it is difficult for the United States to more than marginally reduce its regional presence. It is
not losing its grip on the Middle East but trying, with only partial success, to loosen it.3

Power and Influence

Power corresponds to the possession by a state of assets it can leverage to shape events in international
politics in the pursuit of its national interests. Power is multidimensional: it includes military, economic
and ideational elements. It is also relative: a state is powerful to the extent that its rivals are weaker.

Power in this sense is distinct from influence. While power corresponds to the possession of assets,
influence is defined by what a state achieves with those assets or its ability to shape events, to steer
them in a direction consistent with its interests. There is a clear though imperfect correlation between
power and influence: the more power a state possesses, the more likely it is that it will be able to gain
influence. Ambition, finally, consists of the intensity of a state's interests. How much does it seek to
achieve in a given area? Analyzing a state's power is, therefore, a necessary first step toward
understanding the foundations of its success in the international realm.

Military Power
The United States will remain for the foreseeable future the dominant extraregional military power in
the Middle East, with an unequaled network of regional bases and numerous assets permanently or
temporarily deployed to the region. Its advantages are further enhanced by the military might of its local
partners and the weakness of its adversaries.

The U.S. military presence in the Middle East is unmatched by regional or other extraregional forces.
Precise numbers vary according to rotational deployments and specific commitments, but the bottom
line is that the United States is able to respond rapidly to short-term contingencies and has a major
surge capacity because of its prepositioned assets and unequaled transport and logistics capabilities.
The U.S. military is able to project and sustain this presence thanks to an unparalleled network of bases
and facilities in Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, the UAE, Cyprus, Jordan and Turkey.

In late 2013, these bases were manned by more than 35,000 troops, including 10,000 forward-deployed
soldiers. The United States deploys to the region advanced fighter aircraft, including F-22s, as well as
attack helicopters, heavy armor, missile-defense capabilities and advanced intelligence, surveillance and
reconnaissance assets. The United States also maintains a massive naval presence surrounding the
Arabian Peninsula and in the Mediterranean Sea, routinely involving more than 40 ships.4 In July 2013,
the United States added the deployment until 2014 of a second carrier battle group with the Fifth Fleet,
based in Bahrain. Also, in the summer of 2013, the United States marshalled in the Eastern
Mediterranean — in preparation for eventual strikes against Syria — five Arleigh-Burke-class guided-
missile destroyers and three nuclear-powered guided-missile submarines.5

The U.S. withdrawal from Iraq in 2011 led to an important decrease in America's regional military
presence, given that at its peak it deployed 165,000 troops in the country. Yet a quantitative analysis
must be weighed against the high costs in regional legitimacy associated with the occupation of Iraq.
The United States was also bogged down against a difficult insurgency, which made its forces targets of
reprisal for Iran and local adversaries. This was costly militarily and politically. At its height, the
deployment also cost the U.S. Treasury more than $100 billion per year. As such, the withdrawal from
Iraq did not lead to a loss in U.S. regional military power and may even have produced a net gain.

The power of a state's allies contributes to its power.6 The rule of thumb is that the closeness of the ties
that bind them acts as a coefficient against which to multiply the power of a state's allies to roughly
quantify their contribution; a close ally contributes more than a distant ally. America's power in the
Middle East, according to this view, also derives from the military strength of its regional partners.
The Israeli military is the most technologically advanced and best fighting force in the region. The
Turkish armed forces, the second largest in NATO with about 500,000 troops, provide the United States
with a strong ally, notably in counterterrorism, and with access to strategically located bases.
Meanwhile, Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the
United Arab Emirates) are increasingly able to field small but technologically advanced militaries. They
have acquired from the United States and other Western countries expensive weapons systems, ranging
from the defensive — theater missile defenses and patrol boats — to the offensive — fighter aircraft
and armored vehicles. Indeed, since 2007 the United States has approved more than $75 billion in arms
sales to GCC states.

The future of Egypt and its relations with the United States adds an element of uncertainty to American
military power in the Middle East. Egypt will likely remain in a state of internal turmoil in the short to
medium term. Its ability to project power regionally will therefore be constrained. Even assuming that it
remains a close American partner, this represents a loss for the United States. It would be further
magnified should post-Mubarak Egypt distance itself from Washington.

Yet the future direction of Egyptian foreign policy is unclear. There is growing tension between
Washington and Cairo, as witnessed by the U.S. decision in October 2013 to temporarily freeze some of
its military aid. At the same time, there are major constraints on any regime's seeking to change Egypt's
international posture, pushing the Arab world's most populous country to remain close to the United
States, irrespective of future domestic developments.

The $250 million the United States provides annually to Egypt in economic assistance is minor. Egypt,
however, is dependent on the $1.3 billion it gets in annual military assistance. Strictly in terms of
numbers, this assistance could be replaced by monetary support from Saudi Arabia or other rich Arab
states. U.S. military assistance does not take the form of unconditional cash handouts, however. Egypt
has to buy military kit such as Abrams tanks, F-16 fighter jets and attack helicopters from the United
States. As a result, the Egyptian military is dependent on Washington's continuing delivery of such
systems and, crucially, providing the technical and training services necessary for their maintenance and
operation. A prolonged cut-off in U.S. assistance would therefore cause a steady decrease in the
serviceability of these systems.

The vast power imbalance with Israel also reinforces structural pressures keeping Egypt in the U.S. orbit.
The leadership of Egypt's armed forces, in particular, is cognizant of the massive superiority of the Israel
Defence Forces. It also realizes that there are important converging interests between Egypt and Israel,
particularly in opposing the perceived common threats of Hamas in the Gaza Strip and of militancy and
criminality in the Sinai Peninsula.

The difficulty for any Egyptian leadership to move away from the United States was illustrated by the
foreign policy of the Muslim Brotherhood government of President Mohammed Morsi between his
election in June 2012 and his forced removal in July 2013. Whatever the Brotherhood's intentions were,
it did not stray far from Mubarak-era policies. There were some tactical changes; rhetoric and tone, in
particular, were often more confrontational towards the United States and Israel. The strategic posture,
however, did not change. The Egyptian government, for example, closed tunnels to the Gaza Strip, kept
the pressure on extremist groups in the Sinai and, as Mubarak would have done, acted as a mediator in
late 2012 between Israel and Hamas. The Brotherhood, moreover, did not make significant efforts
towards rapprochement with Iran, recognizing the same divergent interests as pre-2011 Cairo did.

Though relations between the United States and Brotherhood-led Egypt were at times strained, it is
important to keep in mind that the United States also had frequent tactical disagreements with
Mubarak. Such disagreements have continued with the military-backed government that replaced the
Brotherhood after July 2013. These should not be interpreted as efforts by Egypt to break off the
strategic partnership, however, but as symptoms of tensions inherent to the partnership. Reports of
Egypt's efforts to procure military hardware from Russia are thus consistent with Cairo's intent to
diversify its ties, but it is hedging at the tactical level, not the strategic.7

There are, in sum, important structural forces constraining Egypt's margin of maneuver and pushing it to
remain within its partnership with the United States. These pressures raise the potential costs for Cairo
of breaking off ties and provide benefits for keeping the status quo. This point can be broadened: U.S.
partners face incentives and constraints rewarding them for cooperation, or at least their lack of
opposition, and penalizing them for pursuing policies antagonistic to U.S. interests.

Indeed, beyond its own and its partners' military assets, America's power in the Middle East is further
boosted by its position as the security guarantor of many regional powers. Such ties, moreover, are
unlikely to diminish. America's partners will continue to need an external guarantor of their security,
and no entity other than the United States is willing to assume this role. It is true that GCC states are
making efforts to hedge their bets by diversifying their security ties, but their main alternatives have
been France and the UK. Both are major arms suppliers to the GCC. France actually opened, in 2009, its
first Gulf naval and air base in the UAE, which permanently hosts about 250 troops and three fighter
aircraft. This will not, however, alter the regional balance of power; neither France nor the UK is able or
willing to challenge America's position.
The case of Qatar is intriguing, given the emergence of some divergent objectives between Washington
and Doha. But these differences have been tactical, not strategic. The United States and Qatar, for
example, both oppose Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, though they disagree on means, especially on
which opposition groups to support. Overall, Doha remains broadly aligned with the United States, as
witnessed by its enthusiastic hosting of the largest American military base in the Middle East, its
opposition to Iranian ambitions and its support in 2011 for the NATO-led mission to overthrow Colonel
Muammar Qadhafi in Libya.

Neither will renewed tensions between the United States and Saudi Arabia fundamentally alter the
American posture. Riyadh has grown irritated, in particular, by the U.S. reluctance to become more
deeply engaged in the conflict in Syria and by what it perceives as America's failure to support the
Mubarak regime in Egypt in 2011 and its criticism of the removal of the Morsi government in 2013.

These disagreements must be understood from a historical perspective, however. The strategic
partnership between the United States and Saudi Arabia is based on a fundamental bargain going back
decades: Washington guarantees the kingdom's security, while Riyadh ensures a stable flow of oil to
global markets. This understanding has survived major challenges, including the oil crisis of 1973, the
September 11, 2001, attacks (15 of 19 hijackers were Saudi), the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 (which
Riyadh opposed) and constant tension over the Arab-Israeli conflict. The fundamental bargain, in other
words, is not only unaltered by these disagreements; it contains an inherent flexibility that allows it to
manage the ebb and flow of tensions. Most fundamentally, the bargain has held because the basic
convergence of interests has not been broken: no other power can guarantee Saudi security, while Saudi
Arabia is the state best positioned to support the stability of oil markets.

The structure of the regional balance of power, in sum, is inherently favorable to the United States. Its
partners are strong, which is beneficial to American power, but they are also dependent on the United
States for their security. This is optimal for Washington; its key partners are neither weak nor
autonomous but strong and dependent.

Power must also be measured in relative terms. If state A's assets do not change in absolute terms but
those of its rivals decrease, then A is gaining in power. That is precisely the case for the United States:
the power of its rivals is mostly declining. This is a long-term trend that will continue, with one
important exception. It plays a major part in explaining the continuance of America's dominant position.
The United States has two major regional rivals, Iran and Syria. Iran's asymmetric and unconventional
assets allow it to spoil regional developments that oppose U.S. interests, but much of its conventional
military is obsolescent. It has limited power-projection capability, and its major weapons systems are old
and suffer from low serviceability and reliability. Training, coordination among services, communications
and logistics are all deficient. Illustrating Iran's military inferiority, its defense budget is about seven
times smaller than the combined defence budgets of GCC states. The Islamic Republic has also alienated
itself from almost every state in the Middle East and is bereft of allies beyond Syria and Hezbollah.8

In early 2014, the United States, alongside other members of the UN Security Council and Germany,
began negotiations with Iran on its nuclear program. Whatever their outcome, it is unlikely that these
talks could fundamentally alter the U.S. posture in the Middle East, whether positively or negatively.
Indeed, even in the best of cases, a final deal would not lead to reconciliation. The United States and
Iran would remain adversaries, while regional powers, especially Saudi Arabia and Israel, would remain
highly suspicious of Iran. The lifting of some sanctions that would result from a deal would partly
unshackle its power, but Iran would remain isolated and under remaining sanctions. At the same time,
failure to reach a deal would lead to a continuation of the status quo, with Iran still weak, isolated and
subject to a massive and possibly growing sanctions regime.

Syria, for its part, is caught up in a devastating civil war that has made it much weaker. Unlike in 2012,
when its days appeared numbered, however, it is now conceivable that the Assad regime could survive.
But even if he remains in power, Assad will be weakened and focused on rebuilding his state.
Irrespective of the outcome of the war, in sum, Syria has been largely removed from the regional
balance of military power. Thus even Assad's survival would provide a net gain for the United States, as
this would not represent a return to the status quo ante, when Syria was able to challenge the
projection of U.S. power.

Extraregional powers, meanwhile, are not gaining relative to the United States. Russia lost much of its
military power in the region after the Cold War. Its only remaining military installation is a minor naval
facility at Tartus in Syria; its only regional partners are Iran and Syria, themselves isolated and weak.
Russia does not have the power-projection capability to sustain military deployments in the region.
China, for its part, does not have, and is unlikely to acquire for many years, either military capability or
ambition in the Middle East. It is therefore not a factor in the regional balance of military power.

Russian and Chinese policies in the Middle East seek to balance competing priorities. On the one hand,
neither wants to give the United States blank checks to manage regional security affairs. Beyond their
general opposition to U.S. preponderance, they oppose specific American policies, especially when they
take a more interventionist form. In Syria, moreover, both are concerned that an eventual successor to
the Assad regime could be less hostile to the United States, removing what has been, from their
perspective, a convenient obstacle to American power.

On the other hand, Russia and China want to avoid damaging their most important bilateral relationship
— with the United States — for the sake of less important ties to troublesome partners such as Syria and
Iran. In addition, because it is unwilling to take on a more prominent role in regional security affairs,
Beijing lets Moscow take the lead in opposing the United States. Thus when, for example, Iran's nuclear
program has been discussed at the UN Security Council in recent years, China discretely supported
Russia's efforts to dilute sanctions. Given their discomfort with Iranian assertiveness, however, both
ultimately voted in favor of resolutions sanctioning Iran, to Tehran's annoyance. China, in addition, is
dependent on U.S. guarantees of regional security, notably U.S. control of international shipping lanes.
Chinese oil imports from the Middle East, as such, are partly dependent on the continuation of these
U.S. guarantees.

Economic Power

The U.S. fiscal situation partly explains the decrease in its ambition in the Middle East. There is limited
appetite in Washington to embark on a new, costly war in the region. Moreover, at the global level, U.S.
economic power is declining as relative wealth steadily shifts to emerging powers, mostly in Asia. These
two trends are distinct, however, from the question of whether the economic component of American
power in the Middle East is declining. It is not. That said, the economic component does not contribute
much to aggregate U.S. power in the region. With the partial exception of weapons sales, the United
States has not deeply penetrated the Middle East commercially. Instead, the United States largely
derives its regional economic power from the economic strength of its partners and the weakness of its
rivals. Over the long term, however, this will be challenged by China's steadily growing economic
presence.

The trade component is not significant in shaping U.S. power in the Middle East. The United States is not
a major importer of Middle Eastern oil. In 2012, the United States imported 10.6 million barrels of oil
per day (bpd). Most of this came from Canada (2.95 million), Mexico (1.04 million), Venezuela (0.96
million), Russia (0.48 million) and Nigeria (0.44 million bpd). The United States only imported 2.16
million bpd from the Persian Gulf, mostly Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq, or about 20 percent of its
imports and less than 10 percent of its total oil consumption. This already low proportion, moreover, is
set to decline as domestic production increases.9
America's interests in the Middle East thus do not emerge from a need to protect oil imports. Rather,
the United States has long believed that it has a fundamental interest in a stable international economy,
which is dependent on a secure and free flow of oil globally. This is how the bargain with Saudi Arabia
originally arose. The United States perceived that stable global oil supplies require the security of Saudi
Arabia — a young, sparsely populated and geographically vulnerable state surrounded by aggressive
powers — as well as that of its smaller neighbors and of international shipping lanes. This reinforces the
U.S. posture in the Middle East: oil producers are dependent on the United States for security, but the
United States is only indirectly dependent on them.

Beyond oil, U.S. trade with the region is marginal. In 2011, it amounted to $193 billion, about 5 percent
of total U.S. trade. Of the $123 billion in U.S. imports, $90 billion, or 70 percent, consisted of oil. Of the
$70 billion in U.S. exports, about half consisted of motor vehicles, machinery, aircraft and precious
stones. More than 90 percent of total trade was concentrated in eight countries: Saudi Arabia, Israel,
Algeria, Iraq, the UAE, Egypt, Kuwait and Qatar.10 U.S. arms exports to the Middle East play an
important role in cementing America's regional posture. In 2012, the United States exported $28.5
billion worth of arms worldwide. Of this, 27 percent, or $7.7 billion, went to the Middle East. By
comparison, Russia exported $900 million worth of arms to the Middle East, or 9 percent of its $10
billion in exports in 2012.11

Again, the strength of its partners and the weakness of its adversaries favor America's posture. The
region's most important economies, first, are U.S. partners. GCC states, especially, boast fast-growing
economies with per capita GDPs rivaling, and in some cases exceeding, Western levels, while Turkey is
the world's seventeenth-largest economy. The United States, of course, does not always agree with how
these states use their wealth for foreign-policy purposes. Most recently, Washington has disagreed with
the financial support that Saudi Arabia and the UAE have provided to Egypt's military leadership in the
wake of the July 2013 removal of Morsi from the presidency. But in most cases, there is agreement.
When there is disagreement, it is mostly over tactics, not strategy.

Compounding this favorable economic dynamic is, again, the weakness of Syria and Iran. The Syrian
economy has been ravaged by civil war. Precise measurements are impossible to obtain yet, but it could
have fallen more than 50 percent since 2011.12 Meanwhile, Iran has been experiencing negative
economic growth and double-digit inflation in past years, and its future prospects are bleak as a result of
the combined effects of sanctions and mismanagement. In particular, its main source of cash, oil
exports, has decreased by half in the last two years.
The regional economic presence of Russia and China does not change this equation. Economically,
Russia is not an important player in the Middle East. In 2011, its trade with the region amounted to
under $30 billion, or less than 5 percent of its total trade. Crucially, three of Russia's top four trading
partners — Turkey, Egypt and Israel, the fourth being Iran — are close U.S. partners. Of note, Russia's
trade with Syria amounted in 2011 to only $800 million, or 0.1 percent of total Russian trade.13 In
addition, Russia competes with GCC states in global oil and gas markets. This acts as a brake on potential
cooperation between Moscow and hydrocarbon-exporting Arab states, another structural incentive
driving regional states to remain broadly aligned with the United States.

China's steady economic penetration of the Middle East will partly come at the expense of U.S. power.
For now, however, it remains relatively low. In 2012, China's trade with the Middle East amounted to
$220 billion, or 7 percent of its total.14 In 2011, in particular, just over 50 percent of China's oil imports
came from the Middle East, or about 2.6 million bpd, with about 1 million from Saudi Arabia and 0.5
million from Iran.15

Expert: What led to US and Iran conflict, and bombing of Iran leader

BJ Bethel

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wdtn.com/news/expert-what-led-to-us-and-iran-conflict-and-
bombing-of-iran-leader/amp/

DAYTON, Ohio (WDTN) – Dr. Vaughn Shannon – who teaches Middle East studies and political science at
Wright State University – said the U.S. bombing on Jan. 3 that killed Iranian Quds Force Commander
Qasem Soleimani was the largest escalation in the 40-year face-off between Iran and the United States.
“Soleimani was the leader of the Quds Force and the Revolutionary guard, but unofficially some say he
was the second or third highest person of power in the Iranian government,” Shannon said. “Since the
Iraq-Iran War, he cut his chops as a heroic, defender of the nation type who promoted Iranian interests
– usually at the expense of Israel or the U.S.”

Shannon compared the killing of Soleimani to a scenario in which the Iranians bombed General David
Petraeus or Gulf War General Norman Schwarzkopf.

Three Iraqis were killed as well, including a popular Shia militia leader and politician Abu Mahdi al-
Mahandis.

What led to the bombing?

The U.S. bombing came after several incidents over the last week. A rocket attack by a Shia militia called
the Popular Mobilization Forces killed an American in Baghdad last week. The U.S. responded with
airstrikes against the Iranian militia Kataeb Hezbollah in Iraq, killing 25 of their fighters. Backers of the
militias then attacked the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, crashing the front entrance.

Shannon said the Iraqi government negotiated with the embassy attackers to back down and leave the
embassy, which seemed to de-escalate the situation until Thursday when U.S. intelligence indicated
Soleimani and al-Mahandis would be meeting with other militia leaders at the Baghdad Airport, which
was bombed.

Soleimani’s role in Iraqi violence is deep. He’s known for developing many of the high-tech improvised
explosive devices that killed and injured thousands of U.S. troops for over a decade.

The meeting with the Iraqi militia leaders suggests Soleimani wasn’t done pushing Iranian influence in
Iraq. Shannon said there is a good chance the attack at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad also raised the ire
of those in the Trump administration who remember the Benghazi, Libya embassy attack in 2012.
But Shannon said the backlash against the attack will loom large. The U.S. broke an agreement with the
Iraqi government which kept the United States from unilaterally attacking Iraqis in the country without
approval or action with the government. While Soleimani was a major factor in the sectarian warfare
that killed American soldiers, he was also a general and a high official in the Iranian government which
makes his killing more complicated than bombing a terrorist group.

What’s the history between Iran and the U.S.?

According to Shannon, the attack was the latest in a 40-year proxy conflict between the two countries
which gained traction after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.

In 1979 religious and student groups overthrew the Iranian monarch Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi,
who led the U.S.-backed government. The government was replaced by an authoritarian Shiite
theocracy opposed to the United States.

Iraq invaded Iran in September 1980, starting the seven-year Iran-Iraq War. The U.S. provided weapons
and other arms to then Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, a Sunni who was fighting Iran. The war ended
after seven years.

Iran trained, armed and aided terror groups like Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Israel and Hezbollah in
Lebanon. Both groups have been at war with one of the United States’ most important allies, Israel. Iran
is also at odds with Saudi Arabia, another U.S. ally.

When the U.S. invaded Iraq and overthrew Saddam Hussein in 2003, a Shiite majority government was
elected. Iran began to push their interests with fellow Shia in the Iraqi government. When sectarian
fighting broke out following the invasion, the Iranians backed militias and other Shiite groups. Soleimani
was behind much of their arms, strategies and helped develop improvised explosive devices that killed
and maimed thousands of U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians.

For years, Iran was working to develop a nuclear weapon. In 2015, the Obama administration along with
the European Union and the other permanent members of the United Nations Security Council,
negotiated to halt Iran’s nuclear ambitions in exchange for the halting of economic sanctions against the
country. The U.S. withdrew from the deal under President Trump in May 2018. Shannon said it will be
interesting to see how history judges the nuclear deal and the withdrawal. “Under the deal, we had
tentative stable peace. That’s been thrown out.”

Controversy is over matter of ‘proportion’; overreaching political and military concerns

When the Islamic State conquered major territory in Iraq, a group of U.S. personnel, Iraqi Army, Kurdish
fighters and Iranian-backed militias pushed the terrorist group out of Iraq and into Syria while inflicting
them with heavy losses.
“Some of these PMF groups worked with us indirectly and had parallel attacks with us against the
Islamic State,” Shannon said. “But in post-ISIS Iraq, the idea in Iran and among Iraqi Shiite militias was to
agitate Americans and to get us to leave Iraq. We were rightfully mad.”

Shannon said the airstrikes that killed 25 militia fighters were more in lines of previous responses. This
attack changes current concerns for the U.S.

He said Soleimani was popular in Iran and Iraq and with a weak Iraqi government, this could lead to the
U.S. being pushed out of the country, or war between Iraq having to choose sides in a conflict between
the U.S. and Iran. PMF groups are represented by factions in the Iraqi government and it could push the
country toward a constitutional crisis.

It also brings into question how Iran will respond.

“It’s a matter of what’s considered proportionate,” Shannon said. “It’s safe to say this is an escalation to
a new level of consequences not yet known. I don’t believe it will be World War III, or it will be peace
and happiness.”

ISIS Sympathizers in U.S. Prefer Twitter Among Social Media

PHOTO: ANDREW HARRER/BLOOMBERG NEWS

By Devlin Barrett and Nicole Hong

Updated Dec. 1, 2015 10:37 pm ET

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wsj.com/amp/articles/islamic-state-sympathizers-in-u-s-prefer-
twitter-among-social-media-1448982000

3.

Mahatma Gandhi

INDIAN LEADER

WRITTEN BY: B.R. Nanda

See Article History

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mahatma-Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi

Introduction & Quick Facts

Youth

Sojourn in England and return to India

Years in South Africa

Emergence as a political and social activist

Resistance and results

The religious quest

Return to India

Emergence as nationalist leader

Return to party leadership

The last phase

Place in history

Mahatma Gandhi

INDIAN LEADER

WRITTEN BY: B.R. Nanda

See Article History

Alternative Title: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

ARTICLE CONTENTS

Mahatma Gandhi, byname of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, (born October 2, 1869, Porbandar, India—
died January 30, 1948, Delhi), Indian lawyer, politician, social activist, and writer who became the leader
of the nationalist movement against the British rule of India. As such, he came to be considered the
father of his country. Gandhi is internationally esteemed for his doctrine of nonviolent protest
(satyagraha) to achieve political and social progress

Mahatma Gandhi

INDIAN LEADER

WRITTEN BY: B.R. Nanda

See Article History

Alternative Title: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

ARTICLE CONTENTS

Mahatma Gandhi, byname of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, (born October 2, 1869, Porbandar, India—
died January 30, 1948, Delhi), Indian lawyer, politician, social activist, and writer who became the leader
of the nationalist movement against the British rule of India. As such, he came to be considered the
father of his country. Gandhi is internationally esteemed for his doctrine of nonviolent protest
(satyagraha) to achieve political and social progress.

Mahatma Gandhi

QUICK FACTS

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.

View Media Page

BORN
October 2, 1869

Porbandar, India

DIED

January 30, 1948 (aged 78)

Delhi, India

POLITICAL AFFILIATION

Indian National Congress

ROLE IN

British Raj

Jallianwala Bagh Massacre

Salt March

Noncooperation Movement

Round Table Conference

Poona Pact

NOTABLE FAMILY MEMBERS

Spouse Kasturba Gandhi

DID YOU KNOW?

Time Magazine named Mahatma Gandhi Person of the Year in 1930.

The United Nations declared Gandhi's birthday, October 2nd, as the International Day of Non-violence in
2007.

Gandhi was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize five times but never received the award.

As a young child Gandhi was very shy and would run home as soon as school ended to avoid talking to
anyone.

Before taking a vow of celibacy, Mahatma Gandhi had four sons.

In the eyes of millions of his fellow Indians, Gandhi was the Mahatma (“Great Soul”). The unthinking
adoration of the huge crowds that gathered to see him all along the route of his tours made them a
severe ordeal; he could hardly work during the day or rest at night. “The woes of the Mahatmas,” he
wrote, “are known only to the Mahatmas.” His fame spread worldwide during his lifetime and only
increased after his death. The name Mahatma Gandhi is now one of the most universally recognized on
earth.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.commondreams.org/views/2020/03/06/trumps-real-base-ruling-
class%3famp

Published onFriday, March 06, 2020byTruthdig

Trump's Real Base Is the Ruling Class

Trump has shown that he understands who his real and most powerful base is—the billionaire class—
ever since his election.

byPaul Street

Don’t blame the Trump presidency on the white proletariat. The real responsibility for this epically
transgressive administration—headed by an individual Noam Chomsky rightly describes as “the most
dangerous criminal in human history”—lies with the billionaire class.

According to a mainstream media myth long believed by intellectuals who ought to know better, Donald
Trump rode into the White House on a great upsurge of support from poor, white, working-class voters
drawn to the Republican candidate’s populist anti-Wall Street pitch in key deindustrialized battleground
states. This conventional Rust Belt rebellion wisdom was proclaimed on the front page of the nation’s
newspaper of record, The New York Times, a day after the 2016 election. The Times called Trump’s
victory “a decisive demonstration of power by a largely overlooked coalition of mostly blue-collar white
and working-class voters.” That same day, Times political writer Nate Cohn wrote that “Donald J. Trump
won the presidency by riding an enormous wave of support among working-class whites.”

This storyline — repeated ad nauseam and taken for granted in the mainstream media and even in
much of the progressive left—is flatly contradicted by credible data. There was no mass white working-
class outpouring for Trump in 2016. Slate writers Konstantin Kilibarda and Daria Roithmayr noted weeks
after the election: “Donald Trump didn’t flip working-class white voters,” they wrote. “Hillary Clinton
lost them. … Relative to the 2012 election, Democratic support in the key Rust Belt states [Iowa,
Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin] collapsed as a huge number of Democrats stayed home or
(to a lesser extent) voted for a third party.”

According to the sources cited in Slate’s analysis, the decline in numbers of working-class Democratic
voters between 2012 and 2016 was much bigger than the increase of working-class Republican voters in
the “Rust Belt Five.” Among those earning less than $50,000 a year in those states, the drop in
Democratic voting was 3.5 times greater than the uptick in Republican voting. The party’s long tilt to the
corporatist and Wall Street-friendly right, evident under Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, explains in part
why 45% of the U.S. electorate didn’t bother to vote in 2016. Trump was elected by just a little more
than a quarter of the U.S. voting-age population.