Emergency Discussion with Larry Everest: What is happening in Iraq and the Middle East?

Emergency Discussion with Larry Everest:

What is happening in Iraq and the Middle East? Will the U.S. Intervene? Where Do the Peoples' Interests Lie?

Thurs. June 19th, 7 p.m. at Revolution Books - 2425 Channing Way Berkeley

Events are unfolding rapidly in Iraq. On June 10, armed fighters of the Sunni jihadist group, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), took over Iraq's northern province of Nineveh and its capital Mosul, a city of some 650,000, defeating the forces of the U.S.-installed Iraqi government of Nouri al-Malaki. ISIS then moved south, toward the capital, Baghdad, attacking and capturing other cities. On June 13, President Barack Obama warned that the U.S. was considering the use of military force to prevent the collapse of the Malaki Regime.

* Obama said the U.S. might use military force because ISIS "poses a danger to Iraq and its people" and to "American interests." But what are U.S. interests? Are they the same as the interests of the Iraqi people? Why is it urgent for people to protest any U.S. military action?

* Who are the forces involved in the conflict in Iraq, and why do the people - here and around the world, including in Iraq - have no interest in siding with any of them?

* How do events in Iraq show that the U.S. rulers are not all powerful?

* Why is it true that there will not be a road forward for the masses of people in the Middle East until the new stage of communism, whose theoretical framework has been developed by Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, as concentrated in COMMUNISM: THE BEGINNING OF A NEW STAGE, A Manifesto from the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA (available online in English, Arabic, Farsi, Turkish, Spanish, German and Portugese) becomes a current in this region that can cohere forces around it and work for real revolution?

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Larry Everest is a writer for Revolution newspaper (revcom.us) and author of Oil, Power & Empire: Iraq and the U.S. Global Agenda (available at Revolution Books), who has reported from Iraq, Iran, Palestine and India.