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‘My academic work for many years now has its focus on self-determination and resistance. Western regimes find that latter part – resistance, in the current context – difficult to tolerate. There is now a climate of fear and repression in many Western societies. People fear for their jobs, their livelihoods and their freedom, if they speak their minds about Washington’s forever wars’
Dr Tim Anderson is Director of the Sydney-based Centre for Counter Hegemonic Studies. He has worked at Australian universities for more than 30 years, teaching, researching and publishing on development, human rights and self-determination in the Asia-Pacific, Latin America and the Middle East.
He has published more than 70 academic articles and chapters in a wide range of journals and books, as well as many online essays. His most recent books are: Land and Livelihoods in Papua New Guinea (2015), The Dirty War on Syria (2016), now published in ten languages (English, German, Arabic, Swedish, Bosnian, Spanish, Farsi, Italian, Greek and Icelandic); Countering Propaganda of the Dirty War on Syria (2017); Axis of Resistance: towards an independent Middle East (2019), in English, Farsi and Arabic; and ‘The Pandemic and Independent Countries’ (2020) His latest book is ‘West Asia After Washington’ (2023).
In conversation with Amit Sengupta, Editor, timesheadline.in via email.
You have recently visited Yemen. What is happening in Yemen?
Yemen is still suffering the effects of a long hybrid war and economic blockade which, through both ignorance and design, has been backed by the UN Security Council. Until the Gaza Genocide, Yemen was said to have the ‘worst humanitarian crisis’ on earth. At the root of the crisis has been the failure of the UN Security Council – and of most nations – to recognise the only real revolution arising out of the ‘Arab Spring’.
For the past decade, most Yemeni people (about 70 per cent) live under a revolutionary coalition government (disparagingly called ‘Houthi rebels’ by the colonial media) led by the Ansarallah movement and are based in the capital, Sanaa. The other 30 per cent (in Aden, Abyan, parts of Marib and areas further west) live under an ‘internationally recognised’ exile ‘government’ based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
The siege has been partly broken by the ceasefire announced in 2022, after it had become plain that the US-UK-Saudi-Emirati coalition could not defeat the revolutionary government. The dirty war against Yemen has involved multiple bombings of civilian targets and attempts to isolate and starve the population. However, with the ceasefire came some partial relief through foodgrain and fuel shipments at the ports of Ras Issa and Hodeidah.
Sanaa business people are now buying fuel from enemy Arab regimes, under an agreement which avoids accusations that Iran is sending weapons. In fact, the Sanaa government is making almost all of its own weapons, including new generation missiles. Some of these have been used against Saudi, Emirati and Israeli facilities.
Poverty is still extreme and many are begging on the streets of Sanaa, Hodeidah and other cities. Food production is substantial except for the dependence on imported grain. Curiously, however, currency inflation in occupied areas is far worse than those under the Sanaa government, as the occupation regime has been printing new bank notes at a great rate. In the Sanaa-controlled areas, there has been reversion to coins, as old banknotes wear out and disintegrate.
Yemen is one of the few countries which openly backed the Palestinian cause. They attacked ships of the Western powers in the Red Sea in response to the Genocide in Gaza and seemed fearless and unrelenting. How do they manage to do that?
Yes, it does seem extraordinary that a people so weakened by war and siege, still have the unique capacity to stand up to the common Israeli enemy. I asked many Ansarallah members and allied Yemenis about this and their answers focus on the strong moral dimension of the ‘Quranic Project’ at the heart of their movement.
They feel a strong obligation to defend the downtrodden people (the mustadafin) of their region and have a tremendous affinity with the Palestinian people. Photos of Palestinian and Lebanese martyrs (especially, Yahya Sinwar and Hassan Nasrallah) take pride of place in city streets and on cars and houses, alongside the Yemeni leaders who have perished during the recent wars. They treat the heroes of the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance as their own.
Decisions to intervene against the genocidal Israelis and their sponsors are taken overwhelmingly on moral grounds and then supported by mass mobilisation. For example, after Ansarallah leader, Abdul Malik al Houthi, announced that any Israel resumption of the bombing of Gaza or Lebanon would be met by direct Yemeni intervention, hundreds of thousands took to the streets to back up this stance.
The same applies to direct Yemeni attacks on US and UK warships in the Red Sea, which they see as accomplices to the crimes against the Palestinian people. One Ansarallah legal expert points out that it is Yemen’s obligation to intervene, under the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
The fact that Yemen now has ‘Palestine 2’ missiles, capable of Mach 16 speed and great accuracy, gives teeth to their deterrent threats. Yemeni indigenous technology, which, of course, began with some reverse engineering, is remarkable. They have shot down a number of MQ-9 reaper drones and some warplanes.
What is your opinion on the ceasefire in Gaza? Will it hold on, considering the dubious politics of Benjamin Netanyahu and his overtly expressed intentions?
The arrogance of Netanyahu and Donald Trump make it seem unlikely that the Gaza and Lebanese ceasefires will hold; but, perhaps, the more important question is to what extent the resistance (Palestinian, Lebanese, Yemeni and others) will impose restraints on the occupation forces.
Israeli superiority is mainly in the air, so aerial bombing may resume until global outrage and resistance counter-attacks weaken the US-Israeli resolve. The fact that the resistance in Gaza still exists after 15 months of bombing should tell us something.
The US and Israelis admit that resistance groups have recruited about as many new fighters as they claim to have killed. We all saw some evidence of this in events surrounding the recent prisoner-exchanges after the current ceasefire.
Trump turning Gaza into a La La Land with mass, forcible displacement of thousands of refugees in a ravaged landscape. Your opinion.
The Trump fantasy of a Riviera-style development in Gaza will never happen, not just because it is so wrong but because the resistance has already shown it can harass and degrade the occupation, even under massive bombardment. Israeli occupation forces – not used to long wars – are exhausted and cannot be easily replaced by US mercenary groups. I don’t believe that Trump would attempt a large-scale Iraq-style invasion to subdue Gaza, and, if he does indeed, the regional equations would change.
What is the political situation in the Middle East? Will they ever find a solution to the question of freedom for Palestine?
Most of the independent nations of the so called Middle East are now partly occupied, but resistance remains. Even in Syria, now occupied by a US-backed Al Qaeda insurgency after a long proxy war and economic siege, there is a resumption of armed resistance. Washington and its Israeli colony have no real future in the region, whatever they might like. But, they are still able to kill and maim. In my opinion, this single regional war will continue until a strong regional alliance (led by Iran) is built to expel the colonisers.
In the West, huge protests have happened in the recent past against the killings in Gaza. In America, university campuses exploded with ‘Free Palestine and Ceasefire Now’ slogans. Did it have any impact on western politics, especially in America?
The protests in Western countries are very important as they help undermine and break the political will to continue with these prolonged wars of aggression, including the genocide in Palestine. That political process includes the deepening alienation of US Jews from the openly fascist regime in Tel Aviv. The university students in the USA have made themselves part of the resistance.
What is the public opinion in Australia on the war in Gaza?
In Australia the situation is similar to that in the USA. The political elite and its embedded media and institutions are committed to supporting every US war, including the Gaza Genocide, come what may, while, at a popular level (especially among the youth) there is mass revulsion at the crimes in Palestine and Lebanon.
The reputation of the Israelis is damaged forever, it can never recover. All their investments in ‘soft power’ has been destroyed by their open atrocities and inability to hide images and video of these atrocities. The damage is so great that a substantial populism has also grown to oppose the US wars of aggression.
You are a scholar and civil society activist. What is the nature of your academic work? Is there a new book you are working on?
My academic work for many years now has its focus on self-determination and resistance. Western regimes find that latter part – resistance, in the current context – difficult to tolerate. There is now a climate of fear and repression in many Western societies. People fear for their jobs, their livelihoods and their freedom, if they speak their minds about Washington’s forever wars.
Arrests have begun in Europe of those who support the entirely justified Palestinian resistance. After three books on the struggles in West Asia, my next book (about half-written) will be called ‘Self Determination and Resistance in the Post Colonial World’. I already have an online teaching unit with a similar name.
Hope. Optimism. Justice. Compassion. Equality. Peace. Will the world turn towards a more brighter future in the days to come?
We all hope for that. However, as an Indian philosopher once said, ‘Struggle is the essence of life’ — so the road to a brighter future may be rocky.
(A brief summary of Dr Tim Anderson’s recent books, as stated in the introduction of the books by Clarity Press, Inc.)
At the turn of the century Washington launched a series of invasions and proxy wars against all the independent peoples and states of the region, in the name of creating a ‘New Middle East’. That offensive involved mass propaganda and the use of large proxy-terrorist armies, especially sectarian Islamist groups armed and financed by Washington and its regional allies, especially Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and Israel. Resistance to that regional war led to the formation of a loose regional bloc, led by Iran, which is now forming more substantial relations with the wider counter-hegemonic blocs led by China and Russia, in particular the BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
West Asia After Washington: Dismantling the Colonised Middle East addresses how, as Washington’s multiple wars for a subjugated ‘New Middle East’ fail, the global order is shifting against the North American giant. China is displacing the USA as the productive and economic center of the world and new global organizations are competing with those created by the Anglo-Americans. It is in this global context that we must understand the future of the Arabic and Islamic countries of the Middle East, now often called West Asia in reflection of that new orientation.
West Asia Against Washington is critical to understanding why a better future for West Asia depends on Iran, a relatively small country in the region in terms of GDP or weapons reserves, and why it is often misunderstood by many parties due to Western media propaganda. Iran has a very strategic geopolitical position, so the alliance between Iran, China and Russia will produce a multipolar power capable of fighting US hegemony. Anderson tells the story in detail, enabling readers to see the big map of all the conflicts and that all are intertwined.”
— Dr Dina Sulaeman, Indonesian Centre for Middle East Studies, author, Snow in Aleppo.
“A fascinating research on how the US regime-change invasions and proxy wars .. (have) sparked acceleration of geopolitical changes… building a resistance joint front and the dismantling of Israel while paving the way for… alternative international and regional organizations.”
— Dr Amal Wahdan, founder and editor, Arab Gazette.
“A great analysis of how the Western colonial Empire led itself towards demise on West Asia, after decades of looting natural resources, instigating wars, funding terrorism, murdering millions and eventually pushing the birth of a regional resistance that pinned the last nail in the coffin of US hegemony and domination in our region. The unipolar world is no more; reading Professor Tim’s book explains how and why it started from west Asia.”
— Dr Marwa Osman, academic and TV presenter, Lebanon.
‘Axis of Resistance: Towards an Independent Middle East’. How and why the US lost the war on Syria.
In the series of 21st century wars initiated by Washington in the name of a ‘New Middle East’, resistance forces are prevailing. Like all imperial gambits before it, the US-led plan has been to subjugate the entire region – whether through the direct application of force, or through coalitions or proxies – to secure privileged access to its tremendous resources and then dictate terms of access to all other players. This book addresses myths about the wars and the resistance, while attempting a partial and provisional history of the conflicts.
“Western policy has been worse than a crime, it’s been a blunder. Tim Anderson’s epic study shows what a crime, what a blunder it has been. And how ugly is the monster which now stalks the land. My land, your land, the whole of humanity. It is a must read.”
— George Galloway, British politician
“‘Axis of Resistance’ will take its place alongside the few books worth reading on how and by whom the flickering lights of the imperial twilight of ‘the West’ in the Middle East were finally extinguished.”
— Dr Jeremy Salt, Middle East historian, former professor, Melbourne University and Birkeit University.
“An excellent book by an exceptional author and activist who understands well the shakers and makers of the region within the new world order shaped by rising global forces.” — Amal Wahdan, Veteran Palestinian activist, Al Quds /Jerusalem, Occupied Palestine.
Photos of Yemen courtesy Dr Tim Anderson.