(30.5.2011) The war in Libya marks a turning point in world politics.

The decision to bomb the country was taken virtually overnight—just weeks after the outbreak of revolution in Tunisia and Egypt, and just days after the start of the so-called rebellion against Muammar Gaddafi. In contrast to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the initiative for the attack was taken, not by the US, but the former European colonial powers of France and Great Britain (and now also Italy), whom the US then joined. France and Britain have once again launched a war in the Arab region for the first time since they were forced to abort the Suez War in 1956.

Officially, the war is being characterised as a “humanitarian” intervention—a move supported by the pseudo-left, from the Pabloites to the social democrats to the Greens. But it is quite obviously an imperialist enterprise.