What can end the war in
Iraq? Friday, March 9, 2007 By:
Richard Becker
Fighting U.S. imperialism
March 6, 2007: At least 113 Iraqi civilians and 9 U.S. soldiers
are killed in Iraq, and hundreds more wounded.
In Baghdad, capital of one of the most energy-rich countries in
the world, the average household has electricity for
about three hours.
In Washington, hearings continue for the second day on the
abysmal treatment at the Army?s Walter Reed Medical Center of badly
wounded soldiers and their families.
Like every other day, the cost of the war today is about $280
million, or $12 million an hour. From the point of view of the
people, especially in Iraq but in the United States as well, the war
is an unmitigated disaster.
The same day, President Bush spoke to the American Legion,
repeating his "victory is the only option" mantra. While feigning
concern about the treatment of returning soldiers in Army hospitals,
he proposed major cuts in next year?s Veterans Administration
budget?at the very time when medical costs are bound to soar due to
rising casualties from the ongoing wars.
In his speech, Bush demanded that Congress "support the troops"
by voting another $240 billion to continue funding the wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan for the rest of 2007 and 2008. And, no doubt,
Congress will.
The day after the Democrats won the November congressional
elections, incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stated that "as long
as our young men and women are in harm?s way, we?ll do everything
necessary to support them." Translation: As long as the U.S. troops
are "in harm?s way [in Iraq]," most Democrats will join with most
Republicans in voting the funds to make sure they stay there to
continue killing and dying.
Some "support."
While engaging in much posturing, neither the Democratic nor
Republican leaders have any intention of leaving Iraq. Some
politicians want to pull back some of the troops. Others support
Bush?s "troop surge," the addition of at least 21,000 more soldiers.
But at the top, both the Republican and Democratic parties are loyal
to the imperialist ruling establishment and its objective of
dominating the Middle East, particularly the oil-rich Gulf region.
Control of the Middle East is viewed as central to the
achievement of global supremacy. These are the ABCs of understanding
U.S. policy in the region. All the talk about weapons of mass
destruction, "spreading democracy," and the "war on terrorism" is
just propaganda.
To believe that Congress, or particularly the Democrats in
Congress, will rise up, take on the Pentagon and the White House,
and vote an end to the funding of the war, is to believe in an
illusion. To peddle the idea that the funding vote in Congress is
now the "decisive battle" for the anti-war movement is to propagate
both defeatism and a false understanding of what it will take to
stop the war and get the U.S. out of the Middle East.
A half-century of intervention in the Middle East
For the past half-century, a succession of U.S.
administrations have intervened in the Middle East, invoking various
"doctrines" and pretexts. The following list is far from
exhaustive.
In 1957, the Eisenhower Doctrine announced that the United States
abrogated to itself the right to intervene militarily anywhere in
the Middle East to stop the spread of "communism." By "communism,"
Eisenhower and his secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, meant
anything from actual communist parties to Arab nationalist
governments?even if they were themselves anti-communist.
It was really a declaration by Washington that it had the right
to overthrow and destroy any government or popular movement that
interfered with U.S. corporate or state interests in the region.
It wasn?t just talk. The next year, the day after the Iraqi
Revolution ended four decades of British colonial domination, 20,000
U.S. Marines began landing in Lebanon to protect the pro-Western
government there.
The U.S. and British governments were also contemplating an
invasion of Iraq to overturn the revolution. A variety of
circumstances including the support of the socialist camp and Arab
nationalist movements and governments for Iraq forced a postponement
of that operation for another 45 years.
The CIA under John Kennedy between 1961 and 1963 made repeated
attempts to assassinate General Qasem, the president of Iraq after
the revolution. It supported a right-wing coup that led to the
massacre of thousands of communists and progressive nationalists in
1963. Kennedy increased aid to Israel and Iran.
When Israel invaded and conquered parts of Egypt and Syria?then
the two most militantly anti-imperialist Arab states?as well as the
West Bank and Gaza in the 1967 Six Day War, President Johnson
deployed the U.S. Sixth Fleet as backup.
His successor had his own "doctrine," which designated Israel and
Iran?then under the exceptionally brutal reign of the CIA-installed
Shah Reza Pahlavi?as the U.S. proxy military forces to control the
region. The Nixon Doctrine was driven by the fact that 550,000 U.S.
troops were tied down in a losing war in Southeast Asia.
During the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, Nixon put U.S. nuclear forces
on worldwide alert.
Under Gerald Ford, the U.S. government, along with others,
intervened to prevent a victory by the Palestine Liberation
Organization and the progressive Lebanese National Movement. The
resulting stalemate dragged the civil war out for another 15 years,
destroying much of Lebanon in the process. But the U.S. aim of
heading off a revolutionary or progressive state in Lebanon was
achieved.
After Ford came Carter, much acclaimed today as a "peace-maker."
But the Camp David Accord in reality had the effect of removing
Egypt, the largest Arab country, from the Arab camp. It paved the
way for Israel to invade Lebanon in 1982.
Carter hailed the Shah of Iran, and did everything he could to
prevent the Shah?s overthrow in 1978-79, to no avail. With the Nixon
Doctrine in ruins, Carter commenced a new tactic relying on the
Rapid Deployment Force. The RDF involved the pre-positioning of
military supplies in Israel, Turkey and countries with pro-U.S.
governments in the Arab Gulf states.
Carter, his national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and
the CIA initiated the bloody contra war against the young revolution
in Afghanistan.
Ronald Reagan, president from 1981-89, fully backed the Israeli
invasion and occupation of Lebanon, which killed at
least 20,000 Lebanese and
Palestinian civilians. These civilians were victims of U.S.-supplied
bombs and Israeli-supervised massacres, like in the Sabra and
Shatila refugee camps.
The U.S. government and its European imperialist allies poured
weapons into Iraq during the eight-year war between Iran and Iraq.
The U.S. military provided satellite imagery to the Iraq air force
to help it target facilities inside Iran. At the same time, as
became known in the course of the Iran-Contra scandal, the United
States was secretly supplying Iran with anti-aircraft missiles, by
way of Israel, to shoot down incoming Iraqi war planes. The revenues
from the sales were used to finance the contra war against another
young revolution in Nicaragua.
The real aim of the U.S. leaders in the Iran-Iraq war was to
weaken both countries, the two independent powers in the Gulf
region. Former secretary of state Henry Kissinger expressed the true
sentiment in ruling circles toward the war, saying, "I hope they
kill each other," and, "Too bad they both can?t lose."
As the Soviet Union was collapsing, changing the world
relationship of forces, the first Bush administration used the
pretext of Iraq?s occupation of Kuwait to launch a massive assault.
The 1991 war intentionally destroyed nearly the entire civilian
infrastructure of Iraq.
The combination of bombing and a 13-year economic blockade of the
country killed more than a million Iraqis, the largest number during
the eight years of the Clinton presidency. Clinton signed the "Iraq
Liberation Act" in October 1998, making regime change in Iraq the
official policy of the U.S. government.
Much of Clinton?s foreign policy efforts were focused on forcing
the Palestinians to accept a weak quasi-state consisting of Gaza and
parts of the West Bank. The price demanded was surrender of the
Palestinian right of return and liquidation of the struggle for real
self-determination.
The second Bush administration continued the blockade and bombing
of Iraq. Knowing that these means alone would not achieve the stated
goal of overthrowing the government and reducing Iraq once more to a
colony, the course was set for all-out war.
In March 2003, the U.S.-British invasion began. On April 9,
Baghdad fell, along with Iraq?s status as an independent country.
The Bush administration fully collaborated with Israel in the war
against Lebanon in the summer of 2006.
Throughout the past five decades, and especially since the 1960s,
the U.S. government has been the primary supporter of the Israeli
war machine, explaining why such a small country of 6 million people
ranks as the fourth or fifth most powerful military in the world.
As a proxy force, Israel has repaid the vast assistance it has
received?greater than any other country?by carrying out wars against
liberation movements from southern Africa to Central America.
But no one has borne the brunt of its assaults as have the
Palestinian people, deprived of their homeland and most basic
rights.
Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush I and Bush II were
Republicans. Kennedy, Johnson, Carter and Clinton were Democrats.
During most of the past 50 years, the Democrats have held the
majority in both houses of Congress. In regard to U.S. policy in the
Middle East?and the world, for that matter?it has made precious
little difference which party held the presidency or dominated
Congress.
The military budget has never been voted down. In fact, nearly
every member of Congress ends up voting for the military
appropriations, no matter how bloated they may be.
What ended the war in Vietnam
Congress only finally voted against funding the Vietnam
War in 1975, weeks before the puppet government in the south
collapsed and more than a year after the last U.S. combat troops had
left the country.
While the tactics have shifted at times over the last 50 years,
the pursuit of strategic domination of the Middle East has
U.S.
agents and South Vietnamese supporters flee the U.S. embassy
in Siagon, now Ho Chi Minh
City.
not changed. A fixed aim has
been to destroy all popular movements and independent governments in
the region. The war machine, the central core and defender of the
capitalist state and interests, grinds on, regardless of which party
or individual is in office.
Propagating the notion that Congress can be a vehicle for the
anti-war movement reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of how the
U.S. imperialist system operates and who exercises real power.
Focusing on Congress as the "decisive" body in this struggle
promotes reformism and disorientation in the movement.
It was the people?s struggle that ended the U.S. war against
Vietnam.
First and foremost was the heroic resistance of the Vietnamese
people who for three decades fought two of the world?s leading
powers. The Vietnamese fighters refused to accept colonial
occupation no matter what the cost.
They received invaluable material assistance from the socialist
camp of the time, particularly the Soviet Union and China. They also
received vital political solidarity from the anti-war movement in
the United States and around the world.
That movement played a key role in limiting to a degree what the
U.S. warmakers could do in Vietnam. The movement impacted upon and
was greatly strengthened by the growing numbers of anti-war service
men and women. By 1971, nearly a quarter of the U.S. military had
deserted or was AWOL?Absent Without Official Leave. Large sections
of the U.S. military were disintegrating.
The Vietnam War ended when the U.S. ruling establishment?elected
and unelected?concluded that the political cost was too great to
continue. If they did continue, they concluded, there was a looming
threat of even greater defeat.
The ruling class here was deeply fearful that defeat in Vietnam
would shatter the myth of U.S. invincibility and encourage others to
fight for liberation. They were right to worry about that.
Regardless of party affiliation, the leaders of today are just as
fearful about a similar result if they are forced to accept defeat
in Iraq. In the Vietnam War, it took many years, millions of lives,
hundreds of billions of dollars and countless forms of protest and
resistance before Washington was willing to accept defeat.
There is no easy path to victory in a struggle of great
importance. Iraq and the Gulf region are far more vital to the U.S.
empire than was Vietnam. In the end, though, imperialism will be
defeated, not only in the Middle East, but around the world,
including here in its heartland.
What will defeat it, as in Vietnam, is a powerful and independent
people?s movement.