AUT: Iraq resistance

[andrew robinson <ldxar1@xxxxxxxxx>]

What is missing in Sphinx's analysis is any sense of
the operation of the world system.  Capitalism does
not spread by turning non-capitalist countries into
developed western-style societies.  It subordinates
the rest of the world to western rule, in order to
have a source of cheap resources and cheap labour.  To
do this, it must prevent the emergence of autonomous
forces of any kind in the global periphery, and must
ensure that local western puppet-rulers do not get out
of hand.  See the Midnight Notes essay on the Iraq
war.

The importance of the Iraqi resistance is not
therefore confined to Iraq.  It is important that
further US military adventures be made as unviable as
possible, and that the imposition of the world system
be to that degree weakened.  The point is not a clash
of one view against another, but the rendering
unstable of a single overarching system.

If there was no resistance in Iraq, the result would
not be a western-style democracy; it would be a
dictatorship by neoliberal forces, either under the
veil of pseudo-democracy, or through direct military
rule.  In practice, this cannot happen because of the
need to win an urgent "hearts and minds" battle not
only in Iraq but also in the west, so that some
freedoms have to be nominally offered.

Further, it is not the case that people are free in
the senses Sphinx says, in Iraq today, because people
can be arbitrarily arrested by US or Iraqi forces as
suspected insurgents (which need not mean Islamists or
Baathists), and may be if they express any views
inimical to US power or the existing regime.  Allawi
BTW is a Saddam stooge and former secret service
assassin - a Baath regime stalwart.  According to Ewa
Jasiewicz at a meeting in Nottingham, many of the
Baath officials have been restored by America.

Independent trade unions have been targeted by US
forces.  Workers do not have a recognised right to
strike.  Public demonstrations are frequently attacked
by US and Iraqi "security forces", and people are
often killed, arrested and beaten.  Freedom of speech
does not exist, because an out-of-turn comment to an
official can lead to arrest, to being labelled as an
insurgent, etc.  Allawi has passed draconian laws to
suppress civil societal activities for reasons of
emergency, war, etc.  Curfews are regularly imposed,
and curfew-breakers shot.  Torture and mistreatment
are endemic, not only in US prisons but also by Iraqi
forces.

The Kurds opposed the Iraq war because they thought
their situation would worsen.  The southern areas,
mainly Shiite, are foremost among the supporters of
al-Sadr and SCIRI.  If the occupation ended overnight,
there is a good chance Iraq would split in three and
that the Kurds would become independent, which is what
they've wanted all along.

There are also no doubt dangers that an end to the
occupation would lead to civil/factional war, an
Islamic state and/or a Baathist resurgence.  But the
alternative - the continuation of the occupation -
would also lead to ongoing warfare.  And occupation
without warfare would lead to a puppet regime and the
utter impoverishment of Iraq.  Actually, I would
challenge any position that (say) Iran is really worse
off than (say) the West Bank.  An occupation can be
even more brutal than even the most vile regimes at
times.

Another point is that, the worse the occupation gets,
the more people will turn to the Islamists etc., and
the more likely disaster becomes in the aftermath.
The choice is not a secular Iraq or an Islamic Iraq,
the choice is between an ongoing occupation similar to
that in Israel, and an open situation where Iraqi
forces determine the outcome.  The latter at least
leaves space for revolutionary alternatives (alongside
various dangers), whereas the former is simply a
continuing disaster.

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