PGHIMC - Pittsburgh Independent Media Center

Thoughts on the immediate outcome of the imperialist war
by John Lacny Thursday, Apr. 10, 2003 at 12:31 PM

Imperialism may be able to resolve some of the contradictions in the short-term, but they are about to face some difficulties -- and we should do our best to make things even more difficult for them

At the outset of the war, and even a week or so into it, I predicted the quick downfall of the Iraqi Ba'athist regime, and that has come to pass, with one caveat: the imperialists have essentially "declared victory" even though they still have sizable pockets of Ba'athist military strength to wipe out. The final crushing of these elements is inevitable; however, the Bush regime has established the general feeling among the US population that the war is more or less "over," so that any ongoing military operations can be cast as attacks on recalcitrant Ba'athist elements, whether they are or not. (All military resistance to the coming occupation will likely be characterized as the actions of "Saddam Hussein loyalists," whether they are or not.)

On another propaganda front, the enthusiasm of the Iraqi population for the US troops is -- with the notable exception of Kurdistan -- obviously being greatly exaggerated in the bourgeois press. Over and over they've shown the same video of US troops and Iraqi civilians toppling the giant Saddam Hussein statue in Baghdad. It's obvious from the photographs taken from the air that the crowd there numbered a few hundred people (I'm always one to underestimate crowd size at demonstrations, but I think others will back me up on this). I've been in larger demonstrations than that in Pittsburgh, for chrissakes, and Baghdad is a city of 5 million people. It should go without saying that the cathartic outpouring of hatred for the Ba'athist regime on the part of these people is genuine and entirely justified, even if it is also mixed up with the desire to put on a good show for the new tough guy on the block. But it's obvious that far more people were taking the much more intelligent and practical step -- after years of privation -- of going "shopping for free."

It's possible that the imperialists -- even if the military occupation ends up installing a very narrowly-based puppet regime, as they seem intent on doing with Chalabi -- will be able to stabilize the situation for at least a few years, because the lifting of the murderous sanctions and the consequent improvement in people's living standards will be associated in people's minds with the imperialist invasion.

The Kurdish national struggle is the most immediate problem facing Washington, its London satrapy, and their incipient puppet junta in Iraq. Nevertheless, the two ruling parties of Iraqi Kurdistan (the PUK and KDP) seem housebroken enough that they will not muster more than perfunctory grumbling if the US quashes their ambitions. It all matters very little to Washington so long as all the oil transactions are carried out in dollars rather than euros (with a suitable level of direct concessions for US oil companies, of course) and the spoils for local clients are distributed in such a manner as to keep everyone happy. In order to satisfy the Turks, Washington will probably broker some sort of deal which gives the Kurds token jurisdiction over the oilfields of Kirkuk and Mosul -- but not in a way that irritates Turkey. Despite Kurdish hatred for Turkey, the PUK and KDP would likely accept such a token gesture -- as their willingness to sell out the PKK struggle in Turkish Kurdistan for the benefit of their imperialist paymasters so richly attests.

Meanwhile, the only other forces that have the level of political organization to organize resistance to the occupation and the puppet regime in the short term are the pro-Iranian Shi'ite imams and militias. Given the fading luster of Iran's "revolutionary" elan, a repeat of the Lebanon scenario seems unlikely, although not impossible. That such politically unpalatable Islamist elements (and we should not forget to mention the fiercely reactionary Sunni elements such as al-Qaeda, who have ideological/religious hatred for Shi'ites and will therefore not get much popular support in Iraq but who could easily complicate things by causing a lot of havoc for the wrong reasons) should necessarily be out-front in the anti-imperialist movement would be deeply troubling, but should not be surprising. It is a product of two things: (1) the physical liquidation of the left by the Ba'athists, long encouraged by the imperialists for obvious reasons, which now has the effect of facilitating the reimposition of an outright colonial protectorate; and (2) the world-historical setbacks (for that is what they are) that we have all suffered since 1989-91, which will make it difficult for socialists to rejuvenate the workers' movement and the people's struggles (even though a focus on militant organizing among key sectors such as oil workers -- who must be heavily Shi'ite -- is a key task for the left now).

In other words, things look bleak for Iraq, although the worldwide struggle continues. I would not underestimate the extent to which the imperialists have overreached, for example. The antiwar movement exacted a real price from them, so that they had to expend huge reserves of political capital to go forward with this war. The imperialists' crowing "success" is of course a setback for this movement, but probably not for very long. We should prepare for the struggle against the next war or high-profile case of imperialist subversion and/or repression, while those of us in the imperialist heartland must also focus on the ongoing economic crisis and resultant discontent (which must be carefully stoked to a fire by left organizers!) on the homefront.

add your comments