Vol. 71/No. 6      February 12, 2007

The call to stop “ethnic cleansing,” not the pretext of spreading “democracy,” is now becoming Washington’s latest rationalization for its imperialist war—as it was in the brutal U.S.-led assaults on Yugoslavia in the 1990s. U.S. soldiers are needed today because, if they pulled out, Iraqis would slaughter each other, we are told. But the U.S. rulers are not increasing their troop levels to 150,000 because of concern for the safety of the Iraqi toilers. Their goal is to prop up a capitalist regime stable enough to allow the unimpeded imperialist plunder of the resources and exploitation of labor in the Mideast. That is against the interests of working people anywhere, from Iraq to the United States.

The U.S. occupation of Iraq has only served to foster the divisions between Sunnis and Shiites, between Arabs and Kurds, and will continue to do so. The U.S.-sponsored Iraqi elections and adoption of a new constitution helped fan the flames of war between bourgeois factions competing for wealth and power. A federated Iraq, or “soft partition,” favored by many in U.S. ruling circles, would further institutionalize these divisions.

In fact, imperialist domination of the Mideast is the root cause of the existing divisions. Over decades, Washington and London backed the capitalist forces in Iraq that rolled back the 1958 democratic revolution, carried out systematic discrimination against Kurds and Shiites, and gave privileges to Sunnis.

Only the Iraqi people can confront the problems they face. They will need time and space to develop a working-class leadership that can spearhead that fight. To do so, they need to get the occupation troops off their backs—now.

The U.S. rulers are in crisis over the Iraq war. Many in the capitalist class still flinch in face of their need to use military power to confront the growing disorder of the capitalist world to defend imperialism's interests. They wish they could go back to the years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and before 9/11, a period marked by triumphalist talk of a new era of capitalist “peace,” “democracy,” “stability,” and even “the end of history.”

But no section of the U.S. ruling class has an alternative to the escalation of the war in Iraq, which is already being carried out by the Pentagon. The only course they have in face of mounting economic vulnerability, coupled with political and military challenges to their domination worldwide, is the multi-theater war now unfolding under the banner of fighting "terrorism.” That includes the stepped-up war in Afghanistan, the tightening squeeze on Iran, U.S. Special Forces operations from the Philippines to Somalia, and the expanding U.S. military presence throughout Africa. These military assaults are an extension of a developing war on the working class at home—from factory raids and deportations to murders by the police in working-class neighborhoods.

That's why the response by working people must be to demand, as the Young Socialists contingent did in its boisterous chants throughout the January 27 march on Washington: Bring all the U.S. troops home now! Out of Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Kosova, Korea, and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba! Stop the threats against Iran! Not one penny, not one person for imperialist wars!
 
 
Related articles:
‘Bring troops home!’
Tens of thousands march against war in Iraq
‘Ethnic cleansing,’ new U.S. gov’t rationalization for war in Iraq
Washington enlists Sunni Arab regimes to squeeze Tehran
U.S. Special Forces carry out new bombing raids in Somalia
Washington may send 2,300 more troops to Afghanistan
‘Not one penny, or person, for Washington’s wars!’
Young Socialists attract support at D.C. rally  
 
 
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