26.05.2004

Fight for US-UK defeat

In this week's Party Notes, Marcus Ström argues that the main task facing US and UK workers is to force an end to the occupation, and get the troops out of Iraq: we should welcome their defeat even at the hands of al-Sadr. However, Iraqi communists should aim to ensure that the working class, armed with a democratic and secular programme, emerges as the leading political force.

Fight for US-UK defeat

The US and UK governments are desperately seeking an exit strategy from Iraq. But they seem rather stuck. As Robin Cook, the bomber of Belgrade turned anti-war conscience of the establishment, said, "The tricky thing about a quagmire is you never know you have walked into one until it is too late to get back out of it. The further in before you discover it, the greater the difficulty in extricating yourself."

And stuck is where Blair and Bush seem to be. So much so that they are setting about creating the political fiction that the occupation ends on June 30. This displays their weakness and increasingly their disunity. From that date, so the story goes, the "multinational force" will only be on Iraqi soil with the consent of the installed and unelected Iraqi government (elections of some sort are meant to be held by no later than January 31 2005). But the Americans and British cannot even agree on how to present this falsehood. Tony Blair, UK prime minister, says: "The final political control remains with the Iraqi government." Colin Powell, US secretary of state, says: "US forces remain under US command and will do what is necessary to protect themselves."

The draft resolution before the United Nations security council says that the interim Iraqi government will have "sovereignty" but only limited control over military operations. The draft does not specify that the troops will leave Iraq if the new government asks them to, despite assurances from the US and UK that they will if asked. France and Russia are pressing for changes to the resolution before it is voted on.

Whatever diplomatic formulation they finally agree on, the brutal truth is that the US military and its British allies will remain firmly in control of Iraq (in so far as that is possible) on July 1. The Iraqi people will exercise no sovereignty. More troops are on the way. Of course, the US and UK governments have no interest in establishing a permanent heavy occupation of the country. They favour a compliant government - domination by remote control. Modern imperialism prefers to rely on its economic might, backed by the threat of military force, to maintain the world pecking order.

Yet there is disarray. The imperialists are not setting the pace of withdrawal. Occupation of Iraq grows ever more unpopular. Governments previously signed up to the 'coalition of the willing' are deserting the US and UK. Spain has left, so has Honduras and the Dominican Republic. Poland and Thailand are making withdrawal noises. Australia looks likely to exit if there is a change of government following federal elections this year. President Bush look vulnerable in the November election. Tony Blair is increasingly considered a liability by his parliamentary Labour Party.

As well as opposition from within imperialist countries, it is the military and civil resistance to the occupation within Iraq that is making the continued presence of US-UK forces so difficult. There has been a decided shift in the nature of that resistance. While it has not reached the level of an all-out national uprising, the military resistance across Iraq has widespread sympathy, if not outright active support.

Communists work for the defeat of British and US imperialism. Imperialism has no positive role whatsoever to play in Iraq. Imperialism is the main enemy of British workers, of American workers and the Iraqi people. The imperialist world system is the root cause of the crisis in Iraq and throughout the Middle East. Our programme of action for British and American workers is to force the occupying troops out. We also welcome the problems that the resistance is causing US-UK troops.

However, in Iraq the main question is not the military nature of the resistance. The occupation and national self-determination are the main questions. They are the central democratic issues. Communists in Iraq must therefore fight for the leadership of the political struggle against the occupation. Whether this takes the form of civil disobedience, strikes, mass demonstrations, sabotage or an armed uprising, the tactics are secondary to the strategic fight for working class forces to take the political lead in ridding Iraq of foreign occupation. That means building organisations of workers, the unemployed, women and, in current circumstances, armed militias.

To stand aside from this political struggle against the occupiers in favour of building an Iraqi labour movement under interim US-UK or UN 'protection' would be economism of the worst degree. Economism in the UK means paralysis. In Iraq it is an unmitigated calamity, leaving the democratic struggle in the hands of profoundly anti-democratic forces.

The working class in Britain must focus on organising the defeat of 'our own side'. Again, the building of such an anti-imperialist movement in the heart of empire can and must take many tactical forms: mass demonstrations, industrial action, elections, civil disobedience, mass propaganda and so on.

However, does our defeatism equate with automatic solidarity with the political leadership of those resisting the occupiers? Absolutely not. Given the history of Iraq, and the current balance of class forces within the country, the political leadership of that resistance has so far fallen to various sunni and shia islamist political forces. By and large these are reactionary petty bourgeois forces that would strangle the working class in Iraq as soon as it began to find its feet.

Any 'alliance' with the likes of al-Sadr and his militia must be episodic. Yes, his blows against the occupiers weaken our common enemy, but they do not build working class, democratic and secular forces.

Ian Donovan has written: "This is an extremely difficult situation for the Iraqi left, for communists and working class socialists. The masses are in motion against the main enemy, and yet they are influenced on a mass scale by forces that themselves are certain to prove enemies of the Iraqi workers if they get their hands firmly upon the levers of power in the future. Socialists and communists in Iraq must participate in the struggle for national liberation as an independent force, raising a progressive banner, a banner of democracy and secularism, as well as a programme for liberation from capitalism and social oppression in all its forms" (emphasis added Weekly Worker April 15). He is quite right.

The political independence of the working class in Iraq is primary in our struggle to end the occupation. Marxists cannot tail behind the islamists, as they did in the Iranian revolution of 1979-81. Yet neither can we equate the imperialist oppression with the islamists: they are not equal and opposite enemies of the working class. On this fight there can be no even-handedness: we would prefer the defeat of imperialism rather than their victory, even if it was at the hands of the al-Sadr militia or other islamists. Yet we must do all that we can to ensure that it is the working class, armed with a consistently democratic and secular programme, that emerges as the leading political force in Iraq. The struggle against the islamists is not suspended in the face of our mutual enemy.

Super Thursday

Securing the defeat of British imperialism in Iraq is one of our immediate goals. Given the forthcoming European parliament, London assembly and local elections on June 10, we must ask ourselves what outcome would be most likely to further this goal. Pose the question in this way and the answer is obvious. The largest possible vote for Respect, the unity coalition, in England and Wales and the Scottish Socialist Party north of the border would deliver the greatest blows to the war aims of imperialism. Putting unobtainable conditions on endorsing such a course of action is petty sectarianism.

Abstaining or voting Green in the European elections are not coherent options for the working class. And, unlike the Alliance for Workers' Liberty, we certainly do not consider a vote for New Labour as capable of delivering any blow for the working class against the war aims of Tony Blair. Quite the reverse.

Unfortunately, the Socialist Workers Party, the main force in Respect, seems to be doing its utmost to ensure a miserable vote for the coalition. It has alienated the organised left without making any significant breakthrough in the anti-war movement, among muslims or in the trade unions. In a recent poll in London, Respect registered just 0.5% of the vote - worse than the Socialist Alliance achieved four years ago.

The SWP's opportunist rush to garner votes at any cost - dropping or watering down key principles in a vain attempt to be all things to all people - looks set to blow up in its face. The release by Respect of a leaflet extolling George Galloway to muslims because he is "married to a Palestinian doctor, has deep religious principles, is teetotal and principled in his fight against oppression" is embarrassingly desperate.

Despite the SSP's nationalism we are calling for a maximum vote for the tartan socialism of Alan McCombes and Tommy Sheridan. And despite the opportunism and populism of the Respect manifesto, we want to see the biggest possible vote for the coalition. A derisory return would not only set back the struggle against the occupation of Iraq. It would also throw back attempts to build a leftwing electoral challenge to New Labour and with it the conditions for bringing into being a working class party.

Communists will not celebrate such an outcome, even though the SWP will bear primary responsibility for it. The only possible positive from such a situation is that the SWP and its membership will see its method exposed as hopeless. Let us hope, should such an unfortunate outcome arise, they do not despair and desert the field of electoral politics altogether.