25.10.2006
Iraq exit strategy
Iraq shows the limits of US power and underlines the fact that it is in relative decline, says Jack Conrad
Iraq has proved a quagmire. The whole Iraq strategy of George W Bush and Tony Blair is in tatters and entering its terminal stage. The talk now is how to extricate US-UK forces with a modicum of honour. Desperately the US is suggesting a possible deal with Iran and Syria - countries which Bush notoriously included in his 'axis of evil' speech launching the 'war on terror'.
Things look bad for Bush. The November 7 mid-term elections to the congress are expected to see big losses for his Republican Party. In a couple of months his could be a lame presidency.
What will the US-UK coalition leave behind in Iraq? Not the pliant, pro-western regime promised in 2003, that is for certain. Full-scale civil war beckons. There is already an agonising internecine conflict, in which the role of US-UK forces has been to prevent any side winning. Hence the various religious and nationalist militias have been fighting a combined war: often against the US-UK occupation, always against each other.
One option being considered in Washington is dismembering Iraq into three separate entities - shia, sunni and Kurd. But how would Turkey, a US Nato ally, look upon an independent Kurdistan along its southern border? Beset with its own Kurdish nationalist movement, Ankara could easily be drawn to invade. Likewise a deal with Syria would surely necessitate the return of the Golan Heights, seized by Israel in 1967. How would Israel react to being told to return this strategically important territory? The government of Ehud Olmert is already beleaguered.
As for the Iranian theocracy, thanks to the US-UK overthrow of Saddam Hussein and the Ba'athist regime, it has in place a pro-Iranian government-in-waiting in Iraq. Why should it want to do a deal with the 'great Satan'? Deeply unpopular with their own people, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and co rely on the US threat to stay in power.
The US has proved beyond doubt that it can bring mayhem to any small or medium-sized country. But, contrary to the expectations of the pro-imperialist 'left' - eg, the Euston Manifesto group and the Alliance for Workers' Liberty - the US has proved incapable of exporting itself, as it did after 1945 with the reconstruction of western Europe and Japan. Iraq shows the limits of US power and underlines the fact that it is in relative decline.
Other powers see their opportunity and will soon begin repositioning themselves: Russia, China, Germany, France and India. Pope Benedict XVI has even mooted a catholic Europe as the new global hegemon. However, no new capitalist top dog could usher in an age of peace and plenty. It is not only the US which is in decline. The whole capitalist system rots from within. All its essential laws are in decay - value, profit maximisation, the market. Clearly the world is overripe for communism - a system that can only come globally and through a mass democratic breakthrough.
In Britain the consequences of any challenge to US dominance will be sudden and far-reaching. All classes and parties would be thrown into turmoil, not least Labourism. Since 1945 the UK has tied itself to the mast of US power militarily and economically. The benefits come back through arms deals, privileged intelligence information and the parasitic profits that keep the bloated City of London awash with multi-million pound bonuses. All that will be under threat.
The US will not relinquish its position without a most determined fightback. Humiliation in Iraq is hardly likely to lead to pacifistic conclusions in Washington. Bush's 'war on terror' is not simply about oil - a crude leftwing obsession. In the last analysis it is about managing decline. Because it can no longer dominate through economic means, the US must increasingly turn to asserting itself militarily. 'The war on terror' excuses massive arms spending hikes and draconian legislation. It also serves to divert the anger of the US masses away from their main enemy, which is at home. Whichever party of US capital wins the presidential election in 2008 will be prone to lash out in an irrational fashion. There will be more threats and more wars.
In all probability the political economy of US decline will characterise the entire period of transition between capitalism and communism. What that promises is increased immiseration, chronic instability and a further descent into barbarism. That is why ending capitalism is not a task that we can complacently put off to the distant future. Organisation and action are needed urgently. Crucially, the working class needs a viable strategy. National roads have been roads to disaster. Trade union politics have reached a dead end. Reviving Labourism is illusory, whether it be in the form of 'real' Labour, the Scottish Socialist Party, Respect or the Campaign for a New Workers' Party.
Yet how to take the first, decisive step forward? Besides arguing for the closest regional unity of working class organisations objective circumstances permits across the world - eg, in the Indian subcontinent, Latin America, the Arab-speaking countries - we in particular stress Europe. Hence our call for a Communist Party of the European Union.
Given its economic weight, relative prosperity, size of population, its long history of class struggles and the substantive gains made by those below, a European Union ruled by the working class has the potential to roll back a declining US superimperialism, not least by lending practical aid to the spreading flame of self-liberation - first Asia, South America and Africa, then finally North America itself.
No single country can realistically hope to do that. Nor can any other regional grouping. While America will carry the everlasting honour of completing the world revolution, only Europe can decisively begin it.