The imperialism tries alternatives

While analysing the situation in the Middle East, the International Courier for June 2006, we said, “Since 11^th September 2001, the George Bush administration intended to retrieve absolute control over Middle East, accompanied – with more or fewer contradiction, by the European imperialism. The first action of that policy was the invasion of Afghanistan (2001) and the second, the invasion on Iraq (2003). In both cases, he defeated the administrations of the Talibans and of Saddam Hussein and installed colonial regimes, supported by the invading troops. A global analysis of the present situation, however, will show that far from reaching the target of controlling the region, the position of imperialism is receding. In spite of its tough genocide military offensive and the increase of war expenditure, USA still is unable to control the “first front” in Iraq, harassed by military resistance with support of the masses, when they can already see a second front in Afghanistan, a country that, until a short time ago, seemed dominated.”

Resistance accrues

Further events confirmed the analysis: the Israeli defeat in Lebanon and the course of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan added to the weakening of the position of imperialism in the region. Even Somalia echoed the difficulties that jeopardise the interests of Washington: Islamic committees took over in Mogadiscio, the capital, and imperialism was powerless to intervene with troops to prevent it.

In Iraq, after three years of occupation, the armed resistance is not only kept up but also grows and becomes stronger and more daring, ignoring the fact that in May this year the American vice-president Richard Cheney declared that it was “agonising”. Let us see some recent data.

In October, over 199 deaths of American soldiers were reported, the highest figure in this year. According to official figures, most probably underrated, over 2 800 occupying soldiers died. One of the most important military bases, the Falcon, south of Baghdad, is practically destroyed after various mortar attacks carried out by the resistance.

A report by the chief of intelligence of the Marines points out that American soldiers failed at putting an end to the control by resistance over the vast western province, Al-Anbar, in the south of the country. In Amarah, in the South of the country, an attempt at imposing order on to the militias of the clergyman, Muaqta Al Sadr, ended in a shootout with a toll of over twenty casualties from among the Iraqi armed forces and the target was missed.

The new government does not control the country

In that same number or the Courier we said, “the new Al Maliki administration is deeply weak because it expresses a great division between the different bourgeois fraction that form part of it.”

A few months later, at the pitch of maze and confusion, the Iraqi prime minister responded to the press saying that he was not “a puppet for Washington” (sic) and that he did not see “any reasons for an immediate withdrawal” (of the occupying forces). Bush spoke to him on the telephone and “confirmed” that he was not a “puppet”, but that he was going to “coordinate” him to see how to improve the situation. Afterwards he declared to the press that he had told Al Maliki that “he could have done better than that” to control security in Iraq and to disarm the militias.

Al Sadr: a problem

In his declarations to the press, Al Maliki made it quite clear that he was not going to back attacks on Al Sadr’s militia, known as Mehdi Army, in these last days, that had been the target for the American marines and the Iraqi army to shoot at. The Al Sadr organisation was engulfed by the Al Maliki puppet administration with several officials, among them: first rank in Iraqi police.

But at the same time, that is a serious problem for Washington, because, apart from not accepting the orders to give in the weapons of his militia, he called for a public mobilisation to celebrate the Hezbollah victory against Israel in Lebanon-

Al Sadr is very much linked to sectors of Iranian religious hierarchy and his power in Shiite militants is now greater than in 2004 for, this traditional influence in the Shiite neighbourhoods of Baghdad has now been joined by growing influence in Basra and the southern region of the country.

While Bush’s policy is to make him get disarmed, Al Maliki has many doubts as to the benefits of confronting one of the few supports he has. Together with that, an open confrontation with him, pushing him into an alliance with Sunni resistance, may make the continuity of the imperialist occupation impossible. The truth is that if it were not for the still negotiating position of the Iranian regime, and its influence on Al Sadr, this limit situation may have already exploded.

That means that the assignment the imperialist occupants delegated on Al Maliki, to disarm the militias, seems totally unviable, for the Iraqi prime minister has neither the political grassroots nor the military force necessary to carry it out. That is why the policy of betting on a gradual reduction of American troops while the puppet administration can control the situation, is nothing but Bush’s “deceitful propaganda”.

Criticism of the military tops

This weakening is expressed today in a debate within the imperialist countries, involving strong questioning of military commands. A few months ago, in the USA, six generals have come out publicly to expose the policy of the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, as something that is a threat to the very structure of the Armed Forces. A short time ago, non-commissioned officers and soldiers in active service went to Congress to request a change in the orientation of the administration on the Iraqi issue. As public demonstration of soldiers in active service are now allowed, they used the subterfuge – more likely than not agreed on with some congressmen – to say that they were going to visit them to “brief them about what is going on at the front”. Apart from that, newspapers publish serious denunciations, such as that of Kevin Tilman, whose brother was killed in Iraq.

In Great Britain, on the day he was promoted to his post, the chief of the British Headquarters, general Richard Dannat, told the Daily Mail that his government “must take us out (of Iraq) because the permanence of the British troops exacerbated the problems of security”. That is because British soldiers can feel “as if on their own flesh” the deterioration of the situation in Basora, south of Iraq, that has been so far a peaceful spot, and the increase of the attacks of the resistance.

In other words, these military men can see the risk that the course of the war may cause a collapse of the armed forces of imperialist countries, something that would be extremely serious strategically speaking.

Sheer contradictions

This is not only a concern of the military men; it spreads on to numerous official and politicians. A top-level diplomat of the USA stated for the TV Al-Jezeera that his country had acted “with arrogance and stupidity in Iraq“. In the following days, the USA ambassador to Iraq, Zalman Khalilzad declared solemnly, at the side of general George Casey, number one of the occupation troops that very soon there was to be “a chronogram of withdrawal”. As usual in such situations, the now dismissed Donald Rumsfeld came out to belie him.

This concern has even affected the leaders of Bush’s Republican party, such as the chairman of the Committee of Armed Services of the Senate, John Warner, who challenged Bush’s promise that this country would become “a model of democratic transformation”. The hard republican defeat in the recent legislative election will further increase this tendency.

The card of the division of Iraq

And yet, it would be an error to believe that American imperialism is about to take defeat calmly for this would, as Bush put it, have disastrous consequences for their interests.

That is why, Bush and the new majority in the American Congress, will do whatever is within their power to revert this situation. At present, Bush administration is trying to use the old policy of the British Empire: divide to rule.

That means encouraging the struggle between Iraqi ethnic groups and religious communities. The occupants “definitive option” is to stimulate civil war in Iraq. That is why they once more resorted to the tactic of death squads that CIA had applied in Central America in the1980s. Even if these squads are now shielded behind different religious trends to encourage the confrontation between communities, a great part of this alleged “civil war” conceals the activity of the death squads of the Badr Brigade led by the Shiite party SCIRI from the Home Ministry. Let us see this report:

“It is becoming increasingly dangerous to move along the motorways of Baghdad. people vanish, is found murdered on the motorways. Death squads and criminal mafias control them; only the resistance protects the individuals and the communities. The government is on the side of the murderers [.]. Streets are crowded with individual with foreign accents [.] American troops start bombing and then the Iraqi paramilitaries go on. Politicians are using their militias in both bands. It is important to realise that resistance is never mentioned within the sectarian classifications [.]. Today, [17^th October] [.] militias in uniforms are murdering Sunnis, driving families to leave homes in two hours, while American forces stay put. In the Balad hospital alone 80 bodies were received. Iraqi cities north of Baghdad have been besieged for months now while men in security forces uniforms and vehicles attack, murder and kidnap their citizens. We must admit that the CIA experts on death squads did a good job.” (Sabah Ali, Iraq Solidarity, published in Rebelión, 25/10/06).

Bush encourages this kind of confrontations in order to advance towards a division of Iraq into three “autonomous regions”: Kurds in the north, Sunni and Shiite in the centre and Shiite in the south, controlled by government that would serve faithfully Washington. At the same time, contacts were made with organisations of the Sunni resistance to see if they can be incorporated into the negotiations. This is the plan proposed to the commission to whom Bush assigned a “way out” of the situation: if it is not possible to control the country as a whole, it is necessary to divide it into separate regions.

It is possible to defeat imperialism

In the IWL-FI we believe that this new plan of Bush’s may be defeated just as the other project have been. Unity of the resistance is more necessary than ever, of all the sectors, of all the ethnic groupings in Iraq. Some steps have already been taken in that direction, for example, the creation of the United Political Command of the Iraqi Resistance, with the participation of military, secular and religious organisations participate, most of them Sunni but with some Shiite joining.

We believe that this process should expand because if this unity crystallises and combines with the growing opposition to the war in the USA, the day of the imperialist occupation are counted and also the policy of division of the country will be defeated.