Feature Analysis

The War from the Side of Iraq

by Arthur Henson

\The United States-Iraq War is the most significant international conflict since the end of World War II. Iraq is in the Persian Gulf, location of two-thirds of the world’s petroleum reserves. U.S. imperialism will never peacefully give up its domination of the Persian Gulf. Neither can it eliminate the popular resistance to the occupation. Imperialism is in a state of strategic defeat; this implies revolution. The war also causes imperialist rivalries over the division of the world to become more and more acute. Rivalries of this kind gave rise to the two world wars. The war in Iraq presages an era of war and revolution comparable to the era of the world wars.

Antiwar opinion in the United States is by no means prepared for this great historical emergency. It takes too limited a view. U.S. policy is criticized as "war for o oil." This is correct and essential. However, it is not enough. Wars are political conflicts that derive from economic roots. The aim to control oil is an economic factor that applies exclusively to imperialism. The oil already belongs to Iraq. The slogan by itself fails to say why Iraq is the victim of aggression, rather than some other country. Thus it explains nothing of politics.

Antiwar opinion almost never considers the war from the side of Iraq. It understands almost nothing of the part in the war played by Iraq’s history and social development. No war can be understood from one side only. Neither does antiwar opinion see a just cause on either side of the war. Yet the answers to these questions are clear.

Iraq fights for its sovereignty and independence. It fights for its right to determine its internal affairs without foreign interference and to conduct its international affairs independently. Iraq’s cause is just. Iraq’s struggle for sovereignty has been the main thing in the war since 1990. The occupation has not introduced this factor. It has only intensified it.

The critical event of 1990 was not the Kuwait crisis in July-August but the Amman Summit in February. At that meeting President Saddam Hussein of Iraq proposed to the presidents of Egypt and Syria and the kings of Jordan and Saudi Arabia that the Arab countries unite in opposition to the United States and Israel. It was an assertion of sovereignty that Iraq could not avoid and imperialism could not tolerate.

In response the U.S. and Kuwaiti authorities contrived the Kuwait crisis. The leaders of most other Arab countries treacherously sided with imperialism. Note that Iran, at the time the only fully sovereign country of the region other than Iraq, took no part in the aggression despite its own recent war with Iraq.

That the imperialist aim is to crush Iraq’s sovereignty is something the imperialists say themselves. The announced intention all along has been "regime change," i.e., the imposition on Iraq of a puppet government.

Hence, this is a war for oil versus a war for sovereignty. The entire history of modern imperialism testifies that the people of Iraq are the principal factor in the war. In ignoring the war from the side of Iraq antiwar opinion in the United States misses the war’s most important thing, the decisive aspect.

Neither does "war for oil" explain the timing of the invasion and occupation. The war broke out in 1990. "War for oil" has applied ever since.

The military assault of 1991 was followed by twelve years of stalemate. The standoff broke down because in the fall of 2000 Iraq started to sell oil to French and German buyers for euros. Prior to this great offense oil had been sold on international markets exclusively for United States dollars. The exclusive dollar denomination of international oil sales is of enormous financial importance to U.S. imperialism. Iraq threatened all that. Iraq’s sale of oil for euros had to have been the motive for the invasion because nothing else of comparable importance happened to upset the stalemate. It also explains why France and Germany refused to take part in the 2003 aggression, whereas they had played along in 1990.

Thus in 2003 the war for oil became as well a war for the dollar. The antiwar movement must go beyond exposing Bush as a liar. It must be able to explain the real reason why Bush invaded. This critical task is pursued only to a very limited extent.

Why antiwar opinion repeatedly stops short in its thinking is the question. One of the main problems is imperialist influence within the antiwar movement. A large sector of the ruling class opposed the invasion as too dangerous to imperialism. Since there is an antiwar sector of the imperialist class, there exists a pro-imperialist sector of antiwar opinion. It criticizes the occupation as bad tactics, but not for injustice. It puts blame for the war not on imperialism but on the Baath Party and President Hussein. It frequently wears a "progressive" mask. Genuinely progressive opinion must be vigilant against this kind of influence. U.S. President George W. Bush, Jr., his weapons of mass deception in tatters, now proclaims a war against the "brutal dictator" Saddam Hussein. It is as if the war were against Saddam Hussein on the side of the United States and against Saddam Hussein on the side of Iraq.

Antiwar opinion overwhelmingly agrees that Saddam Hussein was a "brutal dictator." It only denies that that is cause for war. It is most unsound for progressive people to agree with Bush on any part of his rationale when the most important questions of the war are given little attention and vital tasks are little pursued. Most importantly the "brutal dictator" line hides from view the main and fundamental issue of imperialism versus sovereignty.

It is true that there was a repressive political situation in Iraq in the 1990s. It could not have been otherwise for a small country forced for years to endure the hostility of the entire imperialist camp in nearly total isolation.

Still, Saddam Hussein by no means reduces to a "brutal dictator." He defended Iraq’s sovereignty with resourcefulness and determination. Since 1990 sovereignty has been virtually the only substantial point of democracy for Iraq. Also, backward feudal influences, which always provide fertile ground for collaboration with imperialism, made a considerable comeback. To think that under the circumstances Iraq could have developed the usual institutions of bourgeois democracy is abstract.

Suppose for instance the government of Iraq had allowed multiparty politics. During the same period U.S. imperialism pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into Serbia, another country that would not bow to Washington’s dictates, to buy elections. Imperialism would have done the same had multiparty politics been allowed in Iraq. The blame for Iraq’s failure to progress toward multiparty democracy lies not on President Hussein or his Baath Party, but on imperialism.

Moreover the state is always a dictatorship. It is an instrument of force by which one class imposes its will over another class to rule the whole of society. Look at the dictatorial way Bush, with the support of the bourgeois media, imposed his aggression against the will of the masses in the United States! The meaningful question about Saddam Hussein is whether he was more dictatorial than the situation required.

The childish nonsense about "rape rooms," public execution of women for speaking out against Saddam Hussein, and all such babble must be set aside. Recall that the imperialists lied when they said, "Saddam gassed the Kurds." They lied when they said Iraq "threw babies out of incubators" in Kuwait in 1990. They lied when they said Iraq had "weapons of mass destruction," they lied when they said Iraq could ready these mythical weapons in forty-five minutes. The imperialists have no credibility.

Also bear in mind how little is known in the United States about Iraq’s history, culture, and politics. For instance, after fourteen years of war and more than a million dead in Iraq hardly anything is known in this country of the two great historical moments that laid the basis of modern Iraq. These are, firstly, the 1958 revolution that overthrew the British-dominated monarchy. That event established Iraq’s political independence. Then, in 1972, Iraq expropriated its oil from British and U.S. oil companies. That event established Iraq’s economic independence. The key figure in this great accomplishment was Saddam Hussein, at the time chief of Iraq’s internal security.

Iraq took hundreds of billions of dollars away from U.S. and British oil companies. It used the money for its own development. Modern industry, education, and health care came to Iraq in the 1970s. The country was a beacon of progress to the Arab world. These things happened under Saddam Hussein. They were the fruits of sovereignty. They were immensely important. Hardly anyone in the United States even knows they ever happened. It is impossible to understand Iraq’s recent history under these conditions.

It should be mentioned that some criticism is heard of U.S. policy for violation of Iraq’s sovereignty. Antiwar opinion must go further, however. It must uphold Iraq’s right of sovereignty as a positive demand against imperialism.

Iraq’s "original sin" is that it was of the few countries to break free of every form of imperialist domination. That this was accomplished within the limits of bourgeois society makes no difference as to the great and historically progressive character of the struggle that Iraq has waged and is waging against imperialism.

A great detour followed the 1970s. The Iran-Iraq War of 1980-1988 was a terrible tragedy. It never should have happened. Let it be said very briefly that the two countries got into it for their own reasons. The notion that Iraq attacked Iran at the behest of the United States is nonsense. Iraq had no reason to do so. Iraq had not even had diplomatic relations with the United States since 1958.

Iraq was wrong to attack Iran in 1980, but Iran was wrong to continue the war past 1982 when it could have had a settlement. U.S. imperialism at various times took the side of each country against the other. Progressive people should take the side of neither country against the other.

The Iran-Iraq war was a bad thing but it presents no reason whatever for progressive people to decline full support for Iraq in its subsequent struggle with U.S. imperialism. Mistaken views on this point remain widespread in U.S. antiwar opinion. These misconceptions have to go.

The antiwar movement in the United States needs a mass revolutionary and anti-imperialist sector. The emergence of such a sector is an immediately achievable task. It needs only the widespread recognition of the justice of Iraq’s cause in its struggle against imperialism.

The big debate in the antiwar movement now is between those who say the occupation of Iraq should be turned over to the UN and those who oppose any occupation. The "UN" line is wrong for many reasons.

In 1990 some said not to attack Iraq but to "let the UN sanctions work." The sanctions worked: they killed half a million children from starvation and disease. Those who want to rely on the United Nations are wrong because they refuse to learn from experience. The "rely on the UN" line will never lead to anything good.

Every day the news tells us that the people of Iraq are determined to rid themselves of the occupation. Every day they make progress in their unity against imperialism. History tells us that on this basis Iraq will win. Though the whole world be shattered before this conflict is finished — and it may be — in the end the people of Iraq will surely triumph over imperialism.

The more correct antiwar demand is "immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all foreign troops." These demands implicitly call for Iraq’s victory. To go further and call explicitly for Iraq’s victory is a small step in logic but a big step in practical politics.

The people’s cause is just. Those who will lead Iraq in the future will be those who lead its liberation. This is the sole and exclusive concern of the people of Iraq. Their victory will be a shattering blow to the imperialist world-system. It will be a great victory for the people of the whole world. It will be a revolutionary victory.

Vast numbers of people can be won over to the call for Iraq’s victory. Pro-imperialist opinion in the antiwar movement will become exposed, whatever clothing it wears. The struggle against the war will move beyond reformist limits. The people’s forces will gain vastly in their ability to take the initiative. Only then will the people’s forces reach their full ability to assist the people of Iraq.

Imperialism has entered the period of its overthrow and disappearance. In their desperation to avoid final defeat the imperialists may launch a new world war. Even that will not save them. World war brings revolution. It may happen instead that the revolutionary struggles of the people will eliminate imperialism, and thus prevent another world war. In either case revolution will destroy imperialism.

The main bastion against world war is the battle of the peoples of the oppressed countries against imperialism. It is not only the duty of the people of the United States to join with people of Iraq against imperialism, it is our best hope to avoid world war. This is a fundamental task in our own revolutionary struggle to overthrow capitalism and go forward to the new and better society of socialism and communism.

Victory to Iraq!
Victory to Palestine!
Down with Imperialism!