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An Analysis of U.S.-Iraq Conflict
By Brian Becker, co-coordinator of the International
Action Center, U.SA.
Presented as a paper to the December 10, 1998 international conference in Baghdad, Iraq marking the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
We are meeting here in Baghdad on the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We are meeting less than four weeks after the Clinton Administration was forced - at least temporarily -- to call off its plans to bomb Iraq again. But as we meet US war planes, aircraft carriers, destroyers, B-52 bombers, and thousands of cruise missiles encircle this country and this region.
The US government, using the UN weapons inspectors as a source of endless intrigues and pretexts, is, we believe, still committed to embarking on new aggression against the people of Iraq.
Anti-war forces inside the United States held demonstrations in scores of cities during the November crisis. They must be prepared to mobilize again in the coming weeks and months.
Why a new war crisis? Because the US strategy toward Iraq of imposing genocidal sanctions has not succeeded in accomplishing its main objectives: namely the return of Iraq to a colonial-form of bondage to the United States and Britain.
Yes, the sanctions are killing Iraq's beautiful children and many of their grandparents. More than 1.6 million have died according to the UN's own statistics.
Yes, sanctions have degraded Iraq's drinking water supply. Oh, that's been very successful. That, in fact, is what has given the children intestinal parasites. And yes, sanctions have succeeded in preventing Iraq from acquiring the basic medicines to cure those children of the parasites - that's why they are dying in record numbers!
Yes, sanctions have been a great success in imposing human misery. Clinton and Bush can be very proud that they have accomplished that much.
But the truth is that the United States imperialist foreign policy strategy toward Iraq has failed to accomplish its main objective. Boiled down to its simplest premise this policy has been based on the following assumption: if enough Iraqi civilians suffer over a long enough period of time eventually the CIA will be able to coax them into a civil war resulting in the overthrow of the current government and its replacement by a US-client regime.
This is the classic destabilization of strategy. It has been used to overthrow countless governments which have been replaced by regimes that are hand-picked by the great consortium of democracy: the CIA-Pentagon-and Wall Street!
The US destabilization strategy has failed to accomplish its cherished goal in Iraq. It is not only to replace the current government. It is an attempt to turn back the clock of history. US policy makers are driven by what the late US Senator William Fulbright once termed the "Arrogance of Power." Fulbright was writing during the Vietnam War.
Fulbright was countering the prevailing view in Washington at that time which assumed that the Pentagon would certainly prevail in Vietnam because of its overwhelming military superiority and economic might. US imperialist power was so great that it, in fact, clouded the judgement of the policy makers, according to Fulbright. They could not help become more and more embroiled in the quest to maintain Vietnam's vassal status. Fifty-eight thousand young US soldiers and two million Vietnamese were killed before this arrogance of power was finally humbled before the anti-colonial resistance of the Vietnamese people.
What was it specifically that US policy-makers failed to see when they committed to the war in Vietnam. They underestimated the Vietnamese people. US arrogance and racism blinded them from appreciating the deep-rooted consciousness of the people. This anti-colonial consciousness -- this desire to be independent and to be free from foreign domination - was so powerful that it entered into the military equation in a way that was entirely unforeseen by the Pentagon brass, Washington bureaucrats and well-heeled think tank analysts and media pundits.
What happened in Vietnam is not only a poignant historical example of the limits of military power. It is a metaphor for the U. S. policy throughout the Third World, including the on-going U.S war against Iraq.
The arrogance of power mixes in a volatile way with a heavy dose of racism against Asian, Arab, African and Latin American people. That is a central legacy in the dominant racist culture inside the United States. Racism has always been used by the dominant, owning classes inside the United States as a rationalization for first African slavery, the genocide used against the indigenous Indian populations of North America, and the colonial domination of other peoples.
The US never supported the revolution that swept through the Arab world in the 1960's and 1970's. In fact, they did everything to maintain the old corrupt monarchies that served as the colonial and neo-colonial puppets for western imperialist governments.
US Strategy: Rollback the Arab Revolution
The Iraqi revolution of 1958, for instance, provoked British and US military mobilizations. President Eisenhower ordered 10,000 US marines to Lebanon to stop the spread of the revolution. No, the US government wants only puppets in the Middle East. If these take the form of reactionary blood-line monarchies, such as the one that exists in Kuwait, so be it! If it takes the form of supporting Israeli military occupation of Arab lands, so be it! As long as US imperial interests in this strategic and oil-rich region are served.
Emboldened by the changed relationship of forces in the world in the 1990's - principally arising from the collapse of the Soviet Union and what was known as the socialist bloc - the United States has embarked on a policy of reversing the social and economic conquests that the Arab masses derived from the Arab revolution.
How to build an anti-war movement in the United States
A new military crisis in the US-Iraq confrontation seems inevitable. People who believe in justice, who oppose colonialism and war must intensify the mobilization inside the United States in the next period.
It is necessary to take stock of the last two phases in the US-Iraq confrontation - or "almost" wars. Examining the last two crises, analyzing the dynamics of the latest stages of this struggle, provides insight into what the anti-war movement should be expecting.
Earlier in 1998, the US threatened a massive bombing of Iraq. The Iraqis had halted the UN weapons inspections (UNSCOM) since there was no relief in sight for the end of sanctions. Moreover, the Iraqis charged that the UNSCOM inspectors were not apolitical technical experts but highly politicized paid agents of the United States and Britain. They charged that the inspectors were acting as "spies" providing sensitive information to Israel, which in the past has carried out unprovoked, aerial bombing attacks against Iraq. Israel bombed Iraqi civilian nuclear energy facilities in 1982, for instance.
A huge anti-war mobilization crystallized in Jan.-Feb. 1998. Thousands took to the streets in New York, San Francisco and in hundreds of cities in between. Hoping to drum up support for their war policy toward Iraq in so-called Middle America, Madeleine Albright and Defense Secretary Cohen traveled to Ohio State where they expected a big anti-Iraq chorus. Instead they were humiliated on national TV by a disbelieving and angry audience.
Although it was significant, the anti-war sentiment in the US was far overshadowed by the intense mobilizations that took place in the Middle East and throughout the Moslem world. Angry and large street protests swept through the region. All the governments, even the US allies, became alarmed and voiced deep misgivings about a new US war.
It was the isolation of the US position that forced a diplomatic settlement with the Feb., 1998 agreement between Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General, and the Iraqi leadership. The Iraqis agreed to allow the inspectors to return, even giving them access to the most sensitive areas in Iraq, with the expectation that the UN would soon begin to ease or lift sanctions.
US Violated the February 23, 1998 Agreement
The US made sure in the following months, between March and August 1998, to intensify negative propaganda against Iraq. Fabricating new "evidence" about Iraq's alleged non-compliance and insisting that sanctions would not be lifted anytime soon.
Seeing no end in sight in the sanctions regime, the Iraqis again halted weapons inspections on October 30, 1998. This was entirely predictable and the US policy planners fully expected that Iraq would eventually call another halt to the UN inspections. The Clinton Administration was looking for a pretext for a new bombing war since sanctions by themselves have been insufficient to accomplish the overthrow of the Iraqi government.
Why add a new military component? For one, the US government has decided to intensify the destabilization campaign in Iraq. Military operations consisting of deadly missile strikes and heavy bombing are to be coupled with CIA subversion, combining with an effort to economically and diplomatically isolate Iraq.
The latest crisis, or "almost" war, in November 1998 was marked by a deliberate and coordinated effort by the US government to overcome the negative (i.e., anti-war) reactions that filled the media during the January-February 1998 war crisis. There were no plans for "Town Hall Meetings" at Ohio State or anywhere else this time around. No contact with real people who might protest or even ask tough questions.
The November crisis was a thoroughly stage-managed affair.
Jingoism, war mongering, demonization and outright racism were presented as the unified "face of the nation" as President Clinton prepared to order the military destruction of Iraqi factories that produce medicine, food, and other essential industrial facilities in Iraq.
TV analysts and media pundits, who have little if any real knowledge of Iraq, competed with each other in Jerry Springer-type antics demanding punishing attacks on Iraq.
Only one or two voices in Congress timidly suggested that Congress should be convened so that it could be "consulted" about the coming war. And then, it was not so much to uphold the Constitution that grants only the Congress the legal authority to take the country to war. Oh No, Congress should reconvene only to "send an even more resolute message to Saddam that the US means business."
Not a peep from the mainstream media about the way the rest of the world would have perceived a new US bombing. That it would be a graphic example of extreme imperialism, extreme racism, extreme lawlessness. That US weapons of mass destruction would reign down on a small and basically defenseless Third World country. That working people would be killed. That their homes, neighborhoods and workplaces would be reduced to smoldering ruins.
When is it terrorism?
People in the United States are not used to bombs going off in their cities.
But they should try to remember the anguish, grief and mourning that rattled this country on the morning of April 19, 1995 when one fascist individual bomber set off one bomb, in one building, in one city. The hue and cry against "terrorism" in Oklahoma City was tearfully communicated by the same TV personalities and politicians who last month blandly demanded that the Pentagon drop not one but hundreds or thousands of bombs on Baghdad, a city where 5 million human beings live!
When does the bombing of large cities fail to meet the definition of terrorism? Is it when Iraqi's do the bleeding? If the victims are Sudanese, or Afghani's? If the bombs read "Made in the USA?" Or if the planes that drop them are manufactured by Lockheed-Boeing?
What prompted this latest crisis, the latest "almost" war? It is an important question to ponder because it is likely that a similar set of circumstances may lead to a new war crisis. Except this time the US has arrogantly vowed that neither the UN nor world opinion will deter them from carrying out a massive bombing war.
Had Iraq invaded its neighbors its in 1998? Asking the question is to answer it. Economic sanctions over the last eight years have killed more than 1.6 million civilians, according to the UN's own statistics. Industrial goods have vanished, along with the food and medicine. Unable to sell its oil, Iraq's economy and its people are being strangled.
After 9,000 UNSCOM inspections and the destruction of all or nearly all of Iraq's military capabilities it is hardly credible to assert that Iraq poses a severe military threat to its neighbors. Moreover, it is the United States that has militarily "taken over" the region with tens of thousands of troops, warships and aircraft carriers, and hundreds of fighter planes and bombers now permanently positioned throughout the Persian/Arabian Gulf.
Iraq's Real Crime
The truth about the US-Iraq confrontation is simple. The US political/economic/military establishment wants to overthrow the current Iraqi government and replace it with a Saudi or Kuwaiti-type regime.
The Baathist-led government in Iraq, which has its social roots in the profound anti-feudal and colonialist revolution of 1958, nationalized western oil companies that had entirely dominated and made super-profits from the country's vast oil reserves.
Iraq used the profits from its oil to develop on an independent road. It became a major force in a region that the United States, British and French governments had ruled either directly as colonial powers or through the neo-colonial device of control over oil resources, oil refining and shipping.
The United States government wants to overthrow the Iraqi government for exactly the same reason that the CIA in 1954 overthrew the democratically-elected government of Dr. Arbenz in Guatemala. What prompted that bloody coup? Arbenz had the nerve to nationalize the United Fruit Company plantations in Guatemala.
Iran 1953--Iraq 1998-Parallel US Destabilization Strategies
It is the same motive that led the United States to overthrow the democratically-elected government of Dr. Mohhamad Mossadegh in Iran in 1953. It is highly instructive to note the similarities between Iran in 1953 and Iraq today. The US media described Mossadegh in virtually the same colorful, demononizing language that they use against Saddam Hussein today. He was a madman, a lunatic, a threat, ad nauseum.
What was Mossadegh's real crime? He nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), today known as British Petroleum (BP).The United States and Britain slapped an airtight economic embargo, or sanctions, on Iran after Mossadegh nationalized the AIOC. He had hoped that Iran's oil wealth could be used to develop the country and overcome its deep poverty.
The sanctions on Iran then, like Iraq today, strangled the economy. Even the middle classes suffered greatly. They turned against the Mossadegh government. The CIA then took advantage of this social and political discontent and organized the bloody coup. Thousands were killed and the CIA brought to power the Shah of Iran, one of the vilest monarchies in modern history.
Upon taking power, the Shah promptly privatized Iran's oil company, returning it to a consortium dominated by British and US oil monopolies.
The CIA coup in Iran was led by Kermit Roosevelt, the grandson of Theodore Roosevelt. As a perk for his good deeds, Roosevelt was named Vice-President of Gulf Oil a few years later. Gulf was one of the companies in the consortium who received the de-nationalized Iranian oil concession following the CIA coup.
The War Against Iraq is a Racist War!
More than 1.6 million Iraqi's have died from the sanctions during the last eight years. Those who have died have been largely infants and their grandparents. Economic sanctions kill the most vulnerable in society. Those who are most likely to fall ill from lack of nourishment, or from intestinal parasites. One out of every four children in Iraq are malnourished. Once they drank pure water but now the water is poisoned. The US won't let Iraq import chlorine or spare parts for its water system.
These people are dying for one reason: they are Iraqi's and for that reason alone they have become victims.
This is part of a long pattern of genocide and murder practiced by the US Ruling Class in the United States. It's been acceptable as long as the victims were Indian people, or people of African descent, or Latinos, or Asians, or Arab people.
The decision makers in the United States Ruling Class openly promoted an ideology of white supremacy for nearly four hundred years. Today, they don't speak in the language of open white supremacy. The fierce civil rights struggle in the 1960's required the US Ruling Class to adjust its language.
But it is the same class of people. They are rich, very, very rich. They are powerful, not only in their own country but all over the world. And they are almost 100% white. Their motive is profit and domination on a world scale and they will try to destroy anyone, regardless of race or nationality, who resists their empire.
But the vicious and racist character of their policy is unmistakable.
The ruling class politicians openly proclaim that Iraq must be bombed because of "Saddam's defiance." What arrogance! Iraqi's are not supposed to be defiant. They are supposed to act like colonial slaves.
How many times through history have we examples of British "punishing" rebellious and "defiant" colonial subjects in China, Ireland, or India. Think back to the "rules of conduct" practiced by the US Ruling Class in the southern half of the United States against "defiant" slaves. Acts of defiance were treated with the greatest brutality as a chilling example for other slaves who might dare to resist, rebel or engage in "defiant" behavior.
What was Iraq's "defiance?" The Iraqi government has ordered foreign weapons inspectors to leave their country. These inspectors are not neutral technicians. They are the operatives of the countries who have acted as the colonial and neo-colonial overlords over the Arab world for the past century.
Iraq has told the US and British operatives to leave Iraq. The UNSCOM inspectors salaries are paid by their home countries. Iraq has accused them of being spies. Of obstructing the process to end economic sanctions. He has basically told the US, "if you have decided to never lift sanctions anyway, why should we let your agents roam through our country at will?"
At its worst, the Iraqi decision to expel foreign inspectors -- after 8 long years and 9,000 inspections -- is an act of sovereignty. In no way can it be construed as an act of aggression against another country. To believe that Iraq must be bombed for this particular act of "defiance" requires one to be very confused or an absolute fool. In the case of the media pundits and politicians we are sure that they are not confused!
Stand Up for the Truth
At the beginning of all imperialist wars, the masses of people are often caught up in the war fever generated by the ruling class. It is they who dominate the airwaves and print media. The US political and military establishment know full well that if the war goes badly people tend to learn the truth and become a mighty opposition to imperialist aggression.
Today we are witnessing a military strategy predicated on this assumption: if another war starts it must end quickly and the "other side" must do all the bleeding. Otherwise the Vietnam Syndrome will become a major political factor. The question for the ruling class militarists is this: how to create oceans of blood abroad and maintain social peace at home. Thus, we will see ship-based cruise missiles and B-52 bombers dropping 3,000 pound bombs from 30,000 feet rather than any US ground troops.
We believe that it is the duty of all justice-loving people, all those who oppose racism and imperialism, to extend a hand of solidarity to the Iraqi people at this crucial moment.
It is our duty to stand up for the truth. To expose the war-makers. To combat the racist propaganda of the Pentagon killing machine. And to attempt to build a new mass anti-war and anti-sanctions movement that can demand that money be spent for jobs, health care, housing and education rather than imperialist adventures on behalf of Exxon, Mobil, Texaco, Chase Manhattan and Citibank!
International Action Center 39 West 14 Street, Room 206 New York, NY 10011 email: iacenter@iacenter.org http://www.iacenter.org http://www.iacenter.org/iraqchallenge/ phone: (212) 633-6646 fax: (212) 633-2889
Back to Iraq Sanctions Challenge December 1998
International Action Center
39 West 14th Street, Room 206
New York, NY 10011
email: iacenter@iacenter.org
http://www.iacenter.org
phone: 212 633-6646
fax: 212 633-2889