BY PIP HINMAN
Just four months ago, when Bush declared "major combat operations" in Iraq to be over, the US ruling class was sure its gamble to break international law, dismiss the UN and go against the unprecedented global opposition to the war had paid off. But now the stronger-than-expected Iraqi resistance, the high cost of keeping the occupation forces in Iraq and the growing campaign in the US to bring the troops home, is spreading panic through the White House.
Instead of putting the US political and business elite's drive for global domination on a more secure footing, Washington's invasion of Iraq has turned into a political debacle that could, as an editorial in the October 5 New York Times observed, destroy the morale of the US armed forces and therefore "diminish the goal reach of American foreign policy" .
The key political factor in this is the change in mood in the US and Britain — triggered by the invaders' failure to find any weapons of mass destruction — and the Iraqi armed resistance against the Anglo-US occupying forces.
Looking at the polls coming out of the US right now, it's clear that US President George Bush's administration is in serious trouble. The powerbrokers have their eyes on the 2004 presidential election, worried that "Dubya" will go the way of his father, who was dumped from the presidency after the first Gulf War in 1991.
The Iraq occupation is showing up some serious miscalculations on the part of the US imperialists and their allies. Violating international law and lying about Iraq's weapons capability has even tested the patience of formerly loyal Republican Party supporters. Many of the 1300 or so military families now campaigning for their sons and daughters to come home previously backed the war on Iraq.
The declining public support for the war — including in the ranks of the US occupation army — is one of the key reasons that a section of the US ruling class is reluctant to commit more US troops. Defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld's early September visit to Iraq was directed as much at an increasingly worried US public as at the Iraqi population. But then he had to cancel his final address for fear of a rebellion from US troops eager to go home!
As one soldier in the 101 Airborne Division near Mosul wrote in the Los Angeles Times in September: "This looks like a modern day crusade not to free an oppressed people or to rid the world of a demonic dictator relentless in his pursuit of conquest and domination, but a crusade to control another nation's natural resource. At least to me, oil seems to be the reason for our presence."
Stan Goff, a former senior US military commander, who now heads the increasingly popular Bring the Troops Home Now!, campaign is quoted in a September 5 In These Times article by Dave Lindorff: "We're not saying bring the troops home because they're suffering hardship and danger. Most soldiers know that hardship and danger are part of their job. What we're saying is bring the troops home because they are facing hardship and danger in a war that is immoral and illegal."
Most of the kids that are over there believed what they were told, that they'd be greeted as liberators, like the allies marching into Paris. Instead it was like marching into Mogadishu."
The occupation and the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) has been a political disaster. The British government fears "a strategic failure" and former US Secretary of the Army Thomas White was quoted in the September 5 Sydney Morning Herald as envisaging a "potential humanitarian, political and economic disaster".
Sixteen of the Pentagon's 33 combat brigades are now in Iraq, and they are failing. In desperation, the CPA is hiring thousands of members of the former Baathist police, army and intelligence services (up to the rank of lieutenant-colonel) on what would seem to be the naive assumption that these people will be loyal servants to the foreign military occupiers.
The CPA set up Washington's puppet administration in Iraq — the 25-member Iraqi Governing Council — on July 13 to develop an authority in Iraq which would have some legitimacy both in Iraq and internationally. But all key decisions are made by, or subject to veto by, the CPA.
Sami Ramadani, an Iraqi exile who visited Iraq recently, reported in the September 27 British Guardian that governing council is a "powerless body". He wrote: "It has no army, no police, and no national budget, but boasts nine rotating presidents." The majority of Iraqi men are unemployed and without many job prospects, the exception being the new police and security forces. Basic necessities such as water, electricity, food and health care are still hard to get. One in 12 children suffers from malnutrition. Up to 20 innocent Iraqi civilians each day are now believed to be dying in murders, revenge killings and at US checkpoints.
The economy is in a shambles. Iraq, with the world's second-highest known reserves of oil, is now importing fuel. Oil exports are well below those planned, and in any case the money isn't flowing back to where it's needed.
It's not surprising that the Iraqi resistance is strengthening.
While there's agreement on the need for more troops to be sent to Iraq, the US ruling class is divided on where they should come from. Up until recently Rumsfeld and his neo-conservative allies have been holding out against going back to the UN for help. Not only don't they want to share the spoils of war — especially with "traitor" countries such as France — it goes against their reactionary dream of a US-dominated "new century".
Washington was initially willing to openly wage unilateral war on Iraq. But as the anti-war movement grew earlier this year in the US, the Bush administration presented the US war against Iraq as "multilateral" action by the "Coalition of the Willing" to "enforce" UN resolutions. Anonymously, however, Bush administration officials continued to state their refusal to concede sharing control over the war/occupation with the other members of the UN Security Council.
Washington's decision to seek a UN mandate for the occupation army is an admission that the US ruling class wasn't prepared for the strength and endurance of the Iraqi opposition.
A recent (August/September) report by the Congressional Budget Office stated that the US could not afford to sustain its present 140,000-strong occupation army in Iraq for more than six more months.
That section of the ruling class which wants the UN to help out under US command is seriously worried about the prospect of another Vietnam-type war, and another crushing military and political defeat for US imperialism.
The August International Crisis Group report on Iraq concurs with this wing, arguing for "some broader international legitimisation of the transition process" but conceding that the UN had to be brought in under the leadership of the US. "Granting the UN a stronger role ... would diminish the perception that the US seeks to dominate Iraq, projecting instead the image of a broad-based international effort including with the participation of Iraq's Arab neighbours, to rebuild the country" (emphasis added).
A UN-mandated occupation, of course, would still be a complete violation of Iraqi sovereignty.
The US seized on the bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad on August 19 to justify its call for greater military assistance from the UN member states under the leadership of the US. The draft resolution now before the UN Security Council authorises a larger multinational army aimed at defeating the resistance, and imposing a long occupation on the Iraqi people. In addition, the UN would participate in the formation of a new government, the reconstruction of a decimated country and in raising money for the continuing occupation.
But the US draft gives the UN very little authority for its proposed responsibilities. Washington is down to oversee the entire operation, including the military, the Iraqi Governing Council, the economy, social infrastructure and the control of the oil and its eventual sell-off. At first sight, Washington's turn back to the UN does not seem to be much of a political defeat. But only a few weeks ago, Rumsfeld repeatedly scoffed at the idea that the US would go back to the UN for support for its occupation, arguing that resolution 1483 adopted on May 22 which anoints the US and Britain as occupying powers already provides a "legal basis" for UN member states to commit troops.
So the fact that Washington has been forced to eat its words indicates that the US is losing the political war and says much about the real limitations on the power of US imperialism. In particular, it confirms that the Vietnam Syndrome has not been eliminated by the 9/11 attacks.
The Vietnam Syndrome, of course, has never meant that the US rulers could not wage foreign wars. It simply sets a political limitation on how they can wage these wars. In particular, it means that they are extremely reluctant to get drawn into a prolonged ground war because the inevitably high number of casualties their ground forces would suffer would lead to a rapid drop in political support for their war policy. This, in turn, would create the potential for the growth of a mass anti-war movement with its concomitant potential to politically radicalise large sections of the US working class.
Whether imperialism gets its way in the Middle East or not depends to a large extent on the development of the global anti-war movement.
The huge September 27 anti-war rallies in London, Europe and the Middle East show that the anti-war movement is starting to revive. The planned massive march on Washington on October 25 will also help kick start the anti-war movement around the world.
In Australia, we will have a chance to protest chief warmonger Bush on October 22 and 23. These protests could be an important part of defeating Washington's pro-war agenda.
[Pip Hinman is a member of the Democratic Socialist Party and the Socialist Alliance.]
From Green Left Weekly, October 15, 2003.
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