US President George Bush used his highly stage-managed State of the Union address on January 28 to put the argument that not going to war against Iraq is a more dangerous option than going to war. The fact that a full-scale US-led war against Iraq has not yet been launched, and that Bush is now talking about seeking agreement from the UN Security Council before beginning the war, is down to one main factor — the strength of the anti-war movement around the world. Large majorities in most Western countries and throughout the Third World don't believe the case for war has been made.
The growing anti-war movement is significant for at least three reasons. Firstly, it is already mobilising millions of people across Europe, the US, Australia, Asia and the Middle East. Secondly, in general, the level of anti-war organisation and street mobilisation is higher now than before the last US war on Iraq in 1991. Finally, there is a growing awareness of the link between the interests of the big corporations (particularly the oil companies) and war, and between the accumulation of wealth by the pro-war corporate elites and the increasing poverty faced by three quarters of the world's people.
The power and all-pervasiveness of the US rulers' propaganda machine, parroted by most of the corporate media in other Western countries, haven't been able to derail the movement (though that remains to be played out when the US produces its "new evidence" against Iraq on February 5).
When the US rulers seized on the horror of 9/11 to justify launching a world-wide "war on terrorism" and violent "regime change" in Afghanistan, they had the support of much of the world. The movement against the US-led war on Afghanistan struggled against this backdrop. Nevertheless, it did begin to make its presence felt at least in the United Kingdom, the US and parts of Europe. In the UK at least, where Prime Minister Tony Blair hitched his political future to backing US aggression, the movement had plenty of reasons to keep organising. It did and it has grown considerably.
In Australia, the peace movement which rose up around the war on Afghanistan died down soon after the "liberation" of Kabul. While this movement was an uneasy coming together of old and new sections of the peace movement, together with the subsequent growth of the refugees' rights movement, it did prepare the ground for a much stronger anti-war campaign this time around.
For many people, the campaign for refugees' rights was about much more than simply trying to get justice for a tiny number of persecuted people from the Third World who made it to Australia's shores. Many could see that the Howard government's racist policy of throwing refugees into concentration camps was aimed at breaking down any sense of human solidarity with Third World people — a precondition for winning public acquiescence to Australia's participation in US-led wars against the Third World.
A key factor which helped galvanise the movement for refugees' rights was the disquiet felt by many in the ruling class with the Howard government's racist policies toward refugees. With even former Liberal PM Malcolm Fraser prepared to publicly criticise these policies, the movement broadened out (and eventually forced a number of concessions from the government).
The same is happening with the anti-war movement.
This was the lead letter in the January 29 Sydney Morning Herald: "Does anyone seriously believe that Iraq constitutes the greatest problem confronting the world? What about Israel and the Palestinians for starters? Not to mention the countless millions suffering poverty, starvation and indescribable hardship in so many parts of today's world. Yet the US and its two allies are spending billions assembling troops, warships, missiles and goodness knows what in the Persian Gulf around Iraq. Just imagine if all these billions could be directed to help relieve the suffering in at least some parts of our poverty-ridden world ..."
For those on the left there's nothing particularly remarkable about these comments, except that this was a letter written by John Valder, former NSW and federal president of the Liberal Party!
With sections of the political establishment prepared to voice disquiet about, and even opposition to, a war on Iraq, the movement gains strength. The wedge can be driven even more forcefully into the contradictions inherent in the pro-war camp. It gives confidence to others to push harder on galvanising the largely passive anti-war sentiment among the majority of the population into something more powerful.
All the signs point to this happening. At a screening of The Quiet American in Canberra recently someone jumped up and shouted "No war on Iraq! No blood for oil!", receiving sustained applause from the cinema-goers. People are queuing up, not only to sign petitions and get more anti-war literature, but to help out in the campaign. Many are starting local groups in their neighbourhood, or suburb, in some cases in places unused to radical activism — such as Mosman on Sydney's north shore.
With the ALP only recently declaring its opposition to a war without UN approval, the trade unions are now starting to put their considerable resources into the anti-war campaign. In Sydney, the construction workers' union has declared one of the city's main construction sites the first "peace site". The latest edition of the Sydney Star Observer, a widely circulated gay and lesbian newspaper, leads off with the screaming headline "No War!" and urges its readers to attend the February 16 Sydney anti-war rally.
Some unlikely anti-war activists are coming out. In Fremantle, where over the last few weeks thousands of US navy personnel have been engaged in a sea swap trial of navy vessels, many US sailors have been keen to get literature, badges and other anti-war paraphernalia. Some even vowed to wear their badges on board in defiance of what they describe as a "war for oil".
The upcoming international protest action on February 14-16, where demonstrations will take place across Europe (called by the Florence European Social Forum last November), in the UK, Australia and New Zealand is expected to mobilise millions. It will send a powerful message to the imperialist warmongers in Washington, London and Canberra that their planned military conquest of Iraq will not go unchallenged at home.
Washington is calling on the UN Security Council to reconvene on February 5. There's a chance that it will be blackmailed into giving the go-ahead for a US-led invasion of Iraq. While sizable majorities are against a war that has not been sanctioned by the UN, this does not necessarily mean they will support a war that has been endorsed by a UN that has been clearly blackmailed by Washington.
The longer the US takes to stitch up a stronger "alliance of the willing" the more time we have to convince a majority that a US-led invasion of Iraq unjust, unjustifiable and must be opposed regardless of any vote on the UN Security Council.
Stephen Zunes from the University of San Francisco observed recently in an article published on the Common Dreams website, "There can be little question that were it not for the anti-war movement, the United States would have gone to war against Iraq already".
The power of the anti-war movement does not lie in being a visible expression of widespread public opposition to the war that US vice-president Dick Cheney and US war minister Donald Rumsfeld have planned for a decade now. The US rulers are not democrats willing to abide by the will of the majority (we should remember that the Bush gang was put into power by the US Supreme Court after failing to get the majority of popular votes in the November 2000 US presidential election).
The power of the anti-war movement to force the warmongers to retreat lies in its ability, through the empowering impact of sustained collective action on large numbers of people, to politically radicalise growing numbers of working people.
This was the most important effect that the movement against the Vietnam War had in the US and Australia — it turned more and more working-class people from apolitical, passive victims of the rulers' policies into increasingly conscious political actors.
Such a process of politicalisation and radicalisation of growing numbers of working people has always terrified every ruling elite in history. If they are unable to crush such a process, they will seek to arrest its development by retreating from or abandoning the specific policy that is engendering it.
Halting a mass radicalisation fuelled by sustained anti-war mobilisations was what led the US and Australian rulers to end their unjust war against Vietnam. Getting actively involved and strengthening the movement against the US war drive today is the only effective means to stop the war against Iraq.
From Green Left Weekly, February 5, 2003.
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