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Counting down to war?
November’s UN vote showed the preparedness of the US to
use its military, economic and political clout to get its way in order to unseat
Saddam. But, argues PETER TAAFFE, nothing is more unpredictable than war or the
path to war.
RESOLUTION 1441 passed by the United Nations (UN) security
council on 8 November by 15 votes to nil is similar to the terms of surrender
dictated by the victors to the defeated in battle. The resolution, and the
accompanying letter from the chief weapons inspector Hans Blix, are couched in
the insensitive, brutal language of an imperialist bully, calculated to
humiliate not just the dictatorial regime of Saddam Hussein but also to
aggravate the already inflamed national feelings of the Iraqi and Arab people as
a whole.
The UN resolution virtually stipulates terms for a partial
occupation of Iraq. The ultimate purpose of this is to grab Iraq’s considerable
oil resources, under the guise of combating weapons of mass destruction.
Moreover, this is to be initially conducted under the flag of the UN, which is
now correctly seen as a tool of US imperialism. It is similar in its intent to
the Rambouillet accords, which the US and Britain sought to impose on the former
Yugoslavia in 1999. These proposals demanded the right for NATO armed
detachments to be allowed to pass freely through Yugoslavia, unhindered by the
Yugoslav government. This was rejected by Milosevic, which led to war and
subsequently to his current indictment for ‘war crimes’ at The Hague.
However, this resolution is even harsher than Rambouillet in
what it demands of Iraq and is designed to provide the conditions in which
either war takes place and Saddam is removed, or the same task is accomplished
by a ‘soft invasion’, which leads to an uprising in Iraq or a palace coup. It
dictates that a UN special commission (UNMOVIC) and the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) and the weapons inspectors from these bodies should have
"unimpeded, unconditional and unrestricted access to any and all, including
underground, areas, facilities, buildings, equipment, records". It "further
decides" the weapons inspectors shall have the "discretion" (to) conduct
interviews in and outside of Iraq, and "may facilitate the travel of those
interviewed and family members outside of Iraq… without the presence of
observers from the Iraqi government". All inspection sites, including the
‘presidential sites’ should be accessible to the inspectors and "the security of
UNMOVIC and IAEA facilities shall be ensured by sufficient United Nations
security guards".
In addition to this, "exclusion zones, including surrounding
areas and transit corridors", can be established by the weapons inspectors and
"Iraq will suspend ground and aerial movements so that nothing is changed in or
taken out of a site being inspected". The UN agencies shall also have "free and
unrestricted use of landing and fixed and rotary-winged aircraft, including
manned and unmanned reconnaissance vehicles". They also have the right to import
equipment and materials and to "seize and export any equipment, materials, or
documents taken during inspections, without search of UNMOVIC or IAEA personnel
of official or personal baggage".
Adding insult to injury, Iraq is also expected to pay for
the ‘occupation’: "The National Monitoring Directorate (NMD)… the Iraqi
counterpart for the inspectors" will provide free of cost, a whole array of
facilities such as escorts, a telephone ‘hotline’, the cost of transportation,
etc. In addition: "Iraq will provide without cost adequate office buildings,
staff accommodation, and appropriate escort personnel… aircraft fuel will be
provided by Iraq, as before, free of charge".
Yet, even before the UN weapons inspectors begin their work
"false statements or omissions" allegedly submitted by Iraq could be deemed to
be "in material breach of Iraq’s obligations". This could then be reported to
the UN Security Council, and in turn this could be the trigger for war. The
Iraqi regime is supposed to give a complete declaration of all aspects of its
weapons programme within 30 days of the passing of the UN resolution, by 8
December. However, the letter from the Iraqi government to the UN declaring that
it did not have weapons of mass destruction has already been interpreted by US
spokespersons as giving the green light for the Bush regime to go back to the UN
on 8 December, to declare that Iraq is already ‘in material breach’ and demand
that the UN conduct a full-scale invasion, or the US itself will undertake the
task together with its ‘allies’, notably Britain.
In reality, it is unlikely that the Bush regime will be able
to proceed in this fashion. The UN resolution "required eight weeks of
excruciating negotiations", as the International Herald Tribune described it,
before France, Russia, China and the Arab states finally came on board. Kofi
Annan, the UN Secretary-General, gently chastised the ‘hawks’ in the US
administration for their eagerness to go to war: "The US appeared to have a
lower threshold for military action than the Security Council members". He
"cautioned against turning the inspections into a hunt for excuses to go to
war". He has accordingly earned the ire of the US right, as has Hans Blix, chief
weapons inspector, who stated on his first day in Baghdad that war is ‘not
inevitable’.
The very fact that Bush was compelled to go to the UN was a
defeat for the ‘hawks’ in the US administration who were urging him to launch a
unilateral pre-emptive strike against Iraq. The US hawks are typified by Richard
Perle, a key adviser to Bush. He has long advocated a pre-emptive strike against
Saddam and an end to the US ban on assassination of dictators. He argues: "I
absolutely believe in assassinations. I have always thought an absolute
prohibition was unnecessarily inflexible" (The Guardian, 13 November). Asked if
Saddam should be assassinated he replied: "Yes, Saddam has killed tens of
thousands of people". US imperialism killed at least 5,000 in Afghanistan; Bush
will be responsible for at least ten times this number of deaths if a war is
unleashed in Iraq. Six thousand Iraqi children die each month through the
imposition of US sanctions, yet these are facts that are "immaterial" to Perle
and the group of ‘hawks’, such as Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and others who support
him.
‘Capturing the UN’
THE FACT THAT the Bush regime was compelled to go through
the UN was a defeat for them and a ‘victory’ for the wing of the US
administration represented by Colin Powell. He is neither ‘liberal’ nor
‘anti-war’ but understands the catastrophic consequences which would result from
a pre-emptive strike. The UN resolution was also the result of the pressure
exerted by France, Russia and others in the UN Security Council who are
terrified at the repercussions of an invasion of Iraq. There have been worldwide
protests of an unprecedented character in opposition to Bush’s war plans, even
before a war has started; 400,000 marched in London, one million in Florence in
Italy, 200,000 in Washington DC. Even in a period of ‘phoney war’, these rival
the biggest demonstrations and protests of the Vietnam War.
Although Bush and the Republican Party have claimed that the
US mid-term election results are a ‘mandate for war’, this is not true. An
analysis of these elections (see p15) show that they were not the ‘landslide’
claimed by Bush, nor are they a measure of the real mood of the US population on
the issue of war. As Michael Moore, the highly successful US satirist, has
pointed out, "the polls show the majority of Americans oppose bombing Iraq
without the support of Britain and the allies… there is a strong feeling against
going to war". (The Daily Mirror, 16 November) Moreover, in Britain a mere 13%
will back the Blair government if a ‘unilateral’ war is declared by the US,
backed by Britain. An indication of the heightened anti-war movement,
particularly in Europe, is that it has been responsible, at least partially, in
deciding the outcome of one general election, in Germany.
Nevertheless, the US achieved a 15-0 victory for the
resolution, something which they did not even achieve in 1991 before the Gulf
War, when Cuba and Yemen voted against while China abstained, in the vote for
force to be used to evict Iraq from Kuwait. Subsequently Yemen suffered
‘material punishment’ as the US spitefully cut off a $70 million aid package to
Yemen and its ally, the reactionary Saudi Arabian regime, evicted thousands of
Yemeni workers from its territory. This time around, there was the same mixture
of arm twisting and threats. Tiny Mauritius, for instance, recalled its
ambassador to the UN because he had "been insufficiently slavish in supporting
Washington on the Security Council. Dollars were at stake" (The Independent, 9
November).
Even the Arab League, shamefully and blatantly at variance
with the ‘street’ throughout the region, voted for the resolution ‘in order to
prevent war’. Syria, which looked as though it would be the single member of the
Security Council to abstain or vote ‘No’, was also dragooned into going along
with the resolution at the last minute, on the same grounds that this was the
‘only’ way to prevent war. It desperately wants to avoid war against Iraq,
partly because its trade with Baghdad under the ‘oil for aid’ programme is worth
$1bn to its shaky economy. It is also prompted by the fear that if a
pro-American regime is installed in Baghdad, Syria and Iran will be next in line
for ‘regime change’. Syria also fears that Israel under the Sharon government
could use the cover of a war against Iraq as a pretext for attacking Syria.
The UN vote was not a vote for a ‘just cause’ but a product
of the post-11 September mood, the preparedness of the US to use its military,
economic and political clout to get its way. This is summed up by The
Independent’s correspondent, Rupert Cornwell: "Those who oppose America do so at
their peril… (It) brought to mind the maxim of Al Capone, a figure who Mr Bush’s
foes abroad might liken to him: ‘You can go a long way with a smile, you can go
a lot further with a smile and a gun. Except… while the gun was sticking out of
the holster, there was no smile’." Gangster metaphors for the US are much in
vogue. One correspondent to the International Herald Tribune stated that the
resolution on Iraq "is a bit like saying this to someone: ‘Either you provide us
with the proof that you are a crook – for which you will be punished of course –
or you don’t, in which case you will be severely punished for not
co-operating’."
But in the process, the UN has received a body blow to its
image as the representative of the ‘world community’, which will be compounded
in the event of war. The naïve perception of reformists, including those on the
left and even significant sections of workers and youth who look towards a body
which can represent humankind as a whole rather than the narrow interests of the
US and other powers, has been shattered. On the streets of Florence in the one
million anti-capitalist, anti-war demonstration, some of the anger of the masses
was directed as much at the UN as at the US. The US is seen to have ‘captured’
the UN and bent it to its purposes on Iraq.
One flat tyre from war?
DOES THE UN resolution therefore enhance the prospect of
war, along with ‘enhanced’ weapons inspectors? Certainly, war is now possible
and the anti-war movement will no doubt proceed on the basis that Bush and Blair
are determined to carry through regime change through a military invasion of
Iraq. But there are some ‘roadblocks’ on the ‘road map’ to war. Even Bush during
the mid-term elections and subsequently softened his language and declared that
‘regime change’ would not be inevitable if Saddam ‘complied’ with the UN
resolution. This has not pleased the ‘hawks’ who are itching for a war against
Iraq as the most effective way for the US oil monopolies to grab the lion’s
share of Iraq’s oil and at the same time demonstrate the preparedness of the US
to exercise its military might against anyone prepared to stand up to it. But
Powell and, it now seems Bush, understand that the full implementation of the UN
resolution could possibly achieve the same effect, at less expense, as an
invasion, namely such a weakening of Saddam’s regime that it will be toppled
either by an uprising or by a coup from within.
On the other hand, the weapons inspectors’ regime has the
potential for all kinds of incidents, which could trigger the process leading to
war. Under the previous inspectors regime all kinds of bizarre incidents took
place. As some of the inspectors have subsequently admitted, they were
‘intelligence gatherers’ for the US, in effect agents for the CIA. Hans Blix,
chief weapons inspector, has this time given assurances that they will not be
‘spies’ for the US but ‘independent’. That remains to be seen.
Under the previous regime there were clashes, some of them
serious, as when Iraqi troops removed materials from a site and were pursued by
weapons inspectors, which led to the Iraqi troops firing over their heads. If it
was left to the ‘hawks’ like Rumsfeld and Perle it would take a much less
serious incident than that to trigger a return to the UN and for the process of
war to be unleashed. Recently, Perle argued that one deflated tyre on a UN
vehicle would not be the trigger for war; but four deflated tyres could be
construed as a ‘conspiracy’ and the dogs of war would be unleashed! However,
given the suspicions of the US and now the UN worldwide, it would take more
serious breaches for war to be triggered. The international consciousness of,
and hostility to, the motives of the US means that it will not be easy to
contrive an incident, like the infamous Gulf of Tonkin ‘incident’ at the time of
the Vietnam War, to justify an all-out war.
The final form of the UN resolution is a concession to the
‘two stage’ argument the French pursued from the outset. This means that any
‘material breach’ must be reported to the UN and only then would a decision be
taken, either by the UN or subsequently by the US unilaterally. Moreover, as we
have seen, the UN resolution can mean ‘all things to all men’ with the US voting
for it as a stage towards possibly triggering war and others, such as France,
etc, as well as the Arab states, believing that Iraqi ‘compliance’ will rule out
the prospect of war. In other words, the alliance that has been constructed
through the UN could fracture at the moment a decision is arrived at to prepare
for or avoid war.
At the same time, there is a limited ‘time line’ in which an
effective military strike could be organised against Iraq. After the spring of
next year the heat in the Iraqi desert combined with the necessary special
equipment that must be worn by US coalition combat troops for protection against
chemical and biological attacks, makes it prohibitive to go to war then.
Therefore, if a war is to take place it must be before the end of March 2003 (or
be delayed until much later in the year). Yet it is not at all certain that the
weapons inspectors will have completed their examination for the process of war
to begin.
Another complicating factor in the Bush administration’s war
plans include the increasing awareness, not least amongst the US population,
that Iraq is not the "present and immediate danger" to them pictured by Bush.
Bin Laden, still alive it seems and uncaptured, is such a threat. The tape
released by him in November praising previous terrorist incidents, in Karachi
against the French, in Tunisia against Germans, in Bali primarily aimed at
Australians, and in Moscow, and promising similar retribution against Britain
and Italy in particular, is itself testimony to the failure of the Bush regime’s
‘war against terror’. There is now a widespread perception that Iraq has been
singled out not because of its part in the ‘axis of evil’ but because of the
pressure of the voracious oil, gas and energy capitalists which underpin the
Bush regime, who are looking to carve out for themselves the lion’s share of the
post-Saddam oil industry. North Korea is more of a threat given its admission of
a capability to produce nuclear weapons, and yet no war is promised against the
heirs of Kim Il-sung.
Unknown equations of battle
DESPITE THE SPECULATION about Russia and the Caspian Sea
supplanting Saudi Arabia as the petrol pump for the US economy, the Saudis are
still the major oil supplier for the US and world capitalism. Fully 25% of the
world’s known oil reserves are possessed by Saudi Arabia compared to 11% for
Iraq and 5% in Russia (whose oil is relatively expensive because of the costs of
extraction).
The Persian Gulf, therefore, remains of vital strategic
interest for US imperialism. It is, as this conflict over Iraq shows, prepared
to go to war to defend this vital interest. It is this which motivates the
bloodthirsty and pro-war ‘hawks’ of Rumsfeld and co. They believe that a quick
victory through ‘blitzkrieg’ methods involving no more than 50,000 troops could
topple the Saddam regime. However, the US joint chiefs of staff, encouraged by
Colin Powell, have won support from Bush for the traditional military doctrine
of the US of ‘overwhelming military force’, involving the deployment of at least
200,000 and possibly a quarter of a million troops, to overthrow Saddam if
required.
Saddam, on the other hand, by ultimately accepting the UN
resolution, has opted for a humiliating retreat in the face of US power. He
realises that in a full-frontal attack the US, which has enhanced its military
prowess since the Gulf war while Iraq’s military force has been weakened, will
ultimately prevail in a head-on trial of strength. Therefore, somewhat like
Muhammed Ali in his boxing match against George Foreman – the ‘rumble in the
jungle’ in Zaire in 1975 – Saddam is attempting to deploy ‘rope a dope’ tactics.
This involves lying on the ‘ropes’ for a number of rounds, taking all the
punches and delivering the ‘knockout’ blow when the opponent tires. The problem
with this ‘contest’ is that it is like pitting a child with a peashooter against
the world heavyweight champion. It is ‘no contest’.
Nevertheless, it is not at all certain that in a war the
weaker power (Iraq) cannot inflict serious blows on imperialism which could
rebound against the Bush regime and US imperialism. The contest between Iraq and
the US will not be a ‘cakewalk’, as claimed by some of the more bellicose hawks.
Rumsfeld has speculated that a war would be over in a matter of weeks, ‘at most
five months’. It is possible that, such is the suffering of the Iraqi people and
the hatred of the Saddam regime, that uprisings of the Shias in the south and
the Kurds in the north would coalesce with the resignation and unwillingness to
fight of the Sunnis and other tribes in the central part of the country. In this
situation the Iraqi regime could collapse.
But this scenario is not at all certain, given the
widespread perception of the Iraqi people that it is not just Saddam that the US
is after but also the natural resources of the country to exploit. Moreover,
Iraq has been the cradle of Arab nationalism, an attack upon which will have
enormous repercussions throughout the Arab world and the Middle East in general.
It is therefore not excluded that the Iraqi army or sections of it around the
Republican Guard will fight and particularly in any conflict in and around
Baghdad. The Iraqi military is, as the Washington Post argues, "but a shadow of
what it was at the start of the Gulf war". It probably has less than half of the
million plus troops it had then. The 300,000 strong largely conscript army may
crack quickly, particularly under massive aerial bombardment. But there are
still 80,000 troops in the Republican Guard and Special Republican Guard, who
are a praetorian guard for Saddam and pledged to fight to the death to repel the
US. They come largely from Saddam’s own tribe. One US four-star general
commented to the Washington Post: "I don’t think the folks I’m dealing with are
thinking this is going to be a cakewalk; it never is. Anybody with a gun in his
hand who is defending his town or his tribe can be a pretty tough opponent
especially when he is in his own backyard".
Former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter contrasts the
Saddam regime to Milosevic’s Yugoslavia. He wrote: "Milosevic’s cronies were all
about wealth. With Iraq’s regime it’s all about the tribe, the family. It’s
about influence and pride". Moreover, Tariq Aziz, Iraq’s deputy prime minister,
has pointedly warned that not just Iraq but US forces and its ‘friends’ in the
region will pay a price in a war. Therefore the ‘nightmare scenario’ of
house-to-house battles with mounting casualties of US troops as well as carnage
for the population of Baghdad is possible. If there is enormous unease in the US
now, with the return of hundreds, or thousands of US body bags an explosion of
rage will ensue. The ghosts of Vietnam have not been expunged from the
consciousness of the US population and could come back to haunt Bush in the
event of a less than complete and relatively unbloody conclusion to a war.
Opening the ‘gates of hell’
THE REVERBERATIONS OF an attack on Iraq, moreover, will be
immediate and massive in the Middle East. Indeed, such a war will play right
into the hands of bin Laden and the right-wing political Islamists. Former US
security adviser Sandy Berger has correctly pointed out that bin Laden’s real
‘twin towers’ were not in New York but the "regimes of Pakistan and Saudi
Arabia". A direct consequence of the attack on Afghanistan has been the
burgeoning of the Islamists in Pakistan who triumphantly came second even in the
rigged elections of President Musharraf in October.
The Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI) warned that
one of the consequences of the Afghan War could be the ‘Algerianisation’ of
Pakistan. This could now come to fruition if the Islamists are prevented from
entering the government. Their counterparts in Algeria won the elections in 1992
but they were subsequently ‘cancelled’ by the Algerian army. This in turn has
led to the bloody terrorist and counter-terrorist war, with 100,000 victims
since then. This could be the grizzly legacy left to the Pakistani people from
Bush and Blair’s ‘war on terror’ in Afghanistan.
But it would be as nothing compared to consequences in the
Arab world as a whole in the event of an all-out war against Iraq. The chairman
of the Arab League warned some months ago that it would open the ‘gates of
hell’. This was followed in November by Prince al-Hassan bin Talal of Jordan
warning that the US’s strategy could "lead to a domino effect of regime change
in the region". He meant by this above all Jordan. This regime is sitting on a
social volcano. The city of Maan, for instance, has been convulsed recently by
mass conflict, with the population defending ‘Islamists’ from the troops of the
Hashemite monarchy. The population of Jordan, half of whom are Palestinian,
already outraged by the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, will unleash its fury
against the regime if it backs the US, never mind if it gives facilities, in any
attack on Iraq. The same goes for Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Then US imperialism
could face the definitive nightmare scenario, of an uprising to overthrow the
Saudi monarchy and its replacement by a new regime in which ‘state terror’ could
be unleashed against the US and all symbols of US imperialism.
Not the least effect could be the dire economic consequences
which have now been pointed to by William Nordhaus of Yale University. He has
explained that even a ‘clean’ war is likely to incur costs for which no amount
of increased Iraqi oil production could compensate. George Perry, an analyst
with the Brookings Institute, has drawn up three scenarios, the middle one of
which suggests "the tripling of oil prices to $75 a barrel. That would almost
certainly push the world into recession" (The Independent, 16 November).
This war, moreover, would not be financed by the ‘allies’ of
US imperialism as in 1991. Then, Japan, Germany and Saudi Arabia underwrote the
costs of the war, leaving Washington with just over $2bn to pay. The ‘baseline
cost’ of an initial military campaign is put by Nordhaus at $50bn. A post-war
military occupation of Iraq would mean additional expenditure "anywhere from
$75bn to $500bn" (£47bn to £316bn). Of course, US imperialism promised a massive
injection of cash into Afghanistan. In the event, a mere $10 million for
‘economic redevelopment’ has been received by Afghanistan compared to $13bn
spent on the bombings and Special Forces operations. The dream of a democratic,
peaceful and prosperous post-Saddam Iraq is precisely that, a dream, a mirage.
The issues of war and peace are finely balanced now. A war
still seems likely, but it is not at all certain for the reasons described. If,
against the odds, war is postponed or delayed by Saddam and the pressure of
world public opinion, this could represent a severe setback for the Bush regime
unless Bush achieves his objective of ‘regime change’, the overthrow of Saddam,
without a war. If, on the other hand, they launch an invasion of Iraq to topple
Saddam, or the other variant, manage to topple him without a war but by
provoking an uprising or coup on the backs of the work of the weapons
inspectors, this in no way guarantees a victory without costs. The world, and
particularly the Middle East, as well as Asia and the Muslim world as a whole,
will be in turmoil. The scene will be set for further terrorist outrages which
in turn could feed the war machine of the Bush regime for use in the Middle East
and elsewhere.
Moreover, the dire underlying economic crisis will come to
the fore even in the event that George Bush junior carries through what his
father started in 1991 and topples Saddam. Bush senior won the war but lost the
presidential elections which followed because of the economic crisis of the
early 1990s. The US economic position is far more dire today, in some ways
potentially one of the worst economic positions in its history. It is this fact,
and particularly the suffering of the US working class and sections of the
middle class that results from this, which will undermine the Bush regime.
The worldwide anti-war movement must seek to stay the hand
of Bush and Blair and those driving towards war. Ultimately, however, only by
changing society, carrying through the socialist reorganisation of the world,
would it be possible to eliminate the causes of war, capitalism itself.
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