By Ibrahim Aoude

Introduction

The American occupation of Iraq and the ongoing war there compel revolutionaries to examine the impact of the conflict on American society and the relationship of our class to the ruling class.

The invasion of Iraq was part of the U.S. strategy to protect its dominant position in the midst of global capitalist crisis. In that crisis, the capitalists are displacing workers with robotics and computers, thus driving down the value of labor, cheapening commodities and services, and spreading poverty and social destruction. The ensuing competition for markets has further widened the gap between the rich and poor worldwide. The integration of the global economy and the political struggle for control and domination are intensifying and are spreading instability throughout the world.

The depth and breadth of this crisis has not spared the main capitalist countries, including the United States. The past thirty years have been devastating for U.S. workers. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the result of the deep, widespread cuts in the safety net has become clear.  As a consequence, the ruling class must prevent workers from understanding that the root of their problems is the capitalist system.  In this situation, fascism is the only route for the capitalists to take to achieve their goals.

Meanwhile our forces are scattered, and our class is disoriented by all the ruling-class propaganda thrown at it daily. The stakes are high both for the ruling class and for the growing class of propertyless.  Given this situation, it becomes essential to determine the role of the League in the developing social struggles.

Developments since the late 1980s

How has this situation come about? By the late 1980s, profound changes in geopolitical alignments were beginning to emerge. The Afghan war and the subsequent demise of the Eastern Bloc were major defeats for the U.S.S.R., which by then had become a shell of its old self. China was beginning its rise as a significant economic and military power. The European Union had received a boost of strength from the demise of the Eastern Bloc, especially from the unification of Germany. India had been showing signs of economic and military revitalization. In the Middle East, the end of the Iraq-Iran war had placed the U.S. and Israel in a favorable regional position, though the Lebanese civil war still raged on, as did the first Palestinian Intifada that began in December 1987.

It was in this environment that the Saddam Hussein regime embarked on the 1990 invasion of Kuwait to improve Iraq’s regional position as a means towards striking a better bargain with the U.S. But under the elder Bush, the U.S. had other plans. It wanted to maintain its relationship with the weaker powers in the Gulf – Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE, and the other sheikhdoms. A more powerful Iraq sitting on millions of barrels of oil, its hostile position to Israel, and the possibility that it might deal independently with the U.S.S.R., China, or the European Union ran contrary to U.S. strategic and geopolitical interests. Consequently, the U.S. decided to strike back. The outcome was a crippled Iraq and a dominant United States.

From this commanding position, the U.S. sought to rearrange relations in the Middle East to improve its position even further. The 1991 Madrid Conference was inaugurated to establish peace between the Arabs and Israel, but the way it was conducted quickly demonstrated the centrality of the Middle East to U.S. global strategy – control the oil and squeeze out all international competitors. The U.S. was in no mood to bring about a real peace that rested on justice for the Palestinians and was supportive of democracy for the Arab peoples. Instead, the pillars of that peace were to be the rotten, dictatorial Arab governments, such as those in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Syria.

Again it appeared that U.S. policy was ascendant and that U.S. strategy was about to achieve its goal of a compliant Middle East. It was as though a new American century was about to begin. However, contradictions quickly asserted themselves.

Across the Middle East, the dislocations of a globalizing economy, the growing poverty, and the unresolved demands of the voiceless gave rise to a growing instability in the region. The Egyptian government battled political Islamists in the streets, Iraqi society was almost broken by U.S./U.N. sanctions, Israel undermined the Oslo Accords by expanding settlements on the West Bank and Gaza, and as a result a second Palestinian Intifada broke out in September, 2000. This instability was worsened by the geopolitical maneuvering of the U.S., such as its move into Saudi Arabia and its assistance to  the Kurds in northern Iraq.

But those developments were mild compared to the instability engendered as a result of the events of September 11, 2001.

September 11th and its Aftermath

The September 11th attacks gave the U.S. capitalists the excuse they wanted to embark on an essentially unilateral offensive that  overthrew the Taliban in Afghanistan and later the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq.  Once again it appeared that the U.S would be able to stabilize the situation.

However, nothing has proven farther from the truth. Today, the U.S.  occupation of Iraq is in deep trouble. In fact, the resistance in Iraq has thus far been able to thoroughly frustrate U.S. global strategy. A military strategic stalemate has impeded the U.S. from achieving its goal of domination. Instead, the U.S. has been blocked from employing an integrated (political, diplomatic and military) strategy against China, Russia, and perhaps India, its rising competitors in that large great swath of the globe. The financial costs of major adventures beyond the Middle East while that region is still in flames would simply be prohibitive.

The current Middle East adventures have a cost to U.S. society that goes well beyond the numbers of American dead and wounded. But the U.S.  capitalist class is willing to pay the price with American and Iraqi blood in pursuit of what it terms “American interests” – interests which are really those of the transnational corporations.

Costs of Empire

Hundreds of billions of dollars have already been spent on the U.S.  military occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan (and more billions are dedicated to continuing those occupations) at a time when every vestige of the government’s responsibility for American society is being eliminated. This is being compounded by the rapid development of the U.S. into a militarized society, one in which the military assumes more of the role of police and civilian authorities at all levels of government. (A look at the situation after Hurricane Katrina gives an indication of the way in which the a new, aggressive domestic role of for the military is being normalized.)

The ominous curtailment of civil liberties and bourgeois democratic rights have important implications for revolutionary politics. The deteriorating situation in Iraq has led to the growth of the domestic resistance to the war. Moreover, this growing resistance compels the ruling class to tighten the noose around the neck of the popular revolutionary movement that is developing in response to its policies, domestic and foreign.

The situation is so grave that the capitalists have even begun squabbling among themselves. Of course, they have no disagreement on goals, simply on methods. A section of the ruling class – represented by both Republicans and Democrats – has been vigorously opposing the Bush Administration on a variety of questions from the deepening deficit, to the growing size of the government, to the social and political instability caused by the war and the weak economy.

The Democratic Party now poses as the savior of American society from this mess. It believes that it has to stop the Bush Administration from dragging capitalism and U.S. global power into the mud. The Democrats’ solution is, on the one hand, to “pacify” Iraq through a multi-national effort and, on the other, to give some concessions to American workers so as to prevent the development of a serious movement against capitalist rule. Given the breakdown in society and the sharpening of the divisions between workers and capitalists, the Democratic strategy will not work to either prevent the growing instability in the world or resolve the problems faced by the workers today. Workers and their movement will have to organize and struggle in their own defense. Given this context, what are the tasks of the revolutionaries?

Our Tasks

The U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq has furthered the economic and political instability in the world today, the growing dispossession of the world’s peoples, and the deteriorating conditions of American workers. Now Hurricane Katrina has shown the world clearly how the U.S.  ruling class views the American people. The anger against the government and the demand for practical answers to the problems people face are spreading.

Therefore, the development of a class ideology is becoming possible on a mass scale. What is needed is the development of the political tactics for building a revolutionary movement based on  – and connected to – the everyday practical questions the class is facing. The League must connect with revolutionaries at the point at which the revolutionaries are educating and politicizing those around them in struggle. Once that connection is made, it is crucial that we educate our class about the root of the problem – the destructive nature of capitalism – and equip the revolutionary leaders of the class with the necessary knowledge to guard against the derailment of the movement by the agents of the enemy class. We must show the revolutionary leaders that they cannot win without transforming society and that revolutionaries must join together in an organization that aims everything it does toward that goal.

Ibrahim Aoude is a member of the LRNA and can be reached ataoude@hawaii.edu

 

January.2006.Vol16.Ed1
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