On the direction of the peace movement

[reachout]

http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=4775§ionID=15


Questions for the Peace Movement
On the Occupation of Iraq

by Joanne Landy; New Politics; December 30, 2003


In February 2003, millions of people in the United States and around the world protested the impending U.S.-led war on Iraq. But today, even among opponents of the war, there is widespread confusion on the question of the ongoing occupation. Many who opposed the war before it began now argue that Yes, it was a mistake to go into Iraq in the first place, but now that were there, we have to stay its our responsibility to ensure democracy to the Iraqi people and protect them from chaos and civil war, as well as to promote global peace and stability.Democratic presidential candidates Howard Dean and Carol Moseley Braun make this argument, and it is an approach shared by many nonpoliticians as well.

In my view, this line of reasoning is seriously flawed, and leads to disastrous consequences; it ignores the deeply destructive, reactionary and inhumane character of the American role in Iraq, and in the world. However, at the same time that the peace movement opposes war and the continued U.S. military presence in Iraq, it also needs to address the question of how to respond to ruthless dictators like Saddam Hussein, to terrorism and to Islamic political fundamentalism. To clarify how to think about the occupation, it is useful to go back and review the different approaches within the peace movement before the United States declared war. Some, like the International Action Committee and ANSWER, absolutely refused to criticize Saddam Hussein, seeing him, as they had Slobodan Milosevic, as an antiimperialist leader to be defended, even celebrated. A friend of mine who went from New York to an antiwar demonstration in Washington, DC on an official ANSWER bus was horrified when, in a manner reminiscent of the Stalinists in the 1930s, the organizers treated the riders to a film which included, among other things, praise for Saddam Husseins education system presumed evidence that the benevolence of the government outweighed or compensated for any possible excesses. Fortunately, although ANSWER was and is very well organized and has sponsored several large antiwar demonstrations, it does not actually represent the outlook of most peace activists. Another view was held by the many establishment critics of the Bush administration and substantial elements of the peace movement who argued against the war on containmentgrounds. Saddam Hussein could be successfully contained by sanctions, no-fly zones, inspections, and the threat of more outright military intervention if he didnt comply, so actual war was unnecessary and, if unilateral, especially unwise. There are basic problems with this approach: first, it accepted as a given Saddam Husseins continuing hold on power and vicious repression of his people, and second, it left in place the various mechanisms of coercion, power and aggression of the United States, operating either directly, or indirectly through the United Nations Security Council.

Rather than accepting the status quo on both sides and trying to simply manage or contain it, there were those in the antiwar movement who argued that indeed there was a need for regime change in Iraq and in dictatorial and repressive countries throughout the world but that this change needed to be achieved by the people in those countries themselves, rather than by imperial power. The way people in the United States could encourage such change, these peace activists argued, was not through supporting military intervention, but by promoting change at home that could generate a radically new U.S. foreign policy, one capable of politically undermining rather than strengthening authoritarian governments and movements. For example, the Campaign for Peace and Democracy (of which I am a codirector, along with Thomas Harrison and Jennifer Scarlott) circulated a statement We Oppose Both Saddam Hussein and the U.S. War on Iraq: A call for a new, democratic U.S. foreign policy(www.cpdweb.org or see New Politics, no. 34, winter 2003, p. 16). This statement gained over 5000 signatures in the course of just a few weeks and was signed by major progressive figures such as Michael Albert, Medea Benjamin, Noam Chomsky, Barbara Ehrenreich, Robin Kelley, Naomi Klein, Adolph Reed, Edward Said, Stephen Shalom, Cornel West and Howard Zinn. It called for the U.S. to adopt a foreign policy that would respond to Saddam Hussein and the threat posed to all of us by terrorist networks such as al-Qaeda, and by weapons of mass destruction...

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Those who see the U.S. occupation of Iraq as creating the foundation for a democratic Iraq need to face the reality of the role of U.S. troops in the country. As Thomas Crampton pointed out in his October 14, 2003 article in the New York Times (Iraqi Official Urges Caution on Imposing Free Market), the economic plan the United States is imposing makes even some of its hand-picked Iraqi leaders uneasy. Iraqi enterprises have been largely in the hands of the state, but the U.S. plans a rapid privatization that will mean huge numbers of unemployed, and that will leave the nations wealth free from meaningful social control. Restrictions on foreign investment have been lifted in all economic sectors apart from oil and other natural resources involving primary extraction and initial processing (many suspect that this exception is merely tactical in light of strong Iraqi public opinion about preserving these resources as a public asset, and that restrictions on foreign investment in this area will be lifted in due time); import duties have been cut to 5 percent, thus threatening most Iraqi enterprises; and the maximum corporate tax rate has been set at 15 percent. In a move that Bush and his friends have not yet dared to try at home, a flat-tax system has been introduced, thus ensuring that wealthier Iraqi individuals and companies wont pay their fair share.

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[Martin Eden]

1. MUST READ for PROGRESSIVES in the PEACE movement

This article from the Campaign for Peace and Democracy is long, but it articulates some very good thinking on the part of the peace movement.

Here's another snip:

U.S. Troops Out Now

Western imperialism and its retrograde opponents have a symbiotic relationship in which they mutually strengthen and reinforce one another. For example, by providing an anti-terroristrationale, the murderous attack on the World Trade Center was a gift to those who had long wanted to expand and fortify U.S. military power around the world and to mobilize a hitherto skeptical public opinion behind an aggressive imperial agenda. But the opposite is also the case. The war against Iraq, U.S. military aggression and support for dictators and repressive regimes, and the de facto alliance between the Bush administration and Israels Sharon government, create not only waves of new recruits for terrorism and political fundamentalists but also widespread acquiescence or even outright support for these elements among ordinary people in the Middle East.

There is a desperate need to build a militant democratic left in the Middle East, and advocates of a new democratic U.S. foreign policy can only succeed over time if they are able to link up with and support the victory of fledgling progressive forces in Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Egypt and throughout the Middle East and around the world. But a precondition for making these links is an unambiguous independence from and opposition to U.S. imperial power. Some in the U.S. and Britain who opposed the war today support the occupation as an unfortunate necessity now that Saddam Hussein has been toppled. And others formally oppose the occupation, but nonetheless also oppose the slogan of Troops Out Now which can only mean that they support Troops Out Later When Some Conditions Are Metand in the meantime U.S., British and other Coalition forces should stay in Iraq.

These reluctant supporters of imperial military power justify their position on the grounds that if U.S. forces leave now there may be a Baathist return to power, the introduction of a harsh Shiite theocracy, chaos or civil war. One or another of these might indeed happen if the U.S. leaves, but the fact is that the longer the U.S. stays, the more powerful the reactionary forces become, and the more likely they are to win out in any future conflict. A New York Times story of November 27, for example, notes that Moderate Iraqis cooperating with the Americans say the young men of Mosul are increasingly heeding the calls of militant clerics.(Dexter Filkins, Attacks on GIs in Mosul Rise as Good Will Fades) What exists now in Iraq can be described as a form of chaos, and further chaos and civil war with repressive forces leading in contention is precisely what continuing U.S. occupation is breeding, not preventing.

Another justification sometimes given for the U.S. keeping its military in Iraq for nowis that withdrawal might mean that Iraq will split into three parts: a predominantly Kurdish north, a largely Shiite south and the remaining center of the country, where most of the Sunnis live. This split may well happen once the U.S. leaves, but it would not necessarily be a retrograde development. The country of Iraq was an artificial colonial invention in the first place, and has no automatic reason to remain united, though the breakup of the country would obviously raise crucial questions of minority rights in each of the three new nations. Peace activists and democrats should keep an open mind about the necessity of maintaining the territorial integrityof Iraq; given the freedom to choose, the peoples of Iraq may not want to live in one country, and if they dont, the challenge will be to foster a breakup that is as peaceful and mindful of minority rights as possible.

In response to the unexpectedly high level of resistance to the U.S.-led occupation in Iraq, there are signs that the United States may decide to desert its handpicked Iraqi Governing Council and declare an end to the occupation as early as June of 2004. But even if the U.S. resorts to this option, this does not mean that it will abandon its hope of continuing to dominate Iraq. The Bush administration has made it clear that it intends to install permanent U.S. bases in Iraq, even if the formal occupation ends, and Washington will use every resource in its arsenal from troops to economic pressure to insure that whatever government comes to power is subservient to U.S. interests.