The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.61/No.41           November 24, 1997 
 
 
Stop U.S. War Moves Against Iraqi People!  
Working people the world over should denounce the latest resolution by the United Nations Security Council, engineered by Washington, that bans Iraqi officials from traveling abroad because they exercise their sovereign right to expel U.S. "inspectors." These U.S. government stooges are at the center of provocations against Baghdad used to justify maintenance of a draconian embargo that has crippled the Iraqi economy for seven years and has caused hundreds of thousands of deaths and suffering by the Iraqi people.

The labor movement should also protest the threat of further punitive measures mentioned in the Security Council resolution and the more explicit threats by Washington of possible military strikes.

The goal of the Democratic/Republican bipartisan war threats is to reverse Washington's failure to accomplish one of its central goals during the 1990 - 91 assault on Iraq: bolster U.S. dominance in the Arab-Persian gulf region, which has some 65 percent of the world's known oil reserves. To accomplish this aim, the U.S. rulers used their military might at the opening of this decade to overthrow the Saddam Hussein regime and replace it with one that for all practical purposes would be an imperialist protectorate, subservient to Washington. That's what the purpose of the U.S. war drive against Iraq was all about - not to liberate Kuwait, bring democracy to Iraq or the Arabian peninsula. And that is the purpose of the current sanctions, not to protect Americans and the rest of humanity from the fantastic threat of Iraqi nerve gas attacks.

But the U.S. rulers walk around with broken teeth since the 1991 war, which showed clearly in the recent UN Security Council vote. Saddam Hussein is still in power and Washington is unable to muster the international support it wants for its war aims. Paris, the imperialist power in Europe most at odds with U.S. foreign policy, is not going along. Moscow, which opposes NATO expansion toward its borders, is also balking. Beijing, which has clashed with the U.S. government over Taiwan in recent years, refuses to support another military assault on Iraq. And the decision of Cairo and other capitalist regimes in the Middle East to distance themselves from the U.S. initiatives indicate the inability of Washington and Tel Aviv to squash the Palestinian struggle for self-determination and the expectations it arouses among the Arab toilers in the region.

In other words, U.S. imperialism is weaker and the world relationship of class forces has shifted against its favor since 1990. But the sharper competition with rival imperialist powers, vying to grab markets and control resources in a world where the capitalists' profits are increasingly threatened by a deflationary collapse, propels the U.S. rulers toward more military adventures.

This is a time to organize protests and demand:

Repeal the travel ban on Iraqi officials and all the sanctions against the Iraqi people!

U.S. hands off Iraq!  
 
 
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