The U.S. ruling class is cold-bloodedly laying the groundwork for a massive military assault on the Iraqi people. Washington is building up its forces in the region, setting the political stage for the assault, and attempting to demonize the Iraqi government to justify its imperial designs.

Washington’s bipartisan course toward war in the Arab-Persian Gulf is part of its broader war drive and militarization campaign. Along this trajectory, the U.S. rulers are making sure that no American soldier will ever come before an international war crimes tribunal; probing to include countries with the potential to build crude cruise missiles as targets for "preemptive strikes;" proposing to deploy U.S. Special Operation forces to carry out covert military assassinations abroad; and announcing matter-of-factly that the U.S. armed forces will occupy Afghanistan for the foreseeable future.

An imperialist war drive does not take place only in foreign lands. Whether they are waging war or heading toward it, the U.S. rulers press forward the militarization of the United States; try to curtail workers’ rights, including the right to strike; and probe to institute a national ID card and other repressive measures. The establishment of the U.S. Northern Command, the jailing of citizens without charges or access to a lawyer, and the federalization of the police forces run parallel to the military assaults on working people abroad.

In 1990–91 the U.S. rulers launched their brutal war against Iraq under the guise that they were defending the sovereignty of Kuwait and preventing Iraqi president Saddam Hussein from dominating Middle East oil reserves. A decade later it is Washington that has thousands of troops in Kuwait, along with a government beholden to it. And it is the U.S. imperialists who greedily anticipate gaining control of the region’s oil fields--and dealing blows to their imperialist rivals to boot.

The U.S. war drive has nothing to do with the September 11 attacks. Rather, it represents an acceleration of what the imperialists had been doing beforehand. The war preparations against Iraq register the U.S. rulers’ attempt to finish the business they began in the Gulf War, by imposing a protectorate in Baghdad beholden to their interests. They are driven to war today for the same reason they carried out that slaughter: they seek to change the relationship of forces in the region and to shore up their declining empire.

There is much that working people and revolutionary youth can do today to oppose imperialism and its war drive. There are struggles against the bosses and their government to join--from those of farmworkers and dockworkers in California to hotel workers in Illinois. Anyone standing on the front lines against the employers’ assaults is open to learning about and solidarizing with others who face a common enemy.

Bringing the Militant, Perspectiva Mundial, and Pathfinder books to fellow workers, farmers, and youth is essential in widening the fight against imperialism. They contain a scientific explanation of the world and provide a revolutionary working-class course in defense of working people.

As a number of articles in this week’s issue point out, the Socialist Workers campaigns are another way to educate and organize together with anyone who is part of the working-class resistance today. Campaigning with young socialists who support the socialist candidates and becoming part of this effort is an effective way to build a revolutionary leadership.

The future of fascism, wars, and economic catastrophe that the superwealthy minority holds for working people points to the need to wage a revolutionary struggle to take power out of the hands of the U.S. war makers. This is the only road toward building a society based on human needs, rather than the profits of the few.
 
 
Related article:
U.S. rulers press war drive on several fronts  
 
 
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