The recent events in the Persian Gulf highlight the fact that the U.S. military "victory" proclaimed by former president George Bush against the Iraqi regime and an imperialist-imposed "peace" is further from Washington's grasp than ever. The U.S. rulers' goal to set up a reliable regime in Baghdad subservient to U.S. imperialism to advance their interests in the Mideast against their rivals in Paris, London, Tokyo, and Bonn has been dealt another blow. The so-called "coalition" the U.S. government has tried to cobble together to support its bloody slaughter against the Iraqi workers and peasants is in shambles.

At the same time, Washington is using its only card: employing its military might in the Middle East in an attempt to minimize damage to the U.S. rulers' control of oil reserves in the region and to prevent the shifting of the relationship of forces further to the detriment of Wall Street.

Some capitalist politicians berated Clinton for allowing the "coalition" to fall apart. But this is the natural course of intensifying interimperialist conflicts that flow from the depression conditions the world capitalist system is mired in. London was the only capitalist government to fully back Clinton's air strikes against Baghdad.

Meanwhile, Saddam Hussein's regime keeps going and going and going, like the Eveready bunny - outlasting the Bush administration, former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev, and now possibly Russian president Boris Yeltsin and Clinton as well. Baghdad has been able to consolidate more ground control over northern Iraq since the air strikes were launched. Its increasing influence in the north can be seen in the recent lifting of Baghdad's trade embargo against the Kurdish areas.

The U.S. military assaults were conducted out of weakness. Clinton had to ask the Kuwaiti government - one of the most servile regimes on this planet - for permission to send troops there and had to tolerate a humiliating waiting period for a few days before he got the green light for the deployment.

The governments of Jordan and Turkey denied Washington permission to enter their airspace to transport cruise missiles. The Saudi government allows U.S. aircraft to operate out of an air base in Dhahran, but the regime would not let Washington's warplanes fly over its territory in order to strike Iraq.

Washington's CIA operation in northern Iraq to destabilize Baghdad has also collapsed. What has been revealed is the Clinton administration's cynical and hypocritical attempt to manipulate the Kurdish peoples' just struggle for self- determination. Hundreds of thousands of Kurds are facing potential famine with scarcely a whisper from any big-business politician calling for opening the borders or demanding food aid for the Kurdish people.

While the missile strikes have stopped, the Clinton administration is on a war drive in Iraq. Thousands of troops were just dispatched from Fort Hood, Texas, to Kuwait. Washington's military hardware in the region is now augmented with Stealth bombers, a new aircraft carrier group, and dozens of additional fighter jets. The enforcement of the "no-fly" zones covering the majority of Iraqi airspace - a clear violation of the country's sovereignty - continues to serve as a ready-made provocation for renewed bombings. And the criminal economic sanctions, enforced by the U.S. armed forces, continue to cause disease and death for hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.

That's why fighters against imperialist war should read, discuss, and distribute the New International magazines that feature the articles "The Opening Guns of World War III: Washington's assault on Iraq" and "Imperialism's March toward Fascism and War." U.S. Hands Off the Mideast is a valuable complement to these political weapons, which are essential to understanding the instability in the Persian Gulf and necessity of the capitalist rulers attempts to assert their domination in the region.

Forums, classes, and other public meetings can attract new layers of workers and young rebels who will be eager to get an explanation of what lies behind unfolding events and thus be better equipped to join in protests demanding U.S. and other imperialist troops out the Mideast now!  
 
 
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