The political blow suffered by imperialism, and its increasingly palpable vulnerability, strengthens the hand of all working people and the oppressed who are engaged in struggle. Those opposed to the latest war moves should not pause in organizing public protests to raise the political price the wealthy rulers will pay for their actions and to educate others about why Washington is the real threat to humanity.

The imperial rulers' latest fiasco confirms the fact that Washington indeed broke its teeth on Iraq during the 1990-91 Persian Gulf War. In that bloody assault on the Iraqi people, aimed at overthrowing the government and imposing a submissive, pro-U.S. regime, they failed to reach any of their objectives. Instead, the war led to greater instability and heightened all the conflicts and problems facing imperialism in the Middle East. This accurate assessment is presented in "The Opening Guns of World War III: Washington's Assault on Iraq," the lead article in issue no. 7 of the Marxist magazine New International.

Washington's recent war moves further fractured the "coalition" that had been cobbled together at the time of the Gulf War. Among the imperialist powers, only London - with social democrat Anthony Blair at the helm -stuck with its stronger U.S. ally. Paris has pursued its own interests, pressing for easing the sanctions on Iraq in order to get its own piece of the Mideast pie. Moscow too has balked at tightening the embargo. U.S.-Israeli frictions have only sharpened, as infighting threatens to split the ruling party in Tel Aviv. Even the most pro-U.S. regimes in the region, from Saudi Arabia to Kuwait, refused to cooperate with Washington's war plans, leading to an overwhelming boycott of the U.S.- crafted summit in Qatar that left U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright as the humiliated star of a nonevent.

The U.S. rulers and their partners in crime have an increasingly hard time covering up the truth about what the Gulf War really was - a one-sided slaughter of 150,000 Iraqi workers and farmers. They find it even harder to hide the facts about their embargo, which has led to death and severe malnutrition for hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children. In face of this brutality, many working people rightly say: Why should we listen to Washington - which has more chemical weapons than anyone, and is the only government ever to have unleashed nuclear bombs - give lectures to others about weapons of mass destruction?

The reasons why the imperialist powers are perpetually driven to war are also more nakedly visible today, as the currency meltdown in Asia sends shock waves throughout the capitalist world. Washington, the world's final empire, is seeking to salvage its declining capitalist order, which today is wracked by plunging profit rates, financial volatility, and social catastrophe in country after country.

The U.S.-British defeat in Iraq is bad news for Clinton, Blair, and presidential aspirant Albert Gore. But it's good news for Palestinians fighting for their self-determination, for Cuban workers and farmers deepening the socialist course of their revolution, and for all working people who are resisting capitalist austerity drives. Fighters everywhere can sense the vulnerability of our common enemy - the imperialist rulers are not as powerful as they pretend.

At the same time, these developments are blowing wind in the sails of budding fascist politicians like Patrick Buchanan and his America First banner - a deadly threat to working people.

Fighting workers and young rebels should keep joining speakouts and picket lines to demand Washington get all its troops and warplanes out of the Middle East, and to call for the immediate, unconditional lifting of the embargo against Iraq. This is the time, and special opportunity, for socialist workers and others to step up sales of the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial as well as New International no. 7 and The Changing Face of U.S. Politics - on the job, at plant gates, at labor actions, and in working-class communities.

For those who are repelled by the increasing horrors of capitalism, this is the time to join the Young Socialists or the Socialist Workers Party and dedicate your life to the revolutionary fight for a world fit for humanity.  
 
 
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