The return of the UN snoops to Baghdad - under the guise of "hunting for weapons of mass destruction" - sets the stage for more provocations, which Washington will use as a pretext to launch a military assault.
Their "aggressive inspections" have nothing to do with searching for chemical or biological weapons.
The presence of these provocateurs in Iraq serves the U.S. rulers' propaganda for pressing their dominance in the Arab- Persian Gulf, trampling on the sovereignty of Iraq, and paving the way for bombing raids.
Working people around the world, and especially in the United States, need to demand these "inspectors" get out of Iraq, that the criminal embargo strangling Iraq be lifted, and that Washington get all its troops out of the Middle East.
The Clinton administration and other ruling-class figures have begun to more openly float the idea of overthrowing of the Saddam Hussein government. "Unfortunately the only sure way to reach that goal is for American troops to invade Iraq and capture Baghdad, a risky prospect," opined the editors of the New York Times on November 19. Risky indeed.
Each military assault Washington executes deepens the instability in the Middle East. The capitalist regimes and imperialist order in the Gulf and Mideast regions are more unstable today than before 1990. Tactical divisions have opened within U.S. ruling circles over the Clinton administration's renewed policy of cobbling together a motley crew of dissident groups for a palace coup, which has resulted in past debacles for the White House.
Since their 1990-91 Gulf War slaughter against the Iraqi people, the U.S. capitalist class has not advanced one inch toward its goal of imposing a protectorate in Baghdad. Facing intensified competition, the U.S. rulers aim to use their military might to secure greater control over oil reserves in the region and deal economic and political blows to their rivals - the propertied classes in Europe and Japan. The buildup in the Arab-Persian Gulf is also part of tightening Washington's military ring around the Russian workers state, in preparation for coming confrontations with the toilers there.
V.I. Lenin, central leader of the 1917 Russian revolution, explains in his pamphlet Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism, "Wars are absolutely inevitable under such an economic system, as long as private property in the means of production exists."
The Gulf War highlighted the declining capitalist world order and accelerated its contradictions. As the lead article in issue no. 7 of New International explains, "It sounded the opening guns of sharpening conflicts and class battles that will decide whether the horrors of World War III are inflicted on humanity... or a road is opened by working people to a socialist future of international human solidarity."
Opponents of Washington's imperial aggression will find receptive ears for this and other political tools among co- workers on the job, at plant gates, on picket lines, on campuses, working-class neighborhoods, and political events. This is a good time for working-class fighters to step up political discussions and sales of the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial, and other Pathfinder books and pamphlets.
Campaigning to tell the truth about imperialism's march toward fascism and war will increase the confidence of vanguard fighters and help strengthen working-class resistance to the bosses' attacks.