Washington's casual use of its military might highlights the reality that more military action is coming against workers and peasants around the world. Already, Clinton administration officials have plans "on the shelf" for bombing Iraqi airfields. The "no-fly zones" that Washington and London have imposed on two-thirds of Iraq's airspace for more than six years serve as a ready-made pretext for launching more bombing attacks. The spying "inspectors" served the same purpose.
The class of billionaire families that rules the United States has no way to accomplish its objectives in the Middle East short of an invasion with ground troops. They are politically weaker and further away from overthrowing the government of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in order to establish an imperialist protectorate and bolster their dominance in the Arab-Persian Gulf region.
Instead the most recent bombings have generated more hatred of U.S. imperialism throughout the Arab world, increasing social upheaval and instability in the region, which the imperialist powers are less able to suppress. This coincides with intensifying pressures - throughout the Middle East, from Moscow, and from Paris - to ease the devastating sanctions imposed on the Iraqi people for more than eight years. And the U.S. rulers can muster even less support today from their allies, who are also rivals, for military actions. Washington's hegemony in Europe through the NATO military alliance is being challenged by other imperialists, especially by the rulers of France.
Washington's assault on the Iraqi people "is a war over economic domination and control," states the article titled "Working-class campaign against imperialism and war," in issue no. 7 of the magazine New International. The U.S. rulers' war moves are aimed "against other propertied classes in other countries for the domination of raw materials, markets, and access to superexploitation of low-paid labor." The bombardment of Iraq is also part of tightening a military ring around the southern flank of Russia as the U.S. imperialists prepare for the day they will attempt to use force to reestablish capitalist property relations there. The deflationary crisis of world capitalism has accelerated the conflicts between Washington and its rivals. This competition is the primary motor behind the U.S. rulers' policy against Iraq, shared by the Democrats and Republicans alike.
The assault on Iraq is an extension of the U.S. rulers' barbarity and attacks on the rights of workers and farmers at home - from the greater use of the police and hired thugs against workers on strike to the stepped-up executions, police brutality, deportations, and government attacks on affirmative action. That's why the Militant urges its supporters to broaden their campaign against imperialism and war by stepping up discussions among co-workers on the job, at plant gates, on campuses, among farmers, and in working-class communities. Encourage them to join in protests, speak-outs, and forums discussing the U.S. assault on Iraq. Sell and study the Marxist magazine New International, especially issue no. 11 featuring the article "U.S. Imperialism has Lost the Cold War" and issue no. 7, with "Opening Guns of World War III: Washington's Assault on Iraq." Above all, this effort must be a steady, week- by-week campaign to win working people to demand: All imperialist troops out of the Middle East! End the sanctions against Iraq! Lift the no-fly zones! U.S. hands off Iraq!