One of the main questions raised in each letter, explicitly or implicitly, is about the nature of those carrying out armed attacks on the U.S.-led occupation forces. It’s hard to get a straight answer by relying on accounts in the largely liberal media, from the New York Times to the British Guardian to Pacifica radio—whose views are echoed by most radical groups that organize antiwar actions. They are more interested in boosting Democratic opponents of President George Bush than in telling the truth.

U.S. imperialism scored an easy victory in its quick invasion of Iraq. The Saddam Hussein regime, a capitalist gang feared and hated by millions of workers and farmers in Iraq, handed Washington a golden opportunity. The U.S. rulers won broad acceptance at home for launching an assault on the Iraqi people aimed at strengthening their position relative to Berlin, Paris, and other imperialist rivals and preparing further wars of plunder—all in the name of democracy. The Iraqi people were left open to this attack by the crimes committed against them by Hussein’s party-police state—especially since the “socialist” Baathist party beheaded the vanguard of Iraq’s 1958 democratic revolution following a 1963 counterrevolutionary coup. By a combination of police-state terror, patronage, and national and religious divisions, the regime had virtually driven working people out of politics over four decades. Stalinist betrayals at home and abroad allowed the Baathist dictatorship to come to power in Iraq and created a void filled today in other Mideast countries by bourgeois nationalist groups—like Hezbollah—that offer a dead end to working people and have nothing in common with popular liberation movements.

With these political conditions as a contributing factor, Washington finds it necessary and possible to impose a “soft” protectorate in Iraq today rather than a military dictatorship that ruthlessly crushes all “unauthorized” activities. For example, allowing the publication of the Iraqi Communist Party’s paper (which backed the imperialist invasion) creates conditions—political space—that some opponents of the occupation can and will take advantage of.

Liberal and radical critics of the Bush administration have made many predictions. Prior to the invasion they claimed that large peace demonstrations—or the United Nations, or the “peaceful” imperialist hyenas in Paris and Berlin—would stop Washington from going to war. When the Anglo-American armies launched the war anyway and the pacifist rallies collapsed, they predicted massive resistance and a “quagmire” for the U.S. troops. They claimed Washington was going to inflict huge civilian casualties. These claims proved false as the regime collapsed like dry rot and the invaders easily took Baghdad while avoiding a bloodbath or the total devastation of Iraq’s infrastructure.

Today, similar voices assert that there is massive popular resistance to the occupation. The burden of proof, however, is on them. Tariq Ali, a prominent radical academic in the United Kingdom, for example, asserted in a December 4 radio debate in New York with pro-occupation commentator Christopher Hitchens that the imperialist occupation is an unqualified failure, that there are “great, growing armies” of Iraqis joining the armed opposition, and that “what we’re seeing in Iraq is classic first-stage guerrilla warfare.” Ali, however, has no facts to back up these claims. What does “classic” refer to? To the popular liberation movement that successfully fought the French and U.S. imperialist armies in Vietnam, or the mass struggle led by the National Liberation Front in Algeria that defeated French colonial rule? The remaining forces loyal to the former Baathist regime have not an iota in common with these popular anti-imperialist movements. They are hated by the big majority of Iraqi people—and are incapable of waging a fight against imperialism, as they proved when they were in power.

Revolutionists in Iraq today would not call for a victory by the pro-Saddam thugs or for Hussein’s return to power, however unlikely, explaining that it would not be a step forward for working people in Iraq. It is the last thing that millions of Iraqis want, especially the majority of the population that bore the brunt of the former regime’s brutality, the Shiite Muslims and the Kurds. That reality allows the U.S.-led forces to enjoy a certain level of acceptance today, in contrast to countries where working people have been able to resist an imperialist invasion even under unfavorable conditions and misleadership, from Panama in 1989 to Somalia in 1993, to name just two examples.

Is there any substantial resistance beyond these Baathist remnants? Again, the burden of proof is on those making these assertions. One thing is certain, however: Tariq Ali’s claim of “very severe demoralization inside the ranks of the U.S. army” is a fiction. In the U.S. armed forces today, which is made of highly trained volunteers, not draftees, the morale of the ranks will not take big blows until they encounter the kind of terrible casualties inflicted by the workers and peasants of Indochina in the last half of the 20th century.

The stance of class-conscious workers in the United States and other imperialist countries is to demand the unconditional withdrawal of all occupation troops from Iraq to Afghanistan and beyond. The struggle to free Iraq from imperialist domination, however, is not short-term. It can only be carried out by workers and farmers, not by a stand-in for working people. Revolutionists in Iraq today would use the civic space that does exist, however limited, to build organizations that can lead the toilers toward this goal. Developing the necessary leadership will take time and experience and will be influenced above all by developments in the class struggle worldwide. The biggest obstacles facing the imperialist rulers’ aggressive course are world capitalism’s continuing tendency toward financial collapse and, most importantly, the resulting resistance among workers and farmers throughout the world, including in the United States. It is this relationship of forces between the main contending classes—the capitalists and working people—that class-conscious workers must accurately assess and act on.
 
 
Related articles:
U.S.-led NATO expands operations in Afghanistan
Washington probes role for imperialist alliance in Iraq  
 
 
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