Two days later, Washington also got backing for its so-called “Middle East Initiative” aimed at spreading “democracy” in the region at the G-8 summit in Sea Island, Georgia. Washington has accused the governments of Iran and Syria of allowing armed groups to use their borders to enter Iraq to fight the U.S.-led occupation forces in Iraq. The G-8 is composed of the imperialist governments of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United States. Moscow has been attending its meetings since the mid-1990s, initially as an observer.

On June 12, Muqtada al-Sadr, the leader of the Mahdi Army, whose forces have clashed with occupation troops in central and southern Iraq for weeks, reversed his position and announced his support for the U.S.-picked “interim government,” calling shortly afterwards on his fighters to go home.

These developments register further progress by Washington in its drive to establish a pro-imperialist regime in Iraq, extend its domination in the region, and deal further blows to its imperialist competitors—especially Paris and Berlin—in the process.

In a further indication of this trend, the rulers of Saudi Arabia have all but abandoned earlier threats to switch to the euro from the U.S. dollar for pricing oil sales. According to a BBC report, the purchasing power of oil revenues among OPEC members fell by as much as 30 percent due to the declining dollar. The report said there has been some debate about whether the dollar is the best currency to use for the oil trade. Some among the Saudi rulers see pricing oil in euros as a way to gain leverage against the U.S.-dominated oil refining monopolies. But the increasing attacks on residential compounds in the kingdom by opponents of the royal family has further exposed the Saudi rulers’ dependence on the U.S. military for protection, and thus on the U.S. dollar.  
 
G-8 summit
During the G-8 summit, U.S. president George Bush praised the Security Council’s vote and said that a “democratic” Iraq will be a “catalyst for change across the Middle East.” Bush was joined by Britain’s prime minister Anthony Blair, who added, “Iraq can be a force for good, not just for Iraqis but for the whole region and thus the whole world.” At the meeting, Bush introduced Ghazi al-Yawer, president of the “interim government” in Iraq.

While the G-8 governments said they backed Washington’s plans in the Middle East, the sharpening frictions between the Anglo-American bloc, on one hand, and Paris and Berlin, on the other, were evident. The French and German governments strongly opposed forgiving Iraq’s $120 billion foreign debt despite a personal appeal at the summit meeting by Bush. French president Jacques Chirac said the Paris Club of creditors, which also includes U.S. banks, would consider forgiving only half of the $42 billion owed to it by Baghdad. In a final statement that amount was changed to a more ambiguous “substantial relief,” said Chirac’s spokeswoman Catherine Colonna.

The German construction industry association is “strictly opposed” to debt relief of Iraq said Michael Knipper, the group’s general manager. He said in a fax from Berlin, according to Bloomberg, that Baghdad owes the association $2.1 billion.

Washington and Paris also clashed on a proposal by Bush to deploy NATO troops to Iraq. Chirac said it is not the job of the alliance to intervene in Iraq. Officials of the imperialist military alliance will meet in Istanbul two days before the installation of Iraq’s interim government on June 30.  
 
UN resolution
The UN Security Council resolution gives the interim government the authority to “order the U.S.-dominated occupation forces out of the country at any time.” Washington, however, is confident this will not happen. The interim government is a creature of the U.S. occupiers and fully dependent upon the thousands of foreign troops in the country, mainly from the United States and Britain. On June 3, during debate on the resolution, foreign minister for the interim government Hoshyar Zebari told the UN Security Council that he had let Iraq’s neighbors know that the occupation forces would remain in Iraq “for some time.” Zebari discouraged the UN body from pressing to establish a deadline for the occupation forces to leave Iraq. “I’ll be very honest,” he said, according to the New York Times. “A call for an immediate withdrawal or a fixed timetable for withdrawal would be very, very unhelpful. It would be used by our enemies to complicate problems even further.”

The “interim government,” most of the members of which were the choices of the U.S.-run Iraqi Governing Council, took over the functions of the Governing Council June 1, when the latter body dissolved itself. Ghazi Yawar was appointed to the ceremonial office of president of Iraq. A 45-year-old engineer with a master’s degree from George Washington University in Washington, D.C., Yawar is a Sunni Muslim who lived in exile during the Saddam Hussein regime. Three days earlier the Governing Council had selected one of its members, Iyad Allawi, to be prime minister. Allawi is a wealthy businessman and former member of the Baath party, which ruled Iraq for decades under the Hussein regime.

Washington also won support for the interim government from Iraq’s most prominent Shia Muslim cleric, Ayatollah Ali Sistani. In a June 3 statement, Sistani said the interim government “lacked electoral legitimacy but remained a step in the right direction,” reported Al-Jazeera television. Earlier, Sistani had demanded that elections be held instead to replace the Iraqi Governing Council. He dropped that demand when UN envoy and former Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi was tapped to oversee the installation of the interim government and gave his stamp of approval.  
 
Muqtada al-Sadr reverses course
In a further indication of the progress Washington is making in Iraq, Muqtada al-Sadr announced his support for Iraq’s interim government, called on his followers to lay down their arms, and promised to convert his Mahdi army into a political movement, reported Al-Jazeera.

Just a week earlier, al-Sadr had rejected the interim regime. Speaking to several thousand worshipers gathered June 4 at the mosque where he normally appears for Friday prayers, al-Sadr said, “I don’t believe any Iraqi would accept this appointment of a government by the occupier. There is no freedom or democracy without independence.”

The U.S.-led forces provoked al-Sadr and his supporters into armed revolt two months ago by ordering the closure of their newspaper, arresting some of the group’s leaders, and killing demonstrators demanding the release of those arrested.

U.S. military officials have said their goal is to capture al-Sadr and put him on trial on charges of killing a rival Shiite cleric who returned to Iraq with the aid of U.S. forces, following the toppling of Hussein by the Anglo-American invasion.

For weeks prominent Shia politicians attempted to negotiate a ceasefire between al-Sadr and occupation forces. The most recent truce collapsed June 2 when heavy fighting between occupation forces and the Mahdi army broke out in Kufa. Seven Iraqis were killed and 37 injured, according to the Washington Post.

On June 16 al-Sadr called on his supporters to lay down their arms, reported Aljazeera, following a statement by president Bush that Washington would not oppose a role for al-Sadr in the interim government. A spokesman for al-Sadr said that he would “enter political matters, but this does not mean he will enter elections.”  
 
Occupation continues
Under the June 8 resolution, the UN Security Council gave its approval and support to the interim government. That regime is supposed to organize a national conference to select a consultative council. Direct elections are to be held no later than Jan. 31, 2005, for a “transitional national assembly,” which would draft a constitution.

The occupation of Iraq will continue under the guise of a U.S.-led “multinational force” that has the authority to take “all necessary measures” to maintain “peace and security.” UN authorization of this force ends January 2006. The occupation troops are to be expanded in Iraq to include a “special force” for the protection of UN personnel.

Paris and Berlin, who differ with Washington over how best to protect and advance imperialist interests in the Middle East, pressed for amendments to the resolution in hopes of weakening Washington’s dominance and obtaining some concessions for their imperialist investments in the region, to no avail.

Algeria’s ambassador Abdallah Baali said the resolution must include language that would say the interim government would have the final say over the operations of the “multinational force.” Washington instead agreed to exchange side letters with the interim government stating that they would consult on “sensitive offensive operations.”

In a June 3 interview with the Dubai-based Middle East Broadcasting Center, U.S. secretary of state Colin Powell reiterated that the interim government will not have a veto over the 130,000 U.S. troops that will remain in Iraq after June 30. “There could be a situation where we have to act and there may be a disagreement, and we have to act to protect ourselves or to accomplish a mission,” Powell said. “You can’t use the word ‘veto.’”  
 
Tehran-backed parties into the fold
Two of Iraq’s largest parties based among Shia Muslims, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri) and Dawa, have complained of being marginalized and excluded from adequate representation in the interim regime. Occupation forces have been depending on the help of the Sciri, reported the Financial Times, in negotiating an end to armed revolts against the occupation troops in the Shia-populated cities of Najaf, Kufa, and Karbala in southern Iraq. Sciri is supported by Tehran. Many of its leaders lived in exile in Iran during the Hussein regime. Both parties have high posts in the interim government, including vice president and finance minister.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s leading Muslim cleric, denounced the interim government in Iraq as a “lackey,” according to Associated Press. Speaking to a rally of tens of thousands in Tehran, Khamenei called Bush a “shameless liar” for claiming his goal is to “spread democracy” in the Middle East. The rally commemorated the 15th anniversary of the death of Ayatollah Khomeini, who emerged as the government’s central leader after the 1979 revolution that overthrew the U.S.-backed regime of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

Despite the demagogy, the Iranian government issued an official statement saying the appointments to the interim government were a “step forward.”  
 
 
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