The goal of U.S. imperialism in this offensive is not to recolonize Iraq and occupy the country for the long haul. Washington aims to do the job it left unfinished from its 2003 invasion: smash the pro-Baathist forces and other militias that have had their strongest base in the so-called Sunni Triangle—the stronghold of the Saddam Hussein regime.

A parallel, and essential, objective of the U.S. military is to bloody the Iraqi National Guard. Only on the battlefield can a domestic army be trained, an army that will serve and protect the interests of Washington’s client regime in Iraq. If the U.S. forces and their allies in Iraq succeed, and the odds are on their side, they may be able to stabilize the country enough to make sure elections are held as close as possible to the January 31 deadline they’ve picked and begin scaling back their military presence down the road.

The U.S.-led assault on Iraq was from the beginning an imperialist war of plunder, fueled to a large degree by competition between Washington and its imperialist allies—particularly Paris and Berlin. The same rivalry over dividing the world’s markets and resources and safeguarding the strategic influence of each imperialist power in various parts of the globe is at the center of the bloody assault by French imperialism in the Ivory Coast.

Washington and its allies were easily able to invade Iraq last year because of the incapacity of the Saddam Hussein regime to defend Iraq’s sovereignty and the stranglehold that his party-police state had imposed on the country’s toilers. Likewise, the U.S. rulers are making progress toward “pacifying” Iraq now because of the political character of the forces involved in opposing the authority of the Allawi regime and the U.S. occupation.

There is no revolutionary resistance in Iraq today. That’s why the U.S. and Iraqi forces are likely to roll through Fallujah and other cities in the area. Unlike bourgeois-led militias like Tawhid and Jihad that use reactionary methods such as beheading hostages and killing children—methods despised by most Iraqis—a revolutionary movement against imperialist domination would offer a clear presentation of what it’s fighting for. None of these militias has ever uttered a word that would serve the interests of working people in Iraq. Nor is there any bourgeois regime in the Mideast willing to risk organizing resistance to the imperialist occupation.

Because the imperialists can’t solve the crisis bred by their own system that generates permanent instability, however, working people in Iraq and the surrounding region will be able to make use of the political space they have to find ways to advance their struggles and eventually develop a revolutionary leadership.

To do that, they need time and the Yankee boot off their neck. Working people in the United States and other imperialist countries should focus our fire on the ruling class in each of the countries where we live and demand: U.S. and all allied foreign troops out of Iraq now! Likewise, we should demand that the French army and its UN sidekicks get out of the Ivory Coast immediately.
 
 
Related articles:
U.S., Iraqi troops assault Fallujah in offensive to take ‘Sunni Triangle’
Iraqi gov’t declares state of emergency, seals border with Syria  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home