The near-unanimous confirmation by the U.S. Senate of Robert Gates as the new secretary of defense shows once again that working people have nothing to celebrate from the victory of the Democrats in last month’s congressional elections.

Drawing bipartisan praise, the former CIA chief acknowledged that “there are no new ideas” on Iraq and U.S. troops will need to stay there for years to come. The bipartisan proposals of the Iraq Study Group, have been falsely publicized as a “phased withdrawal” of U.S. troops. In fact, they would mean no more than a gradual redeployment of half of the U.S. soldiers occupying the country to bases in and around Iraq, from which they could quickly be sent back to theaters of war.

Incoming Senate majority leader Harry Reid has said the newly elected Democratic majority will push for a $75 billion increase in the military budget to expand the U.S. military’s capacity to fight more effectively around the world—from Iraq to Afghanistan and beyond.

There are no alternatives proposed by Democrats or Republicans to the U.S. military strategy and order of battle crafted under the Bush administration by the president and his staff, including Gates’s predecessor Donald Rumsfeld.

The U.S. capitalist ruling class, under the banner of “fighting terrorism,” is leading the imperialist powers of the world in a “long war.” Its real aim is to break the resistance by working people and any government that doesn’t bow to Washington’s dictates.

The crisis driving the imperialist rulers is not conjunctural. It was not triggered by a single event like 9/11. It is not the result of the specific policies of one or another president or Congress. It is rooted in the long-term economic downturn that began some three decades ago with the exhaustion of the economic boom that grew out of preparations for World War II. What is unfolding now is the acceleration of that crisis in all its facets, including the sharpening conflicts among the imperialist powers born of competition over dividing the world’s markets and resources.

U.S. foreign policy is an extension of domestic policy. The same capitalist families pressing wars abroad are backing the bosses’ attacks at home on wages, job conditions, and democratic rights. The same billionaires and their pursuit of their profit interests are behind the rampant police racism and brutality.

Working people everywhere, such as the millions who this year took to the streets and walked off the job to demand the legalization of undocumented immigrants—actions that are precursors of working-class struggles to come—have no interest in backing the U.S. rulers’ foreign or domestic policies.

We should demand: “U.S. troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan now!”
 
 
Related articles:
U.S. rulers debate how best to establish stable regime in Iraq
NATO to expand role in Afghanistan war, offers Serbia partnership status  
 
 
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