AFTER THE 2006 midterm elections, there was a sense of optimism among antiwar forces that with the Democrats controlling Congress they would use their new clout to begin pressing Bush on troop withdrawal from Iraq. Those hopes were quickly dashed. Aside from proposing nonbinding resolutions easily brushed aside by Bush, the Democrats have voted in the majority for every appropriations bill to fund the war in Iraq.
Contributing to the ratcheting up of the drumbeat for war against Iran, Senate Democrats also provided on September 26 a wide margin of victory in a 76–22 vote condemning Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a “terrorist organization.” Hillary Rodham Clinton voted in favor, while Obama absented himself from the vote.
Tacked onto this proposal was also a non-binding resolution calling for a three-way partition of Iraq between Sunnis, Kurds, and Shias—a ratification of the process of ethnic cleansing that has driven millions of Iraqis from their homes and claimed the lives of untold numbers. The vote reflects the imperial arrogance of both parties, which consider that the fate of Iraq is the decision not of Iraqis themselves, but of the occupying power.
On the same day, in spite of mouthing criticisms of the war and offering vague withdrawal proposals, all three major Democratic presidential candidates (Clinton, Obama, and Edwards) refused to declare that they will have pulled U.S. troops out of Iraq by the end of their first term, if elected. “I think it would be irresponsible” to promise a pullout by January 2013, Obama said. “I cannot make that commitment,” said Edwards. For her part, Clinton, typically, dodged a direct answer: “It is very difficult to know what we’re going to be inheriting.”
With the exception of Dennis Kucinich and Bill Richardson, the candidates all propose not to end the occupation of Iraq, but to downsize and repackage it to make it more militarily and politically sustainable for the long term. Kucinich, who hasn’t a chance of winning the nomination, will play the same role he played in 2004—gather disgruntled voters into the party fold, neutering the antiwar vote by delivering it to a prowar candidate.
Meanwhile, leading Democrats are busy tamping down expectations. “We have to make responsible decisions in the Congress that are not driven by the dissatisfaction of anybody who wants the war to end tomorrow,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told one reporter.
Why the retreat? The truth is that the Democrats are not opposed to projecting U.S. military power abroad—they merely propose to do it better than Bush. This is especially true in the Middle East, which holds the world’s largest oil reserves. Those pundits who claim that this war is not about oil should listen to the words of General John Abizaid (Ret.), the former commander of the U.S. Central Command, who told an audience at Stanford University, “Of course it’s about oil, we can’t really deny that.”
Whole sections of the ruling class have abandoned Bush not because they believe the invasion of Iraq was wrong, but because it has been a disaster for U.S. policy in the Middle East and beyond. They are hoping that the Democrats, the “B team,” can come in and reconfigure policy in order to strengthen Washington’s military, political, and economic hold on the region.
As Financial Times commentator Gideon Rachman wrote: “All of the main candidates want to build up the American military rather than shrink it (Senator Clinton wants to add 80,000 troops to the Army). They all agree that the U.S. has the right to take preemptive military action in the ‘war on terror.’... They are all strong supporters of Israel. And they are all talking tough on Iran.”
The quiescence among the Democrats has allowed Bush to present his “surge” of 20,000 extra troops into Iraq as a success—while the press has also played its role in presenting General Petraeus’s operations as making “progress” in Iraq—which has also contributed to a sense of malaise in the antiwar movement. It has even given renewed confidence to the neocons, who have been running articles and op-eds saying that the U.S. is “winning” in Iraq.
The reality is that all the problems that were there before the surge, and will be there after the surge is over, remain. The army is overstretched; Iraq’s infrastructure and economy is in shambles and millions are unemployed; there is no effective central government; at least 5 million people have been displaced both by the occupation and the sectarian violence it has unleashed; and the resistance continues. Meanwhile, according to opinion polls, most Iraqis believe that security has gotten worse since the surge began.
The press has cited the fact that “only” sixty-six U.S. soldiers died in Iraq in September as evidence that things are improving. Yet this figure is higher than the numbers for September last year. Also noted is the apparent success the U.S. forces have had in winning over Sunni resistance groups in volatile Al Anbar province to fight al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia rather than U.S. troops, under what is called the “tribal awakening” movement. This new development, while it may have slowed the Sunni resistance for the time being in some areas, has increased the level of Shia resistance against the U.S., and will no doubt also increase the level of sectarian rivalry by playing Sunni off of Shia. Moreover, it is very likely that the Sunni fighters who have decided to go after al-Qaeda merely see this as a tactical detour after which they will resume the struggle against the United States.
In support of this view, Seumas Milne, writing in the Guardian (UK) quotes one resistance fighter thus:
“We don’t want to have a clash with those who have become involved in the awakening campaign,” a spokesman for the 1920 Revolution Brigades, one of the largest guerrilla organizations fighting the U.S. occupation, said yesterday. “We will give time to people who have been harmed by al-Qaeda and its violence. We are now fighting the Americans more outside the cities.” But he dismissed as disinformation a claim in last week’s Economist that members of the Brigades now “accompany the Americans as guides on patrols,” pointing to a video of a successful attack by the group in the past week on a U.S. Humvee just broadcast on al-Jazeera as his answer. “Resistance will continue until the occupation forces leave our country.”
We should also add that “improvement” for supporters of U.S. policy (and that includes leading Democrats) means crushing the resistance and establishing a successful client state with permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq, whereas for the antiwar movement improvement can and must only mean withdrawal and reparations—that is, the self-determination of the Iraqi people.
