The U.S. imperialists bomb the Islamic State because they consider this type of militant Islamic organization and its undermining of the Iraqi state to be a threat to law and order in the Middle East. Humanitarian concern for the Yezidis and Christians is simply a useful pretext for the U.S. military to intervene when this would otherwise be very unpopular with many foreign governments and a large part of the U.S. population. It will not make such a humanitarian intervention in Syria because there Assad is fighting to keep down the masses and keep order on Israels borders; and the IS in that country, while not directly under the control of Assad, nevertheless mainly fights anti-Assad forces and is a reasonable business partner of the regime. Anyone who supports the revolutionary struggles of working-class and poor people in the Middle East must realize that when these movements are successful in throwing off their oppressors -- when no part of the regional ruling classes are any longer able to command the support and obedience of the masses and prevent them from undermining capitalist property relations and states -- then the same U.S. military will bomb far more aggressively and destructively than it does today in Iraq. Although today the ruling classes of the great powers consider Islamism to be the biggest threat, when revolutionary socialism again becomes a real force it will again become their target, and they will do whatever they can -- with their drones, missiles, bombers, embargoes, propaganda, manufactured racism and hysteria -- to snuff out the revolution. It is essential now and always to fight for a principled stand against all imperialist intervention in any part of the world. There is zero doubt that todays humanitarian intervention will tomorrow be used as a pretext for some other intervention to serve U.S. interests -- just see how Clintons humane wars in the 1990s prepared the public for Bushs wars against fundamentalism oppression and for democracy, and how Putin was able to keep this tradition going to cover for the invasion of Crimea earlier this year. It will be a big victory for U.S. imperialism if they can reestablish the legitimacy of major military interventions in Iraq after the past decade when many more people have come to see the U.S. as a warmonger. This cannot be allowed to happen, and therefore we must be fighting now to spread opposition to imperialism as broadly as possible. A live anti-war movement in the U.S. that organized protests and strikes every time the rulers tried to intervene abroad would lift a great burden off the Middle East and help to weaken the grip of nationalism and Islamist regimes on the masses consciousness. But we are a long way from having such an anti-war movement, or being able to stop the militarys current operation. For the time being the people of the Middle East will have to defend themselves. Some on the Left say that being anti-imperialist at times like this is irrelevant, insane, or inhumane considered against the plight of the people threatened by sectarian terror. What would anti-imperialism mean for revolutionary socialists in this situation? It would mean they would explain that the U.S. will not bring peace for the Yezidis and Christians -- for as long as they meddle in Iraq they will prop-up regimes which rely on inciting Sunni against Shia, Arab against Kurd, and will leave the smallest minorities the most vulnerable -- explaining that the Yezidis and Christians and all sections of the oppressed masses in Iraq need their own arms to defend themselves, not just guns but anti-aircraft missiles and artillery and armored vehicles; that the struggle to arm the masses must be conducted above all within the militarys barracks; and that in their attempt to reach out to other ethnic and religious groups and build anti-sectarian solidarity they will need to be prepared to face the resistance of the Iraqi government and the United States and other world powers. And revolutionary socialists on the ground in these military situations would still be guided by the need to defend the masses, which would mean that if U.S. planes were bombing IS forces that were engaged in attacking the masses revolutionaries would momentarily hold their fire and let this force get hit -- while doing absolutely nothing to cooperate with the imperialists in offensive operations or ceasing to explain the masses need for political independence, working-class leadership, and to be prepared for counterrevolutionary attacks by the U.S. and its allies.
Posted on: Sat, 09 Aug 2014 04:02:14 +0000
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