Iraqi resistance earns world’s respect

In the more than two years since they began an armed struggle against the illegal U.S. occupation of their country, the Iraqi resistance has earned the respect of the world’s people.

Not only throughout Arab and Muslim lands, but at gatherings like the World Social Forum in India and Brazil, references to the Iraqi resistance were cheered. Spokespeople for the anti-globalization movement like Arundhati Roy as well as Marxists openly call for solidarity with the Iraqi resistance.

It is easy to understand why the Iraqi fighters have earned this solidarity. And it is time to extend the same solidarity from the anti-war movement here.

In April and May of 2003, Donald Rumsfeld’s strategy of “shock and awe” appeared to have worked. Overwhelming U.S. military technology, with its modern “blitzkrieg,” was supposed to destroy the Iraq state and force the people to submit. Washington would then rule a docile Iraq and intimidate the world into following U.S. dictates.

Any defiant nations, which Bush called the “axis of evil,” could expect the same “shock and awe.” Iran and Syria were nearby targets. North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela were on the list. Zimbabwe came under pressure, too. Even China was threatened with being surrounded by U.S. military bases.

It was a grandiose plan. Once underway, it would mean the death of millions of people, including tens of thousands of GIs.

Fortunately for the world, the Iraqis refused to be a subject people and never let the plan get underway. The collective sacrifice of the Iraqi people has changed the balance of power in the world. It has weakened U.S. imperialism, especially its most aggressive elements, and encouraged defiance to U.S. dictates on every continent.

Now the Pentagon has problems recruiting enough soldiers to occupy Iraq, let alone conquer the world. U.S. threats to bomb Iran or Korea must still be taken seriously, as should threats to assassinate popular leaders like Hugo Chávez of Venezuela. But where will the Pentagon find willing troops for new invasions?

The same enemy

It is appropriate, too, that the U.S. anti-war movement, especially the serious opponents of imperialism, think of the Iraqi resistance as an important ally. Recent events, including the Camp Casey struggles and Hurricane Katrina, have shown that some anti-war forces have already moved toward this position.

A dynamic sector of the anti-war movement now consists of “gold star” parents. It is a remarkable gain in political consciousness that the mother of a fallen GI from Baltimore, in the midst of grieving over her loss, can speak publicly of her understanding of why the Iraqis would fight to drive out the occupier.

Then there was Hurricane Katrina. The Bush regime was caught. It had stolen funds from levee repair to pay for the war. It criminally neglected to rescue those caught in the disaster. Millions now see that the government in Washington neither represents nor cares for the poorest sections of the U.S. working class, which are predominately African American and other people of color. It is a racist regime that sends its troops to kill people, not to save them.

The blows the Iraqi resistance strikes against the occupation are not blows against the U.S. population. On the contrary, weakening the regime in Washington strengthens the movement here for equality, for workers’ rights and to end the war. The population here and the Iraqis there have the same enemy: the regime in Washington.

Washington has no right to run Iraq

Washington lied to justify the war. It committed war crimes while smashing the Iraqi state and replacing it with an occupation regime and a puppet regime. International law recognizes the right of an occupied nation to fight for self-determination. Those who defend self-determination and the right to fight for it know the choice of methods and means must be left to the people carrying out that fight.

The Iraqi resistance is made up of many different organizations, with different political programs and goals and ideologies. There is armed struggle, union organizing, community organizing and other forms of struggle. As of yet there is no national front. The many Iraqi forces that want to end the U.S. occupation differ over tactics.

For example, the Iraqi National Foundation Congress on Sept. 15 issued a statement critical of the targeting of civilians a few days earlier in Baghdad, when 150 people were killed by a car bomb, but put the onus for the killing on the aggressive U.S. tactics in the north of Iraq.

Some people have argued that should U.S. troops leave, a civil war would occur, or that the Iraqis would choose a religion-based regime, or put Saddam Hussein back in power. Whatever the new Iraq looks like, this is a decision that only the Iraqis can make, and they can only make it when the Pentagon leaves.

If Washington can’t help the people of New Orleans, it certainly can’t help those of Baghdad.

The duty of the movement here is to join the struggle to make the continued U.S. occupation of Iraq impossible and to do this in solidarity with the Iraqi sisters and brothers who have stopped the empire in its tracks.