Capitalist Terror: War Without End

Five years ago 10 million people around the world marched against the impending war in Iraq. An unprecedented 2 million marched in London alone. It was a massive rejection of all the lies spread by the Bush and Blair regimes. People then did not have to wait for “dodgy dossiers” to know that there were no weapons of mass destruction, there was no support for Al Qaeda by Saddam Hussein. Nor was the lie that the aim was to overthrow a tyrannical regime accepted (since Saddam Hussein had been a loyal supporter of the West in the Middle East until 1989). But despite this massive demonstration of our rejection of these lies the war went ahead one month later.

The consequences have been predictable and appalling. In five years the human and material costs have been enormous (see panel on far side). However this war for “democracy” has had other costs including the biggest erosion of civil rights in the aggressor countries since the Second World War. The apparatus of repression has been cranked up in this so-called “war on terror”. Detention without trial is coming in bit by bit and the surveillance society is already upon us. Real terror has come to Britain’s streets as young deluded Muslims have joined the fanatics in trying to get revenge for the massacres in the Middle East. The victims of the July bombings and Jean Charles de Menezes are both casualties in this war.

These costs will continue because the real purpose of this war is to defend US hegemony on the planet. This is why there will be no withdrawal from Iraq. This is why the continuing occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan is leading to new conflicts from Lebanon and Gaza to Darfur and Chad. As the US economy declines America’s domination over the world is declining. Its solution is to engage in more and more military adventures. And the result of these adventures is more instability. According to the US Government’s own National Intelligence Executive, since the Iraq War began “the overall terrorist threat due to Islamic terrorism has increased”. It’s not hard to see why. Yet the US political establishment and the media have avoided making the war an election issue. The only comment on it has come from the Republican frontrunner John McCain, who when asked if the US occupation of Iraq might last 100 years, replied “It’s fine by me”.

Another American Century?

And really its fine by almost the entire US ruling class. Much is made of the way the war started and the fact that it was promoted by the group around Dick Cheney and the neo-conservative Project for a New American Century (PNAC). This group articulated a sense of insecurity in ruling circles that victory in the Cold War had not brought the US the unrivalled position it had proclaimed. In fact quite the reverse. With twin deficits in its budget and its trade balance plus a declining dollar the pillars of US economic power are under threat. In addition oil imports have risen from 15% of US consumption to 60% in the course of thirty years. The widespread idea that the Twentieth Century had been the “American Century” is undermined by certain uncomfortable economic truths. American power was at its apogee in 1945 when it emerged as the only major power unscarred by war and with a productive apparatus the like of which the world had never seen before. It was easy for the US to impose its terms on the rest of the world and it soon did so. The dollar became the currency of international trade and the US government guaranteed that the value of every dollar could be covered by a fixed amount of gold held in Fort Knox. However when the post-war boom (or third cycle of capitalist accumulation as we call it) came to an end the US began to print dollar bills to cover its deficits.

But these dollars were supposed to be “as good as gold” and the US suddenly found itself facing a situation where the dollar holdings of its allies could actually be called in for gold which the US did not have. If they did that the US would be ruined. In 1971 the US took the momentous decision to end dollar-gold parity and two years later further devalued the dollar (thus devaluing the currency held by other states). A consequence of this was the formation (with US blessing) of the oil cartel OPEC who hiked up the price of oil. As the US at that point only imported 15% of it oil it also gained competitively against other states. The US was no longer limited by the gold standard in issuing dollars and now began to print them at will. This did not cause inflation in the US so much as in the rest of the world because the dollar was the currency of international trade. US trade and budget deficits could thus multiply whilst those who took dollars in the international system were actually bailing out the US debt. The backbone of this remains the Arab oil-producing states of the Middle East who accumulated vast amounts of petrodollars which were invested back in US firms and Government bonds. It was a nice arrangement for all concerned but it all depended on the dollar remaining the international currency of first resort on the world market. It remains so today but the dollar has increasingly come under challenge especially after 1999 when the euro gave the likes of Saddam Hussein an alternative in which to sell their oil. It was no accident that the characters who had made their fortunes in oil were the backbone of PNAC. It is now public knowledge that this think tank wrote a report entitled Rebuilding America’s Defenses a year before 9/11. This report called for the re-establishment of US hegemony and the settling of old scores such as the continuing question of Saddam Hussein’s refusal to kowtow after the Gulf War. The report already envisaged the occupation of Iraq stating that

while the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.

The distraction for the PNAC clique was that the assault on the Twin Towers meant that they had to attack Afghanistan to get Bin Laden before hitting Iraq. Afghanistan may have some strategic importance, even for oil men (since it is a possible conduit for oil pipelines from Central Asia) but the real action was always to be found in the Gulf. By calling for a “war on terror”, rather than on the Taliban for not handing over Bin Laden, the Bush regime gave itself a free hand to attack anyone on the planet deemed to be a “terrorist”. Not surprisingly they did not wait for the Afghan situation to be secure before they began the build-up to an attack on Iraq, despite Saddam Hussein’s long record of opposing Islamic militants like Bin Laden. Even leading members of the US ruling class have recently been forced to confess the truth. Alan Greenspan, ex-chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank, in a published memoir wrote,

I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: that the Iraq war is largely about oil.

The Consequences of the War on Terror

Despite all the costs in human and financial terms the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have not achieved what their American architects intended. The aim of extending US hegemony in the world has only led to a situation where it has been called further into question. In Iraq itself

the holding of elections ... has brought Iran’s allies to power in Baghdad. The US and Iran now have the same allies in Baghdad namely the Shiite Da’wa party and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) whose members make the majority of the government. While aiding its Shiite clients in government, the US, clearly does not want the Shiites to win the civil war since this would strengthen Iran. Hence the US is also arming the Sunni region’s militias.

Now that the US is bogged down in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Pentagon is beginning to re-assert control over military strategy. This was why Admiral William Fallon, head of the US Central Command in the Middle East publicly announced that the US was in no position to attack Iran. This admission (which gained Fallon the sack this month) is a signal of the complete mess US aggression has ended up in. Indeed the NATO alliance which was increasingly an agent of US domination in Europe is now fraying at the edges in Afghanistan as the US demand more troops from its allies who are trying to wriggle out of the war.

More Rivalries and More Wars

It is not just that the US coalition is beginning to unravel. The attempt by the USA to corner the world’s commodity markets, but most especially that in oil, has also provoked a response from more antagonistic imperialist rivals. The area of direct confrontation between Russia and China, and the USA has widened. In Central Asia they have got together to form the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation to try to counter US attempts to control the oil and gas of the Caspian Sea. This is now in the process of cosying up to Iran. In December China signed a $2 billion contract with Iran to develop the Yadavaran oil and gas field much to the fury of the US. The Russians have resumed the building of the Bushehr nuclear power station and have once again decided to support Tehran’s right to enrich uranium under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. China has also been given the rights to develop the largest unexplored reserve of copper in the world in Afghanistan. This willingness to go into war zones or places where humanitarian atrocities are committed daily has meant that Chinese imperialism is now stretching its influence throughout Africa and Central Asia. Here it is currently coming up directly against US efforts to regain its previous dominance. In short the war in Iraq has backfired. America can neither withdraw from Afghanistan or Iraq, nor can it pacify either state. Even so Bush still hopes to benefit from the new energy law drafted by US oil companies and presented (in English!) to the Iraqi Parliament. Although it has not yet been passed (because the Kurds want control of the oil of Mosul) the Iraqi oil minister said in London that he intended to sidestep the law and invite oil companies to register for contracts. In any case, the US and European oil companies already have a foot in the door through the support contracts they have been given with the Iraqi National Oil Company. If US imperialism can retain control of this resource then it will at least have secured one of its objectives. However there can be no military solution in Iraq and no political solution seems likely soon. Hence the question already quoted of occupying Iraq (and Afghanistan?) for another century which was put to Senator McCain. But occupation carries the obvious dangers of a constant bleeding of US forces probably at the hands of militia supported from Iran. This paves the way for further conflicts which could extend right across the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa. With diminishing oil reserves (not to mention other strategic needs, such as water) the potential for more massacres is enormous unless imperialism (and not just in the USA) is stopped in its tracks.