In the Progressive Magazine, Faleh A. Jabar puts forward the view that the Ba'ath Party regime in Iraq should be replaced by a secular democratic government. The author of the article fails to take into account the economic situation in the world and the role of the US in relation to Iraq. Furthermore the author glosses over the record of the Iraqi Communist Party that he was a member of and an editor of their newspaper. Worse still the author puts forward solutions for the restoration of a republican form of government in Iraq that are impossible and unworkable. Ultimately the perspective put forward in the article is one of a disillusioned ex-Stalinist reformer. It is a perspective that has nothing to offer the oppressed people of Iraq.

The solution the author puts forward is to draw up a list of most important and closest people to Hussein and offer the rest of the Ba'ath regime a way out if they abandon their leader while at the same time offering Hussein safe passage out of the country. The great powers should further "sweeten the deal" by offering Iraq a "mini-Marshal Plan" of a mere $100 billion dollars. This would break the unity of the clique ruling Iraq and cause a relatively bloodless transfer of power to a more civilian authority. In his final paragraph, the author leaves us with this little gem:

The reinception of the rule of law is a vital necessity for Iraq. It is also a precondition for any viable, emerging democracy. ⁽¹⁾

This prescription for the ills of Iraq cannot work. It ignores the economic reality of US power that the days when the US could give away huge amounts of money are over. The US needs to keep something between $1 to 2 billion dollars a day flowing into the country just to keep abreast of its balance of payment deficit. The US is the largest debtor country in the world now. Increasingly, the US state will have to resort to brute military force because it no longer wields the economic power to keep their former lackeys, like Saddam Hussein, in line. In fact despots have always ruled over the region of Iraq, so the only "rule of law" Iraq has ever seen is the law of tyrants and military men. In order to better understand the author's perspective we must explore a little of the history of Iraq and the place of the Iraqi Communist Party in that history.

The deeds of Iraqi Stalinism

The website of the ICP has this to say concerning it's own history:

The outstanding prestige enjoyed by the ICP and its deep roots within Iraqi society were largely due to its ability to merge the national with the social question in an almost unique manner. Its role in the national movement and among the young working class, the peasantry and the intellectuals in the early stages of it's life left an indelible impression on Iraq's recent history.

By the "merging of the national with the social question" they mean their activities as supporters of Adb Karim Qasim's government and their activity among the Kurdish rebels. The "indelible impression" they left was in their assistance to prop up the Qasim government and when they betrayed their support for the Kurdish nationalists and turned around to support the early Ba'ath regime headed by Ahmad Hasan al Bakr, at the behest of their patrons and ideological godfathers of the USSR. In the late seventies, after ten years of cooperation with the Ba'ath regime, the Ba'ath Party had decided to turn to the US as its new patron instead of the USSR, which had less to offer. Thus began a period of persecution and exile for Iraqi Stalinism, as they were no longer needed to control Iraqi workers and Kurdish nationals.

Currently the ICP calls for the establishment of a republican and democratic government in Iraq. The US has no such fate in mind for Iraq, no more than the British did when they installed the hated Hashemite Monarchy in power in Iraq. The great powers divided the Ottoman Empire at the end of the First World War and they installed dictatorships and monarchs in the Gulf region. Clearly it was preferable for them to deal with dictators rather than with unreliable parliaments. Likewise today they cannot allow for the Iraqi people to be anything more than completely alienated from the government that rules over them. The only party in the official opposition to the Ba'ath Regime that has ever had a substantial base of support among Iraqi workers, peasants and intellectuals was the ICP. The role they played tied workers to two ruling regimes and placed them at the mercy of the armed cliques of ruling class. They helped place the young Iraqi working class on the anvil at the behest of their partners within the Iraqi ruling class where, at one time, they were an influential faction.

A History of Brutality and Oppression

After the overthrow of the British backed monarchs Qasim came out at the top in the power struggle. He found in the ICP a tool and a means of bolstering popular support for his regime while still balancing out the claims of his rivals in power. He established diplomatic and trade treaties with Moscow while attempting to maintain friendly relations with the West. When the ICP became threatening towards his rule in anyway he cracked down on them. When his rivals became too threatening he bolstered the position of the ICP at their expense. The ICP was the counterbalance to the pan-Arab nationalism that took the form of a ruling faction of Nasserites who looked to the Egyptian leader in their ideology. Qasim created a Communist controlled militia to balance out the power the Nasserites and the Ba'ath Party wielded in the military.

In 1961 Qasim began to see the ICP as becoming too strong so he cracked down on them, their press and the trade unions. The Kurds then rose up against the government, lead by Mustafa Barzani who with his fellow Kurdish leaders felt they weren't allowed a sufficient share in power for their support of the 1958 coup that brought Qasim to power. As Qasim weakened, Adb as Salaam Arif was put in power in a coup by the pro-Nasser faction. When he died his brother, Major General Rahman Arif was put in power. Not long after he too was replaced in a coup by Colonel Adbar Razzaq an Nayif and Ibrahim ad Daud. They too were quickly supplanted by the Ba'ath Party. During this time the ICP was active fighting among the Kurds for independence. Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr took power at the head of the Ba'ath Party. Many of the Ba'ath leaders were from the town of Tikrit, including Saddam Hussein. These people became the clan that had the largest share in power in Iraq.

Between 1968-1973 anyone within the government that challenged the rule of the Ba'ath Party was purged. By 1969 Hussein was the main force behind the Ba'ath Party. In 1970, Mustafa Barzani and his KDP (Kurdistan Democratic Party) made an agreement with the Ba'ath Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) governing Iraq. The Ba'ath signed a treaty with the Soviet Union and the ICP, in response to their godfather's change in clients, stopped fighting against the Ba'ath regime. The USSR initially supported the Kurds as a tool to extend influence in the region, but then abandoned them. The Kurds responded by seeking the Shah of Iran and the US as patrons to support their war. By this time they were already effectively wielding power in their base of support in Northern Iraq.

In 1975, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) was formed by the Jalal Talabani. They were more urban based and more leftist. The same year as the PDK faced this challenge to their domination over Northern Iraq, Mustafa Barzani died, leaving his sons Idris and Massoud in control of the PDK. By 1978-9 the two Kurdish factions were fighting each other and fighting the Iraqi government.

Once Egypt's leader Anwar Sadat signed the Camp David Accords with Israeli leader Menachem Begin, Egypt was isolated from the Arab community as a pariah that had betrayed Arab interests. This placed the Iraqi leaders in a position where they could attempt to put themselves forward as the "voice" of Arab nationalism. By 1979 al-Bakr was formally replaced by Saddam Hussein who was encouraged to take full power by the US. At this time Iraq was the loyal patron of the US in fighting the Iranian fundamentalist regime. The US saw the Ba'ath Party dictatorship as a line of defense against Iranian (and Soviet) ambitions in the region. Hussein was a "bastion of democracy" just like any other US backed dictator. So, in the late seventies the author of this article, like other Stalinists in the Persian gulf region had found that their despotic allies, in Iran the fundamentalists and Iraq the Ba'ath Party, were now seeking to kill them.

When in 1988 the Iraqi government under Sadaam Hussein gassed the Kurds, who were backing the Iranian fundamentalists, the US State Department issued a formal statement blaming the Iranians for the gas attack. The US government actually provided cover for their use of chemical weapons on thousands of Kurdish civilians.

On July 25, 1990, the Iraqi government sought the assurance of their US patrons that they would be allowed to invade Kuwait. US ambassador April Glaspie told the Iraqi government the US would not interfere if they invaded Kuwait. The Iraqi regime took this as permission to invade. This invasion was conducted to settle the long running dispute with Kuwait over the Rumaila oil fields on the Iraq-Kuwait border.

After Hussein's crushing defeat in the Gulf War the subsequent rebellion in Iraq was encouraged by the US who gave support to the rebels by creating the "no-fly" zones over Iraq. This also provided cover for Turkish troops in their war against the PKK (the Kurdish "Worker's" Party, another Kurdish guerrilla army). These no-fly zones also provided air cover for Iranian backed Muslim fundamentalists who were fighting in Northern Iraq and allied to Al-Qaeda. The bombings of Iraq by the US and UK of these regions never really stopped after the first Gulf War. For most of the last thirteen years the US and the UK have been bombing Iraq.

What the US State wants in Iraq

When the US overthrows the Ba'ath regime it will be with the help of the PUK and the PDK and other disgruntled Ba'ath Party officials and military men. All of those lined up to take power are little different from the Ba'ath Party themselves. The PDK and PUK both have many documented human rights violations and are basically gangsters and smugglers who get rich off the sanctions regime put in place by the US. So much so that they don't even want an independent Kurdistan because they are too busy making piles of money off violating the US imposed sanctions. In 1996 the PDK sought the Iraqi government's help in crushing the PUK. With Iraqi help they took the PUK stronghold of as-Sulaymanìa. Now the US solicits the help of both these Kurdish armies in overthrowing the government in Baghdad.

The US must seize control of Iraq and control the flow of oil in order to maintain its position in the world. The idea that Iraq's oil once liberated from Hussein's grasp will somehow produce magical results for the US economy is an illusion held dear by our desperate ruling class. Kuwaiti leaders promised to completely free up their oil supply once the US "liberated" them and restored their monarchical dictatorship, but this never happened. It would take over a decade to put Iraq back together enough so that they could start the oil flowing faster than it is currently. The oil fields already developed aren't likely to be completely and willingly turned over to international capital as the local bosses would stand to lose the bulk of the oil profits. What is likely to happen is that when the US overthrows the Ba'ath regime, they will create a US led oil consortium like the consortiums created to develop Caspian Sea oil. This will spread the risks out among a greater number of capitalists while still leaving the US in control of the oil spigot and at the same time get their "allies" to pay for it. US control will be backed more by military muscle than economic power.

So far Russian and Caspian basin oil will continue to flow faster for decades to come and the US does not have this oil supply firmly in its control as a great part of the Caspian Sea bed is officially divided between Iran and Russia. Iraq also represents a step closer, for the US, to this region. Iraq has the second largest proven oil reserves in the world but it potentially has the largest unproven reserves. This is due to the halt in development that was the result of the last two decades of war.

The war is not about cheap oil for US automobiles, it is about controlling the flow of oil all over the world. Iraqi foreign minister Tariq Aziz is absolutely correct in saying, "When America becomes stronger economically, when America takes over the whole oil of the region and puts it in its hands, it is going to pressure politically and economically every country that needs oil."

For now the US position is so strong that the other powers of the world are willing to let the US just take Iraq. Especially if they are offered a stake in future oil development. The question for countries like France, Russia, Germany and China is whether this promise for future profits is worth risking their current stakes in the region. They are likely to accept a lesser stake in Iraq as long as the US allows them to have a stake in the country at all. The US position is to let everyone know that they are either with them or they will get nothing. This in particular will hurt Russian capitalists who are heavily invested in the Iraq. For now they will all allow the US to take Iraq the way the French and the British allowed the Nazis to take Czechoslovakia. When the US shows a sign of weakness only then will they back off and pretend that they had nothing to do with the mess created by US imperialism in the Gulf. When the Nazis were winning, the world sat and watched as they took Europe. When the Nazis were losing, even their allies turned against them.

The Reality of a War on Iraq

If, or rather when, the US makes war on Iraq it will first entail a heavy bombardment. The Defense Department (D of D) has already publicly outlined its recommendations for taking over Baghdad. They publicly distributed their report titled Doctrine for Joint Urban Operations, which openly states that they must level all cover where enemies can fire upon them. They state openly that they intend to do this with "dual use" munitions. This means that the bombs they will drop will be incendiary bombs and depleted uranium weapons that will spread uranium oxide (uranium in any form is toxic to life) dust everywhere. They intend to level Baghdad and all urban centers controlled by the Iraqi government completely if they do go to war. Only after they have leveled the city and have achieved a clear line of fire for their troops will they send in the army. The US will also likely give the KDP and PUK a share of control in Iraq, similar to the way they gave the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan control over the Pashtun majority country. Then they will send the airborne rangers in after the Kurds have taken the brunt of the allied casualties and the airborne rangers will do what they do best, killing unarmed and starving people as they did in Somalia. The D of D report cites two combat situations as examples of what they wish to avoid, one of them is what happened to the US Army Rangers in Mogadishu and the other is the trouble the Nazi army had taking the city of Stalingrad in the Second World War.

The only way to end an imperialist war...

At this point the US has no way of backing out of a war in Iraq unless there is a coup that overthrows Hussein. This does not mean that people can only sit back and watch as a slaughter unfolds. They can demand the first rational demand that workers can make. They can demand that US and UK troops be sent home now.

... is with a revolution

A visible resurgence of class struggle within the US and the UK would have the effect of encouraging workers everywhere to rise up against the warlords and butchers of capital. A perfect focal point for this struggle is this imperialist war itself. It would have the effect of offering the workers of Iraq a real alternative to the reality they must suffer through and this is precisely what the oppressed people of Iraq and indeed the entire world need. Through inaction workers choose to be the helpless victims of a history made by their oppressors. It is possible to do things differently, to do things better. If workers form their own organizations of struggle and work together internationally they can choose a better fate for themselves. What is needed is an ideological break with the ideas of the ruling class. The reformed Stalinism of the Iraqi Communist Party represents an ideology of the left wing of the ruling class that has nothing to offer workers except suffering. These ideologies of the ruling class present us with an environmentally and economically devastated future at the hands of a parasitic minority of the human race. They call this future democracy but when their sweet words are put into practice they become synonymous with dictatorship and oppression.

(1) Jabar, Faleh A. "Opposing War Is Good... But Not Good Enough." The Progressive, January 2003: 20-22.