Don't let Bush dig in:
get the troops out now!
"Roll up that map, we shall not need it...". The famous words on the turmoil of nations and national borders created by the outbreak of the Napoleonic wars could also apply to the new period opened by the dispatch of tens of thousands of US troops to the
Gulf to counter Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.
Whichever way the present conflict is resolved, it will result in lasting changes in the balance of power, not only in the oil-rich
Gulf but on a world scale.
Margaret Thatcher was perhaps the first to recognise the opportunity for imperialism to exploit Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein's rash adventure in invading
Kuwait. She saw that the situation offered a new opportunity for the western imperialist powers to strengthen their hand in the Middle East. While Bush initially dithered, a long phone call to
Thatcher was reportedly the turning point in his decision to send in what will be 125,000 troops to Saudi Arabia.
But though their tanks, heavy artillery and other equipment are still arriving by sea, we can be sure that the US troops got to the Gulf much faster than they will leave: indeed with as
Thatcher's costly Fortress Falklands', it seems that long after the present crisis dies down a major new imperialist encampment will remain in the region for
Bush's war drive must be stopped many years.
The reason is clear: Bush might succeed in using the USA's new $2 trillion arsenal to reimpose old- fashioned imperialist control over this strategically vital region for the world's economy. He might succeed in ousting the Iraqis from Kuwait - and even in toppling Saddam Hussein: yet all this would mark not the end but a new stage of the crisis.
The removal of Saddam would raise the immediate problem of installing and preserving a new, collaborationist regime in Iraq acceptable to the USA. This would be no easy task once the Iraqi population has experienced the rigours of the imperialist blockade and possibly witnessed mass slaughter at the hands of US forces.
The anger of the Arab and Palestinian masses at the US intervention is already causing serious problems for several bourgeois Arab regimes - both those, like Egypt and Syria, which have sent troops to give "Arab cover" to the US military effort in the Gulf, and King Hussein's vacillating regime in Jordan. A surge of outraged anger and mass struggle if Saddam were defeated could yet topple one or more of these regimes and sweep new radical forces to power, creating fresh headaches for
Washington's strategists.
In addition, if the unloved Emir of Kuwait and his barbaric feudal order are reinstated with the aid of US bayonets, the longer-term question of how to preserve this and other outposts of feudalism in the Gulf states (including Saudi Arabia) will remain unsolved.
All the signs are therefore that a US victory over Saddam would inevitably lead into a major continuing military commitment in the Gulf. It would also strengthen those elements of the
US establishment who argue for the use of brute force to solve other political problems facing imperialism - making it more likely that US troops would be used to repress revolutionary strug gles and remove those other regimes in the third world" which incur Washington's displeasure. We have already seen evidence of an overtly aggressive interventionist line by US imperialism in its recent bloody invasion of Panama to impose a stooge government compliant to
Washington.
All thought of a "peace dividend" from reductions in military spending after the end of the Cold War would be dropped: a major new impetus would be given to arms manufacturers, while pressure is already mounting from Thatcher and the State
Department for the remilitarisation of Japan and Germany to help the Americans keep the Gulf safe for capitalism. Yet at the same time there would be an even bigger contradiction in capitalist power relations between the unchallenged global dominance of the USA and its status as the world's biggest debtor nation.
These political implications of a possible imperialist victory are grim enough for socialists: but a war in the Gulf would have other, human and social consequences.
A stand-off between Saddam's tank brigades and US naval and air- backed land forces could bring a horrendous slaughter in the desert: as the eight-year Iran-Iraq war showed, Saddam's army is unlikely to give way easily or collapse quickly.
Meanwhile there will be a huge toll of civilian casualties and a new tidal wave of refugees from the war zone into neighbouring countries. Even if the prolonged enforcement of trade sanctions on Iraq through the US blockade does not swiftly trigger a shooting war in the Gulf, it could have dire effects. The outbreak of epidemic disease, and the hunger, squalor and misery of the refugees huddled in Jordanian transit camps give us a glimpse of the conditions that sanctions - the supposedly "nonviolent" policy - are intended to force upon the Iraqi people by cutting vital supplies of food, medicines and other necessities.
All of these implications of the US/British intervention are plain enough to see, and the conclusion is clear: imperialist troops must be withdrawn from the Gulf, and the UN sanctions must be lifted, before they lead into a major war in which the losers must be the Arab masses of the Middle East.
shameful capitulation of its leadership to an imperialist war drive.
ing from the Falklands war of 1982 - which Thatcher used to win reelection - or the period when Harold Wilson's Labour government slavishly supported US barbarism in Vietnam, tail-ends
Thatcher into backing the American intervention.
vention has been carried out under a fig-leaf of legitimacy from a
United Nations resolution - apparently forgetting that the UN was also used as a flag of convenience by the USA for its war in Korea which left millions dead in 1950-53. In both cases the cause embraced by the UN has been reactionary. Then the war was waged to prop up Syngman Rhee's corrupt dictatorship (and thousands of US troops have remained in South Korea ever since): the latest war is to keep oil cheap and the Gulf safe for feudal sheikhdoms.
has brutally repressed the Iraqi left and workers' movement, committed barbaric atrocities against the Kurdish people and has embarked on an indefensible invasion of Kuwait. We call for troops to be withdrawn from Kuwait at once.
sein, and the removal of the corrupt Kuwaiti royal family must be a task for the Arab masses themselves and all those who live and work in those countries. We call for working class action to oust democratically elected consitiuent assembly in Kuwait. Of course,
Gulf war: build a mass campaign
Thatcher's decision to send ground troops and tanks as well as air and naval forces to back the
US war effort in the Gulf underlines the importance for socialists of building an anti-war move ment in Britain.
Socialist Outlook supports any initiative and protest against the war drive, no matter how limited.
Our goal is to build a genuine mass campaign and we know this means joining forces with those who do not necessarily share our view of imperialism.
our criticism of the UN, or our call for withdrawal of troops.
In the immediate response to the sending of US troops to Saudi
Arabia, therefore have we worked to