THOUGHTS ON THE ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT The European Social Forum will provide a major opportunity for activists across Europe to discuss how to take the movement against the imperialist war drive forward. Here Gilbert Achcar, a Lebanese socialist based in France, and member of the LCR, analyses the current political situation and the problems and opportunities facing the anti-war movement. IRAG WAR he Iraq occupation is entirely in keeping with the expansionist 'grand by the USA at the end of the Cold War. The end of the USSR was a major turning point in history, equal in importance to the end of the 20th century's two world wars. Each of these turning points ushered in a further phase of US imperial expansion. With the First World War, the USA graduated from its status as a regional or minor world power to that of a major world power. It went on to become a superpower following the Second World War, within the framework of a bipolar world, divided up between the two empires of the Cold War. The decay and final implosion of the USSR confronted the USA with the need to choose between major strategic options about 'shaping' the post-Cold War world. Washington decided to perpetuate its supremacy, in a world that had become unipolar, in the area of military force, where it held a major advantage in the global competition between imperialist states. The era of US hyperpower was inaugurated by the first Bush admin- istration's war against Iraq in January-February 1991, the year of the USSR's final collapse. The 1991 war was decisive for 'shaping the world? It enabled the USA to simultaneously fulfil a number of major strategic objectives: a massive return of direct US military involve- ment in the Gulf region, home to two-thirds of the world's oil reserves. In the 21st century we will see a growing shortage and exhaustion of this most strategic of resources. The return to the Gulf has given the USA a dominant position in relation to both allies and potential rivals, all of whom - save for Russia - are hugely depend- ent on oil from the Middle East. 4 AND THE a striking demonstration of the crushing superior- ity of US weaponry over the new dangers facing the world capitalist order in the form of 'rogue states' - dangers exem- plified by the predatory behaviour of Baathist-run Iraq, and the precedent of the 'Islamic Revolution' in Iran which had brought to power a regime evading control by the two Cold War superpowers. This show of force played a key role in convincing Washington's key allies - the European powers and Japan - of the need to renew the vassalage relationship that had been established following the Second World War between themselves and their new American overlord Upholding NATO and transforming it into a 'security organization' were part and parcel of the renewal of this hierarchical relationship. At the same time, the US return to the Middle East inaugu- rated a new historic phase in the development of Washing- ton's global empire. The US could now extend its network of military bases and alliances to those regions of the planet that had previously escaped its control because they had been under Moscow's domination. NATO expansion to Eastern Europe, armed intervention in Bosnia, and the Kosovo war were the first stages of this completion of imperial globaliza- tion, carried out under the Clinton administration. Successful pursuit of this process required favourable political conditions, especially given the persistence of the 'Vietnam syndrome' which hampered Washington's expansionist military. SEPTEMBER 11TH the September Ith 2001 terrorist attacks provided th I administration of George W. Bush with an historic opportu nity to dramatically accelerate and complete this process in the name of the 'war on terror.' The invasion of Afghanistan and the war against the Al-Qaida network were the ideal pretext for the expansion of US military power into the heart of formerly
social cutbacks, extreme privatization and savage compe- military spending from 1998 onwards. Soviet-controlled Central Asia (Uzbekistan, Kirghizistan, Tadjikistan) and the Caucasus (especially Georgia). Aside from the oil and gas riches of the Caspian Basin, Central Asia provides the inestimable strategic interest of being located at the heart of the Eurasian landmass - between Russia and China, the two main potential adversaries of US political and military hegemony. The 2003 invasion of Iraq aimed to complete work that had remained unfinished in 1991 due to the impossibility at that time of embarking upon a long-term occupation of the country - for reasons of both international (the limited UN mandate, the existence of the USSR) and domestic politics (public reluc- tance, a limited mandate from Congress). With its occupa- tion of Iraq, its ongoing domination of the Saudi kingdom and military presence in the other emirates of the Gulf region, the US now has direct control of more than half of the planet's oil reserves, in addition to its own domestic reserves. Washing- ton is actively seeking to further tighten this global grip on oil resources by spreading its hegemony to Iran and Venezuela, its priority targets after Iraq. WAR AND GLOBALISATION The strategie decision to pursue and complete US unipolar Lomination of the world is intimately linked to the neo-libera economic agenda adopted by global capitalism and imposed on the entire planet through the process known as 'globalization.' In order to guarantee free access for the USA and its partners in the global imperialist system to the resources and markets of the rest of the world, it is of vital importance to build up and maintain military forces up to the task. Such forces are also essential to guard against the non-economic threats to the system and markets created by the neo-liberal offensive of tition. Washington has elected to make the US 'the indis- pensable nation' of the global system. As a result, the gap between the US and the rest of the world continues to grow. At the end of the Cold War, the USA accounted for one third of global military spending; it now spends more than all other countries combined This formidable military superiority of the American hyper- power can be traced to the 'militarism' inherent in the very concept of imperialism as defined by the English economist John A. Hobson. It has been magnified by the feudal-like hier- archical structure between the US overlord and its vassals that has been in place since the Second World War. Through this structure, one superpower took charge of most of the work of defending the capitalist system. For this hierarchical structure to become a single global imperial system, and for it to remain so, it was and will always be absolutely essential for the superpower - now a hyper- power - to maintain the military wherewithal in keeping with its ambitions. Strengthening America's role as protective overlord was at the heart of the projects of the Reagan admin- istration and its huge increase in military spending to record peacetime levels. The end of the Cold War, combined with the economic con- straints of public finances dangerously in the red, had led to a reduction and then a levelling off of US military spending in the first half of the 1990s. But there was a resurgence of post- Soviet Russian challenges to US objectives around NATO expansion (from 1994 on) and the Balkan crisis (1994-1999), as well as the emergence of a challenge from post-Maoist China, illustrated by the confrontation over Taiwan in 1996. When combined with the backdrop of increased military coopera- tion between Moscow and Beijing, these developments led the Clinton administration to set in motion a long-term increase in 5
THE FUTILITY OF ARROGANT UNILATERALISM The renewed US race to overarm itself in relation to the rest of the world - picking up where the Cold War arms race with the USSR left off - was accompanied by a new approach in Washington towards the man- agement of international relations. with the Gulf crisis in 1990. Starting there was a passing infatuation of the U'S for the UN. accompanied by a belief that Washington could imperial pursue its objectives within an international legal framework attuned to its aspirations, as was the case for Iraq. Somalia and Haiti. These illusions were very short-lived and were initially jettisoned in order to carry out unilateral NATO action in the Balkans. At that time. Washington circumvented the Russian and Chinese vetoes at the UN Security Council by taking unilateral action through the US-led alliance, in the name of supposedly 'humanitarian' concerns. The new surge in military spending made possible by the September 1lth attacks, the new consensus created by these attacks in relation to Washington's military expedi- tions - combined with the 'unilateralist' pre- disposition of George W. Bush and his team - led the Bush administration to cast aside all institutional constraints to the pursuit of US military expansion. 'Coalitions of the willing' under unchallenged US leadership even circumvented NATO, whose principle of unanimity granted the equivalent of veto rights to all member states. The war of invasion in Iraq was a perfect unilateralist this opportunity to put approach into practice. The US point of view and interests were at odds not only with those of permanent members of the UN Security Council, such as Russia and China, who are generally opposed to US global hegemony, but also with traditional allies and NATO members, such as France and Germany. The overlap of interests and points of view between the governments of the US and the UK prompted them to carry out the invasion together, with the support of a few NATO members and a mix of docile and more zealous US allies. The quagmire of the US-led coalition in 6 Iraq and the Bush administration's dif- running the occupation, have ficulties provided a striking demonstration of the of their arrogant unilateralism. which had been criticized from the start by a section of the US establishment, including within the Republican Party and the entourage of Bush senior. SEEKING IMPERIAL PARTNERS The Iraq failure has highlighted the need for a return to a more subtle combination of military supremacy and the fashioning of a minimum consensus with the traditional allied powers (NATO, Japan), if not with all the world powers in the framework of the UN Of course, consensus has a price. The US must skilfully take their partners' interests at least minimally into account while keeping the lion's share of the spoils for themselves. Since the 1990-1991 turning point, Wash- ington has felt that the UN's role as a testing caretaker of the consensus between the big powers was obsolete. It sees the equality of rights (to veto) for the five per- manent members of the Security Council as entirely outdated in a new unipolar world in which, in practice, only the USA can exercise a veto in the arca of international 'security' Paradoxically, though, the world order was overturned through a UN resolution that Bush senior obtained in order to secure domestic support for his war against Iraq. Then, under Clinton, the UN was reduced to post-war caretaking alongside NATO in the Balkans, in the territories invaded by NATO under US leadership. This same post-war caretaking formula was used once again in Afghanistan, following Washington's unilateral invasion. Having led the invasion of Iraq. the USA difficulties of running now faces the the occupation and would like to find an Afghanistan-type solution. The letter and, even more so, the spirit of the UN Charter are blithely violated. According to the Charter, wars of invasion are illegal unless they have been decided by the Security Council. As such, Washington's wars are no longer even legal, let alone just or legit- imate. The 1991 war had been waged only in the name of the UN - but not actually by the UN, as the UN general secretary himself put it at the time. In any event, Washington only consid- ers turning to the UN, or to NATO or any other multilateral body, when it determines that it will serve its purposes. The US has always reserved the right to act unilater- ally in defense of its interests. THE ANT!-WAR MOVEMENT The major post-Cold War policy directions of the US-led world imperialist order have ushered in a long historic period of unbri- dled military interventionism. The anti-war movement is the only force capable of over- turning this state of affairs. Since the collapse of the USSR, the evolution of the global relationship of military forces has virtually eliminated all impediments posed by other states to imperialist inter- ventionism. In the case of the nuclear deter- rent, only a suicidal state would brandish atomic weapons against the US — another matter being the case of a clandestine terror- ist network not confined to any territory that The main could be targeted for reprisals. point is that no military force on earth can stop the steamroller of US hyperpower once it has decided to invade any given territory. The only major power able to stop the war machine is public opinion imperial and its frontline detachments in the anti- war movement. Logically, the people of the United States play the decisive role in this regard. The "Vietnam syndrome' - in other words, the impact of the spectacular anti- war movement that massively contributed to ending the US occupation of Vietnam - mil- itarily paralyzed the empire for more than fifteen years, from the sudden withdrawal from Vietnam in 1973 until the invasion of Panama in 1989.
Since the military action against the Pana- manian dictatorship, Washington has been attacking enemies that are easy to demonize given their hideous dictatorial character: Noriega, Milosevic, Saddam Hussein, and so on. Moreover state and media propaganda blow things out of proportion whenever the need arises, that is if reality does not quite conform to the demonized image, espe- cially in comparison with the West's allies. This was the case for Milosevic of Serbia (compared to Tudjman, his Croatian rival), as it continues to be the case for the Iranian regime (compared to the medieval funda- mentalism of the Saudi monarchy). Similar efforts are underway in relation to Venezue- lan leader Hugo Chavez. Still, in 1990 Bush senior ran into some dif- ficulty when he tried to obtain a green light from Congress for his military operation in the Gulf, in spite of the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait. Similarly, the Clinton administra- tion had problems getting support for inter- vention in the Balkans; and let us not forget its calamitous withdrawal from Somalia. This reflects strong and persistent reluctance within US public opinion. Unfortunately, this sentiment did not prevent the anti-war movement from promptly collapsing after its revival in 1990 in response to the Gulf crisis. The September 11th 2001 attacks gave the Bush administration an illusion of mass, unconditional support within Western public opinion for its expansionist designs dressed up as the 'war against terrorism.' The illusion was short-lived. On February 15th 2003, sev- enteen months after the terrorist attacks, the US and the world saw the broadest anti-war mobilization since Vietnam - the broadest international mobilization ever in fact, around any cause. An expression of the massive opposition within global public opinion to the planned invasion of Iraq, this mobilization was nonetheless only a minority phenomenon in the USA itself. The inter- national movement had, as usual, contrib- uted powerfully to the strengthening of the US movement, but the effects of September 1lth - nurtured by a campaign of disinforma- tion orchestrated by the Bush administration - were still too strong. PROBLEMS AND OPPORTUNITIES Setbacks for the US-led occupation in Iraq have created the conditions major shift in US public opinion and for a powerful and inexorable rise of sentiment in favour of bringing the troops home. The problem this time around is that the frontline anti-war forces have seen a decline in activity since the invasion, although it should have continued to grow. This untimely retreat in the anti-war mobi- lization was caused by a number of factors. For one thing, the movement was quickly demoralized due to an outlook overly focused on the short term, although it was highly improbable that the movement would manage to prevent the invasion given the tremendous stakes involved for Washington. For another, there is spread belief in the US in the possibility of settling the question through the ballot box, whereas only mass pressure would force a withdrawal of US troops, given the bipartisan consensus around the impor- tance of keeping a hold on Iraq. Finally, there is an illusion that the various armed actions against the occupation troops will be enough to end the occupation. These views are at odds with the Viet- namese experience, too far removed from the awareness of new generations for the lessons to have remained in collective memory. There has not been the kind of continuity in the anti-war movement that could ensure such lessons are passed from one generation to the next. The movement that put an end to the US occupation of Vietnam was built over time, as a long- term movement, and not as a mobilization immediately preceding the outbreak of war and then demobilized once the invasion began. The movement had far fewer elec- toral illusions in the USA given that it had been built under the Johnson Democratic administration and then peaked under the Nixon Republican administration. It was clear to the movement that, in spite of their impressive resistance, incomparably broader and more effective than Iraq's, the Vietnamese were tragically isolated mili- tarily and could not inflict a Dien Bien Phu on US troops - that is to say, a defeat com- parable to the one that had ended the French occupation of their country in 1954. This is even more evident in the case of Iraq. Leaving aside the diverse origin and form of the armed actions - where terrorist attacks of a sometimes communalist char- acter against the civilian population are combined with legitimate actions against the occupation forces and their local sub- ordinates - the nature of the terrain itself makes it impossible to inflict a military defeat on the US hyperpower. This is why the occupiers are far more fearful of mass mobilizations of the Iraqi population, such as those that forced the decision to hold elections by universal suffrage by January Only a big upsurge of the anti-war movement, relayed by anti-war public opinion in the USA and around the world and combined with pressure from the Iraqi people, can force Washington to release its grip on a country whose economic and stra- tegic importance is far greater than Viet- nam's, and which has already cost so many billions of dollars to invade and occupy. Iraq is only a potential 'new Vietnam' from a political angle, not a military one. It is certainly the biggest quagmire for the US since 1973 - a quagmire whose repercussions are amplified by memories of Vietnam (proof of the persistence of the 'syndrome') and by the development of global media and communications since that time. We have an historic opportunity to resume the momentum of February 15th 2003 and rebuild a long-term anti-war movement. This movement could transform the US. led Iraq adventure into a new Vietnam, in the political sense: a new long-term paraly- sis of the imperial war machine. Combined with the rise of the global mobilization against neoliberalism, this would open up the way for the profound social and politi- cal changes urgently needed in this world of spiralling injustice. 7
a