EDITORIAL IRAQ. ELECTIONS The January 30 elections in Iraq will be over by the time Socialist Outlook 5 is published, but we can make some assessment of the situation now. While the Iraqi resistance is divided on whether to take part in the Constituent Assembly elections, and it is indeed a tactical issue, the majority of the people of Iraq (opinion polls suggest 80%) support their taking place. Bremer originally wished to put them off indefinitely, until the economic rape of Iraq could be consolidated. However. mass protests led by Shia leaders such as Grand Ayatollah Ali al Sistani forced his hand. We support the struggle and demands for elections raised by the mass movement, despite the fact that the leaders of the Sunni minority have re- cently called for a boycott. There has been some debate on whether the Americans actually want these elections in order to legitimise their occupation, or whether they are attempting to undermine them, because they fear the outcome. In our view the main objective of the US is to keep control of the situation: they therefore employ the classic, but high-risk, impe- rialist tactic of divide and rule, manoeuvring with the Shia, Sunni and Kurdish communities. Implicit in these tactics is the danger of civil war. After at first backtracking the Americans now want the elections to go ahead, but with an outcome that is barely legiti- mate, in other words, they want a weak Assembly. However, they have belatedly realised that, due to the threatened Sunni boycott, the Assembly will result in a big Shia majority which may be both unpredictable and seen as illegitimate. Consequently they have re- cently attempted to encourage Sunni participation These elections, held under terrible conditions of occupation, are deeply flawed, but their legitimacy will only in the end be con- firmed or otherwise by what the new Assembly does. Will it deci- sively reflect the wishes of the masses of Iraq, both Sunni and Shia for the removal of the occupation forces? Will the Shia majority in the new Assembly wage a struggle for a non-sectarian national unity with the Sunni minority by integrating them into a new gov- ernment? It should be noted that Sistani has called for a broad based coalition government. If the elected Assembly is relatively quiescent America will present it as the legitimate voice of the Iraqi people. But, un- der conditions of exclusion, the Sunnis are unlikely to tolerate the idea of majority Shia rule. This may raise the spectre of civil war and an imperialist promoted balkanisation of Iraq. If the Assembly takes an independent line and demands the withdrawal of the Oc- cupation forces, the Americans will of course denounce the As- sembly as illegitimate and raise all the technical problems such as the abstentions, for which they have most responsibility, for example by using Shia militia to help destroy the predominantly Sunni city of Fallujah. Whatever the outcome, we should. on balance, support these elections, while denouncing imperialism for the conditions under which they are being held. Although we can have no confidence in Sistani, or his supporters in the new Assembly, for they favour an Islamic State, we should call on this Shia alliance to form a new non-sectarian government, and use the legitimacy of an elected Assembly to eject the occupation forces. Iraqi Resistance The other debate is on the characterisation of the Iraqi resistance. Socialist Outlook has extended unconditional support to the resist- ance of the peoples of Iraq against the occupation of their country, and participates in the anti-war movement. We stand for 'Troops Out Now' and for self-determination for the peoples of Iraq. We offer the maximum political and practical support to trade union- ists, political parties and organisations of the working class and the oppressed in Iraq in their struggle against imperialism. But the first responsibility of socialists in the imperialist heart- lands is to oppose our own ruling class. Defeat of US and British imperialism will create the best conditions for the advance of socialism worldwide. We reiterate that the fundamental blame for the violence, death and destruction lies with the US and other occupation forces. They are responsible for the largest number of civilian deaths - mostly women and children - esti- mated by the Lancet as about 100,000 since the war officially ended, excluding the death toll in Fallujah. The cavalier atti- tude of the American forces to the ancient ruins of Babylon in transforming them into a military base, reveals their barbarism towards and ignorance of Iraq; their one interest in its natural resources blinding them to the history and culture of a country whose civilisation was one of the first on earth. However, our unconditional support of the resistance does no: :**= away our right to criticise some of the tactics, political ideol.p:: views and actions of organisations within the resistance. W: = not support the attempt by the clerics to set up an Islamie stare Iraq. And we oppose bombings and other attacks in which ::: ian non-combatants are indiscriminately killed or maimed. We i. this from a basic humanitarian standpoint, as socialists, and a. because it is counterproductive to the struggle. While collaborators of the puppet regime are legitimate targets. attacks on aid workers, and on ordinary civilians going abou: their daily business, can only weaken the legitimacy of the strug- gle; both communal and sectarian violence plays directly into the hands of the imperialists. Ordinary working people are not respon- sible for the occupation. Such methods only undermine unity, in particular the unity of the working class, both in Iraq and across the world, and therefore the essential task of building solidarity and anti-war movements. We are well aware that the western me- dia distort information and that agents provocateurs - especially agents linked to the CIA or the Israeli intelligence - are active in Iraq. This is even more reason to avoid actions that give credibility to imperialism's attempt to brand the resistance movements as ter- rorists and 'evil men'. A people's war has to combine military and political objectives and methods that can mobilise mass actions, in particular the in- dependent action of the working class and small farmers, nation- ally and internationally. Vietnam and other national liberation struggles have shown how international solidarity is an essential component of victory. The form taken by the armed struggle is a key political issue for socialists who wish to see the imperialist offensive thrown back.