Defending Kurdistan is a cynical pretext for the US attacks on Iraq against Iraq have been presented as a response to Saddam Hussein s attack -in alliance with the guerrillas of the Kurdish Democratic Partv - on the Kurdish city of Irbil.
However. they have nothing to do with protection of the Kurds and everything to do with protection of US interests in the region, and with Clinton's re-election.
They are also a response to Saddam's manoeuvres. wice nave numaeo me USA and Bill Clinton, and partially re-established his credentials within ine arao worle The fact that the US attacks have been in the south of Iraq, and that the southern 'no-fly zone' has been extended, show that the main US concern is to reassure its allies in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, and to deter any possible Iraqi threat to these regimes and their oil fields. The attack on Irbil is a convenient pretext.
In fact. Saddam's intervention in irbil - which even the US recognises as Iraqi territory - does not seem to have been in breach of any of the UN resolutions cited in support of the US action. This may be one reason why Clinton is finding it harder than former US President George Bush to build an alliance against Saddam.
In 1989-90, Bush was able to mobilise an unprecedented coalition in support of his war against Iraq. Not only NATO and the EU, but Russia, Japan 'Operation Desert Storm', as a result of which hundreds of fraoi civilians were killed.
This time round, except for the expeciea slavisn support trom une briusa government, most of the allies of seven vears aco nave exoesse• reservalons about the latest attacks.
In particular, Turkey and Saudi Arabia have refused to allow bases to be used for the attacks.
There are severa reasons for this difference. In the first place, Kurdistan is not Kuwait. While the imperialist states and the corrupt and repressive Arab regimes will act in support of a Teu monarcava they will not act in support of a dispossessd people struggling to establish an independent state.
Although many states in the region nave border claims against tneir neignbours, none of them is prepared to support the national rights of the Kurds. They will defend Kuwaiti "sovereignty, while recognising Saddam's right to do as he wishes in Irbil.
Then there is the question of resources. Both Kuwait and Kurdistan sit despite using the same brutal methods O n the eve of Iraa's recommencing oil sales through Turkey, ( Clinton has used Iraq's military support to the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) to prevent the normalisation of Iraq's economic relations.
Iraq has massive oil reserves. Its long term ability to supply oil is on a par with Saudi Arabia.
The US fears that western capitalism may be forced to pay Iraq a fair price for oil in the future. In the past decade US client regimes in the Arab East have been able to top US needs.
The US aims to ensure that developing countries with useful resources-like Somalia and Iraq-have weak leaderships which allow the peoples and natural resources of the Third World to be exploited in its interests.
The brutal military tactics of the US have alarmed every capitalist government except that of These other capitalists fear intervention will destabilise the capitalist regimes in the region simply in order to boost the ecoby Iraq, and the threat to Saudi Arabia, led to the fear that Iraq might control a huge part of the world oil market, raising prices and destabilising econommies around the world. This was against the interests of both Arab and western slaics.
But an independent and democratic Kurdistan might use the profits from the vast Kirkuk and Mosul oil fields for the benefit of the Kurdish people, not the western oil companies, and is therefore to be resisted.
An independent Kurdistan would also control the sources of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers severa seres areav olspute the use of this water, and would strenuously oppose the emergence of a potentially powerful state at the headwaters.
The true worth of US promises made in 1989 can now be seen, as well. In order to recruit the Arab regimes, Bush promised pressure on Israel to disgorge the 1967-occupied territories and to establish Palestinian self-rule. This has resulted in the obscene travesty of Palestinian "autonomy with Israel continuing to build settlements while PLO leader Yasser Arafat has been turned into little more than Israel's chief of police in the West Bank and Gaza. Since Clinton is far more pro-Israel than his Republican predecessor, there is little chance of him offering the Arab regimes Making his day: Clinton is finding it harder than Bush to build an alliance against Saddam nomic interests and global authority of the US.
Many of these regimes had al. ready shown their desire to lift the cruel embargos which harm only the civil population of Iraq. can be exploited in its interests. The US bombing has everything to do with Clinton's re-election. even a face-saving formula on this issue to justify their participation in his schemes.
Yet another factor is the obvious disparity between US reluctance to act in support of Bosnia, and their immediate action against Saddam Hussein.
It is hard, even for the closest US allies in the region, to believe any hypocritical cant in support of human rights and against threats of genocide when the mass graves in Srebrenica are being excavated and the US is bank-rolling the election campaign of arch ethniccleanser Arkan.
Ultimately, however, little of this matters. The lesson of the New World Iraq and Kurdistan against Saddam.
This opposition to the isolation of Iraq is not rooted in solidarity for the humanitarian needs of Iraq's peoples. They hope simply to profit from the oil trade with Iraq and that country's pressing need for medical supplies and Emir of Kuwait Rex: the US aims to ensure that developing countries with useful resources have weak leaderships so the peoples and natural resources of the Third World Order' is that the US can and will act as it pleases. If local allies can be found to support such action, this can be a useful fig-leaf. If not, then the US will act alone, with Britain loyally wagging its tail and trotting along behind.
Although Turkey, Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia have opposed the US action, it is inconceivable that they will act in support of Iraq and against the US. A strategy for the defeat and removal of US imperialism from the Middle East must be based on opposition to all of these rotten regimes. It is only their continued existence which enables the US to pose as a defender of human rights and democracy. Iraq's Foreign Minister Taraq Aziz: the US intervention does not aim to aid the peoples of foodstunis, Inat is why lurkey's foreign minister, the pro-EU former Premier, Tansu Cillar, opposes the US attack.
Turkey is demanding that the UN allows the opening of the new oil pipeline from Iraq to Turke he US intervention-like its capitalist western oppositiondoes not aim to aid the peoples of Iraq and Kurdistan. The capitalist politicians worldwide aim only to profit from the suffering of the The west's disagreement with the US is only about how best to exploit Iraq-by unfair trade or by the military intimidation which characterised gunboat diplomacy in the 19th century.
Against this double enemy, Iragi and Kurdish workers and peasants need their own foreign policy.
Western anti-imperialists need to support their struggles-against US aggression, against the blockade, and for a free and independent Kurdistan.