Just before the Iraqi election, the People’s Weekly World published a refreshingly even handed editorial that suggested that there are “no simple answers for the U.S. left” when it comes to our response. Now that the election is over, many on the left will criticise the new transitional national assembly as a puppet government of U.S. interests, lacking a clear mandate. But, to the surprise of many of us, a majority of eligible voters turned out to the polls, which is better turn-out than most U.S. congressional elections (and we don’t have to avoid machine gun fire, just the occasional police roadblock).
This provides a real opening for us to get the hell out of there. It is up to Iraq’s new assembly to demonstrate its independence from its occupied forces. They can cancel Paul Bremmer’s sweetheart contracts with Halliburton and other corporate plunderers. They can nationalize Iraq’s oil resources. And, finally, they can ask “the Coalition of the Willing” to leave Iraq.
National polls report that a large majority of Americans now believe that invading Iraq was a mistake, but too many of them see no way out of the war now that it is in progress. We did a terrible thing, so, by glum, we have to fix it. Certainly we couldn’t just quit. Leave. Apologize. Pay reparations. Since there are no mainstream voices in the Democratic party or in the press who dare suggest such heresies, they remain unthinkable for most Americans.
What should be unthinkable is that the U.S. would fight the same damn war we fought in Vietnam, the same war the Soviets fought in Afghanistan, the same war that the French fought in Algeria, the same war that every occupying force has fought in a country where they just weren’t wanted. Yes, the folly of Bush’s War has probably condemned the Iraqi people to endure years of civil war, and for this we bear an enormous amount of guilt and responsibility. But, the insurgents can’t be beaten militarily. Maybe the U.S. can shut down Abu Musab al Zarqui, but someone else would just as soon take his place, as long as U.S. soldiers remains on Iraqi soil as a visible symbol of foreign occupation and “evil, Western values.”
There may be no political will in the U.S. to unilaterally withdraw from Iraq, but, with luck, Iraq’s new National Assembly will have the political will to demand that the U.S. forces leave. It will then be our responsibility, on the left, to be out on the streets in large numbers to reiterate that demand.