Iraq Invasion - Igniting Arab Opinion

"PEOPLE SEE this as an occupation. If the government gives us weapons we will fight the Americans and the British."

This Basra resident's view of the war does not bode well for the British and US troops waging war in Iraq. Far from being greeted as "liberators" from the oppressive Saddam Hussain regime, there is now plenty of evidence from 'embedded' Western journalists that many Iraqis view the invasion as a 21st century Crusade.

Moreover, the brutality of the war, relayed by the Arabic Al Jazeera news service, is inflaming Arab anger against the invasion throughout the Middle East.

Because of US support for the right-wing Israeli regime of Ariel Sharon, which is oppressing the Palestinians, anti-Western sentiment had already been seething. Now the scenes of devastation in Basra and Baghdad are generating an outpouring of anger and protest throughout the Arab and Muslim world - a real worry for many of the repressive, corrupt, pro-Western regimes such as Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

Last Friday over 15,000 anti-war protesters marched from Cairo's al-Azhar mosque. In Iran, an officially approved demo of thousands marched to the British embassy in Tehran - some threw stones.

In Jordan, riot police held back several thousand protesters trying to march to the Israeli embassy. In the Palestinian territories some 30,000 demonstrated their support for Iraq.

Several hundred thousand marched through Damascus in an officially sanctioned protest. Although a Coalition 'partner' in the 1991 Gulf war, the Syrian regime remains on the US list of 'terrorist-sponsoring' countries over its refusal to close the political offices of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Rumsfeld threat

US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld upped the stakes by accusing the Syrian government of providing military support to Iraq. Rumsfeld said the US would "consider such trafficking as hostile acts and will hold the Syrian government accountable for such shipments".

This threat confirms to many Arab-speaking people that the invasion and occupation of Iraq is merely the first phase of an attempted Western re-colonisation of the Middle East.

This new pan-Arab nationalism based on the most oppressed workers and poor is a first step in taking an anti-imperialist stand. It is also marking time for the reactionary and corrupt pro-Western Arab ruling classes.

However, in the absence of mass workers' organisations and independent socialist parties to fight for an overthrow of capitalism and landlordism and for socialist internationalism, the movement could find its way into a divisive religious cul-de-sac.

Kurds - A History Of Western Betrayals

THE US is using armed Kurdish groups in the north of Iraq as a proxy army against Saddam Hussain's forces. Many Kurds, however, are fighting for an Iraqi Kurdistan, to include areas such as oil-rich Kirkuk.

But Turkey is bitterly opposed to any independent Kurdish entity that may encourage Kurdish separatist movements within its borders and has massed troops on the Iraq/Turkey border ready to invade.

The US, wanting to maintain its NATO links, has promised Turkey that it will 'preserve Iraq's integrity' i.e. not allow a Kurdish state. TIM LESSELS explains how the West, once again, will betray Kurdish national aspirations.

THE CURRENT alliance between US forces and Iraqi Kurds is entirely one of convenience. While the US and British governments talk about Saddam's appalling suppression of the Kurds to justify their war, both countries do nothing to aid the oppressed Kurds in Turkey, nor the plight of the Kurdish minorities in Iran and Syria.

In the 1980s the repression of Iraqi Kurds was ignored by the West. Then, Saddam was a staunch ally of the US and Britain in the fight against the newly established Islamic Republic of Iran.

At the end of the 1991 Gulf War, US President George Bush encouraged an Iraqi Kurdish uprising against Saddam only to betray them for fear of encouraging Iran's regional ambitions.

Clearly, the Kurdish people cannot rely on imperialism to defend their rights. Indeed, during the last century the Western powers carved up the Middle East to suit their interests, leaving 35 million Kurds divided into four countries.

The Kurds have continuously struggled for national liberation but to no avail. The leadership of various Kurdish political organisations must take some of the blame for this. Their rivalry and opportunism has allowed the Kurdish people to be divided with ease by the regional powers and imperialism time and again. eg the recent armed conflict between the Kurdish PUK and KDP and the PUK and PKK factions in northern Iraq.

National rights

SOCIALISTS FULLY support the struggle of the Kurdish people for national rights and self-determination, including the right to a separate state if so desired.

The regional capitalist powers and imperialism will not allow for the creation of an independent Kurdistan and as a minority in capitalist states the Kurds will always be subject to discrimination.

The Kurds should continue to look for outside support - not that of imperialism or the corrupt reactionary governments of the region, but to the working class and rural poor of the Middle East and internationally. With a socialist programme for national rights, coupled to economic and social liberation, the Kurds could start to win mass support.

A mass movement for socialism in the Middle East could sweep away the reactionary capitalist regimes and allow for genuine democracies.

The enormous wealth of the region could be taken under the control of the workers and used to benefit the masses, not creamed off by the ruling elites and Western companies.

Under socialism, the people of the region would at last be free from the divisive and destructive influence of imperialism and their previous despotic national ruling classes. Then, the Kurds and other national minorities will be able to make a free and democratic decision about the states they wish to live in.

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