The Persian Problem.

There has been a lot of talk about war with Iran lately as a British embassy was attacked by protesters, the subsequent expulsion of Iranian diplomats from British soil and then Iran had shot down an American drone (as well as an explosion near the British embassy in Bahrain). The reasoning here is that the Islamic Republic is hostile to the West and Israel out of nothing more than anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism. It is secretly developing nuclear weapons and has long-standing ties with Hezbollah. The same people who are not the defenders of gay rights and women's liberation will refer you to the record Iran has on the rights of gays and women. There is no space in a theocratic state for democratic procedures except in a castrated form to ratify the decrees of the Islamist establishment. It is nothing less than the "clash of civilisations" Samuel P Huntington warned us about. This is the view of the situation crafted through the media and supported by members of the political class in the US, UK and Israel.

What's wrong with this picture? We should keep in mind that Saudi Arabia makes Iran look like the most flamboyant Gay Pride parade through San Francisco and no commentators are calling for Riyadh to be bombed into the stone-age. The Saudi Kingdom remains a major client-state of the US in spite of the religious superstructure which helps legitimate the House of Saud. The same goes for the criticism that the Islamic Republic is not a democracy, but a theocracy which aligns itself with the forces of militant Islam in its march against the West. It wasn't the Iranian government who lent billions of dollars to the Taliban, that was the work of Saudi Royalty and the American elite. Even more shockingly it was the Israeli government, not Tehran, which covertly financed Hamas many years ago to undermine the secular Palestinian Left. It was the University of Nebraska, not the University of Qom, which printed Jihadist manuals to be distributed throughout Pakistan in the 80s. The radicalisation of Pakistan took place under General Zia ul-Haq.

The particular form of political Islam in practice in Iran lacks any purely Qu'ranic origins, rather it is a hybrid which was developed in the 20th Century. It comes out of the works of Ali Shariati and the Islamist thinker Sayyid Qutb as well as Abul Maududi. Qutb called for an Islamist vanguard to rise above the corrupt influence of the West and lead the masses to the light of Islam. Maududi introduced the idea of an Islamic democracy, at the same time that he admired the Fascist movements of the 1930s. The most important figure for Iran is certainly the work of Ali Shariati which has since been compared to Catholic Liberation Theology. For in his work he fused the anti-imperialism of Frantz Fanon (a student of Jean-Paul Sartre) with the Shi'ite tradition, which had been apolitical for much of its history until then. It was then that the political Islam, we know all to well today, emerged in Iran as the old dictatorship melted under the heat of popular passions in the country. Shariati died before the revolution and never saw the established vision of Ayatollah Khomeini.

Christopher Hitchens made a brief reference to this in his talk on the "Axis of Evil" when he noted that there are 'discrepant' views of the relation of religion to the state in Shi'ite theology. It remains a serious theological discussion even after the rise of theocracy in Iran. It is worth noting that the Islamic Republic was established in reaction to the coup of '53 and stood on the back of a popular rebellion against a brutal regime. The Shah overthrown in 1979 had been installed by the CIA in 1953 to protect the interests of British Petroleum after the Iranian government sought to nationalise the country's energy resources. As Hitchens explained, in the new Islamist Iran, the Guardianship of the Jurists (normally an umbrella held over the vulnerable, mentally ill and so on) was extended to include the entire population under its protection. The central authority was from then on manifested in the Supreme Leader and the Guardian Council.

The media prefers to pick and choose from history rather than acknowledge the origins of the nuclear issue in Iran. It was the Shah who argued that Iran should have nuclear weapons because the US and Russia have them. Once Ayatollah Khomeini came to power the Iranian initiative to develop nuclear weapons came to an end. It was only as Iraq, with the support of the US, declared war on Iran that the Islamist regime decided to reopen the facilities. Incidentally, the reformist President Khatami wanted to lead Iran into the invasion of Iraq 20 years later alongside the US in order to "improve relations". The Bush administration then abruptly placed Iran on the "Axis of Evil". The invasion came in 2003 and the US then maintained occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq, both of which share borders with Iran. In fact Iran is surrounded on all sides by American client-states which could easily support or even be used as a base for an invasion some day.

There are signs that a covert war is already underway, it would seem, with the US and Israel as major aggressors supported by Britain and France. In the words of Seamus Milne at Stop the War "Covert support for armed opposition groups has spread into a campaign of assassinations of Iranian scientists, cyber warfare, attacks on military and missile installations, and the killing of an Iranian general, among others." Even the propaganda wing of the GOP has acknowledged that there may be a covert war being waged against Iran. It remains a real possibility that the US will trap itself into an all out war with Iran, which would undoubtedly be long and bloody. As the combination of harsh sanctions and growing threat of an attack on Iran from the American base on Diego Garcia could converge with the worst tendencies of American-Israeli foreign policy. Iran is perceived as a threat because of its independence from Washington as it stands as an alternative model for the Shi'ite masses which are oppressed in major oil providers such as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Iraq.

The Death of a Stalinist.

So Kim Jong-il has died at the age of 70, going by Russian records, and the hermit state of North Korea is in transition to another leader and this time the successor seems to be a man who has yet to enter his fourth decade on this planet. The country descended into 10 days of mourning as it had when Kim Il-sung died in 1994. It was out of respect to the wishes of the "Great Leader" that Kim Jong-il was allowed to become the Chairman of the National Defence Commission. But it was not automatic, Kim Jong-il took 3 years to consolidate his power within the bureaucracy of the Workers' Party. It was decided in 1998 that the Eternal President of the Republic would be Kim Il-sung and so Kim Jong-il is technically not the President of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. So the notion of a President for life has been taken one step further, perhaps we should deem North Korea a "thanatocracy" as Christopher Hitchens suggested.

Now it looks as though Kim Jong-un will takeover the party-state apparatus in a similar manner, there have already been purges to undermine potential rivals for power. This was a surprise to Western commentators who predicted that the military establishment would not continue the Kim dynasty given the horrific state of affairs in the country. The importance of the Kim dynasty to the ruling ideology in North Korea cannot be understated. If the family goes then it is likely that the entire regime will have little to hold itself together. After all it was Kim Il-sung who fought the Japanese and oversaw the reconstruction of the country after the horrors of the Korean war, in which over 2 million were slaughtered. Even though the war was sparked after Kim Il-sung talked Stalin into backing an invasion of South Korea in 1950. But the Korean People's Army consisted of the same forces who had fought the Japanese and to this day the regime relies on this record of anti-colonial struggle.

As with figures such as Tito in Yugoslavia, Hoxha in Albania and Ceaușescu in Romania when Kim Il-sung died in 1994 commentators looked for signs of a coming collapse. It is likely that the military establishment tightened control of the population as Kim Jong-il consolidated his power. No doubt the privileged position of the military comes down to the interdependent relationship it enjoys with the Party. The military cannot rule nakedly and therefore requires some kind of justification and in turn the Kim clan fall back on the military for power. It is worth noting that the most recent amendments to the constitution have removed all references to communism and even Marxism-Leninism, instead old ideas of Juche (self-reliance) and Songun (military first) have become central. The old communist slogans have little appeal to the profoundly conservative establishment, no wonder then that the regime has become staunchly nationalist in character under Kim Jong-il.

As a consequence of the succession from father to son and now to grandson there has yet to be a process of de-Stalinization in North Korea. The personality cult around the family remains elaborate and in full swing as it was started by Kim Il-sung in the 1950s. But the Stalinist model became increasingly isolated as the Soviet Union underwent a brief period of liberalisation under Khrushchev. Then came the mutation of Maoism into a unique form of authoritarian capitalism and the collapse of really existing socialism in Eastern Europe. The mock Stalinism of Albania and Romania melted in the face of popular rage, as goulash communism ran dry in Hungary and the Berlin Wall came down in Germany. Tito’s death gave way to ethnic tensions which would eventually tear apart Yugoslavia in the most horrific manner. No one in the West saw it coming and the US took credit for it all, even though it came about as a result of internal tensions. The fallout left North Korea isolated and dependent on a now rationed flow of resources.

No doubt the power structure of North Korea and the scarcity of oil led to the food crisis of the 1990s. In Cuba the Soviet collapse prompted the decentralisation of agriculture, to prevent the shortage of fuel from creating a food shortage which could in turn create a famine. By contrast, North Korea opted to maintain the old structure of centralised control and even sought to intensify the Songun doctrine as the regime relied even more on the military establishment for its strength. The brutality of the regime apparently reached new heights. The intense militarism which came as Kim Jong-il took power exacerbated the famine, which came out of the centralised control of the state and the decline of ready access to oil. The military and scientific elites were given priority in the allocation of resources. In the consequent famine over 2 million people died as Kim Jong-il retained power and enjoyed a life of excessive indulgence.

The countryside became a source of great shame to the regime, which still seeks to conceal the disgraceful conditions from the outside world. The constraints on farming from a fuel shortage exacerbated by the Songun doctrine have left the countryside picked clean of vegetation as the military is given priority. The preference is to keep its tourists to the cities where the illusion of a workers’ paradise can be maintained. In the midst of the famine came rumours of cannibalism and the sight of people grazing on grass like cows. Since then there have been small openings for market forces in North Korea since the collapse of really existing socialism around the rest of the world. The relations with Russia and China descended into exploitative arrangements, with North Korean workers sold to chop wood in the Russian East as increasing numbers of Chinese entered the country to sell food and clothing. Most recently footage of women picking grass to sell has been smuggled out of the country.

The fears of a power struggle sparking violence on the Korean peninsula are not outlandish as North-South relations are at a low point. There was a power struggle in the 1990s between the old guard and the reformists who wanted to mimic the Chinese model of ‘capitalism with Asian values’. We don’t know the details of the tension, but it is clear that Kim Jong-il had taken over the Workers’ Party with his father elevated to Eternal President. It was clear that the few openings made for markets were the only concessions that would be made as the military establishment formed the base on which Kim Jong-il sat. The principle of Songun made it sure that the military was privileged over the rest of North Korean society. But it is likely that the regime has been preparing for this succession for a while. There have been purges throughout the year and it would likely be a method of securing the succession to Kim Jong-un. Any sign of an uprising against the regime remains to be seen, but when the collapse comes it won't be seen coming from afar.

The Threat of/to Iran.

Let's Play MAD!

The recent talk of bombing Iran may indicate just how paranoid and irrational policy-makers in Israel actually are. There seems to be a distinct inability to pursue self-interest at the most basic level, to limit the threat of terrorism, never mind an ability to recognise the moral degeneracy the Israeli government has readily indulged in for so long. The real question is whether or not the attack would be authorised in Washington. We known that the US and UK have contemplated backing such an attack on Iran. It is possible that the US and Israel will trap themselves into a situation in which they will have to bomb Iran. The Western paranoia around Iran is interesting in itself, it seems to have persisted in spite of the criminal invasion of Iraq and its devastating consequences: over 1 million dead, 5 million children made orphans and 4 million displaced. Many millions more have been dispossessed by the illegally imposed economic reforms, then there are the rates of cancer higher than Hiroshima in Fallujah.

Even though Iran has quite a low military expenditure, with no capacity to deploy force abroad and a defensive military doctrine. The only significant aggression that the country has been involved in centuries was when Iran seized control of a couple of Arab islands. Incidentally, that was in the 1970s under Pahlavi and the US supported the action. After Reza Pahlavi was dethroned, the US supported Iraq in a military strike against Iran in 1980 that turned into a war and raged for almost a decade. We should remember, as Iranians remember, that the Shah was installed in power after Mohammed Mossadegh was overthrown in a coup orchestrated by the CIA on the behalf of the British government. The democratically elected government of Iran was overthrown in 1953 to protect Western oil interests, Prime Minister Mossadegh had nationalised the oil fields which were owned by the Anglo-Persian Oil Company that has since been renamed British Petroleum. Pahlavi ruled with an iron fist for 26 years until the Revolution of 1979 and the monarchy was supplanted with an Islamist regime.

Don't forget Who Runs the World!

In the region Iran is a "threat" to order and stability because it is independent from US influence and does not take orders from Washington. This might make sense of the way Condie Rice questioned the legitimacy of the Iranian government. It is true that the elections of 2009 were rigged to secure an already safe victory for conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over reformist Mir-Hossein Mousavi. It's quite rich for a Bushite to question the legitimacy of a government given the fact that the Bush administration was never actually elected. There is actually little difference between the US and Iran insofar as the scope for democracy is concerned, though the American system is certainly more sophisticated and a far more well oiled machine. Instead of a clerical apparatus choosing the candidates the Americans have found a way for money to limit the range of candidates and essentially elect the President. The condemned system of "guided democracy" in Iran has less crude and less brutish parallels throughout the West. Really, the issue here is that the Islamist regime in Tehran does not take any orders from Washington as the Saudi Royals do. If it was about legitimacy surely Rice would question the position of King Abdullah.

Ironically, the position of Iran has been strengthened considerably by the invasion of Iraq, which Mohammed Khatami wanted to support and even wanted to send Iranian troops into Iraq as part of the invasion. Of course, Khatami's reformist proposals for American-Iranian relations were shattered when Bush came out with the "Axis of Evil" which placed Iran as an enemy alongside Iraq and North Korea. At the same time, the American occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq has posed a threat to Iran as well as the hostility of the Gulf States to the Islamic Republic. The Americans have sought to nudge the Indians towards Turkmenistan rather than Iran, with occupied Afghanistan as the main root of any hypothetical pipeline. The Gulf States are out to undermine the potential of any future Shi'ite uprising in Northern Saudi Arabia and on Bahrain which might rip major oil fields from American control. So a nuclear capability would serve the regime as a deterrent to a hostile superpower, all the while Israel hoards hundreds of nuclear weapons.

The Axis of Feeble?

The attack could be launched from the US military base situated at Diego Garcia, which is an African island that was swept clean of inhabitants by the British in order for the Americans to build a military base. The island is a major outpost of American aggression in the region with the capability to launch attacks on major targets. The Obama administration has stationed hundreds of 'bunker busters' at Diego Garcia - each with the capacity to destroy thousands of tonnes of reinforced concrete - as well as submarines armed with tomahawk nuclear missiles. It was the exposure of a bizarre plot to assassinate Saudi ambassador Adel al-Jubeir which kick-started the spiral into a military conflict with Iran. There has been a great deal of scepticism around this plot. Even the RAND Corporation has found that it seems implausible the Iranians would carry out such a plot, as it would significantly harm their own national interests. It seems highly unlikely that the Islamist regime would reach out to Mexican drug gangs to blow up a Saudi ambassador in a New York restaurant. Nevertheless, the plot has prompted talk of whether or not it constituted an act of war by Iran on the US thereby providing a justification for an all-out war.

As Israel was established in 1948 Hannah Arendt predicted that the Jews of Palestine would become like the Greeks of Sparta, they would change character to such an extent that they would no longer be able to represent world Jewry as a whole. Consequently the state would no longer function as the Jewish homeland. We might look at the people who run the Israeli state to see if Israel can really claim to represent the Jews of the world, do we really think Netanyahu meets this standard? Does Avigdor Lieberman come any closer? Think of Netanyahu's words of the "beneficial" impact of 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq for the strategic betterment of Israel. Think of the racist Lieberman plan, which includes annexation of greater land and separation of Arabs from Jews. It would impose a loyalty oath for anyone looking to become an Israeli citizen. Let alone the reactionary drivel held as thought in the minds of thugs like Avigdor Lieberman. For Arendt this is the result of the state model Israel has taken, specifically the European form of the nation-state as defined in ethnic terms. As an alternative to the ethnic nation-state model - which would conceive of Israel on a racial notion of Jewishness - Arendt argued that an independent state for Jews and Palestinians could have been founded within the British Commonwealth of Nations wherein each group received equal rights.

Instability in Stability.

Today, the policies and actions of the Israeli government have long been incongruous to the liberal values of a vast number of Jews in the world. It is certainly impossible to find anyone who is content with the situation, putting aside serious human rights violations, the perpetual war-machine of Israel prevents the state from pursuing significant socio-economic development. Israel is now one of the most unequal countries in the world, it was once amongst the most equal and featured a socialistic economy. The Israeli economy has a strong financial sector, remains a major exporter of diamonds, chemical fertiliser and high-tech industry which is tied into a huge arms industry - which has done business with South Africa in the days of Apartheid. Israel does a great deal of business with developing countries when it comes to the arms trade, including Colombia and Honduras under right-wing dictatorships. At the same time, the ceaseless war-machine, that came out of the seemingly constant threat from Arab neighbours, has pushed aside all over concerns including socio-cultural development like the Kibbutzim.

When War Pigs Fly.

The revolution in Libya has "stalled" as the revolutionaries and counter-revolutionaries are battling it out. The point of no return has been passed in Libya, it's live free or die, Gaddafi is clinging onto Tripoli and some areas which are dominated by his tribe, but the revolution snatched over 90% of Libya from his manicured fingers in recent weeks. The vehemence of the Colonel's death squads procured from Chad, Niger and Serbia have failed to restore Gaddafi's power. The "passionate" support for Gaddafi in Tripoli is really the result of a recent bribe and a concentration of wealth in the capital. Though the Libyan elite has been split down the middle by Gaddafi's actions, which has been reflected by the defection of numerous officials and soldiers, out of megalomania the Colonel thinks he can hold on. But Uncle Sam has other ideas, the Obama administration have taken the first steps to funnel cash and weapons to the revolutionaries in liberated Benghazi.

The middle-men are the House of Saud of course, who hate Gaddafi for ideological as well as personal reasons. The secular model offered by Arab nationalism has been the traditional threat to the Saudi Royals, who rely on a fundamentalist establishment to prop up their corrupt monarchy. This is without the constant insults Gaddafi has hurled at King Abdullah and the attempt to assassinate the King last year. The surface reasons for an intervention in Libya are that Gaddafi has resorted to brute force in the face of a democratic uprising. But at another level the West is worried about the flow of oil and the impact of the upheval on oil prices. The concern that we might see another oil shock amongst the British elite was reflected in Cameron's hubristic talk of a no-fly zone and funds for rebels. For which the Obama administration slapped David Cameron on the hand, opting for a more subtle approach. Notice that the British government only condemned Gaddafi after the US and began talking of intervention soon after the American neocons turned up in revolutionary garb to call for a US-led strike on Libya.

The mistake made by the pro-American administration in Whitehall was that they attempted to dutifully follow pre-empted decisions made in Washington. The Prime Minister then had to back away from calls that Washington believes in, but will not pursue so openly which is why the US has deployed four warships for "humanitarian" purposes and "military objectives". At the same time, £1 billion of the Gaddafi fortune has been frozen in Britain. An occupation at LSE is calling for the return of every penny of Gaddafi's investment in that institution and has succeeded in prompting a resignation... Sadly, the British government continues to follow dutifully on behind Washington, in foreign as well as domestic affairs. From the Iraq war to paying for nuclear weapons, which are a part of the American nuclear command system, let alone shipping off numerous wanted"terrorists" around the world sometimes for a trial over a burst condom and sometimes simply a spot of waterboarding.

The coalition government formed in "Free Libya" has made agreements to respect old arrangements with oil giants. The uprising and counter-revolutionary violence has caused oil prices to rise. Britain has a great deal of assets and invested interests in Libya, as we have in Egypt. If the military had struck against the demonstrations in Tahrir Square there would have been a similar schism as seen in Libya and Egypt would have been torn apart, the British and the Americans may have even invaded in such a scenario. It would seem that the Colonel has outlived his usefulness to Western powers as a "reformed" dictator, who might one day transform Libya into the Norway of North Africa as Anthony Giddens hoped. At this point it is practical for the Americans to supplant the old Arab nationalist order with a new regime that would have the enthusiasm of the people behind it - for now at least. The little embarrassment over selling arms to Libya felt by the British and the Americans seems to have evaporated. The traditional means of redemption are being sought, ultra-violence.

There are good reasons to oppose neoconservatives on the issue of military intervention, as there is a long and ignoble list of atrocities. The Reagan administration turned a blind eye to CIA-sponsored trafficking in drugs and guns in order to arm the Contras, a group of right-wing terrorists in Nicaragua, though this actually armed the Iranians and created a crack epidemic in California the spectre of "Communism" had to be defeated apparently. The Contras ended up killing thousands. Similarly in Afghanistan the US poured money into arming the Mujahideen, who would later carry out mass-rapes and slaughter 50,000 people in the 1990s. The preference of the Democratic Party for sanctions kept the Iraqi people under the heel of Saddam throughout the 1990s, while a no-fly zone was set up Saddam was still given the opening to crush an uprising through air-strikes. So we are right to be worried about where the sanctions against Libya and a no-fly zone may lead.

The wave of sanctions imposed under Clinton led to the deaths of over half a million people through starvation. The less "subtle" method of the Bush administration, favoured by neoconservatives,  ended up killing 1 million more people and left 4 million displaced. This leaves out the countless millions who have been dispossessed by the economic "shock therapy" Iraq was put through, which privatised and deregulated all public services over night. Efforts were then made to ensure that multinational corporations would not have to worry about paying any taxes in Iraq. All rammed through by a coterie of unelected bureaucrats and officials, mostly American, who also redrew the Iraqi Constitution. The occupation of Iraq stood in firm opposition to democratic elections for 2 years before finally giving in. Notably the artful oik (our current Chancellor) and Michael Gove both fawned over Blair, Gove declared "I love Tony Blair" in The Times just prior to the war.


Intervention in such cases as Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam and Nicaragua (among a lot of other places) was immoral. But the Libyan revolutionaries are not the Mujahideen nor are they the Contras. It would seem that to support the revolution would be to oppose Gaddafi's counter-revolution. There are parallels between Libya and Iraq. The old nationalist order versus an uprising, sanctions are pursued. In the case of Iraq it was a disaster and we have yet to see what will come of the sanctions against Libya. Importantly, there is a distinction between the kind of intervention led by hawks, in Washington and Whitehall, and the kind of intervention which might actually help the revolution. A no-fly zone could keep Gaddafi's forces on the land, apart from helicopters, and give the rebels a good chance of victory. Without a no-fly zone Gaddafi still has the capability to launch air-strikes against the rebels.

Although there may be a case to be made for a specific kind of intervention, an ideal no-fly zone, as there was in the Balkans in the 90s or in Iraq when Saddam gassed the Kurds. It must be conceded that the rebels do not want foreign interference and that there is a convergence of self-interest behind the calls for intervention. To support the attempt by the SAS to meet with rebels or the deployment of warships by the US on these grounds would be idiotic. We should have no illusions about the intentions behind American and British policy-makers looking to topple Gaddafi. The fall of Gaddafi is only preferable to them because he has outlived his usefulness and a freed up political system will be less of an embarrassment. But it could only be a softer, and more insidiously pro-American, version of Gaddafi and harder to drive out. But that does not justify Gaddafi's rule, the Colonel has to go, it should be for the Libyan people that he go and not Western economic interests.

The White Man's Burden?

"Take up the White Man's burden--
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain
To seek another's profit,

And work another's gain." - Rudyard Kipling

The Iraq war, just like other wars waged by Western powers, was commonly criticised for the loss of life on the side of the aggressors. The implication of this is that the only reason this war is "wrong" is because "our boys" are being killed by the "enemy". The war is fine, but the deaths of soldiers fighting on our side are not. Not only is this approach completely immoral in itself, it reinforces the ideological assumptions of Western "superiority" which presupposed the invasion of Iraq. Turning the West into a benevolent civilised power in the world and the rest of the world into a realm of savages that need to be contained and guided for their own good - the "White Man's Burden". Thus, George Bush's famous question "Why do they hate us when we're so good?" Of course, there are legitimate grievances behind terrorism that go back decades in the Middle East. But that's another matter unrelated to the invasion of Iraq.

From 1979 to 2003 Iraq was governed by Saddam Hussein and the Ba'ath Party, with the full support of the United States government right up until the mid 1990s. It was the neoconservatives, political allies of the oil industry and self-proclaimed "democratic revolutionaries", who had wanted to march on Baghdad since oil prices increased from $13 to $40 a barrel during the First Gulf War. It is these hawks who wanted the fall of the statue of Saddam Hussein, a great moment of optimism for many Iraqis, to become the indelible symbol of the invasion and the "moral basis" on which it was fought - bringing democracy and freedom to Iraq. But that is unlikely given the massive opposition to the war and occupation based on moral principles and an understanding of the historical context of the war.

Saddam Hussein seized power in 1979 by usurping the position of his cousin Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr and purging the Ba'ath party of all opposition - accusing his rivals of being involved in a plot with the Syrian regime to annex the Iraqi Republic. This was a time of great political upheaval in the Middle East, which had emerged from the Six Day War and the failures of Arab nationalism - the rise of a corrupt authoritarianism in Egypt for instance. From these social conditions sprouted Islamism, which was exemplified by the toppling of the Iranian dictatorship through revolution and the establishment of an Islamic Republic. Hussein had the full support of the US government as he presented himself as a counter-agent to the new regime in Tehran. It's likely that Hussein feared, as did the US, that the revolution could spread to Iraq and possibly other major oil-producers.

"Take up the White Man's burden--
The savage wars of peace--
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought." - Rudyard Kipling

Naturally, the military support provided by the US came at a massive human cost. The war between Iraq and Iran raged for a decade and left almost 1 million people dead on both sides. But the US government also turned a blind-eye to Saddam's domestic crimes - which they would later use to "justify" the invasion. In 1982 Saddam Hussein survived an assassination attempt as he visited the Shi'ite town Dujail. Around 400 people were detained following the attempt in Dujail, an unknown number of them were tortured and around 148 were later executed. The homes, buildings, orchards and farmland belonging to the convicted mere razed. The families of the convicted were exiled. The Hussein regime later launched a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Kurds, which began in 1986 and ended in 1989, while American politicians sat back and pretended to be oblivious.

In 1988 alone, in the poison gas attack on Halabja, 5,000 Kurds were killed and 11,000 were injured. That same year, around 182,000 Kurds were slaughtered in Northern Iraq. This was combined with a policy of "Arabization" in which Kurdish communities were torn apart by the state and poor Arabs were brought into Northern Iraq with the promise of cheap housing. Contrary to popular belief the US support for Saddam went on after the First Gulf War, which may mean their support of him had little to do with containment of Iran. There were several uprisings across Iraq, including one engineered by al-Qaeda, which were suppressed through the use of air-strikes that were authorised by the US in spite of a no-fly zone officially imposed over Iraq. The Clinton administration implemented further economic sanctions against Iraq which killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis through starvation whilst empowering the hold of Saddam Hussein over the population.

 

But it is not enough to simply condemn the crimes of Saddam Hussein and the Western powers that enabled his regime. If we just condemn and do not act, we reassert the notion that the West is "superior" in our all-powerful status in the world. Instead of Kipling's imperial "White Man's Burden" - that as superior beings we are obligated to "civilise" the uncivilised - we reassert this "superiority" by insisting on our guilt without acting to redeem ourselves and correct past injustices. So we apologise for our complicity in past crimes and then go on to turn a blind-eye to them once more. Take Jimmy Carter, regarded by some as a "heroic liberal" and is attacked as an anti-Semite, for his critique of Israeli foreign policy but throughout his term he did nothing to help oppressed peoples and actually supported genocide in East Timor. Thus, we must put a stop to imperialist wars or we are no better than the hawks who engineered them with such gusto.

Related Links:

The White Man's Burden

The Trap - What Really Happened in Iraq

Slavoj Zizek on the Iraq war

Christopher Hitchens on the "Axis of Evil"
On War, Empire and Resistance - Tariq Ali
Bush in Babylon - Tariq Ali

Raping and Pillaging in Mesopotamia.

"I believe freedom is the future of all humanity." - George W Bush

Despite massive opposition around the world, the US led the invasion of Iraq with the expressed intent of removing Saddam Hussein - a vile and brutal dictator - from power, to bring freedom and democracy to the Iraqi people. Everyone knows that Iraq is a major oil producing nation, second only to Saudi Arabia, and many members of the Bush administration had worked in the energy industry. Oil, the black gold that flows below Iraq's sand and dirt, is the reason most often cited by the public for the invasion today. We now know that 80% of Iraqi oil has gone to American and British energy corporations. But there is another side to the invasion that is often ignored. The Coalition Provisional Authority initiated a wave of radical economic reforms known as "shock therapy". These reforms included the mass-privatisation of state industries and public services, followed by deregulation of the markets and a 30% cut in corporation tax. These same corporations were also permitted to transfer their profits out of Iraq 100% tax free.

The aim of this "shock therapy" was to create the ideal market economy. On which a flimsy brand of democracy would be predicated, as the power of the state had been largely handed over to the private sector. The corporations that were soon dominating Iraq's economy, were fed a diet of no-bid reconstruction contracts by the US government. For example, Bechtel received a $35 million contract which also covered costs up to $680 million. But Halliburton is the most infamous case, a company once run by Dick Cheney, as it received $10 billion worth of contracts through executive agreements. Halliburton was suspected of overcharging, using the money of American tax-payers to cover it's costs, but only $10 million of the $250 million contested costs were not covered by the US government. In a sense, the private sector consists of tyrannical organisations, known as corporations and businesses, in which leaders are unelected and answer to no one, except their shareholders. They act to maximise profit and minimise cost, regardless of the needs and wants of the Iraqi people.

It is these corporate tyrannies that stand in the way of the Iraqi people in pursuing goals that are rooted in traditional politics like nationalism and socialism. The brand of democracy, perhaps more appropriately labelled polyarchy, introduced to Iraq will most likely stifle any attempt at radical or progressive change. As the real power lies in concentrated wealth in Iraq and these corporations will give support to the politicians most hospitable to their needs and wants. We have already seen this in the form of the Constitution of Iraq, which was written by men chosen by the provisional government. This is the reason that the only piece of legislation remaining from the years under Saddam is that which restricts workers from unionising. Initially, it appeared that the Bush administration were aiming to install an iron-fisted government to rule Iraq that was probably not much different to the regime led by Saddam Hussein. In reaction to this there were mass-demonstrations orchestrated by Ali al-Sistani and his followers. The US government was trying to avoid a truly democratic Iraq and ignored the demonstrations, as a result the insurgency began.

These are the real reasons that the invasion of Iraq was a war crime, the pathetic liberal cop-outs that deem the war a "military blunder" are insufficient to condemn the war in it's depravity. The Nuremberg tribunal held aggression, in the form of invasion, as the supreme international crime. Under this umbrella falls all subsequent crimes, like the use of white phosphorous and other chemical warfare in Fallujah which has left hundreds of thousands horribly deformed. Let alone the number of Iraqis killed since the invasion, which is now over 1 million, and those who have been driven from their homes, who number around 4 million. If we want to continue to hold up the war against fascism as the great moral battle of the 20th century, we should at least have the decency to ensure that the Nuremberg principles are not trampled. For that reason, Bush and Blair should both be tried at the Hague. But also reparations should be made, Iraq should be reconstructed in accordance with the needs of the Iraqi people in mind - not in accordance with some utopian capitalist vision.