Opposing dictatorships as well as war

I distributed the following message on the internet on 1 April 2003 (after 12 noon!) and first handed out hard copies of the message on a “Blair’s a Bloody Fool Day” protest in Manchester that evening.

Most people who oppose the war on Iraq are also opposed to dictatorships – including Saddam Hussein’s and Western-backed ones such as the one in Saudi Arabia. We cannot win the argument against those who support war, whether they are on the internet or in society as a whole, from a purely pacifist position – we have to put across the arguments about what should be done about these dictators. Some people will of course be won over by pacifist arguments, especially if many thousands of Iraqi civilians die as a result of the war, but it is easy to argue that many more would die in the long run if the Ba’athist regime is allowed to stay in power. Besides, arithmetic calculations aren’t very convincing – most people want a world where everybody has freedom (including the right to vote, to protest and to strike) and if they think that a war will make that more likely then they will probably support it.

I am not a pacifist – I am a revolutionary and would support the use of violence in situations where it is necessary in order to achieve a democratic socialist society, free from wars, poverty, unemployment, homelessness and environmental destruction. I believe that the use of guns would be counterproductive in a country like Britain, but it is clearly ridiculous to suggest that a revolution could take place in Iraq without them.

I set up a revolutionary anti-war mailing list (at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/revolutionary-anti-war) to oppose the war from a revolutionary perspective – pointing out that the West is mainly motivated by oil and that the only solution is for ordinary people to rise up and overthrow Saddam Hussein. In the description of the list I said:

“The US and British governments seem determined to conduct a war against Iraq. They want a regime in power that is friendly towards them – like the vicious Saudi Arabian dictatorship. Sanctions have already killed about 500,000 babies and children, and many more innocent people will die if there is war. The only solution is for ordinary people in Iraq to rise up and overthrow Saddam Hussein and his Ba’athist regime. The Western powers don’t want a truly democratic country to arise (after an uprising by the people or a war by them) since that would threaten the West’s control of oil throughout the Middle East.”

The propaganda that the Western leaders use to justify the war is of course full of phrases about democracy - but it should be noted that the US government wants their military to rule, supposedly for a temporary period, when the war is over. Tony Blair wants the United Nations to take over, but this would not be much better since the UN represents the ruling classes across the world.

At the end of the first Gulf War, the West allowed an uprising by Shia Muslims in Basra to be crushed by the Iraqi regime. This was not a mistake – the West feared an Islamic state like in Iran or, even worse for them, democracy arising in Iraq. True democracy arising in part of the Middle East could quickly spread, threatening Western allies like the Saudi Arabian dictatorship. This would be of particular concern in the Middle East due to the importance of oil for the world economy.

In the early days of this war, Western leaders were supposedly pleased about a reported civilian uprising in Basra. A small scale uprising in Basra or Baghdad would probably be in their interests, as Western troops would then be able to go in and take over. However, a large scale revolutionary movement of the Iraqi people could pose a big threat to their control of the region – especially if the uprising Iraqis are armed and refuse to hand their guns over to the West when it attempts to move in. Indeed, a revolutionary movement of the Iraqi people would present the best opportunity for Iraq to win the war (militarily or due to Western troops being withdrawn) because the movement would have much more support amongst Iraqi soldiers and civilians and because Western public opinion would become much more opposed to a continued war.

For more information about the war on Iraq and protests against it, visit the home page of the Coalition Against Sanctions and War on Iraq.

Ø Back to Steve Wallis’ socialist web page