Confronted with the stubborn refusal of the Gulf princes, Saddam raised his voice to point out, for the benefit of Iran, which had an equal interest in this aspect of the dispute, that Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) by their unrelenting
GULF CRISIS greed in exporting far more oil than justified by the real needs of their Lilliputian states, were responsible to a large extent for the low price of crude, and were thereby depriving other exporters and their own needy populations of billions of dollars.* In July,
Saddam publicly threatened the emirs that he might methods.
resort to tough
Nothing happened
He massed troops on the frontier of Kuwait, but got no more results.
The emir of Kuwait stuck to his stubborn attitude, encouraged by the Saudis,
Great Britain and the United States, which were highthe Iraqi ly blackmail. Saddam was left without any other choice. It was double or quits. Either he resigned himself to the inevitable collapse of his regime by renouncing its claims to the role of regional gendarme and "trimming" his armed forces — and then having to face popular discontent and the hostility of innumerable enemies with accounts to settle. Or else he upped the ante, in the illusory prospect of a success that would solve all his problems. It was illusory, because once again his megalomania blinded him to his own limitations with respect to the scope of his ambitions.
Hussein's Kuweiti adventure
ON August 2, Iraqi troops overran the territory of Kuwait, almost as easily as if it were a routine exercise. Saddam Hussein's tendency to improvisation was once again striking. For him, like Napoleon,
"you get involved and then you see." That is a valid maxim as long as you make sure you have an avenue of retreat. The characteristic feature of adventurism is neglecting this second aspect. Initially, it was announced that the Iraqi troops had intervened at the request of a Kuwaiti "revolu-
4. There is a wide-spread idea that Kuwait acted to bring down the oil price in the sole interest of the imperialists. This idea has some validity with respect to Saudi Arabia, but not for the state of Kuwait, which is more keen to pursue its own interests than the neighboring kingdom. In reality, if the Kuwaitis are exporting more than they need for the intangible needs of their state, it is because they are trying to maximize their profits, like any capitalist.
The capitalization abroad of the income from their oil - an art in which they are past masters, for which they have won the admiration of international big capital — is much more profitable than leaving the oil in the ground, where is 5 real price is declining inexorably.
International Viewpoint #190 • September 17, 1990
GULF CRISIS tionary" government — a detail reminiscent of certain Soviet interventions in the past. But the lack of a minimum of political preparation in Kuwait for an invasion decided on in the heat of the moment was evident.
Saddam announced his intention to withdraw in exchange for the objectives for which he had crossed the Rubicon. To this end, his close friends of recent years, King Hussein of Jordan and Yasir Arafat offered their good offices. However, this stage giving way was still unthinkable for the emirs, especially now that world imperialism was mobilizing to come to their rescue. The Iraqi dictatorship, no longer able to retreat without losing everything, proceeded to an outright annexation of Kuwait. For the occasion, it was recalled that Iraq had long claimed this territory on which Great Britain had established an "independent state."
With the imperialist deployment, Saddam Hussein's double or quite has reached a fateful level. He could accept compromise solutions that would leave him a financial or territorial gain. But now the stubborn party is Washington, which has taken direct charge. Bush, with the approval of Thatcher, Mitterrand and other minions, is categorical — no concessions, an unconditional Iraqi withdrawal. Caught up in the toils, Saddam Hussein is preparing for a test of strength. In view of the scope of the challenge, he had to free his hands on the Iranian front. Making yet another turnaround, he accepted all Tehran's conditions for ending the state of war between the two countries.
The 1975 Algiers accord, which was declared null and void in 1980, was reactivated. The despot has once again changed the target of his Arab nationalism. The
West" has replaced the "Persians." When you aim for Kuwait, Iraq's natural outlet to the sea, you can easily cede half of the Shatt-el-Arab to the Iranians, another Middle Eastern people and brothers in Islam.
The government of the mullahs, delighted with this manna from heaven, did not need much urging to accept the offer. At the same time, Iran could savor the spectacle of Iraq in its turn suffering an even more virulent hostility from the "international community," including from those only yesterday financed it against Iran. In tragic farcical style so familiar in Middle Eastern politics, Washington even proposed an alliance against Baghdad to Tehran, calling on the Iranians to mass their troops against the neighboring country. For the moment, they have wisely declined the offer of Great Satan, with which they have no interest in getting too implicated. Iranian president Rafsanjani, who escaped by the skin of his teeth from the Irangate affair, knows something about that.
Why has world imperialism mobilized 6 susu an antextent, and why is it taking such an intransigent attitude? The question has to be raised, because fundamentally the United States and its minions did not own Kuwait's oil any more than they do Iraq's. Some have thought this was a battle over the price of oil. But the imperialists are sharp eyed when it comes to commerce. It is clear that the only means OPEC has to affect the oil price is to cut its production.
Saddam Hussein has not annexed Kuwait to cut off the emirate's oil exports. To the contrary, he has a much greater interest than the emirs themselves in exporting as much as possible. He blamed them for producing more than they needed. But his own needs are enormous. The exporters that have a real possibility for affecting prices are those -Saudi Arabia, Kuwait or the UAE - that have a wide margin for maneuver, given their excess capacity for export by comparison with the inelastic part of their
The fraud of "international law" IT IS clear how much the "international law" evoked by the "international community" is worth. In the last 25 years alone, there have been so many invasions and de jure or de facto annexations that it is hard to count them. Let us take the annexations. For 23 years Israel has occu-
Arab territories as populous as Kuwait, and officially annexed part of them. In 1971, the Shah annexed three Gulf islands belonging to the UAE. In 1975, Hassan II's Morocco annexed the Western Sahara. These spoiled children of imperialism have never suffered the least sanctions from their godfathers. Moreover we do not have to remind people that the imperialist great powers in the forefront in the Gulf conflict have maintained their annexations of a whole number of "overseas" territories.
As for the occupations and invasions in recent history, were the US actions from Vietnam to Panama, the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, South Africa's invasion of southern Angola, Iraq's own invasion of Iran, Israel's invasion of Lebanon, or the USSR's interventions in Azerbaijan and Lithuania, carried out in accordance with "international law"? Does not South Africa's apartheid regime deserve at least the enthusiasm for sanctions and embargoes as the annexation of Kuwait? This talk about "law" is gross hypocrisy, coming from those who trample on it eve-
What then are the imperialists' real motives with respect to Iraq? Let us start with the reasons of convenience, for which the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait is only a good pretext. For the United States, followed by France and Great Britain in particular, it offers an argument against any demand for a substantial reduction of military appropriations. Such pressures have been very strong lately, with the need to cut budget deficits coinciding with the East-West détente and calls for disarmament. The main lesson drawn by Bush a few days after the Iraqi operation (the Baltimore speech) was the need to keep the arms appropriations untouchable and be prepared to face new threats to American interests, like the Iraqi one, which would certainly arise, despite the Soviet debacle.
Along with this, at a time when a new recession is beginning, social cutbacks are indispensable. If budgets are to be cut, it is social spending that will be sliced. Once again, it is the oil exporters who are supposed to be responsible for this crisis. Since Saddam is the new Hitler of modern times, people have to get ready to shed "blood, sweat and tears" in defense of the big principles. One can imagine what Ronald Reagan, a much better actor than Bush, could have offered by way of a show on this occasion and theme.
There are still greater stakes for Washington. At a time when the economic power of the American empire is in sharp decline against German and Japanese competition, the United States is trying to restore the balance by playing on its unchallenged military supremacy.
The message is simple: world's gendarmes, the protectors of the imperialist order. This costs us a lot, while others who profit as much as we, if not more, from the maintenance of this order are not able to contribute effectively to the effort (for example, they are more dependent on Gulf oil than we are). It is only just therefore that they help to finance for exertions, or even give us trade advantages by way of compensation". Bush said this publicly in substance on August 30.
As for the direct motives of the imperialist intervention in the Gulf, these are fundamentally of two sorts. On the one hand, there is the defense of the Kuwaiti and Saudi states (as well as the UAE). Once again, "law" has nothing to do with
The Kuwaiti economy in exile IN reality, for a long time, the Kuwaiti and Saudi ruling classes have been an integral part of imperialist world capital, not in the sense that their states which have all the features of dependency) are 5. The enlightened interest of the Iranian merchants, who are the most advantaged class under the regime of the mullahs, would be to break the blockade of Irag, at the high prices that the latter would not hesitate to pay (in oil, if necessary). 6. The Guardian Weekly, Vol. 143, No. 9.
September 17, 1990• #190 International Viewpoint imperialist, but in the sense that these classes have invested ("recycled") the better part of the assets accruing from their oil increases in the economies of the imperialist mother countries.
In this respect, the London Guardian recently published a very interesting article It listed the big pieces of the Kuwaiti state's $100 billion investments in the industrialized economies, showing that Kuwait is the main foreign investor in Japan and Spain and one of the main ones in Britain and the United States. But where this article offered an innovation was in introducing the concept of an "economy in exile" with respect to these immense assets of the Kuwaiti state, today deprived of its territory.
The ruling classes of such states own and run the state in a way that combines features of feudal lordship with the methods of the board of directors of a stock
Their ability to do as they please with "public property" is not limited by any oversight outside their own narrow ranks. They are the state. They are multinational holding companies, which territory is by no means essential. Imperialism defends them, as it would defend any of its big private interest
Moreover, their use of their oil incomes is an integral part of the imperialist economies almost as if the money was in the hands of the imperialist companies themselves. This is all the more true in that a not inconsiderable part goes for uses that are unproductive or unprofitable for the buyers but highly profitable for the imperialist sellers, which would not be the case for ordinary private companies. For the United States, Saudi Arabia is a second Texas. For Britain, the Kuwait Investment Office (KIO), which owns 10% of the Midland Bank and British Petroleum (BP) is the equivalent of a big British investment trust.
It is not Kuwaiti or Saudi ownership of the oil fields as such that interests the imperialists. Iraq does not threaten their oil supplies, because it has no other choice but to sell to them, which it has always done. What interests them is the use of the oil income, its recycling in their economies by exporter states that are rich, because they are underpopulated, with respect to their incomes.
Along with this economic motive, is a politico-military one. The imperialists cannot allow a regional power to emerge that is militarily outside their control, a state with hegemonic ambitions directly rivaling imperialist hegemony, as is the case with Iraq.
is not independent, because the country is structurally dependent in all spheres, aside from oil and dates. It is, notably, entirely dependent as regards arms. But it is uncontrollable, as Qadhafi's Libya can be, following a political course that the imperialists cannot predict - with the important difference that Saddam Hussein's military resources are much greater than those of Qadhafi. 8
When, on top of this, such an uncontrollable power starts to challenge the great powers' dividing up the world into states in disregard for national realities and complementarity, thereby threatening to set a contagious precedent, it is high time to slap it down. This is the name of the game today. No one should be taken in. It when Moscow Peking, who have agreed to give UN cover to the imperialist intervention, pretend today that they have only endorsed the blockade and are opposed to a military offensive against Irag.?
The imperialist powers will not be satisfied with a simple return to the status quo ante, which would leave Iraq not only its war booty but also the possibility to prepare for new adventures. They are haunted by the idea that Iraq, which also has chemical weapons, could considerably reinforce its deterrent strength by joining the club of nuclear powers. For Bush, Thatcher and company, the watchword today is clear. Saddam Hussein is to be destroyed, as Carthage was for the
GULF CRISIS ESTATES
To this end, two possibilities are envisaged. The first would be overthrowing (or assassinating) within. This is the domain of the secret services, first of all of the CIA (certainly with the collaboration of the Israelis, the domain of covert action. But the chances here seem slight. Saddam Hussein is a specialist. He travels from bunker to bunker, with a surfeit of precautions, and his police control of the state apparatus is very tight. In fact, the CIA has already tried on several occasions to eliminate the Iraqi dictator, notably in concert with the Saudis in 1985-1986.1° It did not even manage to shake his regime.
The military option -overwhelming force THE military option remains. The imperialists know, however, that it would be very hard to get domestic public opinion to accept seeing a lot of compatriots killed in a fight for the emir of Kuwait or the Saudi monarchy — the most reactionary in the world and more repressive than the Saddam Hussein regime itself as well as far more retrograde. Nonetheless, any confrontation on the ground, whatever tactic is adopted, is going to be very costly 7. French imperialism has invested a lot in Iraq. It would like to see the Iraqi economy reflated by a reduction of military and unproductive state spending. Its interest is in seeing that this is done without too much damage, in order to maintain Iraq's capacity for repaying its debts and for importing. That is the reason it is showing little enthusiasm for a direct aggression against Iraq. 8. Qadhafi also had his Kuwait in Chad (the Aouzou strip). 9. Cuba's abstention in the UN Security Council on this question is deplorable coming from a country that has suffered so much from the American blockade. 10. For them it was a matter of removing an obstacle to settling the Gulf conflict.
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7
International Viewpoint #190 • September 17, 1990
GULF CRISIS in human lives against an Iraqi army with eight years of combat experience facing a numerically superior enemy. The main mission of the US land forces deployed in Saudi Arabia is in fact to protect the kingdom, in particular the oil fields bordering on Kuwait and Iraq
The no. 1 offensive option is air power. That is Iraq's Achilles Heel. It has a few sophisticated toys for aerial combat and antiaircraft defense, but remains in the poor house and vulnerable in this area. The Iranian airforce was in a dilapidated state, notably because of the lack of US spare parts (cf. Irangate), and Iraq has no real combat experience against a state-ofthe-art airfleet. The region's desert geography, furthermore, makes it ideal for air power to play the decisive role, as illustrated by the Israeli-Arab wars
The Pentagon has already worked out a plan for massive destruction from the air of strategic targets in Iraq (military concentrations, arms factories, infrastructure, communications and energy The American generals are getting ready to "flatten" Iraq by carpet bombing. They are rejoicing at the prospect of finally getting a serious chance to use such murderous gadgets as the Stealth bomber, whose prohibitive cost had aroused an outcry. They are getting ready to stage Apocalypse Now, Part II, for real, as son as they get the green light. " Such an action, the least costly in soldiers among the imperialists military options, would Saddam's military power, if not the regime itself.
The major risks of such an operation are the consequences it could have internationally and in the Arab world, which are being carefully weighed in Washington. Some of them are warning against the risk of a generalized upsurge throughout the Arab world, a sort of Intifada on a much bigger scale, which would do severe damage to the pro-imperialist Arab regimes.
These latter, moreover, are very worried by the prospect of a large-scale military offensive against Iraq. They are trying to wash their hands in advance in front of their populations. At any rate, the imperialist military forces will only withdraw from the region after irreversibly neutralizing Iraq, with or without Saddam Husse-
The authority of world imperialism WHAT is at stake is the authority and hegemony of world imperialism.This is why we cannot hesitate, Whatever aversion we may have for the Iraqi despot. Everything possible has to be done to oppose the imperialist intervention, to force the withdrawal of the imperialist troops and end the blockade inflicted on the Iraqi people. This is a task in particular for anti-imperialists in the countries involved in the intervention. The cost of any imperialist aggression against Iraq has to be maximized. In any confrontation between Iraq and the imperialists, we are resolutely on the side of Iraq.
But what about Kuwait itself? While there is virtual unanimity on the revolutionary left on the need to defeat imperialism, there is a broad spectrum of positions on the revolutionary left on the question of the annexation of Kuwait. This goes from those who call for a withdrawal of the Iraqi troops from this territory and self-determination for its population to those who support the annexation or even defy the Iraqi regime not to capitulate.
It is no paradox that the Palestinian masses on both sides of the Jordan river, those in the region for whom the right of self-determination is most important, are precisely those who are most energetically expressing their support for Iraq. To be sure, they have illusions about the Iraqi regime, illusions fostered by the close ties the PLO leadership and this regime. However, more fundamentally, they do not class the Kuwaiti state in the category of the oppressed but in the class of creations of imperialism like the Zion-
Is this view well founded? It is unquestionable that the Kuwaiti state owes its existence to British imperialism. Of course, you could argue that all the states in the Arab region are products of the imperialist dismemberment of the Arab realm of the Ottoman empire over the last two centuries. Nonetheless, exception of a few such artificial ones as Jordan, these states correspond to the administrative units or to regions that remained free of Ottoman domination (Morocco, North Yemen), and therefore have a long continuity as states. But this is not a decisive differ-
The real difference is that these states include active native populations that for the moment accept their state framework and could surmount it in the direction of a federation union or fusion with others if they had the active will to do so. This is not the case of the oppressed national minorities such as the Palestinians or Kurds. It is not the case either of the oil mini-states of the Gulf (Kuwait, the UAE, Qatar). The latter are bases established by British imperialism with the purchased collaboration of ruling clans coming from the Bedouin tribes of the Arab peninsula.
The strategic importance of these bases for the British empire's naval dominance was increased in the twentieth century by the discovery of the oil riches lying under the soil. They became oil concessions for the imperialist companies. British imperialism therefore had every interest in making them so-called separate "states" and later "independent" ones in order to preserve its dominance over them and their wealth, enclaves free from the anti-
Western subversion to which the other normally populated states of the region became exposed very early.
The creation of the "state" of Kuwait at the end of the last century was done against the will of the Ottomans, who demanded the withdrawal of the British and the attachment of the area to their province of Basra, the south of today's raq, of which Kuwait is a natural exten sion leading toward the waters of the Gulf. Under a British protectorate, this state was maintained by London against the will even of its own Iraqi agents (and the Iraqi population) under the monarchy that Britain set up in Iraq in 1921.
London had Kuwait firmly under its control, with the territory's few tens of thousands of inhabitants. Alongside an Iraq that would have eagerly annexed it at its birth, the state was entirely dependent on British protection. The English, moreover, were clear-sighted about the precariousness of their domination of Iraq challenged by rebellions as early as 1920. In 1958, the monarchy that they sponsored was finally overthrown by a republican, nationalist coup d'état carried out by forces openly hostile to them.
The new regime called still more forcefully on London to cede Kuwait. But with the growth of the territory's oil production, this was even less a possibility. And when in 1961, London granted an entirely formal "independence" to its protectorate of Kuwait (300,000 inhabitants at the time), a British military force had to be sent to prevent Iraq from annexing it. The conflict was finally settled by Kuwait paying Iraq a sum of money in return for its recognition as a state.
Self-determination for an artificial state? LIKE the other oil emirates, Kuwait owes not only its creation but its survival to imperialism, as the events under way well illustrate. Applying the concept of self-determination to territories cut out by imperialism around mineral resources in order to be able to exploit them more easily, dividing them from larger units from which they are not distinguished by any national, ethnic, cultural or linguistic features, amounts to given the privileged minorities that live in such enclaves pre11. Alarming and light-minded references have been made to the possibility of resorting to nuclear weapons in response to Iraq's using chemical ones. 12. Of the 40% of Kuwait's inhabitants who hold citizenship in the emirate, less than 10% enjoy the right to vote, which in any case remains quite formal, since the emir is free to act as he chooses and dissolve his poor excuse for a parliament, as he did recently.
September 17, 1990 • #190 International Viewpoint emptive rights over these riches, at the expense of the overwhelming majority of those who live in the larger units of which they are a natural part. This is a total perversion of the democratic content of the principal of the right of peoples (by majority decision) to determine their own fate. The formalism of bourgeois law always perpetuates injustice by basing itself on inequalities that arose from natural circumstances or oppression.
Many states could have been created by imperialism in the Third World like the oil emirates, if the relationship of forces with the local peoples had permitted. Principalities or mini-republics could have been set up in every oil field, in every gold-mining area, where it would have been easy to find a majority of have far less rights and social advantages than the immigrants in the imperialist countries.
The most elementary justice demands the reattachment of these emirates to the more populous regions from which they were cut off by imperialism. Moreover, given their character and composition, we cannot expect the workers who live in them to take power. These states will always have sufficient means to maintain as many well paid mercenaries as necessary to keep their wage slaves down!?. From this standpoint, we cannot, in itself, condemn the invasion of Kuwait and its annexation by Iraq. One's attitude to this question depends on the concrete political circumstances. revolutionary regime
GULF CRISIS ests of the proletariat should refuse to take part in any confrontation between Arab troops, whether those of Saddam, Fahd, Mubarak, Hafez El-Assad or Hassan II. The workers have nothing to defend, nothing to gain, in such a war. They should oppose the sending of troops from their countries to the area of conflict, like the heroic Iragi soldiers and officers who have paid with their lives for refusing to participate in Saddam Hussein's new mad
It is necessary to call on the soldiers of the Arab armies to fraternize and turn their weapons on their leaders. It is necessary to put forward the perspective of a socialist sharing of all the resources of the Arab nation, opposing their current division among ruling classes subinhabitants to vote for "inde- ARME MANUFACTURERS I'D LIKE TO THANK THE pendence," that is, for not shar-
OF THE WORLD ing the subsurface wealth with MY ALLIES. other regions of the country to WITHOST WHOM i of TNE which they belonged. Only a POLLO HANG genuinely distinct ethnic character of the region in question would, from a democratic point of view, justify recognizing a right to self-determination. Inversely and contrary to anti-democratic formalism, we cannot recognize any sovereignty of majorities planted on the territory of other nations or ethnic groups through coercive processes.
The Kuwaiti case does not satisfy even the most formal conception of majority rights. In the three oil emirates, only a minority of Kuwait's inhabitants (40%) hold citizenship and enjoy, in a very unequal way moreover, the rights and privileges to which this status entitles them!2. The great majority of the producers are excluded from this, and treated as second or third class citizens, depending on whether they are Arabs or South Asians, in the context of a system that a British journal did not hesitate to call apartheid.
It is a glaring fact that with millions of Arabs unemployed, the oil emirates imported labor power from the Indian subcontinent, or even from South East Asia. Such workers were reduced to conditions close to slavery (notably the bulk of domestics). They offered the advantage of passivity, since they were anxious above all not to lose wages, which however wretched loom large in comparison with the deep poverty of their countries of origin.
These artificial states were designed to free "surplus capital" and recycle it to their imperialist protectors and tutors. In them, a minority lives in a wallow of luxury that is an insult not only to the great poverty of the neighboring populations, but also to the unenviable conditions of the vast majority of their immigrant workers. The latter, even the Arabs among them (mainly Palestinians and Egyptians)
based on genuine democratic, popular power in Baghdad might have been led to annex Kuwait manu militari, if it had the means. Of course, it would have done so in a very different way, with the active participation of the workers living there, and in the manner of a liberation army and not an army of occupation, as Saddam Hussein's troops did. 14
Should we therefore support the annexation of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein, while condemning his methods? We cannot do that either, because Saddam Hussein is not the representative of the people of Iraq but its oppressor. We support turning over the wealth of Kuwait to those who work there and to the Iragi people. This will not be done under the dictatorship of the despot of Baghdad any more than it was under the mini-potentate of Kuwait, who today is in exile. Therefore, we can neither support the annexation under way or demand that it be ended. In fact, no one should be fooled. Whatever intentions those who demand Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait may have, the only real alternative today is the reestablishment of the emir.
Revolutionaries are not obliged, in this case, to choose between the devil and the deep blue sea. They should take a hardand-fast position only against imperialist intervention, for the reasons already explained. On the ground, the Arab revolutionaries genuinely devoted to the interordinate to imperialism.
In Iraq or among Iraqis in exile, revolutionaries above all denounce the despot's folly, which is continually leading their country massacres for the sake of his megalomaniac ambitions. The revolutionary
Saddam remains an urgent task; the survival of Iraq is at stake. They have to that the Iraqi people's right to regain Kuwait cannot be justly demanded, without at the same time demanding the right of the determination and to recovery of the oil producing areas (Kirkuk) colonized by Arabs.
While it is necessary to call for lifting the freeze on Iraqi assets abroad, rejecting a method used more and more commonly by the imperialists oppose them, we cannot demand that the
Kuwaiti state's $100 billion over to Saddam Hussein, nor given back to the emir. Moreover, it is necessary to demand the freezing of the "private"
assets of the Kuwaiti reigning which amount to several tens of billions of dollars! These funds should be turned over to Iraq for rebuilding the country, as soon as its people are able to freely elect
These are the general lines of a revolutionary attitude based on the class interests of the proletariat. The questions are complex, and the answers have to be carefully balanced to avoid becoming identified with any of those involved in this conflict. The only simple and unqualified response is resolute opposition to the imperialist intervention. *
13. The armies of the emirates and Saudi Arabia are largely made up of mercenaries (immigrant soldiers"
to repress immigrant workers).
14. The Iraqi despot's narrow nationalism shows up also in his inability to appeal to anti-imperialist forces throughout the world. His conception of things is of Western hostages, which reflected by the taking nothinal can ju ii, in ahink himhelped to rum inter. 9 national public opinion against him.
HE GOES FOR
International Viewpoint #190 • September 17, 1990
I CONFESS TO FEELING A
IT MAKES
MITE DEPRESSED ABOUT line
HAG AND against the war drive
MOVEMENTS of protest against the US-led wardrive in the Gulf are developing throughout the world. Below we outline some of the antiwar actions that have taken place or are being planned, along with some Information on the state of play among the major political parties, and the Impact of the intervention on the populations in different countries. The survey is both Incomplete and behind the times, but we hope to being you more information in future issues of IV.
We start with a contribution from Tom Barrett, dated August 29, on the situation in the United States. T HE spectacle of the President of the United States playing golf at Kennebunkport, Maine, as he deploys the US' largest military force since the Vietnam War, has begun to inspire distrust among Americans. In city after city antiwar activists are beginning to organize at the grassroots level, as it becomes clear there will be no early end to the Gulf Crisis.
A number of complex and contradictory factors are beginning to work against Bush as a consequence of his failure to end the crisis quickly. In a display of over-confidence after his easy takeover of Panama, (perhaps Saddam Hussein should have accused the Emir of Kuweit of trafficking in cocaine), Bush chose a strategy of military confrontation rather than compromise. Hussein might have been willing to come to an accommodation with the US in the early stages of the crisis, but the American president's insis10 tence on asserting US authority in the region has made compromise much more
ME WISH I
SENDING HIM TO FIGHT COULD GO
ONER THERE, BUT I'M IN HIS
GETTING OVER IT PLACE
JOCK EXCHANGE BIG OIL
SPENDING
After an initial rush of support from a broad spectrum of bourgeois politicians,
Bush's consensus appears to be cracking
— in unexpected places. Patrick Buchanan, a former speechwriter for Richard Nixon and a spokesperson for the most reactionary sections of the US ruling class, has taken issue with Bush's policies. Jesse Jackson, on the other hand, has supported the Mideast intervention up until now.
There is a debate within the US bourgeoisie, and it is directly related to oil economics. The reason for Saddam Hussein's invasion - as he himself stated up front - was the relatively low price of crude oil, about $17 per barrel at the time. A significant section of the capitalist class in the US - including oil people, but also bankers whose revenues depend on oil-company profits - shares the view that oil prices are too low. Low oil prices are the direct cause of the economic slump in the American SouthWest, which was in turn the biggest factor in the Savings and Loan debacle. Thus there is sympathy with Saddam's desire to push the price of a barrel of oil up to $25 among this section of the ruling class.
Bush, the former president of Zapata Oil, clearly understands this point of view, and though another section of the US ruling class clearly desires lower oil prices, this is not Bush's motivation for intervening in the Middle East. His concern is to reassert US dominance in the region, which was seriously weakened when the Shah of Iran fell in 1979.
The longer the crisis continues the more the anti-intervention movement will grow. Weekly picket lines at federal buildings and oil company offices are taking place in many major cities. In New York different offices are picketed weekly, drawing between 100 and 150
COUNTRY. THAT'S WHAT
WERE ALL ABOUT PETRORELIA each time. In Minneapolis protest pickets of about 50 were held at the federal building and outside a hotel where Vice President Dan Quayle was addressing a
Republican fundraising event. A protest rally combined with a teach-in was held on August 23 in Minneapolis, drawing 150 to 200 people.
Similar protests are occurring in Cleveland, Philadelphia, Kansas City and other important cities. The biggest event so far has been a demonstration of 1,000 in San Francisco on August 28. Plans are under way for a major protest meting in New York on September 13, which will feature former Attorney General Ramsey Clark among other speakers and a major protest march on October 20. More than 100 people met on August 28 to help organize thest events.
Antiwar activists are attempting to come to grips with the Gulf crisis's political complexities. Saddam Hussein is, after all, not an anti-imperialist revolutionary, but a capitalist dictator. It is clear that Hussein is sending young men to die so that the price of crude oil will rise. Working people in the United States can have no sympathy for the Iragi dictator. Antiintervention activists are understandably confused on how to respond. Correctly, the overwhelming sentiment is to focus the demands of the various coalitions on the US government, demanding that it end its military intervention in Middle East. However, many want also to express their opposition to the invasion and annexation of Kuwait by Iraq - which in its turn may lead to ambiguity on the opposition to US war moves.
Under these circumstances we can expect a major discussion among US activists. The overriding factor must be maintaining a clear focus on the criminal role of the US government and the demand that it ends its intervention in the affairs of the Arab peoples. *
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GULF CRISIS Drawing a
ship, Ingrao stated his opposition to the military intervention to defend the
West's strategic interests. The left's deputies then left the chamber without voting. The only votes against were thus those of the Democrazia Proletaria, some representatives of the Independent Left (tied to the PCI) and the Green
Left. - Enzo Traverso *
PLANS are under way in Britain for a demonstration against war in the Gulf on September 15 in London, sponsored by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Speakers at the demonstration include Labour MPs Tony Benn and Dianne Abbott, Bruce Kent from CND and Fire Brigades Union chief Ken Cameron. The basis for the demonstration is No War in the Gulf. At the same time the Campaign Against War in the Gulf (CAWG) is building an anti-imperialist contingent for the demonstration, taking up the crucial additional demand for the immediate withdrawal of US and British troops from the region. The committee hopes to build on the success of a 2,000 strong demonstration on September 2 called by the British Socialist Workers
The CAWG has so far been joined by a number of Labour MPs, including Tony Benn, and by London and Kent areas of the National Union of Students, Labour Party Socialists, Women For Socialism and a range of individuals and far left Socialist Organiser and the Socialist Workers Party. The Campaign will be distributing 50,000 leaflets calling on people to attend the demonstration and support the demand for the recall of US and American troops. * THERE is consensus among the political class over the involvement of France in the Gulf war. Noone is willing to upset President Mitterrand. The left is paralyzed, and this has allowed the far right National Front to fish in troubled waters.
Taken by surprise by Saddam Hussein's occupation of Kuweit, and faced with the fait accompli of the American armada on its way to the Gulf, the French rulers had no choice but to line up behind the US. The helicopters on the French aircraft carrier Clemenceau are to be part of the forces stationed in Saudi Arabia.
The Socialist government wanted to make sure that the right could not outbid it. Mitterrand has acted precisely as he was advised by Charles Millon of the right-wing UDF: "The rise in tension can only lead France to move significantly closer to the intransigent attitude of the United States." Even so the Iraqi lobby — France has had especially warm relations with Iraq - continues to make its weight felt in the state apparatus, both at the political level and in the militaryindustrial complex. The unforeseeable consequences of the American operation on the frame of mind of the peoples of
GULF CRISIS the Middle East threatens the "Arab policy" that, since De Gaulle, has allowed French imperialism to play its own game
As ex-Minister of the economy Jacques Chirac suggested, it is necessary to avert a redistribution of the cards from which only Washington would benefit. "Should we go further, as some of our partners are already envisaging? We do not believe so. Let us be quite clear. The operation must remain an international action with the aim of upholding the law and go no further." The government has dispatched a number of right-wing worthies to a series explain the French position.
There has been a loud silence from the workers' movement. The Socialist Party was quick to support "the firm attitude shown by France." As for the Communist Party, the approach is to pretend that Mitterrand has not chosen military escalation. This orientation is likely to provoke tensions within the party's ranks.
The only well-known voice of open dissent thus far has been that of Le Pen from the far right. The National Front leader has revived an old theorem: each to their own nationalism. Thus opposition to the intervention goes hand in hand with the usual xenophobia. Nonetheless on left, the French section of the Fourth
Gulf crisis splits Italian CP IN ITALY the sending of several warships to join the US-led fleet is yet to meet with a massive reaction from the workers' movement. Gianni De Michelis, Socialist leader and Minister of Foreign Affairs, has since the start been aiming at a military intervention to defend imperialist interests in the region, while the peace forces have been taken by surprise, and have been unable to respond. However, the events in the Gulf have brought to a head the crisis in the Communist Party (PCI).
The PCI is presently divided into three main currents: an openiy Social Democratic rightwing, represented by Giorgio Napolitano, aiming at the complete liquidation of the party's tradition and integration into the "European Left"; a centre current represented by the party's secretary Achille Ochetto and the present party leadership, cautiously following a few steps behind the right, thus hoping to avoid a major crisis amongst the party militants; and finally a left whose diverse components include an old leader Pietro Ingrao, ex-leaders of the far left PdUP such as Lucio Magri and Luciana Castellina and the traditional spokesperson of Moscow orthodoxy, Armando Cossutta. During the parliamentary debate on the Gulf crisis, after the government decided to send ships to the Gulf, the PCI deputies voted in different directions. At the moment of the vote the party leadership decided to abstain on the government's policy, since it believed that it had scored a big success by getting a statement that the United Nations should play a decisive role in resolving the conflict and a vague reference to a global solution to the Middle East crisis, including recognition of the rights of the Palestinian people, into the final resolution. In fact the government had decided to send the ships before the parliamentary debate, and well before the UN took any official position. Thus the PCI's abstention amounted to lining up with the interests of the great powers.
The left current publicly disassociated itself from the party's orientation, through an intervention by Ingrao in the parliamentary debate. After denouncing the Iraqi annexation of Kuwait, and criticizing Saddam Hussein's dictator-
International (LCR) has been circulating a petition of protest against the policy of the French state, and is planning a demonstration in mid-September. * SOME forty left-wing demonstrators held a demonstration at the American Embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel on September 4. The demonstrators, members of the recentlyfounded Committee to Prevent a Gulf War, carried signs reading: "Iraq — withdraw from Kuwait! US - withdraw from the Gulf!", "Negotiations — the only way conflicts!","Bush, did already withdraw from Panama!", "We will neither die nor kill in the service of the US!" and "Blood is more precious
The organizers say that they decided to take this initiative after some prominent Israelis urged the US to launch an attack on Iraq, and even to use nuclear weapons. "Such statements are a very ugly phenomenon, which constitutes a grave danger to our future. We want the American public and government to hear a sane voice out of Israel, a voice calling upon them to refrain from war and to solve the crisis by way of negotiations". * THE Spanish government is taking part in the armada in the Persian Gulf. Like the French SP, the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) has stood in the front line of the warmongers. However demands for a halt to the imperialist intervention and the return of those called up, as well as the fleet, have not been long in coming. The first demonstrations took place in 11
New anxieties for Zionist leaders
AFTER the Invasion of Kuwait, when the United States had just begun its preparations for the naval blockade and the Imposition of sanctions, an atmosphere of war was created in Israel, accompanled by euphorla.
International Viewpoint #190 • September 17, 1990
GULF CRISIS
Oil rhetoric masks reality SADDAM Hussein's invasion of Kuwait was a godsend for western bourgeois politicians seeking a scapegoat on whom to pin responsibility for the growing prospect of capitalist it was clear to the Israeli leadership that now, as in every Middle Eastern war supported by the United States, Israel would be the main player.
However, in contrast to these hopes, a novel situation was created: the response to the American plea for help was decisive - the European community, the Soviet Union, Japan and especially the coalition of
Arab states. The strength of the American position and Its effectiveness brought about an immediate drop in the strategic value of Israeli intervention.... (now) any action which might be Interpreted as the entrance of Israel into the network of American allles would bring about its immediate dissolution and the exit of the Arab coalition.
This new situation is a slap in the face for Israel. Its leaders have always had the feeling, which was nourished by the US, that Israel was the key strategic ally of America in the Middle East...In fact the very victory of American policies, and the significant changes that have taken place in the Soviet Union and its satellites, have decreased the Importance of Israel to the status of an "ordinary" Middle Eastern state.
in this connection it was reported in Ha"Aretz August 15 that the Israe-
Il ambassador in Washington, Moshe Arad, sent telegrams to Jerusa.
lem following his two meetings with the Secretary of State James
Baker, In which he warned that "the officlal statements of Israel concerning the violent character of the Middle Eastern states and the value of Israel as a faithful ally of the United States are lable to act against her in the long run, since the Arab states who are cooperating with the United States are apt to claim as compensation for their aid the withdrawal of Israel from the territories."
From the August 15 Issue of The Other Front, published by the Alternative Information Centre in Jerusalem. *
Cartagena at the time of the departure of two warships for the Gulf. This action was in response to an appeal by the Anti-
NATO Movement, anti-militarist organizations and the far left, notably the Communist Movement (MC) and the Spanish
State section of the Fourth International
(LCR).
An emergency committee has been set up in Madrid and Cadiz, on the initiative of the anti-NATO Movement, the
MC, the LCR, ecologists' groups and well-known individuals. A thousandstrong demonstration has taken place in front of the Foreign Affairs Ministry in Madrid.
On September 19 there% are to be demonstrations in a number of towns. In
Euskadi (the Basque country) a 2,000 strong demonstration took place in Bilbao. The
United Left (IU) coalition, which is dominated by the Communist Party, has been steering clear of the campaign. On the other hand the Basque nationalist Herri
Batasuna organization has called on
Basques and Spaniards to disobey orders.
As in France, the Spanish Communist
Party has been criticizing the government, aligning its position on that of the
USSR and recognizing the right of the
United Nations to interfere. *
12 IN THE Netherlands, a demonstration is planned for September 22 against Western intervention - the Dutch government has sent 3 ships to join the armada. The organizers of the demonstration include peace committees, Turkish, Kurdish and Palestinian groups as well as the far left. The Green Left, however, is not supporting the action.* A DEMONSTRATION of about 150 people took place August 31 in front of the American Embassy in Denmark's capital Copenhagen. Among the speakers were the chairperson of the Danish CP, гергеsentatives of the Left Socialists, the International Socialists and the Kurdistan Committee, sympathetic to the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK). Talib spoke on behalf of the Danish section of the Fourth International (SAP) as well as as an Iraqi opponent of the regime of Saddam Hussein.
Meanwhile the bourgeois parties and the Social Democrats have supported the imperialist intervention. The Socialist People's Party (SF, wants the war effort conducted more clearly under UN auspices. The right-wing Progress Party also voted against the motion to send a Danish contingent to the Gulf, because the Danish ship has orders only to fire in selfrecession. However, there is little in reality to support the picture of a world economy at the mercy of greedy oil producers. The increase in the price of the oil which has so far occurred is the result, not of the invasion of Kuwait by
Iraq, but rather the blockade which prevents Iraq and Kuwait from selling their production. Moreover, the price of crude oil remains at an absurdly low level.
According to the US economist Joseph
Story, the real price of oil is today at a historic low, if inflation is taken into account (Le Monde, July 29, 1990).
The price of a barrel of oil has been fixed since 1986 at $18 a barrel.
Against the opposition of Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, an OPEC
(Organization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries) meeting on July 27 of this year decided to fix $21 a barrel as a target price. This decision, taken under the pressure of Iran and Iraq, was judged eminently reasonable by most experts, especially given the decline in value of the US dollar.
The price per barrel surpassed $30 after the imposition of the blockade against Iraq and Kuwait, then fell back to $26. On August 29, a new OPEC meeting, boycotted by Iraq and Libya, decided to increase production so as to push the price back to $21 a barrel -Saudi Arabia and Venezuela had said that they would increase production whatever the decision. Following the increase in the price of oil in 1973 and the growing power of OPEC at that time, the western coun tries judged it profitable to concentrate their efforts in more politically secure zones such as Alaska and the North Sea. The share of OPEC in the production of oil has sharply decreased, from 54% in 1973 to around 30% in 1987. But the extraction costs of Gulf oil are still 12 times less than that of the United States, and it is of superior quality. As a result of the fall in the price of Gulf oil from 1985 onwards, the United States was, by 1989, importing 50% more oil than in 1985. Thus, its dependence on imported oil is much stronger than in 1973. Moreover, the identified reserves of oil in the United States constitute hardly more than 3% of global reserves, as against 60% in the Gulf. Whatever their other motivations in this conflict, the US and the other imperialist powers have a strong material interest in asserting their inalienable right to continue to plunder the oil wealth of the Arab East. *