Questions and answers on Iraq — why AWL is mistaken

Submitted by Anon on 20 July, 2007 - 2:47

By Daniel Randall

Throughout the course of the debate leading up to AWL's 2007 AGM, and the debate at the AGM itself, it became obvious that many AWL members did not have a clear understanding of what those of us who held a minority position on Iraq were really advocating.

For Iraq — Troops Out Now? The Debate in AWL, click here
This document, therefore, has been written to address some of the basic issues around the question and is intended as part of a wider series of articles that will take up in greater depth the reasons why we believe our organisation’s position on Iraq needs to change.

Q: If the troops withdraw, only the Islamists elements are strong enough to take power. Therefore, doesn’t any sloganistic or programmatic support for their withdrawal equate to support for the coming to power of the most reactionary elements in Iraqi society?

A: Only if we base our slogans and programmes on calculations based on the current strength of existing forces. Such calculations and assessments are important; they help us root our politics in concrete reality. But they are not the sum total of our politics. Being a third campist means developing slogans and programmes that allow the third camp to grow as an independent force, one capable of changing the situation on the ground.

Our starting point is not, therefore, “who is currently the strongest force in Iraq?” or even “what would happen (or probably happen, or certainly happen) if the troops left?” Our starting point is “what will build the third camp?” If the third camp forces in Iraq do not raise anti-occupation slogans, if they do not undertake anti-occupation struggle (using whatever means they have at their disposal; clearly, no Iraqi workers’ organisation is in a position to organise nationwide general strikes or democratic workers’ militias to fight US troops) they will never be able to challenge the current balance of forces.

Opposition to the presence of the troops, and a struggle for their withdrawal, are not abstract principles that can be abrogated until the Islamists are perhaps less strong and the workers’ movement is perhaps less weak. They are, in fact, the means by which the balance of forces will change.

Q: The AWL is not in any position to lecture the Iraqi workers’ movement on programme. As a small group in Britain, all we can do is analyse the current situation in Iraq and provide material solidarity to the Iraqi labour movement. Wouldn’t any sloganistic formulation of “troops out” or “troops out now” make us look like armchair generals or strategists making demands on a situation we really have no control over?

A: Just because making general propaganda for a Marxist programme may be all we can do over and above basic solidarity does not mean we should not do it. An analogy; unfortunately, the AWL has no implantation in Israel or Palestine beyond a handful of loose sympathisers and various leftists with whom we have some contact. We are certainly not in any position to have a meaningful impact on class struggle there and the Palestinian labour movement is rather less vigorous and dynamic than its Iraqi counterpart and therefore somewhat more difficult to solidarise with. But this – rightly – does not stop us from developing an analysis of the situation that goes well beyond mere analysis. We have a programme for the conflict that places at its heart the question of how a united working-class force could be brought into being. So why is Iraq different? Indeed, current developments in Palestine could well be informative for our approach to Iraq.

In a recent Channel 4 documentary, one Palestinian interviewee expressed with regret that the situation had now become so bad and the bloodshed so endemic that he would prefer Israel to increase its presence in the Occupied Territories in order to restore some kind of stability. Undoubtedly, Israel has the military capacity to put down and repress the civil war between Hamas and Fatah.

So has the “Israel out of the Occupied Territories” demand become invalidated because of the current balance of forces? A sudden “scuttling” by Israel from the whole of occupied Palestine could well result in the spread of the conflict and an increase in bloodshed. So which position needs a re-think – our position on Israel/Palestine or our position on Iraq?

For the AWL to incorporate anti-occupation slogans and demands (beyond simply saying “no” to the occupation as we currently do; about as meaningful as saying “no to bad things, yes to good things”) into our material on Iraq would not reduce us to the kind of armchair strategising that so much of the left is guilty of. Even for left organisation with some pretention to third-campism (such as the Communist Party of Great Britain), the “troops out now” demand functions as an abstract expression of what they think the British and American ruling-classes should do with their militaries, rather than an aspect of a programme whose point of departure is working-class solidarity and the question of how the Iraqi labour movement can achieve hegemony. But given that this is our starting point, “troops out” demands take on a different character. It is not a question of giving advice to imperialists; it is a question of working out what perspectives the working-class (both inside and outside of Iraq) needs to become an independent and powerful force in the struggle for democracy, independence, secularism and ultimately socialism in Iraq.

Q: Of course we want the troops to leave. If they leave “now” then we won’t oppose it. We recognise that they have no progressive role and consistently oppose their presence. But given that, if they were to leave “now” the consequences would almost certainly be bad, why do we have to raise this as a demand? We are for troops out (at any time – now, tomorrow or whenever; at no point do we support their presence) but shouldn’t take responsibility for potential disaster by raising the demand ourselves.

A: The situation imagined in this scenario is practically implausible. There is no magic button that, if pressed, will cause the imperialist presence in Iraq to disappear in a puff of smoke allowing the Islamist sectarians to immediately devote their full attention to crushing the labour movement and, primarily, each other.

The manner of the exit of imperialist troops from Iraq will depend on who forces the exit; whether, for example, it is the product of a deal between various sectarian power-blocs (currently the most likely outcome) or whether it is the product of the victory of a popular movement of some kind. Our job is to do whatever we can to ensure that it is the latter, and then that the movement is not only “popular” but working-class and socialist. “Troops out” demands are part of that process.

If the trajectory that comrades such as Martin Thomas have outlined continues in Iraq, the occupation may well lead to the kind of all-out bloodshed we have consistently predicted would result from a “precipitate withdrawal” of troops. When that eventuality is arrived it, will majority comrades flagellate themselves and force themselves to “take responsibility” for not having raised slogans and demands calling for the end of the occupation before its murderous logic was brought to fruition? We agree with Martin that this will indeed be the outcome of continued occupation, as – apparently – do many comrades in the AWL majority. Are they, then, proposing that we “give the occupation time”, to see if this trajectory is deviated from at the last minute?

The occupation has been given enough time already; four years of impoverishment, insecurity, repression and both direct and indirect incitement of ethno-sectarian warfare are enough to show us that the occupation will not deliver on its stated project of importing liberal, bourgeois-democratic capitalism to Iraq. How much more time is needed before we acknowledge this ourselves?

Q: If you want the development of Iraqi workers’ power to be your starting point, then focusing on the troops misjudges the reality. For most Iraqi workers’ organisations the Islamists pose a more immediate threat than the troops. Wouldn’t “Islamists out now” be a more useful slogan?

A: The question of who is the most immediate, day-to-day enemy obviously varies for different organisations in different parts of Iraq. In Kurdistan, neither the occupying troops nor sectarian Islamists pose the main threat. Rather, the nationalist warlords are the most immediate enemy.

For some organisations, it may even vary from day to day; the Iraqi Workers’ Federation (at that point called the IFTU) had its offices raided by American troops but its activists have also been the target of assassination attempts (including some successful ones) by sectarian militias. Likewise the affiliates of the Federation of Workers’ Councils and Unions in Iraq, such as the Unemployed Union; its 2003 unemployed workers’ demonstrations were violently repressed by troops, but its members have also been targeted by Islamists. The Iraqi Freedom Congress (the political front which the FWCUI backs) has also recently had its headquarters raided by occupation forces.

Our politics are not just defensive shields that workers can use to protect themselves from their most immediate or most immediately dangerous enemy. They are tools for building a workers’ movement that can struggle offensively against all enemies – big and small, immediate and less immediate.

Certainly pretending that the presence of imperialist troops is not an issue for Iraqi labour, or pretending that the conflict over their presence should be left to the US/UK and the sectarian power-blocs, is dangerously negligent and fails to take account of the very real and often very immediate role the troops have played as a force of anti-working class repression.

Q: What are you actually proposing the AWL does differently? Do you just want a few words added to banner headlines? If so, which few words? “Troops out”, or “troops out now”?

A: We are proposing that the AWL takes more seriously – in slogans but crucially in the body of what we say about Iraq – the question of how a working-class movement against occupation might be brought into existence, how it might conduct its struggle and how it might win. We believe that anti-occupation slogans are crucial for this.

The exact form of words is secondary to this overall perspective; it is a fantasy to claim that what is revolutionary about the slogan “troops out now” is the word “now”. The CPGB, for example, claim that because even Tony Blair could hold some sort of “troops out” position, revolutionaries should distinguish ourselves from bourgeois politics by demanding “troops out now”.

This is not our approach; our concern is not merely that the troops withdraw (although we should state our consistent opposition to their presence and our belief that at no time do they or can they play a progressive role) but how they withdraw, who forces their withdrawal and what replaces them in power. We do not believe that Iraqi labour can become a decisive force in the struggle against the occupation without raising sharp demands that express its intransigent hostility to the presence of the troops. We also do not believe that an international third-campist movement focused on working-class solidarity can be built if it is not clear that the imperialist occupation of Iraq has no progressive role.

Our position is not about slogan-mongering. It is about fighting for the third-camp.

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