IAC Statement on IRAQ: U.S. Caused Iraq’s present war and chaos
With the outbreak of fighting from Mosul to Tikrit putting Iraq back onto the front burner of world media coverage and with the Obama administration threatening air strikes in Iraq once again, anti-war organizations and activists in the United States must take a clear position against further U.S. intervention of any type. Broad opposition must again be mobilized to demand:
No bombing, no military aid, no advisors and no troops to Iraq!
While it is still unclear exactly who is directing the forces against the Baghdad regime, this remains clear: No intervention by the Pentagon or by the U.S.’s NATO allies can improve conditions for the Iraqi people. Such an intervention will widen the war and create even more harm.
In addition, military strikes in Iraq – not to mention the possibility of again sending U.S. troops into the region – will mean adding to the already trillions of dollars that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have stolen from working people inside the United States.
The history of U.S. relations with Iraq, especially the U.S. war of 1991 and the murderous sanctions of the following 12 years attest to this truth. Then in March of 2003, U.S. and British imperialism committed the gravest possible war crime when they launched an aggressive war to conquer Iraq.
This war and the eight-year occupation killed 1.5 million Iraqis, drove five million more into external and internal exile, and destroyed the healthcare, educational, sanitary and industrial infrastructure. It also killed 4,500 U.S. troops and wounded 30,000 to 100,000 more who are still suffering.
To keep a powerful popular resistance movement from defeating the U.S.-British occupation in 2004 and 2005, U.S. strategists did everything possible to exacerbate ethnic and religious differences among Iraqis so as to divide the resistance. The U.S. occupation force treated Sunni and Shiite differently and Arab and Kurd differently. They consciously fostered antagonisms and poisoned all relations between the groupings.
When the U.S. pulled its combat troops out of Iraq in 2011, it left an unpopular client regime headed by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, hated by many sectors of Iraqis. In the past months, the Baghdad regime answered all protesting groups with bullets and bombs. Fallujah, a town already much destroyed by U.S. bombs, was again a target.
It was almost inevitable that sectors of Iraqi society would try to topple this regime. Finally, armed opponents of the Maliki regime seized Mosul and other cities north of Baghdad. The Iraqi army occupying this region collapsed and retreated. This brought Iraq to today’s crisis.
Both Maliki and U.S. political leaders concentrate their propaganda against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) as the group leading the military uprising in Mosul, Tikrit and other Iraqi towns. Other sources include Iraqi secular nationalist forces – such as those from the Baath Party and local tribal organizations in the forces fighting against Maliki.
ISIS, a reactionary sectarian heavily armed militia has been funded by Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are U.S. allies with their own local interests and connections. ISIS profited from U.S. and NATO attempts to enflame sectarian violence to overthrow the Bashar al-Assad government in Syria.
Whatever and whoever is involved in the conflict in Iraq today direct U.S. military intervention can only make the situation worse for all, just as it did earlier in Iraq and just as imperialist intervention has in Syria, Libya, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Somalia, Mali, and Ukraine.
It is U.S. imperialist intervention that caused the crisis and instability that poisons Iraq today. Further intervention will only worsen life for the Iraqis and for the U.S. working class.
U.S. stay out of Iraq!
International Action Center - IACenter.org
