Militant International Review: Crisis in the Gulf

[Militant International Review, No. 45, New Year 1991, p. 14-31]

We print here an extensive editorial statement, originally drafted in October, which examines the background to the crisis, the economic and political consequences in the region and internationally, and the attitude of Marxists to a possible war. A brief update follows on page thirty.

That we are living in an era of ’sharp turns and sudden changes‘ is demonstrated beyond dispute by the sudden advent of the Gulf crisis. The ‚Red ’90s‘, ushered in by the wave of political revolutions in Eastern Europe, have begun with the prospect of the most serious military conflict since the Second World War This came at a time when the ideologues of imperialism were basking in a newly-found euphoria at the extension of the boom and the collapse of Stalinism. Caricaturing the schema of Hegel, they were even describing what they misinterpreted as the triumph of liberal capitalism throughout the world as the ‚end of history‘.

Now capitalism is facing the possibility of a simultaneous war and recession for the first time in history

Now they are facing the possibility of a simultaneous war and recession for the first time in history. This is part of the price they will pay for the last eight years‘ boom. The boom was based largely upon a cruel intensification of the exploitation of the colonial peoples, in terms of interest payments on their accumulated debts and of a sharp worsening in the terms of trade – not least a severe reduction in the price of oil.

The hypocrisy of the imperialists has reached new depths in their gutter propaganda justifying this threat of war. They have likened Saddam Hussein to Hitler, as if Hitler had personally invented invasions and annexations and Saddam were the first person to imitate him! Their rage has been incurred by the fact that Saddam has dared to do what they have been doing with ruthless cynicism, in the Middle East and throughout the colonial world, for more than a hundred years.

In the last seven years alone, the American imperialists have bombed Libya, sent troops to Lebanon, and invaded Grenada and Panama. In Panama alone 7,000 people were killed. In addition, they have given massive covert aid to counter-revolutionary military operations in Nicaragua, Angola, and elsewhere. In the Middle East, their NATO ally Turkey invaded Cyprus and annexed a part of it. The world’s top recipient of American aid, Israel, established its state by military conquest of a part of Palestine and has since annexed the Golan Heights and occupied the West Bank of the Jordan and the Gaza strip, bombed Iraq, and effectively occupied a part of Lebanon through its proxy, the South Lebanese Army.

American imperialism made no protest at Saddam’s use of poison gas to massacre Iraq’s Kurdish population (killing at least 3,000 civilians in one single town), nor at his previous invitation to the Turks to send armies in to crush a Kurdish uprising in 1983. It turned a blind eye to his massacre of 10,000 Shias in villages north of Basra. It acquiesced in Saddam’s invasion of Iranian Khuzestan, thus launching an eight-year proxy war on behalf of world imperialism to contain the Iranian revolution. It even tolerated an Iraqi missile strike on its own warship, the USS Stark, and exploited the incident to justify its own intervention in the Gulf war against Iran. Since 1985 the US Administration has extended a special military aid programme to Saddam. Over-ruling Pentagon objections, it has delivered 14 exports of sophisticated technology that helped Iraq develop its nuclear, chemical, biological and ballistic-missile systems, the last shipment being due three days before the invasion of Kuwait. While the US Administration hides behind the screen of the United Nations – as with the Korean War – and makes beautiful speeches about the noble objectives of its pioneers, it omits to mention that its own contribution to that worthy organisation is in arrears to the extent of $670 million!

1. Arab national consciousness

In approaching the complex questions posed by the current crisis, it is necessary to deal briefly with the historical background. The cynical machinations of Western imperialism in the Middle East date from the middle of the last century, with the crumbling of the Ottoman Empire. Lord Curzon declared that the Persian Gulf should become a ‚British lake‘. By the end of the First World War, anxious to protect this source of oil and the vital trade route through the Suez Canal, and fearing the impact of the Russian revolution over the whole region (which did indeed spread to Iran), British and French imperialism assumed direct control of the territories of Egypt, Persia, Iraq, Palestine and Syria. The intervention of Anglo-French imperialism then too, as today in the case of US imperialism, was legitimised by a ‚mandate‘ awarded by the UN’s precursor, the League of Nations.

It is impossible to understand a single event within this region unless we start from the recognition that, underlying the various national identities that have developed, there is a common Arab language, culture and national consciousness, The mainspring of all the turbulent events that have rocked the Middle East – uprisings, coups, wars and revolutions – is the aspiration of the masses to unite this Arab nation, carved up by imperialism. In contrast to the Indian sub-continent or the countries of Africa (for instance, Nigeria), where imperialism chained entirely disparate tribes, racial groups and peoples together, and where on a capitalist basis they are now straining towards fragmentation, it is clear from a glance at a map that the entire vast territory inhabited by the Arab peoples was arbitrarily divided up by drawing straight lines in the desert sand and creating artificial states, based in the case of the territories administered under the British ‚mandate‘ on rotten puppet monarchies.

Iraq, Syria, Kuwait, Jordan, the Emirates etc. began as pure artefacts established by imperialism

Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Kuwait. Jordan, the Emirates, etc., began as pure artefacts, established by the imperialists to reinforce their stranglehold on their vital strategic interests in the region and fragment the Arab nation. Imperialism cynically promoted and exploited communal discord by playing off rival religious communities – Sunni and Shia Muslims, Greek Orthodox and Maronite Christians, Druzes. Jews, etc. The French established a Maronite state in Lebanon and the British encouraged the Zionists to establish a Jewish state in Palestine (a ‚loyal little Jewish Ulster‘, in the cynical comment of one British agent), while suppressing and partitioning the homelands of the Kurds, Armenians and other national minorities.

The kingdoms of Egypt, Iran (Persia), Iraq, Libya, and especially the various emirates and sheikhdoms of the Gulf, including the Emir of Kuwait, had no more social base than the Maharajahs of India who collapsed like a house of cards once British imperialism withdrew. The base of those few rotten puppet monarchies which have still precariously hung on to power so far have been shaken to their foundations as a consequence of their current collaboration with the intervention of American imperialism.

The revolutions which overthrew the kings of Egypt, Iraq, Libya etc., were hailed throughout the Arab world as steps towards Arab liberation and reunion, as were the nationalisation of the Suez Canal, the left-Baathist nationalisation of the bulk of the Syrian economy, the nationalisation of the oil consortium in Iraq in 1972, and all such events right up to the intifada in Israel’s occupied territories. Undoubtedly, the downfall of the Kuwaiti Emir and the implicit threat to the Saudi King Fahd, and by implication the other rotten sheikhdoms of the Gulf, also aroused the hopes of the Arab masses (with the possible exception of sections of the population of Saudi Arabia and the Emirates themselves), who saw this development as a step towards the Arab revolution.

Kuwait was at one time a part of the Basra province of the old Ottoman empire. As the empire crumbled, the British imperialists established a ‚protectorate‘ around this lucrative port and trading post in 1899. After the First World War, under their League of Nations ‚mandate‘. Britain took over the three former Ottoman provinces of Baghdad, Mosul and the rest of Basra, which later formed the state of Iraq.

In 1921 British imperialism imposed upon the artificial state of Iraq an alien monarch, Faisal – „a king who will be content to reign but not to govern“, in the words of a Foreign Office bureaucrat. This provoked mass uproar which was suppressed by brutal massacres in 1920-4. In 1932 a form of ‚independence‘ was granted to Iraq, under „an administration with Arab institutions which we can safely leave while pulling the strings ourselves; something that won’t cost very much, which Labour can swallow consistent with its principles, but under which our economic and political interests will be secure,“ as another British diplomat put it.

Oil, the railways, the ports and most industries remained under British control. and the British kept their military bases. Winston Churchill emphasised that under this treaty the British imperialists would remain „the owners or at any rate the controllers at the source of at least a proportion of the oil which we require.“ As the British military chief of staff explained, the treaty gave „the appearance of complete equality … Whatever the de jure arrangements, we must retain the de facto control.“

This shamefaced annexation was not tolerated without furious protests on the part of the people. The Communist Party in Iraq – as also in Syria, Egypt, Sudan, Lebanon and most of the states set up by imperialism – became a massive force. In 1947, the Al-Wathbah uprising (led by the CP) was suppressed by the shooting of 400 people. In January 1948 the CP organised a demonstration of 100.000 in protest.

In 1958, shaken by the Suez crisis and the impact throughout the region of the leftward turn of the Nasser regime in Egypt, world imperialism used as a surrogate the Iraqi monarchy to contain the threat posed by Nasserism. In just the same way, it was later to use the Iraqi military dictatorship against the Iranian revolution. US imperialism tried to establish a ‚Baghdad Pact‘ of Arab monarchies and puppet regimes, modelled upon NATO in Europe. This provoked = massive riots throughout the region. British troops were despatched to Jordan and US Marines to Lebanon. The order to move Iraqi troops to Jordan opened the way to the Iraqi revolution of 1958. The army mutinied and marched instead on the royal palace. The King, Crown Prince and Prime Minister were lynched. If the CP had not given its support to the military Bonapartist Qasim, they could have taken power.

Only months previously, the US and British governments had been actively contemplating proposals for the military occupation of Kuwait and its conversion from a British ‚protectorate‘ to a direct Crown Colony. It was only out of fear of the effect of such a provocative step in detonating the impending revolution in Iraq that they opted instead for the maintenance of a client regime there. When ‚independence‘ was granted in 1961 to the Emir on this basis, the new Qasim regime in Iraq acted to remove this alien imperialist outpost on its borders. Iraq’s claim to this territory was only bought off by a cash bribe.

Baathism was a narrowly-based petit-bourgeois anti-imperialist movement, which, like the Congress in India. was obliged by imperialism“s strategy of ‚divide-and-rule‘ to base itself on secularism and pan-Arabism. If the powerful Communist Parties that existed in Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Sudan and nearly all the Arab countries (and also Iran), had followed a Marxist policy, they could have come to power and united the Arab nation on the basis of a socialist federation. But they were paralysed by Stalin’s support for Anglo-French imperialism in the ‚Popular Front‘ period and the Second World War, and after by their slavish adherence to rigid ‚two-stage‘ formulae.

The Stalinists supported the bourgeois Bonapartist regimes which came to power in Egypt, Iraq and Syria after revolution had swept the old imperialist establishment from power. These regimes then launched attacks on the CPs under a cloak of pan-Arabism. That they were forced to use this cover is a tribute to the yearning of the Arab masses for unity, without which it would be hard to explain the repeated attempts by all these regimes to merge – attempts doomed by the narrow. parochial interests of these bourgeois-Bonapartist (or in the case of Syria after 1965, proletarian-Bonapartist) states.

To an even greater degree than elsewhere in the colonial world, the states of the Middle East represent a patchwork of extremely paradoxical hybrid regimes. Imperialism superimposed upon societies that are still today largely tribal, dynastic monarchies based upon a feudal political superstructure, many of them suddenly swollen by a gross accumulation of petrodollars swilling through the economy. The fragmentation of the Arab nation has been compounded by the protracted and distorted nature of the Arab revolution. From Algeria to Yemen the revolution has driven forward but in every case, lacking a conscious Marxist leadership, it has stumbled against its objective limits and ended up trampled under bourgeois-Bonapartist military dictatorships, which have nevertheless been forced by economic and political necessity to partially base themselves upon the masses‘ revolutionary aspirations and take steps against imperialist domination. In the cases of Syria and South Yemen, this process overstepped the boundaries of capitalism, and grossly deformed bureaucratic proletarian-Bonapartist regimes were established. Recently south Yemen merged with the reactionary theocratic state of North Yemen, and Syria. starved of Soviet aid, appears to be seeking a rapprochement with American imperialism.

In Iraq, military coups under the banner of the right wing of the Baath Party brought reactionary officers to power in 1963 and 1968, who proceeded to smash the CP. Five thousand CP members were killed in 1963 by the Baathist regime with CIA collusion. Nevertheless, in 1964 the new regime was forced by the acute economic crisis to nationalise the banks and parts of industry – cement, edible oil, asbestos, cigarettes, paper, soap, and some textile and shoe companies.

Saddam personally participated in the later Baath coup of 1968. The 1968 coup led to further steps against imperialism. In 1972 the Iraqi Petroleum Company – a consortium of British, French, American and German monopolies – was nationalised. At the same time the CP was brought into the Cabinet and the regime began to lean for diplomatic support on the USSR. With the development of the OPEC cartel and the surge in oil prices, the regime was emboldened to adopt further erratic and demagogic ‚anti-imperialist‘ policies.

Oil revenues in 1972 amounted to $3570m. Within two years they had soared tenfold, to $5,700m, and by 1980, with increased prices and expanded production, a peak was reached of $26,500m! These added oil revenues were used to pump state investment, grants, and subsidies into the private sector. Together with tax cuts, a stringent protectionism, the relinquishing of the state monopoly of foreign trade. and a relaxation of food price controls, this led to a gross enrichment of the capitalists. By 1980 there were 700 multi-millionaires, in dinar terms. During the Iran/Iraq war of the 1980s, many state assets were privatised to raise revenues – the international airport, Pepsi- Cola, textiles, cement, tyres, and chicken farming. Saddam Hussein’s Takriti clan especially used the state as a milch-cow to accumulate land and domination of the textiles and confectionery industries.

2. The military crisis

Saddam Hussein’s regime was facing disaster on the eve of the invasion. The war with Iran had cost $300bn. The value of Iraq’s oil exports had slumped from $26bn in 1980 to $14bn in 1989. Debts had accumulated to $70-80bn. Inflation was raging at a rate of about 300 per cent. In this situation, the economic devastation and mounting unrest could have erupted into revolution once the million-strong army began to be demobilised.

The regime which ruled Kuwait and those which still rule the other rich Gulf states are hated by the Arab masses. The notional ‚per capita‘ income of $13,000 was of course concentrated in the hands of a few feudal families. Out of the population of 650,000 Kuwaitis (comprising only 27 per cent of a total population which included 300,000 Palestinians and more than a million migrant Asians deprived of all democratic rights, including 75,000 Sri Lankan housemaids), only 60,000 Kuwaitis had a vote to elect the Emirs charade parliament. The Shias, who form 30 per cent of the population, faced repression. Even educated non-Kuwaiti Arabs were treated as second-class citizens by the arrogant sheikhs.

As client states, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates had been boosting production to keep oil prices down, in defiance of OPEC quotas. They had given uneasy support to Iraq during the war with Iran out of fear of the effects of the Iranian revolution, but they were also alarmed at the growing military power and erratic policies of the Iraqi regime. The policy of low oil prices was both an economic service to imperialism, and also a deliberate ploy to contain the power both of Iran and Iraq.

Saddam desperately needed to force up oil prices, and above all he needed a popular diversionary foreign adventure to stave off political crisis at home. In Iraq there was popular contempt for the Kuwaiti millionaire oil-sheikhs who exploited the favourable exchange rate by flocking to Baghdad and Basra on shopping trips in their Mercedes, their riches protected from a spread of the Iranian revolution by the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi youth.

Iraq demanded a formal cancellation of its war debts to Kuwait and the handover of $2.4bn of revenues from the shared Rumeila oilfield, and $14bn compensation from Kuwait and UAE for their oil overproduction. Actually, under Iraqi pressure Kuwait was already handing over half the revenue from the disputed oilfield and was not pressing for debt repayments. But, facing the growing crisis at home, and tempted by the oil-well, access to the Gulf through the disputed islands, and the $100bn worth of foreign assets, Saddam decided to occupy Kuwait. He had good reason to feel lulled by the USA’s general attitude of indulgence towards him, and to feel that he could rely for extra insurance on contingency help from his patrons in the Kremlin in case anything went wrong.

The US was quite prepared to turn a blind eye to Iraq’s claims on Kuwait

Indeed, US imperialism was perfectly prepared to turn a blind eye to Iraq’s threats against Kuwait and even its military build-up, which it assumed was poised for the seizure of the disputed islands and half the oilfield – a deal it would have tacitly tolerated. The US Ambassador told Saddam only days before the invasion: „The US has no opinion on an Arab-Arab dispute like your border disagreement with Kuwait.“ In the event, however, US diplomacy was caught completely off guard by the outright annexation of the whole of Kuwait. It could not tolerate the concentration of so much power in Saddam’s hands over world oil production and above all the potential threat to the Saudi oilfields. Actually, in the first days after the occupation of Kuwait, Saddam could easily have taken Saudi Arabia, but held back because he recognised that this would mean certain war with the USA.

Even at the time of the US debacle in Vietnam, we always maintained that US imperialism would intervene with full force in the event of any threat to the Saudi oilfields – all the more so at this time of imperialist euphoria at the collapse of Stalinism. After initial vacillation, the threat to oil prices and to the global prestige of American imperialism dawned on Bush and. under the insistent pressure of Thatcher, he began preparations for war. In the circumstances, the massive concentration of US military force in the region was inevitable.

This crisis demonstrates that, by upsetting the diplomatic and military equilibrium so painstakingly built up over the last four decades, the collapse of the Stalinist regimes has ushered in a new era of global instability. A strong and confident bureaucracy in the Kremlin would probably have been able to avert the outbreak of the crisis by exercising unremitting vigilance and pressure on Saddam. Even if the Kremlin had found itself presented with a fait accompli – as with Nasser’s nationalisation of the Suez Canal or the turn to proletarian Bonapartism by Castro in Cuba – it would have acted resolutely to contain American intervention, for the sake of its own diplomatic prestige and power politics.

Today, however, the Soviet bureaucracy has become an open counter-revolutionary force and a direct agency of imperialism. ft has written off Eastern Europe, conceded that East Germany should be swallowed up by NATO, and initiated moves in the direction of capitalist restoration in the USSR itself. With the Bolshevik exposure of the secret Sykes-Picot treaty of Anglo-French imperialism to carve up the Arab nation into respective spheres of influence, the Russian revolution had given a powerful impetus to the development of Arab nationalism. By abandoning Iraq while under attack from US imperialism, the Soviet bureaucracy has shamelessly capitulated. Little wonder that Bush and Baker – who not so long ago were applauding Reagan’s description of the USSR as an ‚evil empire‘ – have given Gorbachev such extravagant praise.

Bush is insisting on unconditional withdrawal from Kuwait. The acquisition of the Kuwaiti oilfields gives Iraq control of some 200bn barrels, around a fifth of the total world reserves. If Saddam were to have occupied Saudi Arabia too, then that would have given him direct control over 45 per cent of the world’s reserves of oil. US imperialism could never tolerate this permanent threat to its oil supplies.

If US imperialism had not been caught unawares by the invasion, it could have taken pre-emptive measures and meanwhile quietly cobbled together a settlement to appease Saddam. Now that it has been forced to respond with a military ultimatum, its prestige throughout the world is at stake. To agree publicly to Saddam’s demands now would humiliate the USA and undermine its global authority. It cannot allow this, for fear of the consequences throughout the colonial world. On the other hand, Saddam cannot afford to retreat without extracting substantial concessions – all the more so since having taken the dangerous gamble of capitulating to all the demands of Iran after a devastating eight-year war.

US imperialism has succeeded in enforcing an embargo on trade and credit with Iraq, backed up by a massive naval and air blockade, and freezing all Iraqi and Kuwaiti assets. This has so far proved more effective than the flimsy sanctions imposed on Rhodesia and South Africa in the past. All the imperialist powers agree on the necessity of containing the threat from Iraq to their vital oil interests. This coincides with the fear of the client states of imperialism in the Middle East at the danger of overthrow under the banner of pan-Arabism and anti-imperialism raised demagogically by Saddam. The oil pipelines running through Saudi Arabia and Turkey have both been cut, and the Syrian regime has refused to reopen another disused pipeline. The cessation of Iraqi oil exports, together with that of credit, has cut all foreign exchange at source. Military aid from the USSR has also stopped.

Nevertheless, in the long run economic sanctions can never have a decisive effect. No boycott can be maintained at a substantial level for long. In this case, there is already constant seepage in terms of imports across the borders with Turkey, Iran and especially Jordan. Iraq has food stocks lasting several months, and a severe shortage of vital parts and materials for industry and armaments would only become a crucial factor in conditions of war – by which time the whole issue would have shifted to a different plane. It therefore seems unlikely that diplomatic or economic pressures will lead to a resolution of the issues.

However, the consequences of war, militarily, economically and politically, could be so drastic that imperialism could find itself in hitherto uncharted territory. The strategists of the American ruling class are hoping for a miracle: an Iraqi withdrawal under the pressure of sanctions of a coup in Baghdad, which would enable them to withdraw with honour, Neither hope is likely to be realised. Crucial national conflicts can never be resolved on the plane of economic sanctions alone. As for an overthrow of Saddam Hussein, prior to a war, such an outcome is almost ruled out.

The hostility of US imperialism towards colonial dictators has hardly proved a destabilising factor elsewhere: Gaddafi has been in power for 21 years, Assad for 25 years, Castro for 31 years! On the contrary, the military mobilisation of imperialism and the occupation of Arab territory by hundreds of thousands of foreign troops has generated a wave of fury against imperialism which has been skilfully exploited by Saddam, with some success even among communities that had previously, and with good cause, hated him.

In any case, short of military defeat at the hands of the USA, any military regime that replaced Saddam would have to pursue policies not very different from his. It would still be sitting astride a tremendous military apparatus, including a biological and chemical arsenal and a potential nuclear capability. Only in the ruins of military conquest – with the utter rout and humiliation of Iraq – could any Iraqi regime dare to be seen to play the role of quisling. After all, it took the defeats of 1967 and 1973 before an openly pro-imperialist regime could be installed in Egypt.

Even assuming an Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait, which appears unlikely before the outbreak of military hostilities, then it is doubtful that having concentrated such tremendous military power, US imperialism would be satisfied. It would demand guarantees, including perhaps a permanent base in the region. The real strategic aim of US imperialism must be to smash the formidable military might of Iraq before it threatens an even greater conflagration – possibly involving the use of nuclear weapons – including a threat to the existence of Israel, its principal client state in the region.

It is probable that once the US has assembled adequate forces in place. it will invent a pretext for an attack. The US generals cannot afford to leave their troops rotting in the desert indefinitely. Once they felt ready, they would manufacture some suitable incident – arising perhaps from an attempted breach of the blockade or the treatment of hostages – as they did in the Gulf of Tonkin in Vietnam. US imperialism is building up its forces to at least 200,000 ground troops, together with impressive air and naval power, in addition to the secondary auxiliary forces sent in by British and French imperialism and the token forces of other countries (which together still amount to nearly 100,000 troops). Obviously the US is still the most formidable military power the world has ever seen, und eventually it is almost certain that on the military plane it would win a war with Iraq. However, this will be no walkover, as in Grenada and Panama. Iraq has assembled a huge military machine: the world’s fifth largest army (one million troops, with millions more potential reservists), 3,000 tanks. the most sophisticated fighter aircraft and bombers, chemical weapons and missile delivery systems, submarines, artillery, and a highly-advanced domestic armaments and electronics industry, and with eight years of experience of desert warfare. Already before hostilities have commenced, the US military staff are facing enormous technical. logistical and morale problems. Computer parts are melting in the heat. sand is jamming up their weapons, and the troops are languishing in inhuman conditions.

The US joint chiefs of staff estimate that there could be at least 30,000 US casualties, and maybe 100.000, even in the event of a short war – compared to 30,000 in the entire thirteen-year Vietnam war. The morale of the troops in the Saudi desert is already depressed. Soldiers have been quoted asking why cheap oil should be bought at the cost of their own lives. Even at home, the mood in the USA is not jingoistic as was initially the case with the Vietnam war, and more recently with the operations in Grenada, Libya, Lebanon and Panama. A prolonged war, with heavy casualties, would be a source of tremendous radicalisation in the USA. even more so than at the time of the Vietnam war, due to the confluence of war and recession simultaneously, In particular, given the disproportionate representation of Blacks and Hispanics in the US Army. it could lead to new uprisings in the ghettoes of the American cities. There would also be the birth of mass anti-war movements in Britain and France. which would also suffer major casualties.

The possibility of a negotiated settlement can still not be ruled out

In these circumstances, some of the strategists of imperialism have recognised that the consequences of war could be catastrophic for American imperialism, in terms of military casualties. economic recession, the development of an anti-war movement at home, and above all of growing turmoil throughout the Middle East. In this situation, the possibility of a negotiated settlement can still not be altogether ruled out. Bush, Hurd and Mitterand have all hinted at a comprehensive Middle Eastern peace settlement following a withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Kuwait – a settlement, however, imposed under the heel of 200,000 US troops.

French imperialism, which has traditionally dominated North Africa and has its own substantial assets in Iraq, plus the pressure of two million Arabs within its own population, is striving to achieve a settlement. So too is the Soviet bureaucracy, which is fearful of any threat to global stability and in particular of the effects of a war on its own already volatile Muslim population. However, so far there is no substantial basis for a settlement.

Once hostilities commence, there would be a bitter fight for control of Kuwait City. If the Iraqi armies are driven out, Saddam may then withdraw to the old Iraqi borders, keeping perhaps the Islands and a portion of the oilfield, while threatening an attack on the Saudi oilfields to deter an American invasion. It is not theoretically excluded that a peace could be made before the war gets beyond that stage. It is more likely, however, that American imperialism would try to consolidate its gains in the hope of smashing the Iraqi military machine and imposing a settlement over the entire region. Irrespective of the outcome of this war, it can only end in redoubled instability.

3. Economic consequences of the crisis

The issue in this war will not be the rights of small nations but the continued supply of cheap oil to the capitalists in the metropolitan countries.

The eight-year boom since 1982 was fuelled initially by a huge expenditure of some $2.000bn on armaments by the US government. If there is a war in the Gulf, the fact that this will coincide paradoxically with a recession is partly due to the enormous stockpiling of arms that had already taken place. The armaments boom that normally accompanies a war has in this case largely preceded the outbreak of hostilities. This also of course explains the huge budget deficit which, by pushing up interest rates, combines with the risk of a rise in the price of oil and other raw materials to threaten the danger of a recession.

A crucial factor in the boom has been the colossal tribute extracted from the colonial world: a net transfer of resources, both in terms of interest payments on accumulated loans, and of the worsening of the terms of trade, amounting to $37.6bn in 1988 and $42.9bn in 1989. Not the least factor is the sharply reduced price of oil, which in 1986 dipped as low as 38 per barre! (pb), and which in real terms is still not even today, at $40pb. in the midst of the Gulf crisis, nowhere near as high as it was in 1980. Revenues from oil in the Middle East dropped from $220bn in 1980 to S600bn in 1986. In terms of the purchasing power for manufactured goods, oil had halved in value between 1980 and July 1990.

As a result of the oil crises of 1973-5 and 1979-82, the metropolitan countries invested in the development of domestic oil production (for example in Alaska and the North Sea) and partially diversified their sources of energy so as to reduce their dependence on imported oil. The USA and Europe have cut oil input per unit of output by more than 30 per cent since 1979, and Japan by 40 per cent. These factors, assisted by cracks in the cohesion of the OPEC cartel. led to a slump in oil prices. During the subsequent years of the oil glut, however, dependence on oil again increased due to complacency. Worldwide energy use, in oil equivalent, has soared from 11 million barrels per day (mbd) in 1900, to 31.5mbd in 1950, to 162mbd in 1988. Actual world oil consumption in 1989 reached 64.7mbd, still higher than the 62.1mbd consumed in 1980. Another factor is the fact that the OECD countries have also stockpiled emergency supplies. Reserve stocks of oil available to them are six times as great as in 1979 and would last 99 days.

At the outbreak of the crisis, the price of oil was $16 per barrel. At the time of writing, the oil price has soared to $40pb, and the World Bank estimates that if it comes to war, it could rise to at least $65 and maybe far more. Even this, however, may not be as serious as the last oil crisis. In real terms, the peak of $40pb reached in 1980 would translate into $80 today.

In 1973 the Arab/’Israeli war brought the price of Persian Gulf crude oil from $1.80pb in 1971 to $11.65pb. It triggered a recession, the underlying causes of which were the fall in the rate of profit and rising inflation. The 1979 Iranian revolution brought oil prices up to $40 by 1982, triggering off another recession.

In 1974-5 average inflation in the OECD countries reached 13.5 per cent, three times the level for the previous decade. Unemployment rose from 9 million in 1973 to 15 million in 1975. The cumulative loss of growth in the mid-’70s was 7 per cent, and in 1979-82 5 per cent.

Having been haunted earlier by apocalyptic nightmares about the economic Consequences of the crisis, the capitalist strategists appear to have become alarmingly sanguine. But the argument that the economic effects would be less serious because the prospective oil price increase today is proportionately less than those of 1973 and 1979 – that the price would have to soar to $50pb to pose the same problems as the rise of 1979 and to $120 or more to cause as much damage as 19’73 – is flawed.

The USA, Britain, Canada and Australia were already on the brink of recession

If the price stabilises at around $25pb, the direct effect on the major capitalist economies would be measured in one or two percentage points. But in the event of a war and an attack on the oilfields, it could rocket up. In any case. the USA, the UK, Canada and Australia were already on the brink of recession even without the Gulf crisis, with stagnant investment, high interest rates, and a rise in inflation. These economies are already vulnerable to any shock. A tottering economy can be badly affected even by a small price rise. Once you have heaved a boulder to the edge of a precipice a prod with a finger can push it over.

With two per cent of the world’s population. the USA consumes a quarter of the world’s oil. Even if oil prices stabilise at $25pb, the US trade deficit would nearly double. Meanwhile, with US military costs already running at $43m a day, the cost of the military build-up could double

the USA’s already intolerable budget deficit, which could reach $300bn (around 5 per cent of GNP). This would mean the maintenance of high interest rates. Any attempt to make serious inroads into the state budget could itself plunge the economy into recession.

The economic outlook for the major capitalist economies is uneven. Japan’s economy grew at 5.55 per cent in the 12 months to the end of March 1990 and at a rate of 10 per cent per annum in the first quarter of this year. The comparable figures for West Germany were 4.45 per cent and 13.3 per cent. The USA by contrast grew at only 1.34 per cent per annum in the first quarter and 1.2 per cent in the second quarter.

The effect of the crisis on the countries of Eastern Europe – which if the process of capitalist restoration is carried through to a conclusion will become virtually semi-colonial countries – will be absolutely catastrophic. Previously, the USSR supplied 97 per cent of Czechoslovakia’s oil, 70 per cent of Hungary’s, 90 per cent of Poland’s, at subsidised prices of $7 per barrel, and East Germany’s and Bulgaria’s at an equivalent rate but on a barter basis. From January 1991, the COMECON countries will have to buy Soviet oil at world prices, and moreover in hard currency. At an average of $30pb, oil imports will absorb 90 per cent of Czechoslovakia’s present hard-currency export earnings and 120 per cent of Bulgaria’s.

Even before the Gulf crisis sent oil prices soaring, this decision would have dealt a body-blow to these economies. But they had mitigated the effects by making special arrangements with Iraq and Kuwait! They did a deal with Iraq to settle debts incurred during the war with Iran in oil exports. In July, Iraq increased its oil exports to these countries by 500,000 barrels per day. Now the UN embargo has severed this lifeline. In addition, Polish, Czech, Romanian and Bulgarian military exports to Iraq, and Hungary’s contract to build oil refineries in Kuwait, will be cancelled.

The Gulf crisis could lead to a catastrophic recession in Eastern Europe

A recent special NATO meeting concluded that the Gulf crisis could lead to a catastrophic recession in the countries of Eastern Europe, and make it much harder for the ’new-born democracies‘ to survive. They even warned that ‚Chilean-style‘ regimes could emerge. Illusions in capitalist ‚democracy‘ will be cruelly betrayed, and regimes will come to power worse than those of Horthy, Piłsudski, etc.

The effects of this crisis will also inevitably usher in a new phase of the colonial revolution. There are 41 countries (28 of them in Africa) with per capita incomes of less than $300 per year, less than 10 per cent of GNP invested in industry, and less than 32 per cent literacy. These countries owe their creditors 80 per cent of their national output ($69bn), and interest payments alone cost them $3bn a year (about a third of export earnings). If oil prices stabilise at $25pb until the end of 1991, this will cost the poorest nations an extra $440m in oil imports this year and $920m next year.

The oil-producing countries in the colonial world (outside the Gulf. this means Mexico, Venezuela, Ecuador, Trinidad, Algeria, Nigeria, Cameroon, Congo, Gabon, Indonesia and Malaysia) will benefit from the oil price rise. The vast majority of the population of the colonial world, however, will face devastating consequences, directly cutting GNP by 0.5 per cent to 1.5 per cent.

Some colonial countries will be particularly hard-hit. Bangladesh depends entirely for oil on the Middle East. Remittances from the 450,000 workers in the Gulf account for one-third of foreign exchange earnings. £100,000 per day is being spent on charter flights repatriating refugees.

Uganda’s oil bill will rise from 37m per month to $10m. The price of coffee (which provides 95 per cent of foreign exchange earnings) has plummeted: the volume of coffee exports has grown from 144,000 tonnes in 1988 to 176,000 tonnes, but earnings will be $21m less than last year.

Apart from the loss of remittances from workers in the Gulf, the Philippines has had to raise domestic oil prices by a staggering 34 per cent, thus aggravating the growing threat of a bloody military coup.

In the next nine months, Pakistan will need an additional $600m to meet the oil price rises, but will lose an estimated $400m in Gulf remittances. The rise in the cost of imports and loss of exports to the Gulf could bring the total estimated cost of the crisis to $2bn.

India has lost 40 per cent of its normal oil sources, and the remittances of 180,000 expatriates in Iraq and Kuwait. It will also have to write off $500m in debts owed by Iraq. Taking into account the rise in oil prices. the current account deficit for 1990-91 could widen by 20 per cent ($2bn). Foreign exchange reserves at $2.9bn are at the lowest level for the last decade, equal to only 49 days of imports.

With the embargo on trade with Iraq, Sri Lanka has lost the second biggest export market for its tea, along with higher oil prices and a loss in remittances. This is on top of the $300,000 per day incurred by the Government in its war with the Tamil guerrillas. There is talk of the Sinhala areas becoming ‚ungovernable‘.

In spite of Japan’s cutbacks in oil dependency, oil still accounts for 60 per cent of Japanese fuel needs. Tokyo’s stock market has fallen by 39 per cent from its record of 38,915 points in December 1989, the largest collapse since the war.

Although it is predicted that Germany will have the world’s largest current account surplus this year at $58bn, taking over from Japan which will slip to $45bn, and in spite of the continued appreciation of the Deutschmark which will partly offset the inflationary domestic impact of higher world oil prices, the huge cost of reunification will undermine the current health of the German economy.

Obviously, a deep recession in the USA would itself severely depress the economies of Japan and Germany and could, as Baker warned, even plunge the world into a depression. Unlike in 1974-5, when there was a simultaneous world recession, the recession of 1979-82 began with a downturn in the ‚Anglo-Saxon‘ economies. This had a delayed effect on the economies of Germany and Japan, which then in turn interacted on the economies of the USA and UK to drag them down again just as they were recovering from their original downturn. It seems that the impending recession will take a similar course.

The USSR – which produces 12 million barrels of oil per day – will benefit by a rise in world prices, especially since from January 1991 it is withdrawing the substantial discount previously conceded to the COMECON countries. Every dollar rise in the oil price will bring into the USSR an extra revenue of $750m per annum. But the USSR will not be able to capitalise on the crisis by increasing oil production. Like Spielberg’s gremlins, the Stalinist bureaucrats have an unparalleled knack of fouling up everything with which they come into contact! The oil industry – as with the rest of the Soviet economy – is seizing up due to bureaucratic incompetence. Hit by a combination of declining reserves, equipment shortages, industrial unrest, transport bottlenecks, and a lack of serious energy conservation, the world’s largest oil producer is now importing emergency supplies of petrol and aviation fuel! On top of all this, the embargo means that the USSR will also lose its imports of Iraqi crude oil, which up to now it has been refining and re-exporting. The oil industry is utterly incapable of exploiting the price rise by increasing output. Figures for the first eight months of 1990 actually show a fall of 5 per cent in the output of both oil and coal.

Military spending by the developing countries had reached $160bn by 1986, or 5.5 per cent of GNP. This outstrips spending on health and education combined. There are currently twelve wars taking place in Africa alone. There is also a threat of war between India and Pakistan, On the basis of the colossal rearmament of both powers, such a war today would have consequences far more devastating than those of 1947, 1965 and 1971. There would be massive civilian casualties, far greater in view of the population density than those in the Gulf. The two raging conflicts in the Gulf and the Indian sub-continent would be separated only by Iran and Afghanistan, themselves hardly havens of stability!

The danger looms of possible defaults on the debts of the East European countries, as well as those from the colonial countries. Coming on top of the savings and loans scandal in the USA, these factors could conjure up the spectre of bank collapses and financial chaos in the USA and the other imperialist countries, whose governments would be forced to step in, placing the burden on the workers and the middle class through taxation, and thus in turn further depressing the economy. Taken together with the factors described above, it is clear that without a speedy and _ peaceful resolution of the crisis, the economic consequences could be disastrous.

4. Effects in the Middle East

If it comes to a full-scale war, it could have catastrophic consequences, both in military and economic terms. The most serious problem that would be faced by US imperialism in the event of a war, however, is political. The presence of US troops is a source of tremendous radicalisation throughout the Arab world. They will face the unyielding resistance of the Arab masses. It was ultimately this pressure that forced Britain and France to withdraw from Suez, and France and the USA from Lebanon. Even if the USA wins a war with Iraq, it will only lead to revolutions, continuing ferment, and new wars. In just the same way, there have been five Arab/Israeli wars in the last four decades.

The invasion of Kuwait has united in horror all the rulers of the Arab countries, from the semi-feudal Emirs of the Gulf to the proletarian Bonapartist regime of Assad in Syria. It violates the long-standing ‚gentleman’s agreement‘ that the fragile system of Arab states set up by the imperialists is sacrosanct and their borders inviolable.

On the other hand, the oppressed Arab masses of the whole region, and above all the super-oppressed Palestinians who constitute the most potent symbol of the Arabs‘ humiliation at the hands of imperialism, have greeted the invasion as a long-awaited declaration of war on imperialism and its hated client states.

There have been demonstrations of tens of thousands in support of Iraq throughout the Arab world from Mauritania to Yemen, including Sudan, Jordan, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Somalia and (according to unconfirmed reports) Syria. There have even been demonstrations of Palestinians in Saudi Arabia. There have been queues of thousands of youth lining up outside the Iraqi embassies to volunteer to fight.

Saddam has been forced to lean upon the Arab masses

Saddam has been forced to lean upon the Arab masses in his conflict with US imperialism and is relying on the prospect of revolts against the rotten collaborationist regimes of Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Jordan, Tunisia, Morocco etc., and against the stooge regime that now rules Egypt. the second largest recipient of US aid after Israel.

From the standpoint of the Palestinians, the diplomatic overtures of the PLO have won no reciprocal concessions, while after heroic efforts the intifada has temporarily stalled, with the mass uprising limited by the nationalist programme of the PLO which cannot appeal to the mass of the Israeli Jews. The prospect of a direct war with the USA has therefore inspired the Palestinians. The recent massacre of Arabs in Jerusalem has further enhanced their determination to fight. There have been successive general strikes on the West Bank. Interviews in the occupied territories elicited such statements as: ‚The sentiment of the people is not first of all support for the Iraqi regime or the occupation of Kuwait. It is a feeling against the US which has neglected us …‘ The Iraqi leader has become identified with the struggle between the haves and the have-nots …‘ ‚Saddam Hussein looks like the only Arab leader who believes in action and is willing to stand up to the Americans and to Israel…‘ It’s their oil they’re worried about. What did they do to stop the Israeli invasion of Lebanon? What have they done about the bloody occupation of the West Bank?

The survival of the Jordanian regime is put to severe strains by this crisis. The economy has lost the remittances of Jordanian expatriates worth $800m, Kuwait’s annual contribution of $135m, and the combined Iraqi and Kuwaiti markets for Jordanian exports worth $275m a year. The blockade has caused a flight of capital, liquidation of businesses, and an unemployment rate of about 20 per cent. Each one dollar on the price of a barrel of oil costs Jordan $20m. Sanctions are costing Jordan $5m a day. Now Jordan has lost half its supply of cheap Saudi crude oil. Ninety per cent of Jordanians, including the Palestinians who make up the majority of the population, support Iraq against the USA and are suspicious at the ambiguous attitude adopted by King Hussein, who has been partially prevented from playing his accustomed and preferred role as stooge of American imperialism only by mass pressure and the fear of imminent revolution.

The Iranian regime is pulled in all directions by contradictory tendencies: a deep split within its own ranks, the anti-imperialist pressure of the masses, hostility towards its recent enemy Iraq, the unexpected benefit of the sudden peace agreement with Iraq, anxiety at the prospect of a settlement giving Iraq access to the Gulf, a desire for rapprochement with the USA, and awareness of the dangers posed by a permanent US military presence in the region. It has cautiously condemned the invasion on the grounds that it is „at variance with stability and security in the sensitive region of the Gulf … and prepares the ground for the presence of expansionist foreign powers”. but its attitude even towards the blockade, let alone a possible future war, is ambiguous.

The USA is investing $2.3bn a year in propping up the Mubarak regime in Egypt. This former regional power has been eclipsed by the massive military ascent of Iraq. Now, as a result of the crisis, Egypt’s remittances will fall from $3bn to $1.5bn, and it will lose $17bn that was invested in Iraqi and Kuwaiti banks. Seven million Egyptians have at one time or another worked in Iraq, and there were 800,000 Egyptians in Iraq, and 100,000 in Kuwait, at the time of the invasion. Egyptians have good reason to hate the Saddam regime, in view of the brutal treatment suffered by Egyptian workers in Iraq last year, many of whom were beaten and even killed by unemployed Iraqis returning from the front. Even there, however, according to opinion polls, while 86 per cent are in favour of Arab sanctions against Saddam, only 14 per cent consider US interference in the region acceptable, and Mubarak’s commitment of troops to fight alongside the US army could undermine his regime if war breaks out.

Syria, which is already maintaining 40,000 troops in Lebanon and is facing economic difficulties due to reduced Soviet aid, has taken the opportunity to solicit American aid and meanwhile help to undermine its traditional enemy Iraq by shamefully committing troops to Saudi Arabia. Assad has pathetically tried to dress this up with references to a wish to ‚keep an eye‘ on the activities of the US army!

Turkey will lose $2.5bn in lost trade revenues and in crude oil paid in kind through cutting the pipeline. But the Turkish ruling class is willing to accept these hardships – largely compensated by the USA ~ while it casts greedy eyes at the Kirkuk and Mosul oilfields, It has designs on territory currently occupied by Iraq and in 1983 launched military attacks on the insurgent population of Iraqi Kurdistan at Saddam’s invitation. But opposition is growing to the Turkish government’s collaboration with the USA.

In Israel, the threat of Iraqi attack has reduced the latent sympathy for the intifada within sections of the Jewish population and further strengthened the right-wing government. which has cancelled a projected $25m cut in defence spending. The USA is desperately anxious to avoid Israeli involvement in the operation, which would immediately prejudice all chance of Arab co-operation, and for the first time has refused to veto a UN censure of Israel. The Israeli government for the moment is happy to stay out of the conflict. In the event of an attack by Iraq, however, or a revolution in Jordan resulting in the coming to power of an openly pro-Iraqi regime, Israel would take military action, thus enormously escalating the conflict.

Within Saudi Arabia itself there is opposition to the monarchy from the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and two million Shiites, and among the 75 per cent of the workforce of foreign origin. If it comes to all-out war and American bombing of the civilian population of Baghdad, then few of the Arab regimes will be able to withstand the revolutionary tidal wave which will sweep the entire region.

5. Marxism and war

This war poses crucial questions for the international labour movement. US imperialism and its allies are concentrating the most formidable military threat since the Second World War against a colonial country. Meanwhile, Saddam Hussein is posturing in the role of an Arab Napoleon, calling on the Arab masses to sweep aside the region’s rotten pro-imperialist regimes and playing on the aspirations of the Arab masses for liberation and unification.

We are under no illusions that the reactionary militaristic regime of Saddam can resolve a single one of the acute social contradictions in Iraq, Kuwait, the peninsula, or the Arab world as a Whole. Nevertheless, we have to recognise that the ousting of the Kuwaiti Emir and the eradication of the artificial frontier separating Iraq and Kuwait strike a major blow against world imperialism and have had a radicalising effect throughout the Arab world.

It is true that in no country today is the bourgeoisie capable of carrying through its historic tasks and completing the bourgeois-democratic or national-democratic revolution. This does not mean that it is incapable of striking secondary blows against imperialism. We support such limited measures as Nasser’s nationalisation of the Suez Canal, Indira Gandhi’s nationalisation of the banks and abolition of the maharajahs‘ privy purses, the Iraqi regime’s nationalisation of the oil companies etc. If world imperialism tries to take preventive or retaliatory steps against the implementation of these progressive, if limited, measures, then we must stand four-square in defence of these colonial countries against the attacks of imperialism. So too with the present conflict. We are opposed to the repressive methods by which Kuwait was forcibly incorporated into Iraq. But the intervention of American imperialism represents a threat to the entire colonial world. The rights of the Kuwaitis, the monstrous nature of the Iraqi bourgeois-Bonapartist state, the atrocities committed by Iraqi troops in Kuwait, the fact that politically Saddam’s regime is no more democratic than that of the Emir, are no longer the main issue. The Emir of Kuwait was no more than a stooge of the oil companies, and his state an enclave of imperialism. We recognise that. for all the brutality of the occupation, there is a certain progressive content in the Emirs downfall together with the eradication of the artificial borders of Kuwait.

Marx and Engels fought bitterly against Bismarck’s Bonapartist regime, with its brutal repression of the labour movement, and fiercely attacked Lassalle’s opportunist accommodation with Bismarck. But they recognised that through a series of expansionist wars of annexation, the militaristic Prussian junker Bismarck was implementing, albeit in an unconscious and grotesquely distorted way, the programme that the cowering German liberals were incapable of carrying through in 1848, namely the defeat of the splintered provincial feudal principalities and their unification into a single state and a single market. In the context of the period, this opened up the prospect for the untrammelled development of capitalism, the expansion of industry and the growth of a mighty proletariat. Engels even called Bismarck „a revolutionary against his will.‘ (Marx and Engels, Selected Correspondence, p. 362).

At the time of the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 – a war that culminated in the glorious Paris Commune – they recognised the progressive consequences of Prussia’s actions without giving a shred of support to the war or prejudicing their appeal to the French working class. „To magnify anti-Bismarckism into the sole guiding principle would be absurd … Bismarck … is doing a bit of our work, in his own way and without meaning to, but all the same he is doing it. He is clearing the deck for us better than before.“ (Marx and Engels, Selected Correspondence, p. 228.)

Today there is of course no prospect of the unification of the Arab nation on a capitalist basis. But we have to support every step which weakens the stranglehold of world imperialism on the colonial masses and resist all imperialist acts of conquest. This is an elementary principle, for which there are no shortage of precedents in the modern epoch.

In the 1930s Trotsky dealt many times with this issue, in relation to imperialist attacks on several colonial countries. For instance, in answer to those sectarians who preached neutrality at the time of the Sino-Japanese war, Trotsky wrote:

„We do not and never have put all wars on the same plane. Marx and Engels supported the revolutionary struggle of the Irish against Great Britain, of the Poles against the Tsar, even though in these two nationalist wars the leaders were, for the most part, members of the bourgeoisie and even at times of the feudal aristocracy … Lenin wrote hundreds of pages demonstrating the primary necessity of distinguishing between imperialist nations and the colonial and semi-colonial nations which comprise the great majority of humanity … China is a semi-colonial country which Japan is transforming, under our very eyes, into a colonial country. Japan’s struggle is imperialist and reactionary. China’s struggle is emancipatory and progressive.

„But Chiang Kai-Shek? We need have no illusions about Chiang Kai-Shek, his party, or the whole ruling class of China, just as Marx and Engels had no illusions about the ruling classes of Ireland and Poland. Chiang Kai-Shek is the executioner of the Chinese workers and peasants. But today he is forced, despite himself, to struggle against Japan for the remainder of the independence of China. Tomorrow he may again betray. It is possible. It 1s probable. It is even inevitable. But today he is struggling. Only cowards, scoundrels, or complete imbeciles can refuse to participate in that struggle …

„In a war between two imperialist countries, it is a question neither of democracy nor of national independence, but of the oppression of backward non-imperialist peoples. In such a war the two countries find themselves on the same historical plane. The revolutionaries in both armies are defeatists. But Japan and China are not on the same historical plane, The victory of Japan will signify the enslavement of China, the end of her economic and social development, and the terrible strengthening of Japanese imperialism. The victory of China will signify, on the contrary, the social revolution in Japan and the free development, that is to say unhindered by external oppression, of the class struggle in China … The working class movement cannot remain neutral in a struggle between those who wish to enslave and those who are enslaved. The working class movement in China, Japan and the entire world must oppose with all its strength the Japanese imperialist bandits and support the people of China and their army. This does not at all suppose a blind confidence in the Chinese government and in Chiang Kai-Shek … We do not attack Chiang Kai-Shek for conducting the war. Oh, no. We attack him for doing it badly, without sufficient energy, without confidence in the people and especially in the workers.“ (On China, pp 568-573).

Similarly in relation to the attack by Italian imperialism on the slave state Ethiopia (Abyssinia) ruled by the king Haile Selassie, Trotsky explained:

„We are for the defeat of Italy and the victory of Ethiopia, and therefore we must do everything possible to hinder by all available means support to Italian imperialism by the other imperialist powers, and at the same time facilitate the delivery of armaments etc., to Ethiopia as best we can… We want to stress the point that this fight is directed not against fascism, but against imperialism. When war is involved, for us it is not a question of who is ‚better‘, the Negus or Mussolini; rather it is a question of the relationship of classes and the fight of an underdeveloped nation against imperialism.“ (Writings, 1935-6, p. 41)

„If, for example, (we) support Ethiopia, despite the slavery that still prevails there and despite the barbaric political regime, it is, in the first place, because an independent national state represents a progressive historical stage for a pre-capitalist country and, secondly, because the defeat of Italy would signify the beginning of the collapse of the obsolescent capitalist society.“ (Writings, 1935-36, p. 39).

Trotsky gave the following answer to the argument that the Italo-Ethiopian war was a ‚conflict between rival dictators‘: „If Mussolini triumphs, it means the reinforcement of fascism, the strengthening of imperialism, and the discouragement of the colonial peoples in Africa and elsewhere. The victory of the Negus, however, would mean a mighty blow not only at Italian imperialism but at imperialism as a whole, and would lend a powerful impulsion to the rebellious forces of the oppressed peoples.“ (Writings, 1935-6, pp. 317-18)

Once again, in 1938 Trotsky explained that „in Brazil there now reigns a semi-fascist regime that every revolutionary can only view with hatred. Let us assume, however, that on the morrow England enters into a military conflict with Brazil. I ask you on whose side of the conflict will the working class be? … In this case I will be on the side of ‚fascist‘ Brazil against ‚democratic‘ Great Britain. Why? Because in the conflict between them it will not be a question of democracy or fascism. If England should be victorious, she will put another fascist in Rio de Janeiro and will place double chains on Brazil. If Brazil on the contrary should be victorious, it will give a mighty impulse to national and democratic consciousness of the country and will lead to the overthrow of the Vargas dictatorship. The defeat of England will at the same time deliver a blow to British imperialism and will give an impulse to the revolutionary movement of the British proletariat.“ (Writings, 1938-9, p. 34)

If imperialism is defeated it will be a victory not for Saddam but for the Arab revolution

We too must be clear: if American imperialism wins this war, it will mean the replacement of Saddam by an even more reactionary quisling regime. It will be a severe setback to the colonial revolution and the world revolution. It will strengthen the grip of imperialism worldwide and pave the way to more brazen attacks on the colonial masses and the working class internationally. If imperialism is defeated, however, it will be a victory not for Saddam’s regime but for the Arab revolution, boosting the confidence of the masses throughout the colonial world and promoting revolutions and the overthrow of reactionary regimes throughout the region, not excluding that of Saddam himself.

It is true that Marxists adopted a slightly different position on the question of the Falklands Malvinas war. But that was not a case of a direct military attack by Britain on Argentina. If that had been the case, we would have had to stand on the side of Argentina, irrespective of the nature of the Argentinian regime. However, in the event the issue was an attack by Argentina, a semi-colonial country pursuing the role of a local imperialist power, on a population that was British and which feared occupation by a foreign army. For the British ruling class it was a question of prestige. We opposed the war aims of both sides, in Britain exposing the hypocrisy of the Thatcher government and in Argentina calling for a real war against imperialism. Meanwhile we defended the islanders‘ right of self-determination.

For Marxists, however, the right of nations to self-determination is not absolute, and where class factors predominate it cannot be paramount but is superseded by higher issues. In the case of the conflict between the USA and Iraq, an imperialist super-power is directly threatening a weaker power to protect its exploitation of the oil wealth of the area. Behind a hypocritical camouflage of propaganda about the ’national rights‘ of Kuwait, the real war aims of the USA are the enslavement and possible dismemberment of Iraq.

To what extent can we talk of a Kuwaiti consciousness? This is a question which we are only in a position to guess at. One of the first acts of the Iraqi occupying forces was to burn the Ministry records of Kuwaiti citizenship, at the same time as promoting colonisation by southern Iraqis. There are no identifiable differences, in terms of physical appearance, dialect, etc., to distinguish the inhabitants of Kuwait from those at least of the southern part of Iraq. Press reports of a ‚Kuwaiti national resistance‘ appear to have only the flimsiest basis. Are we to defend the ’national rights‘ of Qatar, in the event of an Iraqi invasion? Or of Abu Dhabi, 90 per cent of the population of which are imported Asian migrant labour?

It is true that historically there have been states established without a basis of genuine separate nationhood, but of a religious or communal nature – for instance, Pakistan and Israel – which have nevertheless in the course of a generation developed into nations. There is undoubtedly now an Israeli nation, and to the extent that it is not being superseded by disintegration into its provincial constituents, there are at least elements of a Pakistani national consciousness. Superimposed upon the pan-Arab consciousness running throughout the region, there is also undoubtedly a certain Iraqi, Syrian, and especially an Egyptian national consciousness. The proportionate balance between these dual national identities is not fixed, but algebraic and fluid.

Of course, even if the Kuwaiti people are the same as the southern Iraqis, that does not mean that we are indifferent to their fate under the jackboot of Saddam Hussein. No more do we support the repression suffered by the Iraqi people, including the Shia majority and the sizeable Kurdish community, at his hands. It is for the masses of Iraq and Kuwait to deal with Saddam, and we will do all in our power to help them overthrow him. As for the national question, within the context of a Socialist Federation, we would put forward the idea of a referendum to determine the issue of Kuwaiti autonomy. But that is a different question. Our opposition to US imperialism’s war on Iraq is not affected one whit by our abhorrence of the present Iraqi regime.

Of course, none of this means that we echo the shrill and stupid slogans of those grouplets which support Saddam Hussein. They justify their position by talking of the need to give ‚critical support‘ to Iraq in the conflict with American imperialism. This however is not the end but only the beginning of the issue as to how Marxists pose our ideas on the war. ‚Critical support‘ is not a campaigning slogan but a kind of Marxist shorthand for a carefully balanced presentation of the issues to the working class. The ‚critical‘ side of the formula is not just a shamefaced embellishment, but a vital component of our propaganda.

Even in relation to the USSR, which had state ownership of the means of production, Trotsky emphasised that „defence of the USSR does not at all mean rapprochement with the Kremlin bureaucracy, the acceptance of its politics, or a conciliation with the politics of her allies … We defend the USSR as we defend the colonies, as we solve all our problems, not by supporting some imperialist governments against others, but by the method of international class struggle in the colonies as well as in the metropolitan centres … Our tasks, among them the ‚defence of the USSR‘, we realise not through the medium of bourgeois governments and not even through the government of the USSR, but exclusively through the education of the masses through agitation, through explaining to the workers what they should defend and what they should overthrow.“ (In Defence of Marxism, pp. 16-17).

At the time of the Vietnam war, despite our small forces at that time, we earned wide respect for the clarity and firmness of our attitude. Nobody could mistake for a moment that we were implacably on the side of the Vietnamese people against the onslaught of American imperialism. Yet we rejected the contemptible slogan of the pseudo-Trotskyist leaders of the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign – ‚Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh‘! – and maintained an independent scientific Marxist position, defending the gains of the Vietnamese revolution while relentlessly opposing the narrow national programme and the Stalinist policies of the Vietnamese bureaucracy.

Now, too, along with our defence of Iraq against imperialism, we condemn Saddam’s brutal military dictatorship, which acted as an instrument of imperialism in suppressing the Iraqi Communist Party and in invading Iran, and has played straight into the hands of US imperialism by its repression of the Iraqi masses, massacres of the Kurds and Shias, and plunder of Kuwait.

Do we call for the withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Kuwait?

Do we then call for the withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Kuwait? No. Notwithstanding our opposition to the brutal and repressive way in which the occupation of Kuwait was carried through, we must think through the social consequences of such a demand. We opposed the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. But withdrawal of the Soviet troops from Afghanistan posed the danger of a throwback to all that was most vile, backward and barbarous in Afghan society. So too the withdrawal of Iraqi troops would mean the probable return of the Emir and the oil sheikhs and could turn the clock back towards the restoration of direct imperialist domination of the region. Some have raised the argument that since Iraq is itself an imperialist power, the labour movement should be neutral in the war between rival imperialisms. Certainly, the Iraqi regime represses the Kurdish people, dominates Jordan, and invaded Iran and Kuwait. It has expansionist territorial ambitions, founded upon its desire for control over the oil production of the region. There is no doubt that the bourgeois Bonapartist Iraqi regime was pursuing imperialist aims in annexing Kuwait.

Marxists are not neutral in the conflict between the USA and Iraq

But we are not neutral in the conflict between the USA and Iraq. All capitalist regimes tend to play a quasi-imperialist role within their own spheres of influence. The USA, Germany, and Japan are global imperialist super-powers. Britain, France, Canada, Italy, etc., are secondary imperialist powers. There are imperialist powers on a regional level, such as Australia and Indonesia within the Pacific area, South Africa in the southern part of Africa, Brazil and Argentina in Latin America, Israel in the Middle East. India plays a dominant imperialist role within the Indian sub-continent and the Indian Ocean. Pakistan is a local imperialist power within its own agreed narrow sphere of influence (Sindh, Baluchistan, North-West Frontier), which overlaps and comes into conflict with India over disputed territories such as Bangladesh and Kashmir. Even little Sri Lanka pursues a quasi-imperialist policy in relation to the oppressed Tamil nation.

But we opposed the imperialist intervention of India in Sri Lanka. There was no question but that India was intervening in Sri Lanka in pursuit of its own dominant imperialist hegemony over the sub-continent. That does not mean that we would be neutral in the event of an armed attack by the USA against India. Conversely, there can be no doubt that in pursuing his own interests, Saddam Hussein is currently striking a blow against world imperialism and is under attack for that reason and none other.

Engels pointed out at the time of the Franco-Prussian war that it was necessary to „emphasise the difference between German national and dynastic-Prussian interests“ and to „constantly stress the unity of interests between the German and the French workers, who neither approve of the war nor make war on each other.“ We too must distinguish between the rapacious plunder of the Saddam regime and the genuine aspirations of the Arab masses for unity, and uphold the common interests of the workers and peasants of the Middle East and the workers and soldiers of the USA and the other combatant forces.

There is a perfectly legitimate and democratic revulsion on the part of workers, for instance in the metropolitan countries, towards the atrocities of the Iraqi regime. Socialists must not succumb, however, to the immediate pressures of public support for the imperialist governments. Like Liebknecht in 1914, we must be prepared if necessary to face the risk of incurring unpopularity or even outright hostility at the outset of a war. Inevitably, the public mood will change sharply once the reality of the war begins to seep into the consciousness of the masses.

We must agitate for a mass campaign by the labour and trade union movement to break with its revolting ‚bipartisan‘ support for imperialism. In 1956, under workers‘ pressure, and admittedly also with the tacit approval of Washington, the Labour leaders in Britain mounted a mass campaign against the Suez war, which played a significant part in putting an end to this military adventure on the part of the British ruling class. The labour movement must form the backbone for a mass anti-war movement surpassing even the achievements of the mass movement in the USA which did effectively bring the Vietnam War to an end. Within Iraq we would call for the war to become a people’s war, with election of officers, the arming of the workers and peasants, and the nationalisation of all of industry.

In the metropolitan countries our slogans must be: No to the imperialist war! Not a penny, not a bullet, not a gun to the war! Down with all the reactionary regimes, the feudal monarchies and military dictatorships of the region! For a Socialist Federation of the Middle East which will unite the Arab nation and allow full autonomous national rights to all the nationalities of the region, including the Kurds, Palestinians, Israelis, etc. On this basis we can win the confidence of the advanced layers of the working class and build for ourselves enormous authority with which to face the great social struggles which lie ahead.

Postscript: 12 December 1990: A negotiated settlement?

War and peace still hang in the balance. Saddam’s release of the hostages and talks between top US and Iraqi officials appear to offer hope of a peaceful settlement. But the world map could once again be stained with the blood of millions of workers sacrificed for profit and power.

There are significant factors on both sides of the equation. Some. at the moment, weigh on the side of a settlement.

The representatives of US imperialism are split. Some, like Kissinger, support Bush’s initial impulse to smash Saddam to uphold the USA’s global power, Others. like Brzezinski, a former National Security Advisor. calculate that the price of war would be too high: a massive economic drain on the US, explosive repercussions in the Middle East, and a tidal wave of opposition at home.

US public opinion is overwhelmingly against the US initiating hostilities (by seven to three in recent polls). and the anti-war movement has begun. Memories of Vietnam, with the horrendous body counts and casualties, are still strong. This mood, together with the fears of a section of big business, has been reflected in Congress’s strong opposition to the war option. The adroitly timed release of the hostages has strengthened this.

Under this pressure, Bush has wavered. His strategic aims have appeared confused, his tactics faltering. With the support of Gorbachev, Bush secured a UN resolution authorising the use of force if Saddam does not withdraw from Kuwait by 13 January. But then his offer of high-level talks with Iraq appeared to be a concession to the unbending Saddam. Whatever Bush’s intention (possibly to put the final blame for war onto Saddam), this move appears to have tipped the scales towards negotiations.

The wealthy ruling elite of Saudi Arabia are uneasy about their military dependence on the US. A massive US garrison on Arabian soil would sooner or later provoke a popular revolt. The Saudi rulers are well aware that while Mubarak, Assad and other Bonapartist rulers support the US-led coalition (in exchange for billion dollar bribes), the Arab masses sympathise with Saddam’s stand against the US – which backs Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. In the event of war, the coalition would be shattered by movements within the Arab states.

War would wreak destruction unparalleled since the second world war. The fireball engulfing the oilfields would far exceed the damage caused by Saddam’s plundering of Kuwait.

Unsettled by Washington’s talks with Baghdad, therefore, the Saudi and Kuwaiti rulers, through Yemeni, Omani and PLO intermediaries, have opened up secret talks with Iraq. They are reportedly proposing that, if Saddam withdraws, he would be granted a 99-year lease on the two islands (Bubiyan and Warba) which control Iraq’s access to the Gulf and be ceded a five-mile strip of Kuwaiti desert to give Iraq complete control of the Rumeila oilfield.

If Saddam offers to withdraw in return for firm guarantees that the US would not attack Iraq and that the Saudi/Kuwait deal would be honoured, or especially if he unilaterally pulls out, it would make it extremely hard, if not impossible given the opposition in the US, for Bush to go to war.

Saddam is publicly uncompromising, but may be holding out for more concessions to follow an Iraqi withdrawal. How far the Iraqi dictator is prepared to go in risking war is one of the great unknown quantities.

There should be no doubt that there are still powerful factors weighing on the side of war.

The unspoken aim of Bush’s policy has been to smash Saddam’s military power (previously built up against Iran with US help). If allowed to withdraw peacefully, Iraq would be confirmed as the region’s dominant power, especially if Saddam gains the oilfield and islands. US power and prestige internationally would suffer a devastating decline.

Instead of sending a small task force as a ‚trip wire‘ to deter Saddam from invading Saudi Arabia, Bush has mobilised a massive army, which has already reached Vietnam levels. „If you deploy an enormous force anywhere,“ comments a former British Air Commodore, „it acquires a sort of momentum of its own. The training and culture of the force is to take Offensive action. The pressures to do so are quite enormous.“

For Saddam to be reassured that Iraq would not be attacked after leaving Kuwait, the US forces would almost certainly have first to be switched from the present offensive stance to defensive positions. Phased US withdrawal following any negotiated settlement would raise the question, very awkward for Bush, of why such a massive force was sent in the first place.

Unavoidably, there will be ‚linkage‘ with the Palestinian question

Then there is Israel. Shamir’s ultra-right, Zionist government is already alarmed at US proposals for a UN conference on the Middle East, which (despite US denials of ‚linkage‘) will unavoidably raise the Palestinian issue.

Shamir’s spokesmen have warned that they will act unilaterally if they consider Israel to be threatened. It is possible that they will attempt to provoke a US assault on Iraq. A pre-emptive Israeli strike against Iraq cannot be completely ruled out.

The working class has nothing to gain from US intervention in the Gulf. Socialists must call for the withdrawal of all imperialist forces. The Labour leaders‘ poodle-like support for the Tories‘ hawkish backing of Bush is shameful. We have no sympathy for Saddam’s repressive regime. Nevertheless, we stand in solidarity with the people of Iraq – above all against the imperialist powers and the oil giants, but also against their exploiters and oppressors at home.

This can be done only through raising the call for a Socialist Federation of the Middle East. Support for the high-sounding resolutions of the United Nations, which merely cloak imperialism’s real motives, can only mislead the workers of the world.