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Onward,
Alexander, Jeffrey, Becky and Deva
November
15, 2006
New Challenges for the Anti-War Movement
Iraq
After November 7
By WALDEN BELLO
The recent U.S. election was an exercise
in redemption. At a time when many throughout the world had written
off the American electorate as lifeless putty in the hands of
Karl Rove, the voters woke up to deliver the Republican Party
its worst blow in the last quarter of a century. Not only independents
and centrists voted to repudiate Republican candidates, but a
third of evangelicals-Bush's fundamentalist Christian base-voted
for Democrats.
I, too, was pleasantly surprised.
In the aftermath of the 2004 presidential elections, I predicted
that the Republicans would rule for the next quarter century
owing to the formidable grassroots machinery that they had forged-a
"juggernaut" with a fundamentalist base in the so-called
"red states." Fortunately, I was wrong.
Two Roads
Of course, many voted Democrat
because they could no longer take the daily scandals engulfing
the Republicans in Congress. But poll after poll showed that
the two key reasons animating voters were the Iraq War and the
strong feeling that Bush was leading the country down the wrong
path. In terms of the national direction, the choice in the minds
of voters on November 7 was presciently articulated by Jonathan
Schell in his 2003 book The
Unconquerable World:
For Americans, the choice is
at once between two Americas, and between two futures for the
international order. In an imperial America, power would be concentrated
in the hands of the president, and checks and balances would
be at an end; civil liberties would be weakened or lost; military
spending would crowd out social spending; the gap between rich
and poor would be likely to increase; electoral politics, to
the extent that they still mattered, would be increasingly dominated
by money, above all corporate money, whose influence would trump
the people's interest; the social, economic, and ecological agenda
of the country and the world would be increasingly rejected.
In contrast to this path of
an "Imperial America" was that of a "Republican
America"
dedicated to the creation of
a cooperative world, [where] the immense concentration of power
in the executive would be broken up; power would be divided again
among the three branches, which would resume their responsibility
of checking and balancing one another as the Constitution provides;
civil liberties would remain intact or be strengthened; money
would be driven out of politics, and the will of the people would
be heard again; politics, and with it the power of the people,
would revive; the social, economic, and ecological agendas of
the country and the world would become the chief concern of government.
On November 7, the American
electorate clearly rejected the imperial path.
But one cannot say with confidence
that they were very clear about what alternative path they were
choosing. It is the role of leadership to illuminate signposts,
and the big question at the moment is whether the exultant Democrats
can provide that leadership.
Iraq: Bad
Options All
Iraq is the test case. As many
have pointed out, the Democrats have no unified strategy on Iraq.
The situation in Iraq has deteriorated to the point where only
bad choices are available.
The current Bush strategy is
to shore up the Shiite-dominated government militarily, and that
isn't working. Bringing in more troops temporarily to stabilize
the situation, then leaving-a plan originally endorsed by John
Kerry-won't work since the civil war has progressed to the point
where even a million troops won't make a difference. Partitioning
Iraq into three entities-the Sunni center, the Shiite South,
and the Kurdish North-will simply be a prelude to even greater
conflict tying down more U.S. troops. Withdrawing to the bases
or to the desert to avoid casualties will simply raise the question:
why keep troops there at all?
Getting Iran, Turkey, and Syria
to come in to create a diplomatic solution-one that the bipartisan
Iraq Study Group headed by James Baker and Lee Hamilton may propose-is
not going to work because no foreign-imposed settlement can counteract
the deadly domestic dynamics of a sectarian conflict that has
passed the point of no return.
Bush, of course, remains the
boss when it comes to Iraq policy. It is not likely that this
stubborn man has ceased to believe in victory, which he restated
as his goal at the same press conference where he announced Donald
Rumsfeld's resignation. The more Machiavellian Republican strategists
like Karl Rove will probably want to enmesh the Democrats in
a protracted bipartisan exit strategy that will cost more Iraqi
and American lives so that by the time the 2008 presidential
elections come around, the mess in Iraq will be bipartisan as
well.
As of now, the Democrats have
the moral weight of the country behind them. They have an opportunity
not only to eliminate a foreign policy millstone but to open
the road to a new relationship between America and the world
if they take the least worst route out of Iraq-that espoused
by Rep. John Murtha, who, perhaps among the key Democrats, knows
the military realities on the ground: immediate withdrawal. With
all their inchoate feelings about wasted American lives, "our
responsibility to Iraqis," or being seen as "cutting
and running," many of those who voted for the Democrats
may have some difficulty accepting the reality that immediate
withdrawal is the least worst of all the options. But that is
the function of leaders: to articulate the bitter truth when
the times demand it.
It is not likely that most
Democratic politicians will embrace immediate withdrawal of their
own accord. Without more sustained pressure, the likely course
they will take is to come with a plan that will compromise with
Bush, which means another unworkable patchwork of a plan.
A Military
Strike?
One source of pressure could
be the military. It is well known that the top brass are in a
state of extreme disaffection with the civilian leadership because
they feel that Iraq is destroying U.S. military credibility.
When Major General William Caldwell, the senior U.S. military
spokesman in Iraq, pronounced on October 19 that the results
of the Pentagon's strategy of focusing troops in Baghdad to assist
the Iraqi military in containing the runaway violence was "disheartening,"
he drove the nail in the coffin of the Republicans' electoral
chances. Most likely, the civilian leadership did not clear his
statement.
The U.S. military in Iraq may
not have yet experienced significant cases of mutiny, but the
deterioration of morale is evident in the growing incidents of
civilian killings, rape, and prisoner abuse for which an increasing
number of marines and soldiers are undergoing trial or have been
sent to prison. Unlike during the Vietnam War, the U.S. military
is not a conscript military. But the high command knows that
even professional militaries have their limits and that at some
point the rank and file will balk at being sent to a pointless
war. Nobody wants to die for a mistake. Nobody wants to be in
the last body bag sent from Baghdad. This is what Murtha, a decorated
Vietnam veteran who has been hawkish on most other military issues,
has been telling his Democratic Party colleagues.
Nevertheless, a de facto
military mutiny like the one that swept the U.S. Army in the
last years of the Vietnam War is not likely. As Democrats and
Republicans bicker over a plan for an "honorable exit,"
the brass will more likely place U.S. units in an increasingly
defensive posture to cut down on the casualty rate, leaving the
mercenary Iraqi security forces to fend for themselves. The troops
might even be ordered to hole up on the bases, with increasingly
infrequent patrols meant not to ensure security but simply to
show the flag. This would be the military equivalent of going
on strike.
The Challenge
to the Anti-War Movement
So it comes down to the anti-war
movement.
The movement is to be congratulated
for its role in the titanic struggle to turn the tide of American
public opinion on Iraq. Cindy Sheehan's campout at Bush's ranch
in Crawford, Texas, the many acts of protest and civil disobedience
engaged in by so many others, the big protest rallies and demonstrations,
all this made a difference-a big difference.
But the movement cannot even
think about relaxing for a second. The moment is critical. Now-the
immediate post-election period-is the time to raise the ante.
Now is the time for the U.S. anti-war movement to escalate its
efforts-to mount demonstration after demonstration-to effect
immediate withdrawal. Electoral choice has created the momentum
that can be translated into street action that can, in turn,
translate into strong pressure on the Democrats not to agree
to a protracted exit strategy. The movement cannot afford to
squander this momentum, for the price of stepping back and letting
the Democrats come up with the strategy will be more Iraqis and
Americans dead, sacrificed for a meaningless war with no real
end in sight.
Walden Bello is executive director of Focus on
the Global South and professor of sociology at the University
of the Philippines.
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