Bowing
Before Bush
By Chris Marsden
World
Socialist Web
19 October 2003
The
United Nations Security Councils unanimous vote Thursday to support
Resolution 1511 drafted by the United States represents a grotesque
cave-in by the European powers, Russia and China in the face of sustained
pressure from Washington. Syrias backing for the resolution underscores
the impotence of the Arab bourgeoisie in face of Americas military
drive to secure its hegemony over the entire Middle East.
There is no doubt
that every one of the 15 votes in support of a manifestly illegal occupation
carried out in direct violation of the UN Charter was cast out of consideration
for the geopolitical interests of the governments involved. In each
case, the question of whether to support Washingtons criminal
war was decided on a quid pro quo basis involving either promised rewardstrade
preferences, aid, etc.or threatened punishmenteconomic sanctions
or outright military aggression.
Washington had agreed
late on Wednesday, October 15 to postpone the Security Council vote
to give Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin time to persuade France
and Germany to accept the draft. This took only a 45-minute video conference
call to German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and French President
Jacques Chirac while they were attending a European Union summit in
Belgium, itself a measure of the unprincipled character of their previous
objections to the US war and occupation of Iraq.
The amendments proposed
by the three all focus on efforts to replace direct colonial rule of
Iraq by the US-led occupation forces with a United Nations force and
eventually a puppet Iraqi regime. Russia, France and Germany sought
by means of this diplomatic maneuver to secure for themselves greater
access to Iraqs oil resources by weakening Washingtons stranglehold,
while at the same time to diffuse the rising wave of opposition to the
war and subsequent occupation in Iraq, the Middle East and in Europe
itself.
Putin, Schröder
and Chirac are painfully aware of the steadily deteriorating situation
in Iraq as expressed in the daily attacks on US, British and other occupation
forces and the anger that exists throughout the Arab world. Russian
Ambassador Sergey Lavrov called the future of Iraq a matter of national
security. If we do not find a way which is mutually acceptable
to all to do Iraq right, the region will suffer, he warned. International
stability will suffer. Our security interests will suffer.
Schröder and
Chirac in particular head governments that evaded the anger of the massive
antiwar protests that took place last February only because they did
not join Britains Tony Blair and Spains Jose Maria Aznar
in fully backing Washington. To participate in the US occupation would
land them in the Iraqi quagmire and place them in the political firing
line at home as well.
Even so, none of
the European powers will countenance open defiance of Washington, both
for fear of arousing the anger of the Bush administration and because
they do not wish to do anything that will reignite the simmering political
opposition to war with all this implies for the stability of their own
governments. Instead they agreed to back the US-drafted resolution after
a few cosmetic changes had been madewhile rejecting US appeals
for troops and additional finances to help with Iraqs reconstruction.
The resolution preserves
the dominant role for the US by confirming that the Coalition Provisional
Authority will remain the overarching power in Iraq and by declaring
that the Iraqi Governing Council, handpicked by the US occupation authority,
embodies the sovereignty of the State of Iraq. The UN is
promised a strengthened role in the political and economic reconstruction
processbut only as circumstances, particularly security, permit.
The resolution likewise invites the Quisling Iraqi Governing
Council to present by December 15 a timetable for the drafting of a
new constitution and the holding of national elections. This too, however,
is required only as circumstances permit.
Some commentators
have noted that the UN resolution is a diplomatic victory for Washington,
but stressed that it has a somewhat symbolic character. This is certainly
true insofar as it will not immediately relieve the US by ensuring a
flood of additional troops and money to help pay for its occupation.
But even here the
impact of the decision by Berlin, Paris and Moscow should not be dismissed.
So far, the US has formally set aside $20 billion for Iraqi reconstruction,
while Japan has pledged about $1.5 billion, Britain $919 million and
the rest of the European Union just $232 million. US officials have
made clear that they see the UN Security Council vote as a means of
stepping up pressure for more money to be made available by the 75 countries
that will meet at the donors conference to be held in Madrid on
October 23 and 24. US allies such as Australias John Howard and
Japans Junichiro Koizumi have urged greater involvement by France
and Germany and Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said, I
would expect a greater degree of generosity and willingness than I might
have expected before this resolution was adopted.
Of greater political
import, however, is that the resolution serves to lend political legitimacy
to a beleaguered Bush administration, at a time when opposition within
the US to the war and to its outcome is growing and Bushs popularity
rating is at an all-time low. A poll released this week shows that Bushs
popularity dropped to 53 percent in August from 58 percent in July and
that 57 percent of respondents want Bush to pay more attention to the
countrys economy and less to the war on terrorism. By comparison,
Bushs popularity rating was 74 percent during the invasion of
Iraq, and 86 percent immediately after September 11, 2001. Whatever
caveats they wish to place on their assent, Germany, France and Russia
have still approved a US occupation of Iraq and provided it with the
fig leaf of UN backing.
Syrias backing
for the resolution is the Damascus regimes response to the naked
threats of US military aggression made against it. The Bush administration
has accused Damascus of supporting terrorist activities in Iraq as well
as in the Occupied Territories and of seeking to develop weapons of
mass destruction. Bush expressed support for Israels air strike
on a Palestinian refugee camp near Damascus, and the day before the
UN meeting the US House of Representatives voted 398-4 to sanction Syria
for its alleged ties to terrorist groups and purported efforts to obtain
nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.
The Syria Accountability
and Lebanese Sovereignty Act also calls on Damascus to end its occupation
of Lebanon. It gives the White House a range of options for sanctioning
Syria, but more importantly creates the climate where direct military
action can be prepared, either by the US or Israel. Meanwhile, US officials
leaked reports of Israel deploying nuclear-armed submarines in a clear
threat of annihilation if Syria were to respond to Israels military
provocations.
Hours before the
UN vote was taken, Syrian President Bashar Assad had told the Organisation
of the Islamic Conference summit in Malaysia, The world has discovered
that the war of liberation of Iraq has liberated the Iraqi
citizen of the state, the institutions, the sovereignty, dignity, food,
water and electricity.... The Iraqi citizen has become liberated
from the gift of life, and everyone, without exception, has discovered
that the excuses which led to war lacked credibility.
This nationalist
rhetoric aside, Syrialike all the Arab regimeshas no intention
of clashing with Washington. Damascus is hopingone suspects with
little convictionthat by bowing to US threats it can avoid Iraqs
fate.
A factor in the
calculation of the Europeans is the hope that UN backing will strengthen
the hand of Secretary of State Colin Powell against the so-called hawks
in the Pentagon led by Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld. Blair for one has insisted to his European counterparts
that engaging with Washington is the only way to prevent the more unilateralist
elements within the Pentagon from advancing an even more aggressive
foreign policy.
Whether or not Rumsfeld
is downgraded in the Bush administration, however, Washingtons
militarist ambitions will only be encouraged by the cowardice of the
European bourgeoisie. Threats already being made against Syria, Iran
and North KoreaBushs so-called axis of evilwill
become more strident still and not even the major powers will be exempt
from US sabre-rattling.
Speaking in California
on the day of the Security Council vote, Bush reiterated his doctrine
of preventive war, arrogating to himself the right to launch
unprovoked military aggression against any country that Washington perceives
as a potential threat. America is following a new strategy,
said Bush. We are not waiting for further attacks. We are striking
our enemies before they can strike us again. He made the remark
on the eve of a trip to Asia and while sharing the platform with Californias
governor-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger. The New York Times noted in its
account of the speech that the latters Terminator
movies came to define an image of America round the world that is more
vivid than most White House policy papers. In this case, the image
and the policy were in sync.
Also on the day
of the UN vote, US ambassador to NATO, Nicholas Burns, called an extraordinary
meeting of the transatlantic military alliance in order to challenge
the creation of a new security and defence policy for the European Union.
The call was made as the EU was meeting to discuss greater defence collaboration
as part of its efforts to agree a new constitutional treaty.
Burns attacked any
such plans as representing one of the greatest dangers to the
transatlantic relationship. Significantly, Blairs support
for the EU military initiative and collaboration with France and Germany
have angered Washington and led to warnings of a possible rift. The
Bush administration will clearly not countenance the British governments
efforts to be a bridge to Europe if Blair forgets for one
moment that he is above all else Washingtons vassal.
The latest debacle
at the Security Council is another damning rebuttal to all those forces
who held up the European powers and the United Nations as a possible
counterweight or a check on US aggression. Once again the UN has been
exposed as a pliant instrument of the imperialist powers and of the
US in particular.
Opposition to war
and colonialism can be developed only in conflict with the governments
in Washington, London, Paris, Berlin and Moscow, not in alliance with
any one of them against another. It means the forging of an international
movement of working people to advance a programme that opposes the economic
and social system that gives rise to warcapitalismand the
creation of a new social order that places the essential needs of the
masses for jobs, decent wages, housing, health care and education at
the centre of economic life.