Barack
Obama And The war In Iraq
By Tom Eley
14 February, 2007
World
Socialist Web
Barack
Obama, the junior US senator from Illinois, formally announced his candidacy
for US president in a speech in Springfield, Illinois on Saturday. Obama,
who has emerged as a leading contender for the Democratic nomination
in 2008, has already attracted a coterie of leading Democratic strategists,
and insiders say there is little doubt that he can raise the tens of
millions of dollars required to mount a “serious” campaign.
Because of the overwhelming
antiwar sentiment of Democratic voters, Obama has attempted to strike
a critical pose toward the war in Iraq—as have the other putative
frontrunners, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. Like his counterparts,
however, he is a tried and true defender of the geo-political interests
of corporate America. If elected, he would not hesitate in using military
force to secure US domination of the Middle East, Central Asia and the
world.
Like the rest of the Democratic
Party critics of the war, Obama’s differences with Bush are over
tactics—not whether, but how best, to defend US imperialist interests.
Within the confines of this limited “debate,” the Democratic
presidential hopefuls are attempting to establish differences among
themselves, and, in turn, their miniscule differences are magnified
out of proportion by the media.
For example, John Edwards—John
Kerry’s fervently pro-war vice presidential candidate in 2004—has,
with considerable media assistance, rather incongruously attempted to
stake out an “anti-war” position, calling on his rivals
in the US Senate to cut off funding for Bush’s escalation, a measure
the Democratic congressional leadership has already rejected out of
hand.
Obama has this advantage
over Hillary Clinton, Joseph Biden and Edwards: unlike the other leading
candidates, all of whom as senators voted in favor of granting Bush
authorization to illegally invade Iraq, Obama publicly opposed the invasion
while still a state senator in Illinois. His opposition was of an entirely
tactical character, however, based on the argument that the invasion
of Iraq was simply the “wrong” war and a diversion from
the “the war on terror.” Since arriving in the US Senate,
Obama has walked in lock-step with the Democratic Party leadership,
supporting every appropriation for the war and criticizing the Bush
administration only over the war’s “mismanagement.”
Opposing the immediate and
complete withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, Edwards, Clinton, and Obama
have all gone on record as supporting the “redeployment”
of US troops. Two weeks ago, Obama announced a senate bill, “The
Iraq War De-escalation Act of 2007,” ostensibly aimed at curtailing
the Bush administration’s escalation of the war in Iraq and mandating
a “phased redeployment” of American forces to commence by
May 2007 and end by March 2008.
Obama’s press release
announcing the bill was riddled with evasions and outright lies. Typical
of the cravenness of the Democratic Party, Obama begins by praising
the American military, stating that “our troops have performed
brilliantly in Iraq.” He says nothing of bloody war crimes committed
by the US military, from the torture at Abu Ghraib, to the Haditha massacre,
to the destruction of whole cities like Fallujah.
To explain the military failure,
Obama has invoked the shibboleth employed by the entire political establishment:
that the US military has been unwittingly caught in the crossfire of
“somebody else’s civil war.” In fact, the civil war
in Iraq pitting Shiite against Sunni and Kurd is the result of a conscious
US policy to divide and conquer the country as well as the shattering
impact of two US wars and 12 years of economic sanctions.
In his press release, Obama
takes pains to reassure the ruling elite that his “phased redeployment”
will continue “protecting our interests in the region, and bringing
this war to a responsible end.” In the coded language of official
American politics, a “responsible end” can mean only one
thing: the total subjugation of Iraq, in one way or another, and the
expropriation of its enormous oil wealth, delicately referred to by
Obama as “our interests in the region.”
Indeed, Obama promises that
his purportedly complete withdrawal “allows for a limited number
of US troops to remain as basic force protection, to engage in counter-terrorism,
and to continue the training of Iraqi security forces.” This “antiwar”
proposal is reminiscent of Richard Nixon’s “Vietnamization”
of American involvement in Southeast Asia: the US would pare down its
direct “combat” involvement—Obama is careful to call
for a “redeployment” of only “combat” troops—and
turn over the dirty grunt work of imperialism to “Iraqi security
forces”—that is, American-trained death squads. US troops
would still “engage in counterterrorism,” or bloody bombing
raids and swift collective reprisals against Iraqi resistance to the
country’s semi-colonial status.
Even here, however, Obama
hedges his bets, offering this all-inclusive caveat: if prior to his
plan taking effect, “the Iraqis are successful in meeting the
thirteen benchmarks for progress laid out by the Bush Administration,”—that
is, if in the meantime Bush’s plan for crushing Iraqi resistance
achieves temporary success—“this plan also allows for the
temporary suspension of the redeployment”—that is, a massive
deployment of US troops will remain indefinitely within Iraq proper,
rather than redeploying to neighboring states.
Obama endorses and recycles
as his own all of Bush’s “thirteen benchmarks” for
“progress” in Iraq. Among them, Obama singles out the demand
for “eliminating restrictions on US forces.” In other words,
the Pentagon should be given an even freer hand to drown the Iraqi resistance
in blood. Obama also demands the Iraqi government reduce “the
size and influence of the militias”—that is, fully confront
the powerful Al Mahdi militia.
And where, according to Obama,
shall American troops be redeployed? The troops would be sent “to
Afghanistan; and to other points in the region” along with a “residual
US presence [that] may remain in Iraq for force protection, training
of Iraqi security forces, and pursuit of international terrorists.”
In other words, in addition to the continued presence of US troops in
Iraq, Obama supports greater US military involvement throughout the
Middle East, Central Asia, and the Horn of Africa.
Where Obama’s plan
breaks ranks with Bush is on the question of diplomacy. He calls for
launching a “comprehensive regional and international diplomatic
initiative—that includes key nations in the region—to help
achieve a political settlement among the Iraqi people, end the civil
war in Iraq, and prevent a humanitarian catastrophe and regional conflict.”
The formulation “key nations in the region” is a coded reference
to Iran and Syria, which the Bush administration has singled out as
opponents of stability and as likely targets for escalation.
Obama is no opponent of military
action against Iran. Like Hillary Clinton, he has consistently argued
that the war in Iraq has been a diversion from “real” threats
such as Iran. Obama has in the past called for missile strikes against
Iran should it not buckle to American economic and political pressure.
(See “Democratic
keynote speaker Barack Obama calls for missile strikes on Iran”)
Rather, in his tacit call
for diplomacy with Iran and Syria, Obama is lining up with sections
of the ruling elite that fear an escalation of the war and its implications
for the long-term interests of American imperialism and for the stability
of “friendly” authoritarian regimes such as Jordan, Egypt,
Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan.
Obama is an unapologetic
advocate of the use of American militarism to advance US geo-strategic
interests around the globe. In his recent book, The Audacity of Hope,
he puts his stamp of approval on the Bush Doctrine of endless illegal
preemptive wars and calls for boosting US military spending to confront
the dangers to US geo-political interests posed by Iran, Russia, China
and North Korea. For Obama, just as much as for Bush and Cheney, the
US military must be made ready for combat around the world: “But
our most complex military challenge,” he says, “may not
be staying ahead of China. More likely, that challenge will involve
putting boots on the ground in the ungoverned or hostile regions where
terrorists thrive.”
The “war against terrorism”
is a code word for never-ending US military interventions to secure
control of oil and other strategic resources. One region Obama has in
mind is Africa, which has become the venue for a renewed struggle between
the great powers for raw materials, markets and influence. Last summer,
Obama conducted a five-country tour of Africa, which included a visit
with US troops at a counter-terrorism base in Djibouti—which played
a key role in the recent US-backed Ethiopian invasion of Somalia. Following
his tour, Obama told a forum organized by the Congressional Black Caucus
Foundation that the US was making a costly mistake by not competing
with China in Africa.
The US Senator, who has been
a prominent advocate of US intervention into oil-rich Sudan under the
humanitarian cover of “saving” the population of the Darfur
region, complained, “The Chinese are everywhere throughout Africa.
They are building roads . . . bridges . . . government buildings . .
. hospitals.” He added that Chinese efforts were building good
will and establishing relationships that could allow them to corner
the market on the continent’s natural resources, particularly
oil. “We’re not doing that because we don’t think
it is important and, over time, that’s going to have an enormous
impact on us,” he warned.
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