Lessons of the vote

On March 22, the House of Representatives passed a $124 billion war funding bill that, among other things, calls for U.S. troops to be withdrawn from Iraq by Aug. 31, 2008. The “anti-war” Democratic-led Out of Iraq Caucus had met behind closed doors with newly-elected House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who told them that she wanted at least four of them to vote for the bill; in all 10 members of the caucus voted for it. The final vote was a close one—218 to 212.

Why did this meeting have to take place behind closed doors? Because the liberal Democrats were told that if they defeated this bill, it would undermine the leadership of Pelosi and the rest of the Democratic Party, strategists and leaders. It would be tantamount to a humiliating defeat for them in the eyes of the Republicans.

In the end, the Out of Iraq Caucus chose to ignore the election outcome that took place this past Nov. 7, where the people voted overwhelmingly against the Iraq war and to bring the troops home immediately.

Overall, the significance of this bill reflects the general orientation of the war. The most dominant factions within both capitalist parties agree that the war is a losing effort and that there is a no-win situation for U.S. imperialism. Yet even with the knowledge that the U.S. military position in Iraq has become increasingly compromised as the resistance grows stronger, these factions still want to grasp at any strategy to try to help the U.S. save face worldwide.

This legislative bill gives the Pentagon the green light to try to salvage a losing effort by making the withdrawal deadline more than a year away. This satisfies all of the bourgeois currents on both sides in many ways—except for Bush, who is against any kind of timeline for withdrawing U.S. troops.

The bottom line is that the Democratic leadership is not against wars of aggression. They have made it known, for instance, that they would much rather see the U.S. shift more troops to Afghanistan from Iraq. In addition, a provision was removed from the bill stating that if Bush called for a military attack against Iran, Congress would have to approve it first. This bill is now free of any legal obstacles to a U.S. attack on Iran.

The Democratic leadership and strategists are concerned about capturing the White House and the reins of the capitalist state, not about the well-being of the Iraqis or the U.S. soldiers. They are, in essence, attempting to use the anti-war sentiment of the masses to recapture the presidency in 2008 and control the budget.

They can talk leftist politics, but when it comes down to crunch time—when the imperialists put the pressure on for the vote to continue their slaughter of the workers and oppressed people—all anti-war speeches are nullified. All of a sudden, the left lines up with the center, and the center is lined up with the imperialists. This is what bourgeois politics are all about.

This is another important lesson as to why the masses must break from the Democratic and Republican parties to take an independent road to the struggle. The March 12-18 encampment organized by the Troops Out Now Coalition was a bold attempt not only to mount a campaign “from protest to resistance” against the war funding around the fourth anniversary of the war, but also to expose the role of the Democrats—who have the blood of the Iraqi people and U.S. soldiers on their hands just as much as the Republicans do.