UN vote paves way for Bush's war
By Fred Goldstein
Iraqi Ambassador to the United Nations Muhammad al-Douri
announced on Nov. 13 that his government had accepted a Nov. 8
UN Security Council resolution on weapons inspections, while at
the same time denying that Iraq has any weapons of mass
destruction.
"This is part of our policy vis-à-vis to protect our
country, to protect our nation, to protect our region also from
the threat of war, which is real. And everybody knows it," said
the ambassador. (New York Times Web site, Nov. 13)
One day earlier the Iraqi Parliament had recommended the
rejection of the resolution, denouncing it as "provocative,
deceitful and a preamble for war." (Reuters, Nov. 12) The
resolution "seeks to create crisis" and it "violates
international law and the sovereignty of this country,"
declared Parliamentary Speaker Saadoun Hammadi.
This sentiment undoubtedly reflects the feelings of the
broad masses of Iraqi people. At the same time, the Parliament
and everyone around the world fighting against war recognize
that the Iraqi government has a gun to its head-a gun held by
an imperialist super-power with more weapons than the rest of
the world combined.
No time to slow down
The Iraqi government has the right to do what it chooses to
maneuver with the U.S. government under such an unfavorable
relationship of forces. But the anti-war movement in this
country has the duty to escalate its mass mobilization. It
should not be slowed down for one moment by any illusions that
Iraq's acceptance of inspections will deter the White House,
the Pentagon and the oil companies and giant corporations
behind them from moving toward war.
Nor should anyone have believed for a minute that the UN
Security Council resolution demanding inspections in Iraq was
the Bush administration's attempt at "one more chance to avoid
war." On the contrary, this bellicose, arrogant resolution was
crafted in the Pentagon and the White House and negotiated by
Secretary of State Colin Powell with the express purpose of
strengthening the hand of Washington in its war drive against
Iraq.
Just two days after the UN resolution passed, the Washington
Post and the New York Times published articles based on plans
leaked by the Pentagon that call for the use of 250,000 troops
to establish strongholds in northern and southern Iraq and
create a pincer movement to take Baghdad. Whether or not these
war plans correspond to what the Pentagon is really planning,
their release was a message to the world not to think for one
moment that the Security Council resolution had slowed down the
war drive.
On Nov. 11 the Wall Street Journal carried an article
reiterating Washington's plans for a military occupation of
Iraq. "Officials expect the U.S. military would directly govern
Iraq for at least three or four months," wrote the Journal. "A
group of Iraqi exiles advising the State Department has drafted
three lists for possible prosecutions [of Iraq leaders],
ranging from a dozen members of Mr. Hussein's inner circle to
120 military and political leaders across the country."
"In a meeting of Mr. Bush's principal advisers," continued
the Wall Street organ, "Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
argued the transitional administration should be headed by an
American who reports directly to him"--presumably Gen. Tommy
Franks, overall commander of the war.
The Journal did not mention previously announced plans for
the U.S. military to take over Iraq's oil fields.
U.S. bombings of Iraq escalate
While the Security Council was voting, U.S. planes were
escalating their attacks on Iraq. In a Nov. 11 dispatch Reuters
news agency reported that "daily patrols of no-fly zones over
Iraq by U.S. and British aircraft have become a dress rehearsal
for war and a chance to dent Baghdad's military in a run-up to
battle ..." The targets have changed from anti-aircraft
batteries to command and control centers and bunk ers. "The new
tactics were on display when Lt. Eric Doyle and Lt. John
Turner, of the VFA 115 fighter attack squadron, each dropped
two massive 2,000-pound JDAM satellite-guided bombs. Their
target was described as a reinforce concrete command bunker
near Talil, 160 miles south of Baghdad."
The resolution, which grossly violates the sovereignty of
Iraq, is a massive violation of the UN Charter and
international law. Every signatory is a party to the
infringement of Iraq's sovereignty, its right to
self-determination and to self-defense. But the Bush
administration, with the tireless efforts of Secretary of State
Powell and his faction in the ruling class, achieved a 15-0
vote in order to claim an international mandate for its planned
war of unprovoked aggression.
By passing this resolution, the Security Council has put the
Iraqi government in the excruciating position of having to
choose between agreeing to open up its country to massive
imperialist intrusion and face provocation and eventual war, or
refuse to open up and face immediate attack. Thus, the
so-called "multilateralists" in the ruling class have
maneuvered to further isolate Iraq while setting the stage for
a war in which Washington will be on stronger ground.
A cover for provocation
The resolution is laden with language that gives the Bush
administration legal cover for every imaginable provocation to
start a war. The Pentagon had the decisive role in crafting the
fundamentals of the resolution.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick
Cheney were opposed to going to the UN in the first place. When
they lost that battle, they were opposed to putting forth any
resolution at all and wanted to simply tell the UN that Iraq
was "in breach" of UN resolutions and that the U.S. was going
to war.
When Bush decided to shove a resolution down the throat of
the Security Council, all factions in the administration agreed
upon so-called "red lines" for inclusion. According to the
Washington Post of Nov. 10, these included the declaration that
Iraq was in "material breach" of a 1991 resolution declaring a
cease-fire. The resolution demanded "harsh new inspection
guidelines" and, says the Post, promised "serious consequences"
for defiance, "a code word for war."
Among the crucial points in the process was getting the
French imperialists to go along. No one has revealed what oil
concessions in the post-invasion period were promised to the
government of Jacque Chirac. But Washington gave the French
face-saving language by agreeing to another meeting to
"consider how to respond" if Iraq did not comply with the
draconian demands of the resolution.
"Secretary of State Powell," according to the Post, "said
that the United States would not be `handcuffed' by what the
Council did or did not do." But "in return for these
concessions, the United States got what an official called `a
lot of little triggers' for possible future action by the
Security Council and future military action by the United
States."
Some of the "little triggers" are, in themselves, flagrant
provocations.
Right to kidnap Iraqi officials and their
families
For example, referring to the UN Monitoring, Verification
and Inspection Commission and the International Atomic Energy
Agency, provision 5 of the resolution states that the Security
Council "DECIDES that Iraq shall provide UNMOVIC and the IAEA
immediate, unimpeded, unconditional and unrestricted access to
any and all, including underground, areas, facilities,
buildings, equipment, records and means of transport which they
wish to inspect, as well as access to all officials and other
persons whom UNMOVIC or the IAEA wish to interview in the mode
or location of UNMOVIC's or the IAEA's choice ... further
decides that UNMOVIC and the IAEA may at their discretion
conduct interviews inside or outside of Iraq, may facilitate
the travel of those interviewed and family members outside of
Iraq, and that, at the sole discretion of UNMOVIC and the IAEA,
such interviews may occur without the presence of observers
from the Iraqi government."
The resolution also declares that "UNMOVIC and the IAEA
shall have the right ... to seize and export any equipment,
materials, or documents taken during the inspections, without
search of UNMOVIC or IAEA personnel or officials or personal
baggage."
Thus Washington's agents in the inspections teams can
virtually kidnap Iraqi officials and their family members, do
with them what they please; seize any materials they want,
doctor them as needed, and produce "evidence" of "violations"
and declare war.
The resolution is replete with bellicose statements,
declarations that Iraq has a proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction, has relations with terrorism, is a threat to the
security of nations, etc., ad nauseam.
As such this resolution is most of all an expression of the
determination of U.S. imperialism to eradicate the very
conception of sovereignty for Iraq, and by extension, all
oppressed countries. It is a resurrection of the colonial
rights of the Great Powers to openly impose their will upon the
peoples of the Middle East. Except that this time, instead of
the British and French imperialists being in charge of dividing
up the region, as they were after World War I, it is the U.S.
oil magnates, bankers and industrials, represented by the
Pentagon, who are declaring themselves the supreme power.
Why France, Russia,
China voted
The attempts by the French, Russian and Chinese
governments--all members of the Security Council who could have
exercised their veto power--to argue that their acquiescence in
this resolution is in the interests of preventing the war are
just a subterfuge to mask collaboration with and/or
capitulation to the dictates of Wall Street.
The French and the Russian oil magnates and industrialists
have interests in Iraq that they are seeking to protect.
Neither one of them prefers war, because they are both weak
powers. But they are both afraid of being frozen out if the
U.S. government succeeds in conquering Iraq and gaining total
control of the oil and other commanding positions in the Iraqi
economy. If Washington goes to war, they each want to protect
their cut of the loot.
As for the government of the People's Republic of China, its
vote is a shameless betrayal of internationalism and a cynical
display of bourgeois power-politics style diplomacy. The PRC
leaders long ago gave up the historic internationalist position
pursued by the Chinese socialist revolution in its earlier
stages. It is no accident that international solidarity with
the oppressed peoples struggling against imperialism has been
increasingly abandoned as the "reformers," advocates of the
so-called "socialist-market" economy, gain a greater grip on
power.
And it is no accident that this new level of collaboration
with Washington coincides with the 16th Party Congress, where
the entry of capitalists into the Communist Party of China has
been officially sanctioned and rationalized with a false
doctrine. The deepening inroads of capitalism and the erosion
of socialist institutions at the expense of the masses of
workers and peasants goes hand and hand with growing reaction
in foreign policy.
This runs directly contrary to the anti-colonial sentiments
and class interests of the Chinese masses. Hopefully they will
find a way to resist the growing tide of capitalism and return
China to the socialist road in the wake of the open reaction
displayed at the 16 th Party Congress and in the
Security Council.
This latest resolution, a virtual declaration demanding
Iraq's total subordination to imperialism, is an illustration
that the United Nations is composed of governments and states
that overwhelmingly represent propertied classes. These
governments are either imperialists or dominated by imperialism
and, as such, can never become the instrument to oppose
imperialist war.
Only the mobilization of the movement, and ultimately of the
working class and the oppressed at home and abroad, can stay
the hand of the war makers.
Reprinted from the Nov. 21, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyrighted
under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
Subscribe to WW by Email: wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net
Donate to
support pro-labor, anti-war news.
Email
this article
Printable
page