It is time to review the nature of the Gulf War in the light of our own analysis, which differs so fundamentally from the bourgeois liberal point of view.
The propaganda machine of the capitalist press has toned down its claims about the freedom and liberty that would be restored to Kuwait following the invasion by Iraq. Now we see the most barbarous repression, with death squads, secret sentences, convictions and executions of a type the capitalist press didn't even accuse the Iraqis of during the war.
The royalist riff-raff have been brought back from the casinos and bathing places in Western Europe and are now "administering" the new state of affairs. But behind them are the imperialist advisers, technicians and bankers.
Unity in August
Let us ask again, as we did at the very opening of the war: What is the overall, fundamental objective of the imperialist alliance to subjugate the Middle Eastern region?
How did the largest and most industrialized imperialist countries, which are usually at loggerheads in the most venomous way, suddenly forge such unity in the name of freedom for a small, beleaguered nation?
Last August, we attributed their unity to a secret agreement among the conspirators to redivide the sources of supply and markets. (See "The Evil Empire at Work" in the WW of Aug. 23, 1990.) We said at that time, "The present situation is characterized by the fact that the conditions for a redivision of world markets and sources of supply have matured. It has only awaited an attractive opportunity for the redivision to take place."
This redivision follows a change in the world relationship of forces among the imperialists because of economic and technological changes. The intervention in the Gulf was an effort on the part of the imperialists to readjust their so-called differences, to redivide the booty taken from the sweat and blood of the oppressed peoples, and to do so by agreement rather than by open warfare among themselves, as happened in two world wars.
Nor should it be forgotten that none of this could have happened had the Soviet Union, China and the other socialist countries been united in solidarity with the oppressed countries. In fact, when Eisenhower threatened intervention in 1958 after the Iraqi Revolution nationalized some of the oil, the whole thing died down when both China and the USSR responded with a strong declaration of solidarity with Iraq.
In our earlier article, we mentioned the Sykes-Picot treaty of 1916 as an example of how the real agreements among the imperialists have been carried out in secret. In that pact, signed during World War I by Britain, France and czarist Russia and only made public later by the Bolsheviks after the Russian Revolution, the Arabian Peninsula and much of the Middle East were carved up among the three powers.
`Acrimonious struggle' in June
Ten months have passed since our article. Within days, the major imperialists will be holding the G7 meeting. It is of course another secret conclave. (This is unfortunately taken for granted even by the progressive, working class press, which should be demanding that it be opened to the public, or at least that the media be admitted.)
However, as we predicted then, the so-called unity of the imperialists gives way sooner or later because of the sharp antagonisms between them over their material interests, which of course were the basis for the war they inflicted upon the region. These antagonisms finally break out in the open not because of any interest in freedom of the press or the public's right to know, but because of the intensity of the inner conflicts among them.
The Financial Times of London of June 24 drew a little bit of the curtain aside in an article on rebuilding Kuwait. It went over which among the imperialist powers participating in the war are to get the lion's share of the telecommunications contracts, which will add up to billions once everything is installed.
We learn that an "acrimonious struggle," to use the terminology of the Times, has broken out among the U.S., France and Britain. The struggle pits AT&T of the U.S. against GPT of Britain and Alcatel of France.
It seems that before the war broke out the U.S. telecommunications group headed by AT&T held only 5% of the Kuwaiti market. The Financial Times says AT&T had been "handicapped by a ban on companies with Israeli links." But that's pure bunk. The basic reason is that the U.S. had much bigger fish to fry and was biding its time.
Who had the biggest share before the war? It was "Ericsson, the Swedish group, which had about 90% of the Kuwaiti television communications market." But that was before the war.
Sweden, for historical as well as current political and diplomatic reasons, played it neutral during the war. So what do you suppose has happened? Sweden has now been "sidelined."
What an interesting illustration of the class character of this predatory imperialist war! What the Swedish bourgeoisie was able to win on the basis of technological know-how relative to AT&T has been canceled out by imperialist war. But war is a continuation of the politics of the bourgeoisie, in which politics intervenes to overcome economic and technological prowess.
Could there be a clearer example of the real forces behind the imperialist war against Iraq?
Britain, France feel cut out
Why did the Financial Times make this revelation? Not so much to show up the predatory character of the war as to publicly complain that Britain's share, the share of GPT, is being undermined. Likewise the share of Alcatal of France appears not to be in accord with whatever agreements were made before the war started.
And so both these junior partners of U.S. imperialism are engaged in an "acrimonious struggle" to get a more "just" share of the market. "Some rivals [among the allies] are bitter at the way AT&T has marketed its products, often denigrating those of others." And, says the Times, "the battle has been unusually intense." Why? "Because Kuwait is in the unusual position of needing to acquire large quantities of sophisticated equipment and being able to afford it."
Could it be stated more clearly what the struggle over Kuwait was really about?
But who gets what in Kuwait is the smaller struggle. The larger struggle is over the installation of telecommunications systems in Iraq. (We are not dealing with the allocation of oil quotas in this article).
Jockeying over Iraqi market
The Iraqi market is five to ten times as large and lucrative, but nothing is being said about it at the present time. However, it is probably being discussed at the G7 meeting, that wonderfully democratic group of imperialists who wantonly invaded Iraq, wreaking havoc and destruction.
The question now is who gets what in Iraqi telecommunications, in light of the virtually total destruction of radio, television, telephone lines, etc. If the struggle over shares of the telecommunications market in Kuwait is so bitter and acrimonious, one can imagine what it is for Iraq, where the market is so much larger.
This was hinted in a Washington Post article on June 23 analyzing how U.S. commanders decided what targets to bomb. The article half-admits what critics of the war, especially the Commission of Investigation for the International War Crimes Tribunal, have charged: that the U.S. deliberately attacked the infrastructure vital to civilian life.
"Amid mounting evidence of Iraq's ruined infrastructure and the painful consequences for ordinary Iraqis, Pentagon officials more readily acknowledge the severe impact of the 43-day air bombardment on Iraq's economic future and civilian population," said the Post. "Their explanations these days of the bombing's goals and methods suggest that the allies, relying on traditional concepts of strategic warfare, sought to achieve some of their military objectives in the Persian Gulf War by disabling Iraqi society at large."
The article went on, "Some targets, especially late in the war, were bombed primarily to create postwar leverage over Iraq, not to influence the course of the conflict itself. Planners now say their intent was to destroy or damage valuable facilities that Baghdad could not repair without foreign assistance." (Our emphasis.)
There you have it. While the dirty words "profits" and "market" are not mentioned in this article, everyone should know that "foreign assistance" doesn't mean humanitarian aid but big contracts to rebuild the damaged lifelines.
Lift the sanctions!
Of greatest importance to the working class and oppressed peoples of the world is that in the meantime these imperialist predators are still maintaining an embargo against Iraq. Lifting the sanctions would open the door to world commerce and trade and spoil whatever the secret conspirators have agreed to.
On the same day as the story in the Financial Times of London, the New York Times was forced to admit in a front-page headline that "Disease Stalks Iraq as Trade Ban Saps Its Strength--Doctors Say the Poorest Have Suffered Most from the Embargo."
Said the article: "The 11-month-old international embargo on trade with Iraq is threatening the country with severe malnutrition and a rise in disease among the poor, American and other Western doctors inspecting hospitals this month say. Some senior officials of relief agencies here have begun to criticize the prolonged trade sanctions because of their devastating effect on the general population and the burden they place on humanitarian organizations."
The embargo is still in effect not so much to punish the Iraqi government as to prevent the import of much-need food, consumer goods and above all technology needed to rebuild the Iraqi infrastructure. The members of the imperialist coalition want to retain the sanctions until they have reached an amicable agreement on how to divide the market. After that, they will lift them.
Starving Iraqis victims of imperialist rivalry
There is not a shred of humanitarianism involved in any of this. It is one of the crassest, most malignant examples of the nature of imperialist rivalry and of the character of monopoly capitalism, particularly its multinational corporations.
What is needed above everything else at the present time with relation to the Gulf War is to initiate a broad campaign to lift the sanctions, to open the eyes of the masses with respect to the real aims, the real causes and the destructive consequences of the mad venture of the imperialist conspirators. Only the broad intervention of the masses is capable of lifting the sanctions.
Notice that all this is happening when Britain has already lifted sanctions. Against whom? Against the racist South African regime. The Bush administration also has made it known it will lift sanctions against South Africa after the historic African National Congress meeting in July.
The situation calls for the resurgence of anti-imperialist struggle with the broadest possible involvement of the workers. There will be no greater opportunity to promulgate this than at the mammoth Labor Day demonstration in Washington.