Freedom Socialist • Vol. 28, No. 6 • December 2007-January 2008
Partitioning Iraq - a U.S. "solution" that would spell disaster for the region

by Megan Cornish

The U.S. Senate voted in September in favor of subdividing Iraq into ethnic/sectarian regions. Ignoring condemnation from Iraqis, even U.S. cohorts in the puppet government, the legislators crowed over their "bipartisan consensus."

But, if partition is attempted, it will have even more catastrophic results than the war has so far. And the conflict could easily explode through the whole region.

While the Senate's nonbinding vote does not necessarily mean the U.S. will try to impose a partition, it is more proof that the two capitalist parties are united on doing whatever it takes to consolidate control in Iraq - no matter the human cost.

Division: logical extension of the occupation. The U.S. set out to weaken Iraq as a nation from its first actions against Saddam Hussein, a one-time ally, at the time of the first Gulf War. In 1991, the U.S. encouraged the Kurdish nationality in the north, and Shia denomination of Islam in the south, to rebel against Hussein, later abandoning them to murderous retaliation. In the current war, the U.S. organized the government along ethnic and sectarian lines, laying the basis for tearing the country apart.

Except for the Kurdish north, Iraq was integrated before the invasion. Sunni and Shia Muslims, plus ethnic and religious groups like Assyrian and Arab Christians, Turks, Yazidis and others, lived peacefully together for generations.

As analyst Stephen Zunes points out, the main division today is between advocates of national unity, who mostly oppose the U.S. presence, and separatists, many of whom collaborate with the occupation. Iraqi nationalists are the majority, but the two parties that control the puppet government are separatist.

There is an organic connection between the U.S. attack on Iraq as a nation, its encouragement of sectarian violence, and the increasing calls for partition in U.S. government circles. These assaults are escalating steps of divide-and-conquer, as the U.S. tries desperately to gain the upper hand.

Debate on the Left. The Freedom Socialist Party (FSP) raised some of these points last year in a leaflet published for the third anniversary of the occupation. The leaflet analyzed the violence fomented by the U.S. among Iraqis and characterized it as leading to civil war and Iraq's possible balkanization (division into small separate states). We noted that neoconservatives had advocated the sectarian "ripping apart" of Iraq going at least as far back as the 1990s.

The flyer also said that the antidote to this is those forces within the Iraqi resistance who are organizing across ethnic and religious lines to expel the U.S. It called on the U.S. anti-war movement to support this resistance, especially the trade unionists, women's organizations, and others whose goal is a secular Iraq with full democratic rights.

The FSP statement provoked an extended critique from the Communist Voice Organization. Originally Maoist, the CVO later adopted the explicitly Stalinist politics of the head of the Communist Albanian Party of Labor. Still later, the group declared itself opposed to all "revisionism," including Trotskyism along with Stalinism and reformism.

CVO disputed that the U.S. purposely fomented civil war, rejected the idea that division of Iraq might be an intended U.S. outcome, and claimed that we were "prettifying the Iraqi exploiters" by blaming the U.S. for the sectarian violence.

Bizarrely, when discussing Iraqi "exploiters," CVO focused on the resistance rather than the collaborators, who are clearly the main exploiters!

Like many current and ex-Stalinists, CVO does not deal well with real-life contradictions, including the nature of the Iraqi resistance. It characterizes the armed resistance as made up mostly of Islamic fundamentalists and Baath party loyalists.

FSP recognizes the core of the resistance as Iraqi workers - unionists, women's rights activists, and others. This includes Iraqi oil workers, who have fought valiantly against oil privatization, and the female president of the utility electrical workers union, who is also active for women's rights.

Because of CVO's blindness to the role of Iraqi workers, it hedges on supporting the resistance. It's true that the Iraqi resistance is a cross-class formation, like most struggles for national liberation. But, because it is fighting against imperialist occupation, it deserves support on principle.

To evade this lets the imperialists - that is, U.S. capitalists - off the hook! It also lets CVO off the hook for trying to win support for this position among U.S. workers.

In a final display of either/or thinking, CVO said that because FSP opposes an imperialist division of Iraq, we must be against Kurdish self-determination. It also slandered Trotsky as not supporting oppressed nations. Wrong on both counts!

Kurdish self-determination. The Kurdish people have never had a nation state, but their territory covers some of Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and smaller parts of Syria and Armenia. This territory is the basis for a distinct economy, as well as the people's historically evolved language and culture.

Like any nation, Kurds have the unconditional right to decide whether to be independent. They certainly have reason; Iraq, Iran and Turkey have all conducted massacres against them.

Nevertheless, the way their land is divided up among these nations creates powerful obstacles to their own realization as one nation. Since the Senate vote on segmenting Iraq, Turkey threatens to invade Iraqi Kurdistan. Turkey and Iran may both go to war against the Kurds, who are unlikely to get a nation short of a socialist Middle East.

The Senate vote opening the door to imperialist partition demonstrates that U.S. capitalism is willing to do anything to control Iraq's oil, including tearing the country apart or igniting region-wide war.

The job of U.S. workers: end the war! It is more important than ever for U.S. working people to force our own rulers to stand down. We are the only ones with the power to do it!

• Insist on immediate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, removal of U.S. military bases, an end to all interference.

• Support the Iraqi resistance, especially its progressive wing. Defend Iraqi and Kurdish self-determination.

• Support U.S. troops who refuse to fight.

• Demand that the military budget be spent on reparations in the Middle East and social services at home!
 
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