THERE can be only one gainer from a civil war in Iraq, that will lead to the breaking up of the country into three or more statelets in conflict with each other.
That gainer will be the present US and UK occupying powers, who currently are losing their war against the Iraqi insurgency, and now see their strategic goal of controlling Iraq’s vast oil wealth and the Arabian peninsula, fast slipping away from them.
Faced with being driven out of Iraq, in defeat, they are now more amenable to even riskier schemes than their original intervention, to engineer the partition of Iraq into three or more warring states. They reason that these would be more controllable, despite the ‘dangers’ of Turkey seeking to annexe oil rich northern Iraq, Jordan and Saudi Arabia intervening from the west into western Iraq, and Iran seeking to attract southern Iraq into its orbit.
In fact, the attack on the Samarra mosque reeks of a massive provocation. The explosion that blew its golden dome off can only be described as a controlled explosion, and not at all in the style of Al-Qaeda, that favours car bombs and huge blasts. This controlled explosion took place at a time when there were large numbers of puppet forces surrounding the mosque and the two shrines.
The blast then led to quite heavy fighting in Baghdad, where ministry of interior troops have been used to attack Sunni mosques, neighbourhoods and clerics.
It has also led to the beginnings of a greater unity between the Shia and Sunni masses, with the issuing of a joint statement and agreement between the Al-Sadr movement, that has already been involved in two insurrections against the occupiers, and the Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars.
This statement agreed that the blame for the destruction of the golden dome in Samarra and the ensuing sectarian clashes rested with the imperialist occupiers, and added that the solution was for the occupying armies to withdraw at once, or at the least that the occupying powers must agree to a clear and rapid timetable for their complete withdrawal from Iraq.
The joint statement also condemned those such as the Al-Qaeda movement, who are strengthening imperialism by their urging of Sunni Muslims to attack Shia Muslims as infidels, and also all those movements which urged one section of Muslims to treat another as infidels.
Their united stand has opened up the way for the strengthening of the insurgency through organising united action by the Shia and Sunni masses to drive the occupying powers out of Iraq and back to the UK and the United States.
Workers in the West must give their support to all those Iraqis who are seeking to prevent the dismemberment of Iraq, for the benefit of the imperialists, through uniting the Iraqi masses to end the occupation.
With the third anniversary of the invasion of Iraq by the US and UK forces fast approaching on March 18th, the trade union leaders must be made to organise real action to end the war, and end the slaughter of the Iraqi people.
What is required on March 18th is not just a million strong march, but a decision by the TUC to call a general strike from midnight Friday 17th, to bring down the Blair government and bring in a workers’ government that will withdraw all of the troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Only decisive action of this nature is adequate on the third anniversary of the Iraqi war, to put an end to the slaughter.
