A BRITISH soldier has been killed in southern Iraq, bringing the number of British troops who have died in Iraq to 150, with thousands seriously wounded, and thousands more suffering from severe mental problems as a result of the operations that they have been engaged in.
At the same time, in the centre of the country, the US army is continuing with its surge that saw record numbers of US troops killed in the month of May, while the military staff admitted that US forces did not control any part of the Iraqi capital, outside of the Green Zone.
Things have become so desperate for the US ruling class in Iraq that their military leaders are now negotiating with the Ba’athists who are insisting that they will agree to nothing until the Americans agree to a date by which all US troops will be out of Iraq.
The puppet government itself has now split after the Al-Sadr movement which opposes the US-UK occupation broke with the Prime Minister, Maliki, whom they played a major part in establishing as Prime Minister.
Recently, six Al-Sadr Trend ministers left the Maliki government because it would not put forward the date by which US troops must leave Iraq.
Yesterday in the Iraqi puppet parliament, the Al-Sadr Trend tightened the noose around Maliki’s neck.
A resolution was passed requiring the government to seek parliamentary permission before asking the UN to extend the mandate for US-led forces in Iraq. This mandate runs out on January 1, 2008.
The Sadrist-drafted resolution passed with a vote of 85 to 59.
The members of parliament voted along political not sectarian lines with Sunni politicians joining the bloc loyal to al-Sadr.
The supporters of Nuri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, included the formerly pro-Iranian SCIRI, now renamed the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, and its military wing the Badr Brigade, and the Dawa Party, which organised the execution of Saddam Hussein.
Throughout southern Iraq, intermittent fighting is now taking place between the Mahdi army, the force that represents the millions of Shi’ite poor and the Badr Brigade, in the guise of the government’s security police.
Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, a Sunni parliament speaker, commenting on the new situation said: ‘Now, If the government wants to extend the presence of the multinational forces, it has to come to us in the parliament to convince us first.’
Al-Sadr has meanwhile called for unity between the Sunni and Shia masses in the struggle to end the occupation by evicting the US-UK occupation armies.
The national struggle also contains a class struggle which is beginning to come to the fore.
The pro-imperialist Maliki puppet government has sent troops to Basra and has issued warrants for the arrest of the leaders of the striking oil workers trade union.
Maliki has warned that he will use an ‘Iron Fist’ against all those taking action that cuts Iraq’s oil supply and endangers his plans to privatise Iraq’s oil.
It is plain that there is no hiding place for either US or UK forces in Iraq, and that they must all be withdrawn and the leaders who sent them there put on trial for war crimes.
A united nationalist movement, made up of millions of Shias and Sunnis, in which the working class in the trade unions is beginning to play a leading role, especially in defending Iraq’s oil wealth, is now emerging.
The working class, leading the masses of the Iraqi people, will prove more than capable of ending the occupation and leading the way to form a workers and farmers government that will build a secular, socialist Iraq, and will lead the way in driving imperialism and Zionism out of the Middle East.
