THE death of ten US and UK soldiers in 24 hours in Iraq speaks for itself. The occupation is now even more unpopular than it was in April 2003, after the allied armies reached Baghdad.
It is now skating on the thinnest of thin ice.
The fact that two out of the four British soldiers who were killed on Thursday were women, one a nurse, travelling in a warrior armoured vehicle, which had just fought its way out of one ambush, only to be trapped by another, emphasises just how efficient and professional the insurgent forces have become, and just how overstretched, and exposed the British forces have become.
Soon they will be confined 24 hours a day to their barracks where they will be shelled and mortared 24 hours a day.
The responsibility for this situation and the deaths of US and UK soldiers rests solely with the two administrations, the Bush and Blair governments that organised the invasion, and then the occupation of Iraq.
However, the 140 British troops killed since April 2003, is just a drop in the ocean compared to the 650,000 Iraqis who have lost their lives as their country was being destroyed from one end to the other.
Of course, what holds for Iraq also goes for Afghanistan, where the number of British killed and wounded is rising rapidly, and is set to rocket upwards in the massive engagements that are on hand throughout the Afghan spring and summer.
The Bush and Blair administrations are seeking to try to avoid the responsibility for the mass killings in Iraq and Afghanistan by stating that the Iranian government is supplying the insurgents in Iraq with cash, war materials and weapons.
The first point is that the Iraqi insurgents do not need Iranian help and assistance, as they have more than enough fighters, and more than enough equipment, explosives, weapons and ammunition, left from the dissolution of the old Iraqi army, and there is no lack of highly skilled military personnel to construct weapons, devise tactics and train soldiers.
In fact, any influence that the Iranian government has in Iraq is also the responsibility of the Blair and Bush regimes.
Bush and Blair were allowed a free hand by Iran to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein. The Iranian government allowed this to happen without any interference.
Part of the deal was that after May 2003 tens of thousands of Iraqis who had fought with Iran in the Iran-Iraq war were allowed back into Iraq so that that they could provide an administration for southern Iraq that would work with the British army of occupation, keeping the area quiet for it.
Bush’s decision to confront Iran over its desire to be able to harness nuclear power put an end to this cosy relationship and has created the situation for whatever influence Iran has in southern Iraq.
The Bush and Blair plan to colonise Iraq, privatise its oil, before going on to do the same to Iran and the Caspian Sea region as a whole has been a complete failure, and it is this failure that has smashed up the Bush and Blair administrations.
Blair knows well that every additional day that British troops stay in Iraq and Afghanistan there will be a price to pay in British dead and seriously wounded soldiers.
He has taken the decision that this is what is going to continue to happen, both in Afghanistan and Iraq, in a vain attempt to achieve the strategic aims of the imperialist powers.
The response of the workers’ movement to the decision of the Iranian government to allow the 15 British sailors to go free, must be to drive the Blair-Brown government out of office, and replace it with a workers’ government that will establish the best relations with all of the countries of the Gulf and the Middle East to put an end to imperialist war and capitalism.
This is the way forward, for the working class to hold out the hand of solidarity and friendship to the Arab and Iranian people by bringing down the Blair-Brown government and going forward to socialism.
