THERE has been a spate of hectic diplomatic activity in the Middle East, since the Israeli defeat in the Lebanon and the Congressional mid-term elections delivered a stunning rebuff to the Middle East policy of President George Bush.
As a direct result of this big defeat for Bush, Rumsfeld is gone and others such as James Baker have taken his place.
Baker, with the support of the new Secretary of Defence Robert Gates, has revealed that he has been advising Bush that the only way out of the Iraq quagmire is to run to former arch enemies and members of the ‘Axis of Evil’, Iran and Syria for help.
They have now been given the job of rescuing the US from the quagmire of its own making by assisting the US while it makes one last big push for victory. Iran’s job will be to stop all supplies of arms over its borders and to tell the Shi’ite militias in southern Iraq to disband.
Syria has been given the job of securing its borders with Iraq, and arresting prominent Ba’athists residing in Syria.
It is obvious that the price tag for such counter-revolutionary activities by the Syrian and Iranian bourgeoisie will be high.
For Iran there is the issue of its nuclear power programme, and for Syria the return of the territory occupied by Israel in 1967, the Golan Heights.
The US line once was that terrible things would happen to Iran and Syria if Syria did not allow Lebanon to come under Israel’s dominance, and if Iran did not give up its nuclear programme.
The line now is that even worse things will happen if both states do not take action to help quell the insurgency in Iraq.
Meanwhile, the Iraqi puppet president has visited Iran, and is set to meet with President Bush in Amman, the Jordanian capital, today, accompanied by Iraq’s puppet premier, Maliki.
At the same time, the Syrian Foreign Minister has been meeting in Baghdad with Maliki, and other puppet officials are due to meet with President Assad in Damascus.
Israel has also been forced to do its bit to help out the new manoeuvre, by declaring a ceasefire in Gaza, and by keeping to its declaration over the last three days (a record), while hinting that it wants to make progress towards a Palestinian state.
However, the Zionist leadership is well aware that it will be the main loser in the event of any rapprochement between the US, Syria and Iraq.
It will continually be pushed by the US to make concessions to Syria over the Golan Heights and to the Palestinians over the establishment of their state. The interests of the Zionists are best served by a permanent state of confrontation and war.
However, the main point about the US new political manoeuvre is that it is a product of a defeat for US and UK imperialism and the living proof that it is not all powerful but has feet of clay.
It has now been forced by the working class at home and by the masses of the Middle East to embrace its declared enemies, in a plan that will bring both the Iranian and Syrian regimes up against the revolutionary masses of Iraq and the Middle East.
Already, Moqtadr al Sadr, the leader of the Mahdi Army, who leads the majority of the Shi’ite people, especially its poor, has warned Maliki that if he meets Bush in Jordan today he, Al Sadr, will withdraw all support from him and the puppet regime.
In fact, the prospect is that the entire Iraqi nation will turn on the US’ one final big push for victory and destroy it, dealing a revolutionary blow at the US and its new allies the Syrian and Iranian regimes.
The working class of Britain must support the insurgent Iraqi people in this last round of the liberation war to smash the US-UK occupation of Iraq. The trade unions must call a general strike to bring down the Blair-Brown regime and bring in a workers’ government that will carry out socialist policies at home and abroad.
