TODAY, the House of Commons is to engage in an emergency debate on Britain joining the US bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria.
In this debate, Cameron will be demanding that Britain join ‘a long but necessary’ war against Islamic State (IS) jihadists in Iraq.
To rally MPs to this imperialist adventure, Cameron used all the rhetoric of impending Armageddon, claiming that Britain must not be so ‘frozen with fear’ of repeating the mistakes of the earlier invasion when it failed to take on ‘the murderous, brutal’ jihadists whom he denounced as ‘medieval’ in their cruelty.
This is, no doubt, in comparison with the sophisticated cruelty of imperialism which thinks nothing of raining down bombs and missiles on men, women and children, killing millions in order to civilise them into accepting imperialist domination, or the brutality of Israel which kills Palestinians on a daily basis.
At the Labour Party conference this week, Miliband threw himself right behind the Tory war plans and Obama’s illegal bombing of Syria, saying, ‘We support the overnight action against ISIL.’
Cameron is now confident that he will not suffer another humiliating defeat in parliament like the one last year, when MPs voted against his plans to bomb Syria to oust the regime of president Assad.
Miliband declared his support for bombing IS positions in Iraq while saying this campaign should not be extended to Syria, something Cameron has readily agreed to, saying that any such extension would require a further House of Commons vote.
So it is not ruled out, just delayed, as far as Cameron is concerned.
That Cameron fully intends to extend the air campaign to Syria was spelt out by the Tory foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, who said last Wednesday that a response to IS will be needed in ‘both Iraq and Syria’.
Today’s debate and any vote taken to join with Obama’s bombing campaign in both Iraq and Syria are just a step on embarking on an imperialist war to smash up Syria and then go on to Iran – the two countries that imperialism has long had in its sights for invasion and subjugation in order to dominate the entire Gulf region and its wealth.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was right when he warned several weeks ago when Obama came out with his plans to bomb Syria that: ‘There are reasons to suspect that air strikes on Syrian territory may target not only areas controlled by Islamic State militants, but the government troops may also be attacked on the quiet to weaken the positions of Bashar Assad’s army.’
There are more than just reasons to suspect – the air campaign by the US has been augmented with a campaign to recruit and train 5,000 fighters for the ‘Free Syrian Army’ in order to overthrow Assad and replace him with an imperialist puppet regime.
So much for any people foolish enough to think that in bombing IS the US, Britain, the five reactionary gulf states and France are engaged in any humanitarian struggle against the ‘terrorism’ of IS, a struggle that will somehow aid the Syrian people in their war against these rebels.
It is not always the case that my enemy’s enemy is my friend.
Imperialism has no friends – far from providing any aid to Assad, both the US and British governments have made it clear that he is the biggest threat to them.
The IS and all the jihadist groups that have proliferated throughout the region are the sole creation of imperialism; useful allies whose usefulness now is in providing the pretext for a bloody bombing campaign aimed at breaking the resistance of the Syrian people.
It is imperialism that is the biggest terrorist on the planet and there must be no support for any imperialist war or bombing campaign.
The only way to achieve peace is through the organisation of the world socialist revolution to smash imperialism once and for all.
This requires the building of sections of the Fourth International in every country.
