In his Utah speech to army veterans last Thursday, US President Bush threatened Iran with ‘consequences’, adding that the US will step up its war in Iraq as victory there is a matter of ‘life or death’.
Bush said: ‘This summer’s crisis in Lebanon has made it clearer than ever that the world now faces a grave threat from the radical regime in Iran.
‘The United Nations passed a resolution demanding that Iran suspend its nuclear enrichment activities.
‘Today is the deadline for Iran’s leaders to reply to the reasonable proposal the international community has made.
‘If Iran’s leaders accept this offer and abandon their nuclear weapons ambitions, they can set their country on a better course. Yet, so far, the Iranian regime has responded with further defiance and delay.
‘It is time for Iran to make a choice. We’ve made our choice: We will continue to work closely with our allies to find a diplomatic solution – but there must be consequences for Iran’s defiance, and we must not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon.’
Attacking the insurgency in Iraq, he added: ‘These groups have different long-term ambitions, but the same immediate goals.
‘They want to drive America and our coalition out of Iraq and the Middle East, so they can stop the advance of freedom and impose their dark vision on the people of the Middle East.’
Expressing concern at the huge opposition in the US to the war, Bush said: ‘Here at home we have a choice to make about Iraq. Some politicians look at our efforts in Iraq and see a diversion from the war on terror. . .
‘But we should all agree that the battle for Iraq is now central to the ideological struggle of the 21st century. We will not allow the terrorists to dictate the future of this century – so we will defeat them in Iraq.’
He continued: ‘Still, there are some in our country who insist that the best option in Iraq is to pull out, regardless of the situation on the ground. Many of these folks are sincere and they’re patriotic, but they could be -– they could not be more wrong.
‘If America were to pull out before Iraq can defend itself, the consequences would be absolutely predictable, and absolutely disastrous.
‘We would be handing Iraq over to our worst enemies – Saddam’s former henchmen, armed groups with ties to Iran, and al Qaeda terrorists from all over the world who would suddenly have a base of operations far more valuable than Afghanistan under the Taleban.
‘They would have a new sanctuary to recruit and train terrorists at the heart of the Middle East, with huge oil riches to fund their ambitions.
‘And we know exactly where those ambitions lead. If we give up the fight in the streets of Baghdad, we will face the terrorists in the streets of our own cities.
‘We can decide to stop fighting the terrorists in Iraq and other parts of the world, but they will not decide to stop fighting us.
‘General John Abizaid, our top commander in the Middle East region, recently put it this way: “If we leave, they will follow us.” And he is right.
‘The security of the civilised world depends on victory in the war on terror, and that depends on victory in Iraq. So the United States of America will not leave until victory is achieved.
‘Victory in Iraq will be difficult and it will require more sacrifice. The fighting there can be as fierce as it was at Omaha Beach or Guadalcanal. And victory is as important as it was in those earlier battles.’
Meanwhile, in a recent article, British Ambassador to Iraq, Dominic Asquith pledged Britain’s support for the puppet Iraqi governmetn led by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
Asquith also stressed that ‘our serious efforts to train the armed forces so that they can take charge of the security dossier, as the role of the multinational force gradually declines’.
However he admitted that the situation in British-policed Basra has worsened.
He said: ‘Talk about support and commitments undoubtedly leads us to the issue of Basra and what is taking place in Basra, which until not long ago enjoyed a stable security climate.
‘However, one of the reasons for the unrest is that there has been no perceptible improvement in the quality and extent of the services.’
He admitted that ‘this has made the Basra residents restless’.
He pledged: ‘In this regard, my efforts and the efforts of my colleagues at the embassy will focus on strengthening the ties of reconciliation so that they will be more than merely ink on paper.’
He added: ‘There is no doubt that there is a growing feeling that it is necessary for the international community to provide increased support.’
He concluded: ‘Despite the differing views and proposals, hopes and calculations, I – together with many others – still believe that the cup remains half full, and that we can fill the other half by sincere intentions and efforts.’
Iraqis are meanwhile braced for violent reprisals after a spate of attacks on mainly Shi’ite areas of the capital killed 67 civilians and raised already sky-high tensions.
A five-day surge in attacks left more than 400 Iraqis dead by last Friday morning, many of them in bombings on Shi’ite markets and neighbourhoods in Baghdad.
Health ministry executive director Hakim al-Zamly said August’s overall death toll would be lower than the previous month’s, after a joint US-Iraqi military crackdown, but that the latest killings could spark reprisals.
He said: ‘Now I fear the violence will go up, especially after what happened yesterday,’ referring to seven synchronised car bomb and rocket attacks on Shi’ite and Christian districts which he said killed 67 civilians.
More than 300 people were wounded in the blasts, which tore through a street market killing women and children and demolishing several homes, including some in the poor working class district of Sadr City.
US and puppet Iraqi troops have launched a large-scale security operation in the city and officers boast that they have cut the daily death toll from sectarian death squad attacks by more than 40 per cent.
The final days of the month, however, were marked by a spike in violence across the country, and a tally of official reports put the toll since Sunday August 24 at 17 US soldiers and more than 400 Iraqis dead.
Britain has announced that in the coming days, the puppet Maliki government will take charge of security in Dhi Qar, the second of Iraq’s 18 provinces from which the UK is pulling out its troops.
Currently there are 141,000 US troops in Iraq, 115,000 puppet Iraqi troops and several thousand more from US allies.
British forces in the southeast of the country are pulling out of fixed positions in areas other than Iraq’s second city Basra, and Italy’s remaining 2,000 troops are expected to leave by the end of the year.
Bush’s decision to intensify the US war effort in Iraq, abandoning all talk of US forces pulling out, at the same time as he prepares to attack Iran and Syria will turn the whole of the Gulf and the Middle East into a vast revolutionary conflagration.
The masses of Iraq, Palestine, Iran, Syria, and the Lebanon will be forced into common action to smash imperialism and Zionism.
The only road to peace is to drive out the imperialists, and their local agencies – the Zionist leadership and the Iraqi puppet regime – from the Middle East, to establish the state of Palestine over the whole of its historic area and to defend the sovereignty and freedom of the Arab states and Iran in order to go forward to socialism.
There is no doubt that the working class will play the leading role in this struggle, which will provide great opportunities for building sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International throughout the Middle East and Iran.
The working class in the US and UK, the main imperialist aggressor states has a vital role to play in this historic struggle.
It must bring down the Bush and Blair governments and form a common front with the Arab and Iranian masses to prepare the way to smash capitalism and imperialism and go forward to world socialism.
