May 2005

http://alawda.newjerseysolidarity.org

Israel and the Outbreak of the US/Iraq War

The outbreak in 1990 of war between Iraq and the United States was rooted in the conflict between Iraq's internal forces of social development and imperialist domination of the Persian Gulf. Iraq's conflict with Israeli imperialism also played a large part in the outbreak of war.

Israel has been and remains vital to U.S. domination of the Middle East. U.S. imperialism needs its local beat cop. U.S. imperialism will treat any threat to Israel as a threat to its own interests—but for its own reasons.

Iraq gained political independence in its 1958 revolution. It gained economic independence through its nationalization of its oil in the 1970s. Then, in 1988, Iraq gained an unexpected military victory over Iran.

The Iran-Iraq War was a terrible tragedy. It never should have happened. However, the United States-Iraq War, to call it by its proper name, is the direct outcome of the Iran-Iraq War. There are many misconceptions about the Iran-Iraq War. It is impossible to understand the imperialist aggression against Iraq if the Iran war is misunderstood. It is also impossible to understand the connection between the struggles of Iraq and Palestine.

First, modern Iraq was never a client of U.S. imperialism. Its arms suppliers in the Iran war were the Soviet Union and France. It got extensive financial support from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Iraq maintained a network of alliances precisely so it would be no one's client.

The Iraq-U.S. alliance developed in the course of the Iran-Iraq war. Iraq and the United States did not even have diplomatic relations at the outset. U.S. imperialism also formed an alliance with Iran against Iraq.

The United States did not want either side to win. Instead in 1988 a fully sovereign Arab country emerged as the dominant local power in the Persian Gulf. It had gained conventional military parity with Israel. For all these reasons, when the Iran war ended the U.S.-Iraq alliance ended with it.

An immediate sign of new tensions was the blame cast on Iraq by the United States for the deaths from poison gas of Kurdish civilians. The fatalities occurred during a battle in northern Iraq between Iranian and Iraqi forces in a town named Halabja. A U.S. Army War College publication said military intelligence concluded Iranian forces had dropped the gas.¹ Iraq was publicly blamed anyway. That was the origin of the infamous "Saddam gassed his own people" story.

Tensions continued to grow as Kuwait made provocation after provocation against Iraq. Kuwait would never have dared without direct U.S. instigation and backing. For its part Iraq reacted with a campaign in the spring of 1990 at the Amman Summit in February and the Arab League meeting in May for Arab unity against U.S.-Israeli domination. Israel was directly a part of the U.S.-Iraq confrontation. The War College paper cited above also says this:

"The situation has recently become complicated by Iraq's claim to have successfully tested an intermediate range missile. This has yet to be confirmed, but it appears from initial readouts that the Iraqis are not bluffing, and that they have made a significant advance. If true, this complicates the whole security picture in the Middle East. With effective IRBMs the Iraqis could erect a virtually impregnable wall around their country, behind which they could develop an atomic bomb... Were Iraq to become a nuclear power, Israel's hegemony over the Middle East would be at an end."² [emphasis added]

The Iraqi missile claim was later verified. Thus it was only after the emergence of the U.S.-Iraq confrontation that Iraq-Israel tensions reached an acute stage. If there had been any chance of peace with U.S. imperialism, this ended it. It would be wrong, however, to reduce the conflict between Iraq and Israel to a question of weapons.

Note that the same strategic factors are present today in the tensions between Iran and U.S. imperialism. We particularly hear a lot of the nuclear issue regardless of the actual state of Iran's nuclear program. There is also the additional complication of U.S.-Iranian rivalry for control of Iraq.

The principal factor in the outbreak of war in 1990 was the challenge to U.S./Israeli imperialism of Iraqi independence and sovereignty. The conflict tied the destiny of the people of Iraq with the people of Palestine more closely than ever before. The Palestinian and Iraqi people have alike endured the assaults of imperialism. At every stage since 1990 the causes of the two peoples have become further united. Right from the start of this war the victory of Iraq became impossible without the victory of Palestine, and conversely. We cannot say how far the imperialists will go in but in the end they will certainly be defeated. This will be a great victory for the people of the entire world.

1. "Iraqi Power and U.S. Security in the Middle East," Steven C. Pelletiere, Leif Rosenberger, and Lt Col. Douglas V. Johnson, of the United States Army War College, 1990
2. op. cit.