The war in Iraq is ushering in a new period worldwide. After years of propaganda trumpeting the onset of a new world order in which both 'democracy and the free market' reigned supreme, a whole series of economic catastrophes unfolded (e.g. Argentina). Now, the rotten capitalist system is showing its dreadful face of war and destruction. Far from a horizon of progress, we are now witnessing the profound decay of imperialist capitalism.
In the view of Bush himself and his administration, the invasion in Iraq is just the beginning. Yesterday, it was the turn of Afghanistan, today is Iraq's and right now they have announced they will try and take on another oppressed peoples later on. In its decline, US imperialism is intent upon plunging entire nations into a vortex of destruction. The capitalist crises and the wars have opened up a phase in which millions of human beings are bearing unheard-of grievances, sheer destitution or else death.
But a new and encouraging development has spread around the world: a renewed internationalism is in the making.
A mass movement throughout the entire world has challenged imperialist reaction. The remarkable display of heroism of the Iraqi people itself in the face of the invasion; the mass demonstrations against the war rocking both the Arab world and the main capital cities of the Western world -both bear testimony to that. This movement now encompassing the world did not come out of the blue.
The antiwar movement that has taken to the streets in the US, the UK, Spain or Italy was born out of the anti-capitalist protests in Seattle, right at the heart of darkness, in 1999. It has just gained momentum in response to the imperialist aggression.
The masses that have taken to the streets in Egypt and the Arab world are taking up the banner of the heroic Intifada in Palestine.
Throughout Latin America, the resistance put up against oppressive austerity drives peaked in the revolutionary upheaval that rocked Argentina, the labor and peasant revolts in Bolivia and the defeat of the attempted coup in Venezuela.
All these are showing that the decline of US domination is met with a revival in both the action and the consciousness of the mass movement, both of which outgrow into the breaches opened up by the disputes opposing the rival imperialist powers.
In the period now opening up, we revolutionary Marxists in the PTS call on workers and popular activists increasingly aware of present-day realities to get ready and organized for a heightened and tougher class struggle worldwide. The renewed capitalist crises and the US belligerent drive unfolding now are set to push wide layers of the population into direct action in every single country. The promise that 'another world is possible' without smashing the imperialist monster will be revealed as a mere pipedream. Those promoting reforms and a more 'humane' capitalism are helpless when it comes to halting the carnage brought about by the missiles and bombs now raining down on the beleaguered Iraqi people. The economic debacle and the escalation to war, with its dreadful trail of hunger and starvation, can only be stopped by means of a social revolution. That is the beacon that should guide us in the task of forging the tool for workers to smash this system of oppression, exploitation and war: a world party of socialist revolution.



The key aspects of the war and revolutionary politics
The Yankees have launched a belligerent and neocolonial drive



The United States has set part of its hellish war machine in motion in an attempt at upholding its declining political and economic hegemony over the world. They seized on the opportunity provided by the WTC blast to try and show the world that no one should ever dare challenge the domination of the US over the planet. The first tour de force was Afghanistan and Iraq is the second one. This is a message conveying a sense of authority, addressed to those oppressed nations that do not cave in to its dictates (i.e. Bush' s 'axis of evil' incarnated by Iraq, Iran and North Korea), but also to its rival powers in Asia and Europe, to keep all of them in a subordinate position to Washington's agenda.
In pursue of this, they unceremoniously cast aside both the much-vaunted imperialist 'legitimacy' and the institutions upholding it -the UN- that they themselves had devised after 1945 to cover up the submission of the peoples of the world, in a move that has exposed the overtly imperialist nature of the present war. This is about a neocolonial plan that, for a start, will seek to reshape the Middle East by establishing a puppet regime in Iraq, thus delivering a heavy blow to the widespread hatred of the US among the Arab masses. It also seeks to take over the vast oil reserves in the area and keep the dollar as the currency for oil exchange and as a world monetary reserve in the face of the increasing challenge posed by the rising euro.
But for the Bush administration, the invasion of Iraq is just the onset of a whole series of 'preemptive wars', a mere campaign within an agenda for permanent war. Later on, they will try to take on Syria, Pakistan, Iran and another oppressed peoples. The imperialist onslaught also means that will seek to placate the resistance movements in Latin America, strengthening the hand of puppet governments such as Colombia's, and arming them to the teeth.



France and Germany: the 'pacifist' imperialists



Many of those actively protesting against the war held the illusion that the United Nations, a forum in which both France and Germany were opposing the 'unilateral' push of the US, might be able to stop the armed aggression. Far from it, the UN withdrew all is staff before the first air strikes began, did not even issue a formal condemnation of the invasion and has now become the scenario for the disputes among the imperialist powers around the share of the postwar Iraq booty. Furthermore, all of them have reached agreement now that the 'food for oil' program should be restarted -the Iraqi people itself is the one paying for humanitarian catastrophe wreaked by the war with revenues coming from the export of its natural resources controlled by the UN.
France and Germany have appeared as the 'guarantors of peace'. Instead of the plan sponsored by the US, the UK and Spain, they proposed -backed by Russia and also a lower-profile China- another brazenly imperialist plan: reinforce the UN inspections in order to 'disarm Iraq', which means overriding the sovereignty of Iraq to make it into a protectorate of the main powers.
Right now, Chirac and the French Social democracy are allowing the hellish B-52s taking off from Britain en route for Iraq to fly over French skies with its deadly cargo, while the French imperialist government is busy discussing the participation of French corporations in the postwar 'reconstruction' of Iraq. Without their collusion, the US would not be in a position to wage war.
Both strands of imperialism, be it the war-hungry kind or the token 'pacifist' one, have just one meaning: it is either war or the peace of the cemeteries. The PTS says that smashing the imperialist juggernaut should be the main cause of the peoples of the world.


There will be no peace under capitalism



Millions are taking to the streets, and even those who are not protesting en masse, like in Argentina, are overwhelmingly opposed to this colonial-styled war, wrapping themselves up in the banner of peace. This is a just and legitimate demand of the oppressed and the exploited of mankind who are rejecting this criminal intervention, which is all the more progressive in those countries now waging the war. Thousands of them have courageously stood up in the face of repression and the jingoistic hysteria at home, with many of them being arrested. This remarkable mobilization is of paramount importance, but we must discuss its aims if we are to make it move forward.
In its imperialist phase, capitalism unleashed two world wars that killed nearly eighty million people. On top of them, countless interventions against semicolonial states, fratricidal wars and colonial wars -such as the one unleashed by racist state of Israel against the Palestinians- broke out as well.
The present war in Iraq seeks to hand out a juicy business to a handful of monopolistic corporations that will take over its oil, and will reap the benefits coming from the 'rebuilding' of a devastated country. This is so obvious that a company with ties to the US vice-president, Dick Cheney, has been assigned to the million-worth task of putting out the oil wells on fire, where Shell and British Petroleum have already demanded Blair that they should be handed over quite many oil wells after the supposedly-sure imperialist victory. War is then the inevitable consequence of a class-ridden society and a world divided between rival capitalist powers seeking to impose their rule by all means necessary -for that purpose they rely on arsenals including all sorts of 'weapons of mass destruction'. Putting an end to war requires putting an end to the capitalist-imperialist system, which driven by its never-ending greed for profits, will plunge mankind into a hell of barbarism and destruction. The just aspiration to live in peace will only come true if we build a new social order, a society free of exploitation and oppression, thus doing away with the main cause for all the wars in the process. The strategic alternative remains one of socialism or barbarianism.



We are no pacifists


The pacifists condemn every war, in principle, on the basis that they are 'immoral'. Such view leads them to put an equal sign between the counterrevolutionary violence unleashed by the oppressors and the legitimate struggle of the oppressed.
War is just the continuation of politics though violent means, and we revolutionaries argue that there are just wars and unjust ones. In order to be able to set out a correct policy we have to ask ourselves what are the causes driving to war, ponder what classes and states are waging them and look at the historical-economic setting providing the background for a given war.
The twentieth century witnessed inter-imperialist wars, reactionary ones, such as the two world wars, waged in pursue of settling accounts as to which strand of imperialism should rule over the world. Under the slogan of 'defense of the fatherland', the imperialist states sent millions of workers and peasants off to kill one another to defend capitalist businesses. In those kinds of wars, we Marxists argue for 'revolutionary defeatism' in the main advanced countries with the aim of 'turning the imperialist war into a civil war'. This means that we encourage the unification of the workers of the world in the spirit of internationalism, above and beyond the national frontiers, and we also seek to set the exploited against the governments of their exploiters within each imperialist country.
Sometimes, the imperialists also fuel fratricidal wars between oppressed peoples, guided by the 'dive and rule' principle. Back in the 1980s, they promoted the Iraq-Iran war with its trail of one million casualties, by arming Iraq first, and selling arms to Iran under the counter later on. The money coming from it, in turn, was used to bankroll the Nicaraguan 'contra' troops in order to smash the revolution sweeping through Central America.
Instead, the present war is an overtly looting war, a naked imperialist aggression against an oppressed nation like Iraq. Hiding behind the mask of 'democracy' and seizing upon the dictatorial nature of the Iraqi regime, they are intent upon setting up a US colony. This will mean even less democracy, since it entails the abrogation of the slightest shred of national sovereignty with the aim of subjugating the local population and siphoning off their wealth. Every war of defense by an oppressed nation, every war of national liberation waged by an oppressed nation is for us revolutionaries a legitimate and just war, like the struggle for national liberation in Algeria against the French colonial masters or the Vietnam War in the past, for example. The revolutionaries take sides with the military camp of the semicolonial countries, never mind these are governed by a dictatorial regime as nasty as Hussein's, because the victory of the imperialist aggressor will bring about a doubly reinforced oppression for the people living in the semi-colony, and even worse hardships that those inflicted by the domestic dictatorship. Instead, the mobilization of the masses within Iraq to defeat the invasion will leave the Iraqi people in an enhanced position to get rid of the present regime, while a victorious Iraq would become a massive spurt for those fighting against the exploitation and for the freedom of all the oppressed peoples both in the region and worldwide.
The Marxist policy vis-à-vis the present war is a combination of revolutionary defeatism in those countries making up the coalition, which means the antiwar movement should go on from its currently progressive pacifist stance to an open struggle against the governments of Bush, Blair and Aznar, with unconditional support for the war of national defense waged by Iraq. In doing so, we will endeavor to outdo Saddam Hussein and his bourgeois leadership, to transform the conflict into an actual war of national liberation in Iraq and throughout the Arab world. The experience of the Algerian struggle against the French empire, or else that waged by the heroic Vietnamese people against the American army showed that the combined resistance put up by the oppressed peoples and the mass mobilizations in the imperialist power engaged in the war, brought about the defeat of the most powerful armies in the world -although the narrow outlook of the leaderships at the head of those wars entailed a high price to pay, resulting in many lives wasted and years of war that might have been spared otherwise.



Victory to Iraq



The Iraqi people has not welcomed the Anglo-American forces as their 'liberators'. Instead they have received them as what they really are: an occupation army. The invaders met with the first signals of a stubborn resistance by both soldiers and irregular troops. The Iraqi resistance has resorted to guerrilla warfare and even suicide attacks. We claim that, for such resistance to grow wider and stronger, it is necessary to arm not only the regime grassroots, but also the Iraqi people in the first place, switching to the widespread arming of the population at large and its organization in militias.
The Arab governments refuse to do so, and Saddam Hussein himself fears the mobilization of its own people along independent lines as much as he fears imperialism.
The war aims of Hussein's government are the self-preservation of the regime that caters for the privileges of his cronies at the expense of the oppression and exploitation of the majority of the people. Back in 1991, relying on the go-ahead of imperialism, he got busy cracking down on the uprisings staged by the Kurds -a nation of 20 million inhabitants without a state, scattered and brutally treated in northern Iraq and also in Syria, Turkey and Iran. He also suppressed the Shiites, which make up the majority of the population. That cruel oppression is a major drawback preventing the unification of the entire nation against imperialism with the aim of winning the war.
A revolutionary military policy should seek the widespread arming of the people, linking it up to most burning demands of the millions of poor living in Iraq, who will not sacrifice their lives just for the sake of defending an oppressive regime.
Only by rallying all the oppressed and exploited layers of the population behind revolutionary national aims, resorting to internationalist solidarity, are we to challenge seriously this brutal aggression. War requires a leadership that should be ready to grant full rights to self-determination for the Kurdish people, one that hands the land over to the peasants, one that should encourage workers' control of the vast oil resources of the country. Thus, that truly national agenda will encourage the creation and arming of the militias, with a morale strong enough to defeat the invasion. That is the only real perspective for the Iraqi masses, but we cannot expect Hussein's regime to deliver the goods.
The imperialist propaganda claims that they are supposedly intent upon delivering 'democracy' throughout the Middle East by means of missiles and smart bombs. Contrariwise, we say that fulfilling the democratic aspirations of all the Arab peoples entails the foundation of a Palestine state across its historic homeland, i.e. on the ruins of the racist state of Israel, which relies both on the systematic eviction of the Palestinians and a theocratic legislation denying non-Jews elementary democratic rights. On top of that, imperialism must be driven out of the region and all the corrupt capitalist governments presiding over the Arab states must be overthrown in a revolutionary fashion. Along these lines alone will a federation of socialist workers' republics of the Middle East be brought to life.



The international action of workers: a strategic issue



Both the propaganda hacks paid for by imperialism in the style of the CNN, as well as those who opposed the military attack harboring the illusion that the UN might avoid the slaughter, are busy trying to portray an imperialist victory as an inevitable outcome.
They place their bets in the overwhelming military supremacy of the United States and its allies. The gulf separating the main military power in the world and the Iraqi army is all too evident. It is very hard for Iraq to stand up to such war machine on its own. But the struggle against imperialism is not only being waged in the trenches around Basra or Baghdad, but also in the protests rocking the streets of London, New York, Madrid, across the Arab and Muslim worlds and also here in Argentina. We should bear in mind that the vast majority of the world is opposing this war and wants to stop it. Unlike Vietnam, an opposition movement has sprung up in the imperialist powers right before the war started, not after years of bloody combats.
Although the mass protests have not been enough to stop the war in its tracks, they have set a whole generation of young people and workers in motion, people who are aware of the reactionary aims being pursued by Bush and his allies, throwing the governments of Tony Blair, Aznar or Berlusconi into disarray. The protesters in Madrid are demanding the resignation of Aznar, and have gone on to challenge the 'untouchable' monarchy headed by King Juan Carlos itself. The protests and the civil disobedience in the US are coming up against police harassment and frantic jingoism. Thousands of high school students are leaving their classrooms in London and Berlin on a daily basis chanting 'no war for oil'. In Melbourne, Belgium and Greece there have been violent clashes with the police. In Italy, thousands of young people and dockers, along with railway workers, courageously attempted to blockade the convoys of weapons heading for the Persian Gulf. There were also semi-spontaneous strikes when the air strikes started throughout the main factories in the industrialized north, including the FIAT plant.
Across the Arab and Muslim world, hundreds of thousand are protesting in Yemen; protesters have torn off portraits of the reactionary president Mubarak in Cairo (Egypt), fighters for Iraq have enrolled in Syria; Lebanon has also witnessed marches in solidarity with the Iraqis. Most of these demos are aimed against the pro-imperialist stance of their governments, which are actively cooperating with the war, or else leave the Iraqis to their own devices in the face of the imperialist juggernaut, refusing to hand over any kind of military support. Should the war draw out longer than the imperialist coalition planners expected, those demonstrations might grow into revolutionary upheavals kicking out the Arab League governments, resulting in massively increased aid for Iraq with the aim of defeating the invasion.
But, all in all, the overwhelming imperialist power can be challenged by another massive power that has not displayed its full potential yet: the international working class engaged with its methods of struggle.
The millions of workers in the world make up decisive social force because they are the ones controlling the main levers of the capitalist economy. So far, the traditional union leaderships have prevented the outbreak of a political general strike in the belligerent powers, one that could effectively boycott the war machine, paralyze the war-bent governments and make a dent into the juicy profits earned by the local monopolistic corporations. That is the road ahead. The workers in the big transnational oil corporations are in a position to bring oil production to a standstill, blocking the business operations of their headquarters. The civil servants in the US, Britain and Spain are in a position to halt the operation of the administrative apparatus of their respective governments. The dockers, in turn, can blockade the transport of materiel and provisions heading for the troops in Iraq. The workers at the US, British or Spanish corporations that support the war effort can coordinate their actions across the world and bring them to a halt as well.
The workers in the belligerent countries, but not only there, are the ones who will pay for the skyrocketing costs of this reactionary war with increased exploitation. Workers around the world share the same interest with the Iraqi people: bring about the defeat of imperialism. If they set themselves in motion, they will be an unstoppable force.



For a world party of socialist revolution



If that colossal force has by and large remained in the sidelines of the fight against the war, its governments and its own exploiters at home, this is just because the bureaucratic and reformist leaders have so far refused to launch decisive actions in the main imperialist countries. For that purpose, shop stewards' committees should be built in the unions and other grass-root organizations -the self-organization of the working class should be encouraged. Those unions with fighting leaders at their head should give the lead and go for councils of labor delegates, coordinating them nationwide. They should also sponsor social forums on a local level, anti-war committees and other organizations raising progressive and independent positions, with the perspective of getting the official leaders to launch a serious struggle against the imperialist aggression, outmaneuvering the traditional leaders of the working class movement.
And this remains today the key issue at stake here. Only the revolutionary unity of the working class worldwide and its allies, the youth and the oppressed peoples, in the struggle against their common enemy, will bring about the defeat of imperialism.
The First International founded by Marx and Engels launched the war cry of 'proletarians of the world, unite'. The Second International took up that fight, until its upper echelons capitulated before their own ruling class, letting millions of workers be sent off to the first world war in defense of capitalist businesses. The Third International of Lenin and Trotsky enhanced that motto, to make it read: 'proletarians and oppressed peoples of the world, unite', because they hoped to unify the working class in the imperialist countries with the oppressed peoples in the semi-colonies such as Iraq.
The degeneration of the Third International under Stalin led to the foundation of the Fourth International by Trotsky, to take up the revolutionary strategy of the proletariat.
The international order that followed the second world war strengthened the grip of US imperialism and its pact with the ruling bureaucracy in the USSR to such an extent, that it took the revolutionary rehearsals of the 1968-76 mass upsurge, at the time of the US defeat in Vietnam, to start challenging it. During the decades when America was the unchallenged hegemonic imperialist power, the strategy of revolutionary internationalism within the world working class movement was either wiped out or cast aside as a result of the supremacy of Stalinism and its allied movements. All these strangled the revolutionary developments in the name of socialism, becoming a stumbling block for the struggles of the masses against imperialism.
In this phase, we are not only witnessing the decline or the end of the US hegemony, but also the emergence of a new inchoate internationalism which might lay the basis for rebuilding a high staff of labor with the aim of smashing imperialist capitalism -a move to take up the banners of the Fourth International. The PTS, along with its sister organizations in Mexico, Brazil, Bolivia and Europe is fully committed to that task.