Gary Kent examines some hard left arguments on Iraq

Stop the War Chairman Andrew Murray recently wrote a piece in the Morning Star (12th February) seeking to mobilise support for the coming troops out demonstration.

He argues that the anti-war alliance "has withstood all efforts to divide it" and will focus on two demands – "bringing British troops home from their illegal and disastrous occupation of Iraq and opposing any British involvement in further wars that may be launched by the US government."

Later, he mentions that other countries are in the American frame. "The most immediate target is Iran, with "weapons of mass destruction" being trotted out once more as an excuse. The threat is that Iran will be bombed into submission, either by the US directly or by its Israeli surrogate."

Let's try to unpick this mixture of spin and assertion.

Iran's parliamentary democracy and the desire of most of its youthful citizens for reform is being gerrymandered and obstructed, often with great repression, by the fundamentalist and minority guardians of the Islamic revolution.

There is, many think with good reason, fear that this elite is seeking to develop nuclear weapons. Given that they place rather less emphasis on the sanctity of human life than others, is there not a smidgeon of a problem with their possession of weapons of mass destruction which are not made less lethal or destabilising to millions simply by placing these words in inverted commas.

Of course, we could just say that any country can acquire nukes in some bizarre free market arrangement and add that because America and others possess them by what right is anyone else denied them.

There are differences of approach on the Iranian nuclear problem between the European troika of the UK, Germany and France, which favours diplomatic means to prevent a crisis and the US, which is apparently keen on direct military action.

The added problem is how to support Iranian reformers, some of whom may wish to have the bomb for nationalist reasons and for self-protection (although this is highly dubious). Some external actions could shore up the minority of Mullahs and disadvantage the majority who seek freedom and are, as it happens, quite pro-western.

It is, at least, odd that a figure who leads an alliance that includes CND offers no concerns about nuclear proliferation.

This is, by no means, a comprehensive analysis of the Iranian question and, notwithstanding that Andrew is writing a propagandist puff for a march, it surely behoves any responsible left analysis to at least acknowledge that there are issues with Iran other than the suggestion that the US has trumped up charges for reasons that are left unexplained but probably just come down to Oil.

As if that were not a burning issue for its own people and all those who rely on secure supplies of a staple and strategic asset and are concerned that it will be used as a weapon of mass destitution by those who appear keen on maintaining a fundamentally anti-democratic settlement in Iran.

Andrew then turns to Syria which, he says, "is also being menaced, on the grounds of its alleged support for the armed resistance to the occupation of Iraq. Both Syria and Iran are attacked for "interfering in Iraq's internal affairs" - and this coming from the British and US governments!"

Again, there is no acknowledgement that the one party Ba'athist state in Syria is alleged by Iraqis to be fomenting the insurgency for its own reasons and, Andrew was writing before the recent assassination of the former Lebanese Prime Minister, which mobilised Lebanese resentment against Syrian imperialism. Nor does it mention how Syria seeks to scupper a lasting settlement between Israel and Palestine.

Syria, it seems, can do no wrong and presents no problems for progressive politics.

Andrew continues: "Other states are also in Washington's sights - North Korea, Cuba and Zimbabwe among them. It is a programme for endless war to make the world safe for the neocons."

Note that there is no mention of these countries' democratic oppositions. Andrew may wish to defend the one-party states in these countries but most decent left-wingers would concede that these regimes are either deadly to their own people or to others.

North Korea has consistently swindled the international community by ratting on agreements and has developed nukes. It is run by an isolated regime with little hold on reality. Cuba's economic and political isolation by the US should be ended but Cuba's human rights record must be challenged by democrats. And most people understand the terrible reality of Zimbabwe. But again, there is no acknowledgement of this and a flourish that it's all about making the world safe for neo-cons. One big US plot. No issues to deal with. No security concerns. Human rights don't enter the picture.

Andrew has no truck with the notion that UK forces could ever support American soldiers anywhere. It is, therefore, not surprising that no mention is made of the genocide in Darfur or the possibility that US and UK troops may well be needed, and called for by left-wingers, to intervene to prevent humanitarian disaster. After all, his threadbare analysis is that US imperialism is seeking to impose a new world order on the planet. And that's it.

Back to Iraq, he adds that "The responsibility of the movement in Britain is not to pontificate about who in Iraq should do what, but instead to create the essential precondition for Iraqi self-determination by demanding the withdrawal of the troops."

You do not have to have backed the war to understand that things have changed. It is now up to the Iraqi people to decide how to exercise their self-determination. There is an elected government and a process of nation-building that many Sunni groups which boycotted the election are now trying to buy into.

Of course the movement in Britain must decide with whom it wants to make solidarity. We should, most certainly, take sides with democratic authority against an alliance of anti-democrats and Al Qaeda allies, Saddamite refuseniks and some Sunni supremacists.

It is then only natural that western Conservatives, Liberals, Socialists will support their equivalent forces. And trade unionists will and should take sides with Iraqi brothers and sisters. And leave the decision on the troops up to them.

He takes a swipe at those who have criticised the Stop the War leaders "for one trumped-up reason or another, but basically for having had the cheek to be right at every turn." It's fair to assume he means us, amongst others, for our criticism of the Stop the War leaders for their attacks on impudent Iraqi trade unionists who dared to speak the truth, when the Leninist leaders of the STWC claimed that independent trade unions were not possible. Perhaps he means those who criticised him and others for failing to condemn the heinous murder of Hadi Saleh, without being forced into it.

He then jibes that "It would be a sobering experience for those stuck inside the London media parliamentary village to attend the huge meetings that the coalition organises in all parts of the country and realise how their arguments find absolutely no echo at all."

It would be a sobering experience to try organising a trade union or a women's movement in Iraq.

Many people are still angry with this government for what they see as deception rather than error shared by nearly all intelligence agencies. I am sure that many resent, for British nationalist - protecting "our boys" rather than foreigners - as well as more classically anti-imperialist reasons, the deaths of British soldiers in Iraq. The demand of troops out often comes to pivot on such
emotions.

The troops out march may or may not attract creditable numbers. It will inevitably be smaller than previous demonstrations because most people reckon that the war is over and that the issue is now how democratic authority can defend its democratic gains, however they originated, against vile forces which create sectarian carnage and target trade unionists and many others.

There is an alternative narrative that should unite those who honourably differed on the war and mobilise the labour movement and win wider public sympathy – that of backing Grassroots Iraq as it seeks to play its part in building a new Iraq.

It may not have the simple-minded basis that America is the root cause of all evil but it will certainly do more to advance democracy and freedom and other left-wing values in Iraq and more widely.

Two weeks later, Andrew penned another piece for the Morning Star and there is an apparent change of line in this one. The man who wrote that trade unionism was impossible now salutes Hassan Jumaa, the leader of the Southern Oil Company Union who "detailed his union's struggle against the privatisation of the oil industry and its efforts to establish itself in the face of hostility from the US occupiers. He also expressed all-out support for resistance to the occupation, saying: "We are fighting to drive the occupiers out and to build democracy as the Iraqis see it."

Andrew adds that "At the very least, Hassan Jumaa's arguments allow British trade unionists to appreciate that there is a diversity of trade union views in Iraq and that not all are in support of the Allawi government and the continued occupation."

It's a shame he's not brave enough to be specific but it's a fair assumption that this is a swipe at the IFTU and an incorrect one to boot.

Andrew praises the unity of his Coalition and argues that this "confirms the failure of the efforts launched by some within the Labour Party to use the issue of support for Iraqi trade unionists as a wedge to split British trade unions from the Stop the War Coalition."

Under pressure from various trade unions, the Coalition passed resolutions expressing unequivocal condemnation of the murders of Hadi Salieh, the international secretary of the IFTU, and of hostages Kenneth Bigley and Margaret Hassan.

The Coalition leadership is in an ideological pickle over this issue. Last year, the officers wrote that they were in favour of the resistance, by whatever means they find necessary. A blank cheque if ever I saw one. They were forced to withdraw this and now say that "Such killings (Saleh, Bigley, Hassan) can play no legitimate part in any struggle for national emancipation," according to the steering committee's own resolution. But the approved resolution also recognises that international law upholds the right of peoples to resist an unlawful foreign occupation and that "the continuing violence in Iraq is the responsibility of this occupation and that Iraqis have the right to resist it."

And delegates overwhelmingly rejected demands by ultra-left groups to adopt the slogan "victory to the resistance," to oppose British union links with the IFTU or to limit solidarity with Iraqis to exclusively secular or socialist political forces.

The Stop the War Coalition once played an honourable role but its leaders zig-zags and various dalliances with the "resistance" have now discredited it. What is most important is that those who support the Coalition and those who don't unite to provide solidarity to Grassroots Iraq.