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Bogged down in Iraq
 "WE HAVE MADE good progress", claimed Bush on the
hundredth day after he declared the end of major military operations in Iraq on
May 1. "Iraq is more secure. The economy is beginning to improve".
(International Herald Tribune, 9 August) This was in the realm of political
fantasy, as recent events make clear.
The killing by US troops of Saddam’s sons, Uday and Qusay,
on 22 July was a ‘turning point’, according to the Bush leadership, despite
the fact that Saddam himself has not been captured or killed. The number of
attacks on US and British forces, however, has continued to increase, with two
or three US troops being killed every day. Between 1 May and 26 August, 139 US
troops were killed, 62 in combat and 77 in accidents – exceeding the 138
killed between the start of the war in March and 1 May.
The growing resistance partly reflects rising frustration
and anger at electricity and water shortages, aggravating chaotic and
intolerable conditions. It is also a reaction to the provocative weapons
searches and arrests carried out by US forces, often involving fire-fights and
the deaths of unfortunate bystanders. In July, over 700 ‘criminals and Baath
loyalists’ were arrested – hundreds, including children, were thrown into
primitive, make-shift jails – including many innocent people. (It was
punishment without trial, Guardian, 15 August) The US commander, General Ricardo
Sanchez admitted (8 August) that his iron-fist policy had alienated Iraqis, and
promised a change in tactics. Armed clashes and killings have continued
unabated.
During 9-12 August, Basra, occupied by British forces,
erupted in major riots and clashes, mainly in protest at the continuing lack of
electricity supply and petrol for vehicles (despite the re-opening of the Basra
oilfield).
After a US helicopter removed an Islamic banner from a
communications mast in Sadr City, Baghdad, on 14 August, US commanders only
averted an explosion by paying compensation for those killed in the ensuing
protests and by promising to avoid further provocations.
On 7 August a car bomb – a new weapon in the Iraq conflict
– exploded outside the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad, killing eleven and
injuring at least 65 people.
On 21 August, Saddam’s notorious henchman, Ali Hassan al-Majid,
the notorious ‘Chemical Ali’, was captured. This brought the number of the
US’s top 55 ‘most wanted’ captured to 42. But still no trace of Saddam.
On 19 August, a massive truck-bomb (containing military
bombs and grenades) exploded outside the Baghdad headquarters of the UN, killing
at least 20 and injuring over 100 people. This really was a turning point,
demonstrating the strength of resistance forces and the inability of the
US-dominated occupation to control and stabilise the situation. Widespread
sympathy among Iraqis for the bombing reveals that the UN is widely seen as an
arm of the US occupation. No doubt the aim of the attack was to sabotage the
occupying powers’ attempts to rebuild the infrastructure and install a pro-US
regime. It will undoubtedly deter other international agencies from working in
Iraq – the International Red Cross has already scaled down its operation.
Despite the lure of highly profitable contracts, many US firms are delaying
their arrival until, as they hope, the security situation improves. To the US
public, currently being wooed by candidates lining up for the 2004 presidential
primaries, the UN bomb helped crystallise a growing recognition that the US
occupation of Iraq will cost far, far more in terms of lives and public funds
than Bush and the Pentagon hawks will acknowledge even now. Moreover, the
difficulties of the US extracting itself from Iraq are now evoking more and more
ominous comparisons with Vietnam.
Breakdown of services
IRAQ HAS BEEN reduced to a state of intolerable chaos. This
time, the US did not deliberately target the economic superstructure as they did
in the 1990-91 Gulf war; but the occupiers were totally unprepared for the
looting and sabotage that took place in the aftermath, wrecking hospitals, power
plants, and other vital facilities. Bremer’s coalition provisional authority,
which replaced Jay Garners’ inept interim authority, lacks the funds and
personnel required for a rapid restoration of basic services. Above all, as an
occupying power it lacks local knowledge and the cooperation of Iraqi
specialists and workers. Despite the US’s deliberate destruction of utilities
during the 1990-91 war, Saddam’s regime managed to restore electricity, fuel
and other essentials relatively quickly. Ghazi Sabir-Ali, a former head of the
North Oil Company, Kirkuk, points out that oil production was resumed within
weeks, while now the US has to import oil into the country. (Let Iraqis rebuild
their own country, Guardian, 1 August)
Electric power supply is still below pre-war levels, and
some regions get only two or three hours of electricity a day. Refrigeration and
air-conditioning are very limited, when typical summer temperatures reach
50C/122F. Without sustained electricity, there is an acute shortage of clean
water, while raw sewage is being dumped into the rivers. Children especially
continue to suffer and die from gastro-intestinal diseases. Hundreds of
thousands in Baghdad went without water for several days when a water main was
sabotaged on 17 August (the same day the northern oil pipeline was blown up).
The scarcity of petrol – in oil-rich Iraq – restricts deliveries of food and
other essentials, while paraffin/kerosene (used for cooking stoves) is in short
supply. Hospitals clearly cannot function properly without electricity, and
still lack essential equipment and drugs.
Most of the workforce remains unemployed, and the coalition
provisional authority has not been allocated enough funds to pay salaries, even
in key sectors of the economy. Contracts have been handed out to big US
companies for rebuilding key facilities, printing new currency notes, etc, but
the economy is only functioning at a primitive level. Only the black-market and
smuggling are thriving.
The occupying US forces, moreover, have not brought even a
semblance of security to the population. Armed robberies and looting are widely
prevalent; there is a horrifying wave of rapes and murders. This appears to be a
combination of criminal predation and ‘scorched earth’ resistance to
occupation. The prolonged chaos, combined with provocative US military searches,
roadblocks, etc, is arousing deep feelings of humiliation and anger. Under these
conditions, support for resistance to the occupation is undoubtedly growing.
Recent opinion polls in Ramadi and Falluja – centre of many of the attacks on
US forces – indicate that 90% of respondents attribute these attacks either to
a response to US provocations or to ‘resistance’ motivated by nationalism,
Islam or revenge. (Iraqi hearts and minds, International Herald Tribune, 21
August) Internationally, and within the US itself, any prestige the Bush regime
hoped to acquire through its lightening military defeat of Saddam’s rotten
regime has been negated by its total failure to restore basic services or secure
the safety of the population. And what of the claims of Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz
that the US, in destroying Saddam’s vicious dictatorship, would be greeted as
‘liberators’? The current situation, as the commentator Thomas Friedman
aptly says, "underscores how much the Pentagon’s ideological reach
exceeds its military grasp".
Oil and the cost of war
IN TESTIMONY TO the House Appropriations Committee, the
deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz assured Congress on 27 March: "We
are dealing with a country that really can finance its own reconstruction, and
relatively soon". (Wall Street Journal, 5 August.) Iraq’s oil, it was
claimed, would pay for rebuilding the shattered country, as well as bringing
down the world price of oil. Oil revenues were projected at between $15 billion
and $20 billion a year. The post-war reality is very different. The country’s
oil fields are currently producing only around 300,000 barrels a day, way below
the pre-war production of three million barrels a day. Oil experts are scornful
of the claim that oil revenue will reach $3.5 billion this year, itself less
than half the $7 billion expenditure that Bremer had budgeted for the rest of
2003.
Systematic looting and sabotage attacks have prevented the
full restoration of oil production. Many of the big US corporations awarded
contracts for reconstruction have not yet moved in because of the danger to
their staff from sabotage and attacks. The pipeline from the northern oil field
to the Caspian via Turkey has been repeatedly sabotaged and is still not
operating. The pipeline through Syria has not been reactivated – mainly
because the US wants to deprive the Syrian regime of transit revenues.
Much more honest than his political masters in Washington,
Paul Bremer recently told the press: "For at least the next couple of
years, we’re going to have to spend a lot more money than we’re going to get
in revenues, even once we get oil production back to the pre-war levels, which
we intend to do by the end of 2004". (Wall Street Journal, 5 August)
The cost of redeveloping the oil fields alone may be over
$30 billion, according to the Centre for Global Energy Studies. (Observer, 13
July) Even before the damage caused by the recent war and its aftermath, the oil
fields were in a dilapidated state. The severe damage inflicted by the 1991 Gulf
war was quickly patched up, but the US-enforced sanctions regime made the
replacement and modernisation of equipment impossible.
Where is the capital for such massive investment likely to
come from? One proposal being pushed by the Bush regime is for the ‘securitisation’
of future Iraqi oil receipts to pay for reconstruction. In other words, the
occupying power would mortgage Iraq’s future oil revenues to pay big
contractors like Halliburton and Bechtel to carry through highly profitable
contracts. Not surprisingly, these Pentagon favourites enthusiastically support
the idea. Such an ‘oil mortgage’ would be added to the $220 billion which
Iraq owes to foreign governments and banks, as well as the massive (and recently
resumed) reparation payments to the Kuwaiti government for damage during the
1990-91 occupation.
Before the war, Bush and Company gave the impression that
the ‘liberation’ of Iraq would mean cheaper oil internationally. After an
initial fall, however, oil has risen to over $30 a barrel on the world market.
Given the uncertainty of Iraq’s production, it seems unlikely that it will
fall very soon. US drivers are now paying $1.53 a gallon (one US gallon equals
3.78 litres), cheap by European standards but 14 cents more than this time last
year.
The Bush regime has deliberately and consistently attempted
to conceal the real cost of the war. The US military campaign has so far cost
around $48 billion, and the occupation (involving approximately 140,000 US
troops) is currently costing around $3.9 billion a month. Funds for both the
military operation and reconstruction ($7 billion more required until the end of
2003) will soon run out, and Bush will have to go to Congress for additional
funds. Bremer recently put the bill for repairing the shattered infrastructure
at "probably well above $50 billion, $60 billion, maybe $100 billion. It’s
a lot of money". (Wall Street Journal, 5 August) Private estimates put the
cost at over $50 billion.
In Washington, however, Wolfowitz and Bush’s budget
director, Joshua Bolten, refused to give the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
even a rough estimate of future costs of the Iraqi occupation. While Republican
senators severely criticised the administration’s evasiveness, one Democratic
senator asked Bolten: "What the devil are you going to ask us for?"
(International Herald Tribune, 31 July)
US faces guerrilla war
ON 16 JULY, General John Abizaid, head of central command,
was the first US leader to admit the obvious: US forces are facing a ‘classical
guerrilla-type campaign’ in Iraq. With ten to 20 serious attacks every day,
local US commanders admitted that the attacks were heavier than during the war,
more carefully targeted, and carried out more skillfully. Abizaid’s comment
inevitably evoked the spectre of the Vietnam war. Questioned by journalists
about the growing attacks, Bush arrogantly replied: ‘My answer is, bring ‘em
on!’ A Washington-based think-tank, the Centre for Strategic Studies, warned
that Bush had not learned the lessons of Vietnam: "even the best military
victories cannot win the peace". A repressive, prolonged US occupation,
insufficient resources for reconstruction, and, above all, no time-table for US
withdrawal could lead to "a third Gulf war against the Iraqi people… It
is far from clear that the US can win this kind of asymmetric war".
(Anthony Cordesman, How to slide into a third Gulf war, Financial Times, 31
July).
Seething discontent amongst US troops in Iraq became
headline news on 16 July when soldiers of the 3rd Infantry Division
called on Rumsfeld to resign. ‘We were told that the fastest way home was
through Baghdad’, but Baghdad fell on 9 April, and ‘we’re still here’.
Abizaid threatened them with disciplinary action, claiming that morale was
generally high. ‘Morale is non-existent’, came the answer from soldiers
using the internet. "Somewhere down the line, we became an occupation force
in Iraqi eyes. We don’t feel like heroes any more", said one private.
"We are outnumbered, we are exhausted. We are in over our heads. The
president says, ‘Bring ‘em on’. The generals say we don’t need more
troops. Well, they’re not over here". (Observer, 10 August)
With guerrilla attacks increasing, troops feel they are on a
roller-coaster of nerves. "Life for US troops is permeated with
uncertainty. Attackers can be anyone, anywhere, anytime", writes a US
reporter from Baqubah. Most attacks miss their mark or result in minor injuries
to troops, so go unreported. "Near misses are militarily insignificant but
psychologically damaging. Soldiers said the daily, relentless uncertainty and
randomness weigh heavily on them". (Wall Street Journal, 1 August)
The toll of deaths and casualties is rising, and the true
figures are higher than the official figures usually reported. Total combat
deaths between the beginning of the war and 8 August were 166 (19 more than the
death toll in the first Gulf war). But if deaths from all causes, including
accidents and suicides, are included, the total was then 248. Similarly with
injuries: the Pentagon says there have been about 1,000 ‘wounded in action’.
However, Col. Allen DeLane, in charge of airlifting the wounded into Andrews air
base, said that at least 4,000 wounded had been received by Andrews and many
other wounded had passed through, to be treated elsewhere. (The unreported cost
of war, Guardian, 8 August)
Many messages from troops in Iraq also complain about
inequality within the army. While the ranks sleep in tents without basic
sanitation, senior officers are quartered in Saddam’s former palaces.
The stresses on an over-stretched army, commented Michael O’Hanlon
of the US Brookings Institute, "has the potential to threaten the quality
and the basic fabric of the US military more than anything since Vietnam".
(Financial Times, 18 July)
Troops in Iraq have been flooding their families and friends
with angry emails, and wider and wider protests are being organized by groups
such as Military Families Speak Out, Veterans For Common Sense, and the National
Gulf Resource Centre. Veterans are especially angered by Bush’s cuts in
medical benefits for veterans and the move to cancel the recent increases in ‘imminent
danger’ payments to troops in combat zones. More and more military families
and veterans are calling for the troops to be brought home from Iraq. In July, a
colonel attempting to reassure 800 angry spouses at Fort Worth, Georgia, had to
be escorted from the meeting for his own protection.
As the toll of US military deaths and injuries in Iraq
grows, opposition to the occupation and calls for the withdrawal of US troops
will strengthen, not only among military families but also among wider sections
of workers. Opposition to Bush’s aggressive foreign policy will be reinforced,
moreover, by further revelations about bogus intelligence on weapons of mass
destruction and the prolonged stagnation of the US economy.
Military overstretch
LATE LAST YEAR, Rumsfeld boasted that the US could, if
necessary, fight two wars simultaneously – a warning to North Korea. Yet in
relation to Liberia, the vice-chair of the joint chiefs of staff recently warned
of "potentially a very dangerous situation… we need to make sure we do it
[intervene] with the proper numbers of troops". (International Herald
Tribune, 26 July) The occupation of Iraq, however, has already produced ‘imperial
overstretch’. The US is facing difficulties in maintaining a force of 160,000,
the optimum number according to Abizaid, head of central command. In reality,
even that would not be enough for the US to keep control of the situation. A
former officer and defence expert, Michael Yardley, told the Independent on
Sunday (24 August): "You need at least half-a-million troops to police this
country effectively, which we do not have".
The US is running out of forces. Of the army’s 33 active
duty combat brigades only three are currently available for new missions.
Twenty-one are on overseas assignments – 16 in Iraq (147,000 ground forces).
Most of the others are already earmarked for other missions. The Pentagon is now
planning to send two Army National Guard brigades (part-time reservists) to
Iraq. It also wants to take on extra civilian personnel in order to transfer
300,000 uniformed ‘pen-pushers’ to active service duties (International
Herald Tribune, 27 July).
Rumsfeld’s pre-war strategy is in tatters. He proclaimed a
‘military transformation’, with smaller rapid-intervention forces relying on
hi-tech communications and weaponry. After smashing Saddam, he believed, the US
would leave only around 50,000 US forces, relying mainly on ‘willing allies’
to carry out ‘peacekeeping’, that is mopping-up and occupation duties. Bush,
however, is meeting extreme difficulties in trying to muster an international
force. France, Germany and others are not prepared to contribute forces without
UN involvement – which would give them a say in the occupation. But even the
‘willing’ are finding it hard to send troops. The US was hoping that the
Indian government would send 17,000 to the Kurdish region. Although the BJP
government was eager to please Bush, they eventually decided against it, because
of overwhelming feeling at home against Indian troops being used as US
cannon-fodder and because even they recognized that support for the occupation
would destroy their credibility throughout the neo-colonial world. The Polish
government, on the other hand, is sending a contingent of 420 troops, together
with 100 Latvians and 45 Lithuanians – but hardly ‘tried and tested’
forces. Moreover, public opinion in Poland is against the move and any Polish
casualties will result in strong pressure for the withdrawal of the Polish-led
force.
The US has used the bombing of the UN HQ in Baghdad to put
pressure on the UN and Nato to contribute more forces. But France, Germany and
most other major states are unlikely to send forces so long as the US and
Britain insist on control of the occupation.
Unrepresentative government
BREMER PROMISES THERE will be elections in Iraq in about a
year, an implausible claim given the present situation. Meanwhile, the new
25-member Governing Council, launched in mid-July, is supposed to be preparing
the way for some kind of representative government. Bremer claims it will have
‘governing powers’ under the paramount authority of the occupying powers. It
is an uneasy alliance, dominated by the predominantly Shia exile groups
(notably, Chalabi’s Iraqi National Council) and the Kurdish parties which
participated in the US-backed ‘leadership council’ formed last February.
Also participating are figures with support within Iraq, for instance leaders of
the Islamic Da’waa party, the Iran-backed Supreme Council for the Islamic
Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), and some sections of the powerful al-Sadr clan. The
revived Communist Party, which has renounced socialism, is also participating,
on the grounds that the Council is a step towards democracy. (Morning Star, 22
July) Agreement was reached, however, only on the basis of a monthly-rotating
chair. The Council is supposed to appoint ‘well-qualified, technocratic
ministers’, but seems to have done little or nothing. Typical comments from
the street were: ‘They don’t have credibility. They won’t have any real
authority as long as they represent the occupying authority’. ‘It’s just a
tool for the Americans’. Many of the Council members ‘were raised abroad.
They’re not capable of running a country’. ‘Do you think they can make a
decision without the Americans?’
The new council is unlikely to be any more effective than
the 140-strong Iraqi Reconstruction and Development Council, set up by Jay
Garner and continued by Bremer to ‘advise’ the occupying authority on
reconstruction. Resigning from this body, Isam al-Khafaji, an economics
professor at Amsterdam University, complained that members had nothing to do
except sit in their offices and read emails. "Even the [US] soldiers here
bluntly say they take their orders from their general not from Bremer… Even
though Bremer has the formal authority within Iraq, it seems like each and every
decision must go back to Washington, and we are the victims of indecision".
Al-Khafaji resigned because the "reconstruction council was sliding… to
collaborating with occupying forces". (I did not want to be a collaborator,
Guardian, 28 July)
Moreover, the SCIRI, the best organised Shia force, is
following a dual tactic. While participating in the Governing Council, it is
also strengthening its own militia forces. In the North, the Patriotic Union of
Kurdistan (PUK) and Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) have resisted US pressure to
disband their militias, which are at least 70,000 strong. While sections of the
al-Sadr tribe, the biggest Shia movement, are supporting the Council, others
have denounced it as a tool of the US occupation. Maqtada Sadr, for instance, a
militant, junior cleric with strong support among the youth of the poor Sadr
City area of Baghdad (formerly Saddam City), is calling for a struggle against
the US occupation, and claims to be organising a jihad army of over 10,000
volunteers. The attempted assassination in An-Najaf (25 August) of the Grand
Ayatollah Saeed al-Hakim, who opposes the US occupation but has called for ‘calm’
and an end to violence, reflects a struggle for influence between the Shia
groups.
Up to now, the main armed resistance to US forces has come
from the so-called Sunni triangle (involving wider forces than the ‘remnants
of the Saddam regime’), but the outline is taking shape of even more powerful,
organised resistance forces among the majority Shia population. Their aim is an
Islamic republic on the lines of Iran under Khomeini after the 1979 Iranian
revolution. Already, they are attempting to enforce strict conditions, for
instance forcing women to wear head-scarves and closing liquor shops, tolerated
under Saddam, often through shooting their owners as ‘infidels’. Ever since
the Iranian revolution, US imperialism has regarded ‘Islamic fundamentalism’
as a major threat to its interests. Through its occupation of Iraq, however, the
US is creating all the conditions for the growth and possible coming to power of
right-wing Islamic forces.
As the attacks on US and British forces have grown, the
Pentagon hawks have increasingly claimed that they are the work of foreign
Islamic militants, probably linked to al-Qaeda, who have infiltrated across the
border into Iraq. They now see Iraq, as they previously saw Soviet-occupied
Afghanistan, as the front of a new jihad, this time against the US (their former
sponsors!). ‘Al-Qaeda terror chief runs Iraqi hit squads’, echoes the
Murdoch-owned Sunday Times (10 August). It is far from clear whether there is
any evidence for this ‘infiltration’. Clearly, the US is reluctant to
recognise the strong resistance to occupation within Iraq, especially in the
central Sunni triangle region. If, however, there does prove to be such an
infiltration it is another ironic result of the US occupation. Rumsfeld and
company could never prove any link between Saddam and al-Qaeda – but their
intervention has created conditions in which it is conceivable that reactionary
Wahabbi forces, like Ansar al-Islam, could be operating in Iraq.
The US occupation authority claims that over 30,000 Iraqi
police are now operating again. They are also attempting to recruit and train
Iraqis into new security forces: a 40,000-strong army, a para-military militia,
and a security force to guard the oil fields and pipelines. So far, they have
managed to recruit only a handful, who are poorly equipped – and who are
inevitably seen as collaborators. Several British military police involved in
training Iraqi police have been killed. The history of colonial occupations
shows that such collaborationist forces, while they may be brutal, are never
very effective against guerrilla struggles that have the sympathy and support of
a majority of the subjugated people.
End the occupation!
US IMPERIALISM, DESPITE its unprecedented military power, is
losing its battle to control Iraq. The grand plans of Wolfowitz and Condolezza
Rice to reconstruct Iraq on the US model as the first step towards the
reconstruction of the whole Middle East on ‘democratic’, pro-American lines,
is already in tatters. The US ‘road map’ for Israel-Palestine has already
been blasted full of holes by new suicide bombings and the Israeli state’s
savage retaliation. Under US occupation, Iraqis will join Palestinians as
symbols of resistance to US imperialism.
The escalation of attacks on the occupation forces, and
especially the bombing of the UN Baghdad HQ, make it clear that the US, if it
insists (with British support) on unilateral control of the occupation, will not
be able to hold on to the country. Already, Bush and Rumsfeld have appealed to
the major UN powers to help by sending forces. But it is far from certain that
they will agree, fearing that they will have no real say on Iraq’s direction
and that the UN, if it is used as a cover for US domination, will be totally
discredited, not only in Iraq but throughout the neo-colonial world.
Bush is adamant that the US is in Iraq ‘for the long haul’.
Without the support of other major powers and some semblance of multilateral
legitimacy, however, US imperialism will be forced to retreat from Iraq. Despite
its enormous resources, the US is already suffering from imperial over-stretch,
not only militarily but economically as well. If the US does not retreat,
however, the super-power will become bogged down in a morass, just like Johnson
and Nixon, who continually saw victory around the next corner in Vietnam. The
decision, of course, may well be taken out of Bush’s hands. The ‘9/11 effect’
is wearing off rapidly. A recent Newsweek poll found that 69% of Americans were
concerned that the US would become bogged down for years in Iraq without any
improvement in security, while 49% said they were very concerned. Bush’s
approval rating was down to 53%, the lowest since 9/11. While 43% said they were
prepared to give Bush a second term, 49% said they would not. (25 August) Any
successful Democratic candidate for the presidency in 2004 will be an anti-war
candidate, though a new US leadership will face considerable problems in
extracting themselves from the mess created by Bush and his hawks.
The crisis in the US economy will also be aggravated by the
occupation (cheap oil, even if it materializes, will not by itself lift the
world economy). The US is now a debtor to the rest of the world, while the
Federal budget deficit is likely to soar above $500 billion – and the full
cost of the Iraq war and occupation have yet to be factored in. While Bush has
handed huge tax cuts to the super-rich, millions of workers and sections of the
middle class are paying for the recession and the war through unemployment,
squeezed incomes, and public-sector cuts. Social and economic grievances will
drive a revival of working-class opposition to imperialist militarism and
big-business attacks on living standards and rights. The anti-war movement,
mainly consisting of students and young people up to now, will be strengthened
by the involvement of politically conscious workers – and will fuse with a
broad anti-capitalist movement.
Socialists in the US and Britain have a special duty to
fight against the occupation of Iraq. We call for the withdrawal of all
occupying forces. The transformation of Iraq is the task of the Iraqi people.
The alternative to imperialism, capitalism and feudal and tribal exploiters is,
in our view, socialist revolution – with the aim of establishing socialist
democracy, with a democratically planned economy, guaranteeing the right to
self-determination for all national minorities.
The struggle for socialism, moreover, has to be based on an
internationalist perspective, supporting the struggle of workers, peasants and
all oppressed people throughout the Middle East.
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