From the U.S.: No escalation in U.S. aggression against Iraq – bring forward another way!

From the U.S.: No escalation in U.S. aggression against Iraq – bring forward another way! 24 June 2014. A World to Win News Service. The following edited excerpts are from Revolution, newspaper of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, no. 342, 22 June 2014. President Barack Obama says the U.S. needs to respond militarily because ISIS "poses a danger to Iraq and its people" and to "American interests". But the main cause of the unimaginable suffering of the Iraqi people has been those very same American – imperialist – interests. The conflict between the U.S.-backed regime in Iraq and ISIS is part of a much larger, complex set of challenges to the U.S. empire by rivals and other reactionary forces. This has taken expression in intense conflict, brutal oppression, and horrific suffering in Iraq and neighbouring Syria. Three years ago, the U.S. (and, with both overlapping and conflicting interests, U.S. allies) encouraged and backed an array of reactionary forces seeking to overthrow the government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria and install a regime more compliant with the interests of U.S. imperialism. The result has been a civil war in Syria that has devastated the country, destroyed basic infrastructure, and created a massive humanitarian crisis with hundreds of thousands of refugees. The U.S. occupation of Iraq, and the preceding decades of murderous sanctions and invasion, have created terrible conditions for the people there. And from Pakistan to Yemen, and beyond, U.S drones, mercenaries and allied regimes have generated widespread fury at the U.S. These and other factors, including the lack of a real radical revolutionary alternative in the region, have created fertile ground for the rise of reactionary forces like ISIS. The 2003 invasion and occupation by the U.S. – based on lies about "weapons of mass destruction" – led to the deaths of 600,000 to 1.4 million Iraqis, the displacement of over 4 million more, and the strengthening of reactionary Islamic fundamentalism including ISIS. And those imperialist interests are essentially maintaining and enforcing a world of exploitation, oppression, and environmental devastation. What is at work in Iraq – and beyond that in large sections of the world – is conflict between different oppressive and reactionary forces. Supporting any of them will only perpetuate oppression and suffering. And any escalation of U.S. military involvement must be opposed by people in the U.S. in whose name this aggression is being carried out. What will it take for something good to be wrenched out of this madness devastating the people of Iraq, and the whole Middle East? In a word: revolution! One that uproots – not intensifies – oppression, including the oppression of women. There is a deep basis for revolution in the misery and anger, the chaos and constant crises generated by the workings of the capitalist-imperialist system in the Middle East in general, and in Iraq in particular. One thing revealed by this latest crisis for the U.S. in Iraq is that U.S. imperialism is not all-powerful. The whole situation in Iraq and the region is racked with contradictions. Despite its military might, the U.S. has failed to achieve its objectives in Iraq. The 13-year-long global so-called "war on terror" (really a war for empire) has weakened their system and spawned new contradictions and difficulties, including the spread of reactionary Islamic jihadism across North Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia and elsewhere. Absent a real alternative, all the outrage and fury generated by imperialism will be channelled into dead-ends, despair, and reactionary agendas. But there is another way! Bob Avakian’s new synthesis of communism is the real, radical, viable and visionary alternative to Western imperialism and Islamic fundamentalism. Bringing that forward requires digging into the science of revolution. It means leading people in struggle, transforming their thinking, to make revolution. And as part of that, it requires a movement worldwide, and on the political map in the U.S., that exposes and opposes imperialist crimes but rejects and opposes the Islamic fundamentalist (non) "alternative".