No to Imperialist War

Air strikes will not stop sectarian violence in Iraq. Unite for a programme to end the perpetual cycle of war, each time fighting horrors unleashed by previous conflict.

The UK mainstream parties seem to have learned absolutely nothing from past mistakes. In the recent parliamentary vote, all overwhelmingly backed air strikes on Islamic State (IS) targets. The actions of IS are grotesque and despicable, but they are the Frankenstein’s monster created by US and UK imperialist intervention into Iraq in 2003.

The working class and poor across Iraq and the Middle East have been ground into crushing poverty over the past decades. They do not see their share of the extreme oil wealth, which instead flows into the pockets of oil barons and Western capitalists. They see unemployment, substandard housing, and a lack of the necessities of life. In 2003 the invading Western powers divisively imposed a sectarian Shia government in Iraq in order to support their own ambitions.

However, the repressive economic measures taken by this government against the Sunni population have deepened divisions along religious lines. Instead of that anger being turned against the capitalist elites for draining the country of resources, the basis was laid for IS to develop. Young, desperate, radicalised men looking for an escape from their alienation and state persecution have been sucked in, misguidedly seeing IS as a way of fighting back.

The fact the recruits have come from all over the world reflects the desperation felt globally in response to the deepening economic crisis. It is by undercutting the ability of IS to recruit, by removing the conditions of poverty and sectarianism that provide the base for such a group, that an alternative for the masses can be built which can cut across the grip of extremist reactionaries.

The Iraqi government clearly has no interest in doing this, as neither do the imperialist governments of the West. Otherwise, why do our politicians express disgust when IS behead someone for supposedly religious crimes but turn a blind eye when it is done by the Saudi regime, their ally in this conflict?

It is this crisis of capitalism that lead to the mass movements of the Arab Spring, and similar huge uprisings of working class people against their governments the world over. The Socialist Party calls for the building of a movement that can organise a united democratic struggle of the working class and poor in the Middle East to improve their lives by challenging state sectarianism, the control of Western Imperialism and the diktat of the oil tycoons and big business. In doing so they can create a force united to oppose and defend themselves and against extremist organisations such as IS, and undermine the possibility of their development in the future.

Come to our public meeting in Leicester on Saturday at the cafe in BHS at 1.30pm to discuss how Socialist demands can defeat IS.