The concerted efforts of the dominant fraction of the U.S. ruling class to force a readjustment of imperialist policy in Iraq has run into fierce resistance from hardline stalwarts in the Bush administration. Since the failure to change the ruling team in the 2004 elections, the administration has been under pressure to modify its failed policies. This pressure was exerted through external policy reviews, media campaigns, and political scandals. The administration has always responded half-heartedly, with just enough concessions to give the appearance that change was coming. Examples include the sacrifice of Paul Wolfowitz, the neoconservative deputy secretary of defense who was widely credited with being the architect of Iraq war policy, and the adoption of policy aimed at gradual troop withdrawals in January 2006.

However, as the situation in Iraq steadily worsened, by last winter a consensus had emerged within the dominant fraction that the situation in Iraq was an absolute mess, a quagmire that jeopardized the long range, global interests of American imperialism. The U.S. military was clearly stretched so thin by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that it was incapable of responding to threats in other parts of the world. This was an intolerable situation because the exercise of military might abroad is an absolute necessity for American imperialism in a period in which its hegemony is under increasing challenge. To make matters worse, the Bush administration’s bungling of the war in Iraq had completely squandered the ideological gains the U.S. ruling class had made in manipulating popular acceptance of its overseas imperialist adventures in the aftermath of 9/11.

This consensus led last March to creation of a bipartisan commission, the Iraq Study Group, led by James A. Baker, III, and former Democratic Congressman Lee Hamiliton. Baker has been a close adviser and friend to the elder George Bush, served as secretary of state under Bush senior during the first U.S. invasion of Iraq in 1991. Baker managed the current President Bush’s legal effort to successfully steal the 2000 election Florida, and is sometimes referred to as the Bush family “janitor,” who can always be counted upon to clean up Bush family messes. Hamilton also co-chaired the 9/11 Commission. Comprised overwhelmingly of prominent officials1 from the Reagan, Bush senior, and Clinton administrations, the commission in essence represented the continuity of the permanent state capitalist apparatus, which saw the need to force the ruling team to alter course.

The initial work of this commission was conducted secretly and in confidence, but in the course of the electoral campaign, its members, both Democrats and Republicans increasingly spoke out in public, critiquing specifically the administration’s polarizing political rhetoric, pitting “stay the course” vs. “cut and run,” as incapable of advancing national imperialist interests. The administration’s tendency to put in doubt the patriotism of its bourgeois critics was clearly unacceptable. Indeed the media conveyed the message, emanating from the commission, that this simplistic policy dichotomy reflected an untenable loss of touch with reality. So strong was this pressure, that by early September the President actually stopped using the “stay the course” slogan. Nevertheless, Bush still stubbornly certainly seemed to cling to this view. He still continued to denounce the Democrats as the party of “cut and run” and the content of his own message continued to stress the need to fight on in Iraq until victory was achieved. However the study group had effectively laid the basis for a change in policy even before the election.

In Internationalism 140 we predicted that the impending Democratic victory: "would increase pressure for extra-electoral adjustments in the administration, including perhaps the forced resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld."

Confirmation of this prediction came almost immediately with the announcement of the forced resignation of defense secretary Rumsfeld and the designation of a successor by 1pm the day after the election. If bourgeois media reports can be believed, as early as the weekend before the election, Bush had already asked Rumsfeld to step down and decided to replace him with Robert Gates, a veteran national security agent, who served as CIA director under the elder George Bush. Demonstrating even more graphically the potential influence of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, it must be noted that Gates was in fact a member of the Iraq Study Group (he stepped down only after his nomination as defense secretary). Gates generally subscribes to Baker’s cautious approach to imperialist policy and criticisms of the current administration’s approach.

The reinvigoration of the democratic mystification accomplished by the November election is important for the bourgeoisie because a belief that the system works is a precondition for popular acquiescence in what is to come. Despite the popular revulsion against the war, particularly in the working class, the election is of course not a victory for peace, but rather a victory for the bourgeoisie’s effort to prepare for the next war, by repairing the damage done to the U.S. military, intelligence and foreign policy apparatus by the Bush administration’s mistakes.

The real debate within the bourgeoisie over Iraq does not pit hawks against doves, but hawks against hawks on how best to extricate themselves from the quagmire and prepare for the next overseas military adventure. As the “dovish” New York Times wrote in its editorial two days after the election, “Mr. Gates’s most urgent task, assuming he is confirmed, must be to reopen those necessary channels of communication with military, intelligence and foreign service professionals on the ground. After hearing what they have to say, he needs to recommend a realistic new strategy to Mr. Bush in place of the one that is now demonstrably failing…He will have to rebuild a badly overstretched Army, refocus military transformation by trading in unneeded cold war weapons for new technologies more relevant to current needs, and nurture a more constructive relationship with Congressional oversight committees.”

Since the election, the general chiefs of staff moved quickly to assert their independence from the discredited Rumsfeld. The chiefs have undertaken a reassessment of the military situation in Iraq, searching for their own policy alternatives even before Gates was confirmed and before the Iraq Study Group issues its recommendations in mid-December. The Army has already released a new training manual that reverses one of Rumsfeld’s more controversial policies regarding minimal troop levels for occupation and reconstruction operations following military invasions, a policy which has been disastrous in Iraq.

Freed from an obligation to toe the line set forth previously by the lame duck Rumsfeld, General Abizaid, director of U.S. Central Command, testified before Senate and House committees in mid-November and openly criticized and contradicted Rumsfeld’s and Bush’s past decisions and policies in Iraq. For instance, regarding the long simmering dispute between the armed services and Rumsfeld over necessary troop levels in Iraq, Abizaid testified that General Eric Shinseki who was fired by Rumsfeld in 2003 for criticizing Rumsfeld’s doctrine of sparse occupation force deployments and insisting that up to 300,000 troops might be necessary had been correct in his assessment of the situation and shouldn’t have been fired.

Abizaid also contradicted the administration’s long standing propaganda line by insisting that the greatest threat in Iraq came not from Al Qaeda but from sectarian militias that were on the brink of civil war. Abizaid opposed both a phased troop withdrawal, as advocated by some Democrats, and a deployment of thousands more troops, as advocated by Republican Senator John McCain. Instead he called for a policy change that would shift deployment of significant numbers of American troops from patrol and combat assignments to training Iraqi security forces.

Despite popular disenchantment with the war and widespread support for withdrawal, there will in fact be no quick military withdrawal from Iraq. Indeed the Bush administration has essentially rejected the study group’s recommendations and seems hell bent on escalating the war in Iraq. The hardliners in the administration have embraced Sen. McCain’s proposal for a “surge” in troop strength, with the deployment of perhaps 30,000 additional troops to quash resistance in Sunni areas, despite the fact that military leaders at the Joint Chiefs and in the field in Iraq are opposed to increasing troop levels. The military opposition to the “surge” stems from worries that this will only make the situation look more like an out and out occupation, increase the number of American targets on the ground and hence the number of casualties, and in the long run weaken the military’s ability to intervene elsewhere. It is indeed ironic that when the military wanted additional troops in 2003, the Bush administration refused and fired their leading general, and now when they don’t want more troops, the administration seems posed to ram them down their throats. Bush has responded by announcing a shake up in the military command. Military leaders opposing the escalation in the Central Command and in the field in Iraq have been reassigned elsewhere, and are being replaced with officers who accept the administration’s plan.

In all likelihood, despite expecting some stubborn resistance from certain neo-cons in the administration, the dominant fraction anticipated the implementation in large measure of the Iraq Study Group proposals, including particularly stepped up pressure on the Iraqi bourgeoisie to reach compromises within itself, some kind of timetable for phased withdrawal, and a reversal of the Bush administration’s refusal to talk to Syria and Iran and convening an international conference in the Middle East on the future of Iraq that would include participation of these two countries. In this regard, Baker has stressed publicly the importance of talking to your “enemies.” This is the only option available that would allow the U.S. to extricate itself from the Iraq quagmire, maintain a presence in the region, and counter European overtures toward Iran and Syria. While Bush appointed Gates as his new secretary of defense under pressure from the external forces within the bourgeoisie, Gates appears to be the only figure in the president’s war council currently capable of recognizing the gravity of the situation. Adjustment of the situation in the Middle East is crucial to the interests of the American imperialism, necessary in order to lay the basis for the American imperialism to more effectively orient itself towards challenges in the Far East and Latin America.

The Bush administration’s resistance to a significant midcourse correction poses grave dangers for the ruling class. It risks jeopardizing the reassertion of political discipline within the bourgeoisie, undercutting the rekindling of the democratic mystification, and intolerably aggravating the crisis of American imperialism. This will seriously aggravate the political crisis afflicting the ruling class and create even more political pressure on the administration. – J. Grevin, 12/1/07.

In his address to the nation on January 10th, Pres. George Bush completely rejected the central recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, ignored the political meaning of the Republican electoral defeat in November, and escalated the war in Iraq by sending more troops and threatening hostilities against Iran and Syria. Ironically, Bush’s controversial troop “surge” is so small an escalation that it hardly has any chance of impacting on the military situation, except to increase the number of American targets in Iraq.

The consequences of what Republican Senator Chuck Nagel (Nebraska) called the “worst foreign policy blunder since Vietnam” will indeed be very serious for the American ruling class. In order to implement its reckless escalation, the administration had to remove its leading generals and diplomats in the field who opposed the troop build up and find compliant officers and officials who could be counted on to do what they were bid.

Through the study commission and its manipulation of the electoral circus, the dominant fraction of the American bourgeoisie had endeavored to coerce the Bush administration to alter its disastrous conduct of imperialist policy and at the same time give it the political cover to save face in doing so. Through its irrational refusal to comply, the Bush administration has triggered a political crisis within the ruling class that is unprecedented since the Vietnam war and Watergate. Increased divisions within the bourgeoise will result. Many Republicans have already joined the chorus against the escalation. This will provide impetus to a strengthening of the anti-war movement, which up to now has not been so much a mass political or social movement as it has been a series of occasional mass demonstrations orchestrated by a small circle of professional leftist activists. Now with growing disagreements within the dominant fraction of the bourgeoisie, just as during the Vietnam war after the Tet Offensive, there will be increasing financial and media support for the anti-war movement to step up pressure on the administration and to rescue the democratic mystification from oblivion.

Instead of heeding the Iraq Study Group’s admonition to recognized political realities in the Middle East and engage Syria and Iran in diplomatic dialog, Bush has become increasingly bellicose towards these two countries and seemed to threaten military action. All the progress that the ruling class thought it made in overcoming the so-called “Vietnam Syndrome” will be obliterated. This will severely aggravate the crisis of American imperialism, as it will be increasingly difficult to get the working class and the rest of the population to accept the need for future military interventions around the world – something that is a long term strategic necessity for U.S. imperialism.

We will witness a struggle of hawks against hawks within the ruling class, as the Bush administration becomes increasingly marginalized and the dominant elements seek to salvage the situation, so they can prepare for the next imperialist war.

The working class cannot be suckered by the rhetoric of the anti-Bush chorus within the bourgeoisie. What is unfolding is a bitter squabble within the capitalist class on how best to dominate the world. For the workers movement, it is the struggle to destroy capitalism that counts, not the struggle over the ruling team that will implement imperialist policy.

-- Internationalism, Jan. 12, 2007

The November election was an extremely important event for the American ruling class. For six years, since the disastrous election of 2000, the U.S. Bourgeoisie experienced serious difficulties in controlling the outcome of the electoral circus and putting in place a ruling team and political division of labor that best corresponds to its long term strategic interests and goals. As a consequence the credibility of the electoral mystification, the democratic propaganda myth that elections enable “the people” to participate in the governance of society, had taken some terrific hits and had been seriously undermined.

Difficulties in Controlling the Electoral Circus

In good measure these difficulties were a manifestation of the tendency of “each for himself,” which is a central characteristic of the general social decomposition of capitalist society, within the electoral circus. In particular this was epitomized by the breakdown in the willingness of the various candidates and parties to subordinate their political ambitions to the requirements of the national interest.

Instead, especially in close elections, despite what was in the best global interests of the national capital, candidates and parties succumbed to the desire to win at any cost. This was demonstrated by the debacle of the 2000 presidential campaign in which the candidate who lost the popular vote emerged as president.

The rise of rightwing Christian fundamentalism, which played a pivotal role in recent elections, as a political force in the U.S. Is also a reflection of decomposition.

Confused by the increasing social instability and hopelessness and lacking a revolutionary alternative for the future, many people are driven towards religion as a simplistic solution to the chaos of capitalist society. The fact that the fundamentalists are controlled by their religious leaders and are consumed by crackpot social agenda items, such as opposition to abortion and gay marriage, seemed to make them impervious to classic forms of political manipulation by the media. Thus in 2004, despite sharing widespread concerns about the economy and war, fundamentalists cast their votes based on emotional hot button issues like gay marriage.

The difficulties in reaching a consensus on the best ruling team until quite late in September in 2004 was in part yet another example of the impact of decomposition on conjunctural political events.

It has taken six years and an intolerable crisis of its imperialist leadership for the dominant fraction of the ruling class to regain control of its electoral circus.

The Role of the Media

The overwhelming Democratic victory in the House, and the razor-thin margin in the Senate can be attributed to the tremendous and determined effort not to repeat the errors of the 2000 and 2004 elections.

This time in 2006, the dominant fraction of the ruling class committed itself early to Democratic victory as essential to implementation of its long range interests.

The emergence of a consensus on the need to readjust the ruling team and imperialist policy could be seen last March with the creation of the Iraq Study Group, the bipartisan commission created on the initiative of Republican congressmen and comprised of prominent officials from the administrations of Ronald Reagan, George Bush senior, and Bill Clinton. The purpose of the commission was to devise a fresh approach to the disastrous situation in Iraq and to pressure the administration into accepting that approach. In order to achieve such a midcourse correction, it was crucial to manipulate the elections to demonstrate popular disenchantment with the administration’s policy and to put pressure on Bush to alter policy.

Effective mobilization of the mass media became a high priority to assure the desired electoral outcome. Except for the rightwing talk show commentators and Murdoch’s Fox network, the media messages were clear and unrelenting in attacking the administration. The critical views of the Iraq Study Group appeared regularly in the media. Both Democratic and Republican commission members characterized the administration’s rhetoric of “cut and run” vs. “stay the course,” as a simplistic, false dichotomy. Broadcasters on CNN and MSNBC, in particular, kept a steady barrage of criticism. CNN even ran a series of broadcasts titled, “Broken Government,” in the week running up to the election, which ripped the administration.

The New York Times and Washington Post led the attack by publishing leaked documents that revealed that the administration had suppressed a consensus national intelligence estimate drafted by 16 espionage agencies that reported that the disastrous consequences of the mismanaged war in Iraq exacerbated, rather than alleviated, the Islamic fundamentalist terrorist threat against the U.S. In flagrant contradiction of the Bush administration’s falsely optimistic propaganda pronouncements.

These reports were picked up and highlighted by the rest of the mass media immediately. In contrast to its past reaction to such media leaks with threats of investigations for criminal leaking of classified documents, the administration was forced to de-classify and make public large portions of the intelligence reports.

Even more importantly the use of the media was instrumental in neutralizing the Christian fundamentalist problem that had been so serious in 2004. The ruling class unleashed a media campaign around the Foley scandal. This scandal included more than just the actions of Foley himself, an ultraconservative Republican congressman, champion of so-called “family values,” and arch opponent of gay rights and gay marriage, who was revealed to have made sexual overtures to teenage boys working as pages in the House of Representatives. More devastatingly, the media campaign stressed also the complicity of high ranking Republican leaders in the House, including Speaker Hastert, who covered up this scandal for nearly three years. Exploitation of this scandal on a daily basis effectively neutralized the Christian right in the election.

Reviving the Electoral Mystification

The reinvigoration of the electoral mystification that had been so badly tarnished since the beginning of the new century was an important accomplishment for the bourgeoisie. In 2004, we wrote that the bourgeoisie desired a Kerry victory in part to revive the electoral mystification, to demonstrate “the power of the people” to correct the political fiasco of the stolen election of 2000. They wanted people dancing in the streets in celebration of how the system works and “the will of the people” is manifest. Well, that is very nearly what they have achieved in 2006. The election has been portrayed in the media, and in comments by prominent politicians from both parties, as an expression of the political will of the American people for an end to the war in Iraq, for a change in political direction. Following the election, even on election night itself, it was interesting to hear not only journalists, but Republican political strategists and pundits as well use such terms as “the swing of the political pendulum,” “a change in the political cycle,” “the need for the Republicans to reclaim their principles,” in describing the meaning of the election. In this sense, the bourgeoisie signaled preparation for realigning the political division of labor to put the Republicans in opposition and the Democrats in power, and the Republicans acknowledge acceptance of this role.

Undoubtedly the Democrats will undertake immediately some popular domestic measures, such as an increase in the minimum wage and new legislation correcting the excessively regressive medical prescription plan imposed by Bush, and abandonment of the attack on social security. These measures will be designed to lay the basis for the Democrats to take the White House in 2008, in order to continue the healing process and prepare for future military actions in defense of U.S.

Hegemony. Of course the resistance of Bush administration hardliners to any significant alteration in Iraq policy, still risks undermining the gains made in reviving the credibility of the electoral mystification.

Indeed already there is some concern expressed among bourgeois media pundits that the administration’s plans to escalate the war in Iraq after voters had so clearly expressed their disapproval of the war will lead to political demoralization and a loss of faith in elections as a means to influence government policy.

The degree to which the Bush administration refuses to accept the meaning of the midterm election results, as a reflection of the political will of the dominant fraction of the ruling class, is the degree to which it risks facing even more serious political pressure to change imperialist course. Jerry Grevin, 13/1/07.

In the early morning hours of Nov. 25th five New York City undercover police officers pumped fifty bullets at nearly point blank range into a car occupied by three unarmed black men. Sean Bell, the driver was killed and two passengers were seriously wounded. So outrageous was this assault that even New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and New York State Governor George Pataki quickly issued public statements decrying the obvious use of “excessive force” by the cops. Rev. Al Sharpton and a legion of civil rights leaders held angry press conferences, organized the usual protest marches and silent vigils, posed for pictures with grieving family members and denounced the racism of the New York City police department. There’s no doubt that racism is rampant within the police department.

However, this time it was not simply a case of white cops victimizing black victims. The squad of undercover cops who went berserk that night were about as ethnically diverse a group of cops one is ever likely to encounter, including two minority cops, one black and one Hispanic. In fact it was the black cop, who had been undercover as a customer in the same strip club where the victims had been drinking for most of the evening, who followed them to their car, first pulled his gun, and jumped on the hood of the car, provoking Bell to try to drive away from what he thought was an armed assault. Supposedly the cop, who himself had consumed two alcoholic drinks during his undercover operation at the bar, did this because he thought one of the passengers was in possession of a gun. While it was a white cop who fired 31 times, both the black and Hispanic cops also opened fired on the unarmed victims. Only the sergeant who was in charge of the squad did not first; apparently lacking confidence in the accuracy of his colleagues, once the shooting started, the sergeant ducked for cover.

For years leftists, civil rights leaders, and black nationalists have portrayed the problem of police brutality simply as a question of racism. The solutions offered by these leftist bourgeois activists are always the same: fire the police commissioner, hire more minority cops, appoint a black police commissioner, and elect more black politicians. As this incident demonstrates, having more minorities on the police force only increases the chances that a black person will be brutalized by a police officer who has the same color skin. There are plenty of black mayors and black police commissioners across the U.S. these days and police brutality continues unabated.

In capitalist society, the police are a special body of armed men, a critical element of the state apparatus that serves to maintain law and order – capitalism’s law and order – and to repress threats to that order. Sure, sometimes that includes some social useful things like solving crimes that reflect anti-social behavior, returning lost children to their parents, and directing traffic. But ever since the rise of the first police departments in the U.S. in the early 1800’s it has included the use of force and intimidation to suppress social and political discontent. The exercise of coercive force is crucial to intimidating the population to toe the line. Police brutality is a class weapon, not a race weapon. It has always been used to victimize and terrorize the poor and the working class, whether it was the Irish, Italian, Jewish immigrants in the industrial slums of major cities in the 19th and 20th centuries, long before the massive migration of black workers from the rural south to northern cities in the 20th century. Police brutality was used against workers, white and black, in the course of the class struggle throughout American history. It’s true that many police officers are recruited from working class families, and on an individual basis, it is sometimes possible to get through to an individual police officer to break with the institutionalized brutality and violence that engulfs their professional life. But as an institution the capitalist police, is the enemy of the working class. We will never rid society of police brutality except by destroying capitalism first. – JG, 13/1/07.

The victorious Ethiopian government has declared that its soldiers will leave Somalia in a matter of weeks. The emboldened Somali “transitional government” is cheerfully talking of economic recovery and peace for this ravaged country that has not had a central government for decades. The idea of a UN mandated African peacekeeping military force is being floated by the US and others. So everything seems dandy. One more local conflict resolved, one more war waged and won against the “threat” posed to civilization by Islamic fundamentalism. It would seem that finally the Bush administration, that is to say the US –the power behind Ethiopia’s and its Somali friends’ success- seems to have got one right!

Yet one should be careful to bet on it. Despite the abrupt military collapse of the forces of the “Council of Islamic Courts” that controlled much of Somalia until last December the war is far from over. It is believed that there are over 20,000 militiamen in the country responding to one or another warlord that have been killing one another for decades. The hard-core Islamist themselves have threatened to wage a guerrilla war against the government and its American/Ethiopian supporters and are attempting to reorganize in the Southern part of the country. In fact there are signs that this conflict is escalating to the point of being a new war front for American imperialism. The US force in Somalia –between 1400 and 1800 according to the media- seems to have mostly kept a low profile up to now, limiting its role in the battlefield to providing support to Ethiopian forces on the ground. However the US has not been shy in showing its military muscle using its gunship deployed in the region to launch devastating air-strikes against retreating Islamic forces in the Southern part of the country.

The Bush administration is saying that it does not intend to commit additional troops to this battlefield, but this conflict still runs the risk of escalating and is nevertheless already a new war front full of political implications for American imperialism’s long term strategy of defending its world hegemony.

In the context of the Bush administration’s planned escalation of the war in Iraq and the increasing military threats against Iran and Syria this new offensive in the Horn of Africa by US imperialism is one more push down the road of chaos and devastation that threatens to engulf the whole world over. Only the international working class movement can provide an alternative to this mind-boggling madness. –Eduardo Smith, 13/1/07.

This article has already been published on this site here:

https://en.internationalism.org/wr/300/anarchism-and-workers-control [6]