Aftermath of the Iraqi defeat: What are the consequences for the Arab revolution?

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Shites demonstrate in Basra during uprising that followed Iragi defeat in Gulf war.

' having established an army of occupation in the Gulf region, the U.S.

military forces are in excellent position to intimidate and overwhelm any revolutionary risings in the areas that threaten to get out of control.' SOCIALIST ACTION APRIL 1991 American imperialism's victory over the Arab people cannot be underestimated, at least in terms of its most immediate consequences. The U.S. ruling-class victory is of such scope that it could afford to allow the Kurds in northern Iraq and the Shiite majority, which is strongest in the south, to begin a struggle to overthrow the Saddam Hussein goverment.

In other circumstances, such an uprising would arouse the greatest fears in the hearts of ruling classes everywhere. The Kurds are a greatly oppressed people, who suffer ruthless repression in Turkey and Iran, as well as in Iraq. And the Shiites constitute the most exploited and largest component of the Muslims in the Middle East and North Africa. The capitalist world knows that a successful uprising in Iraq could trigger wider revolts throughout the region. And the logic of these nationalist revolts would tend to challenge the capitalist system itself.

Up until March 26, U.S. imperialism seemed confident it could keep the revolt from getting out of hand and becoming a new threat to its domination. But soon after Kirkuk, a major city in northern Iraq (historically a part of the Kurdish nation, Kurdistan), fell to the Kurdish insurgents, the U.S. position shifted dramatically, as we shall see.

Open door to revolution While history teaches that defeat in war opens the door to political and social revolution, the specific circumstances of this defeat is for the present not favorable for revolutionary forces.

Having dealt a decisive blow to Iraqi military power and having established an army of occupation in the Gulf region of formidable size, fire-power, and mobility, the U.S. military forces are in excellent position to intimidate and overwhelm any revolutionary risings in the areas that threaten to get out of control.

Given current military and political advantages, U.S. imperialism was able to momentarily grant insurgent Kurds and Shiites a long leash. Their rebellion objectively served the immediate prime aim of American imperialism—to dismember the military and political power of Iraq and force the overthrow of the Saddam Hussein wing of the Iraqi ruling class.

This would complete the intended warning to all potential opponents of imperialist interests of the grave consequences they can expect to suffer if they dare to defy and upset the New World Order.

Imperialist interests were briefly served by the intervention of the Iranian ruling class, which has jumped on the bandwagon of the American victory. Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani has followed, from the beginning of the U.S. invasion of the Persian Gulf, a consistent course of seeking whatever advantage could be gained for his regime and the Iranian capitalists.

From the outset, the Iranian rulers maneuvered between the Hussein regime-their foremost adversary in the Arab world—on one side and the "Great Satan" headquartered in Washington, D.C., on the other. And now they seek to improve Iran's position in the Gulf by buying influence with the insurgent forces by aiding their struggle to overthrow Saddam Hussein.

(The U.S. media reported that Iran was a major supplier of weapons, supplies, and moral support for both rebel groups seeking Hussein's overthrow.)

But imperialism will keep a loose rein on Iran, as it did with the Kurd and Shiite rebels, only so long as this serves its immediate interests. When any of these forces overstep limits unilaterally set by Bush and Co., or when it suits the latter for any other reason, they will speedily rein them in or crush them.

In the first period after Iraq's defeat, the U.S. rulers viewed the insurgency with equanimity and only showed their fangs by shooting down a couple of Iraqi warplanes to let all sides know they are in the driver's seat. Nevertheless, the Bush Administration has permitted the Hussein government to use its formidable helicopter gunships to great effect in dealing effective blows against the rebels-despite a much publicized warning that they would shoot them down.

And at the end of March, the U.S. appeared ready to finalize a peace treaty imposed on Iraq that will permit the Iraqi rulers to also use their warplanes to put down the struggles of the Shiites and Kurds for democracy and self-determination.

This cynical American about-face from their basic rationalization for invading the Persian Gulf ("to defend democracy and the right of self-determination for little Kuwait") can now be clearly seen for what it was— pure baloney.

Contradictory results

A United Nations delegation, sent to Iraq to determine the extent of war damage, found that the destruction wreaked by the U.S. bombardment was catastrophic, having blasted the country "back to a pre-industrial society."

Clearly, this slaughter will have two con tradictory results: On the one hand, it will instill fear in the hearts of all of U.S. imperialism's potential and actual adversaries. This is the intended result, and it puts the American rulers in position to effectively police the world in defense of its class interests in the first place and those of the world's capitalists in the second.

But on the other hand, when the initial shock of the American victory wears off, the outrage evoked by the merciless and wanton slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Iragis will continue to boil beneath the surface, especially in the colonial world, multiplying the force of new revolutionary explosions certain to come.

Although the Bush administration and the American ruling class is euphoric over their victory, they are far from oblivious to the precarious position of world capitalism. They show this deep concern by taking care to warn the members of their class not to get carried away by their intoxicating victory. The editorial mouthpieces for the highest echelons of America's capitalist class have been reminding their constituents that the economic, financial, and political problems besetting their world order have not gone away.

The of America's rulers, moreover, understand that the adventure in the Gulf is only a step toward preparing for the coming outbreak of deep crises in every corner of the world capitalist structure.

And as if to punctuate their sobering editorials, the headlines hitting the front pages of the nation's press tell of the ongoing critical developments threatening to upset the equilibrium of world capitalism.

Not the least of these ominous symptoms of decaying capitalism in America and the world are the additional billions voted almost weekly to bail out the bankrupt savings and loan industry. And evidence that the deterioration of the system worsens is registered by the $70 billion "loan" requested by U.S. Treasury officials just last month to back up the nation's tottering banking system.

The New York Times wishfully reported on March 27: "A taxpayer bailout of the banks can be avoided if Congress approves the administation's proposed banking legislation and if the economy avoids a complete collapse. " [emphasis added].

Police violence at home And no less disconcerting to the American rulers is the thunderous outcry against the inhuman beating of a helpless Black motorist after he was arrested for speeding. This atrocity, caught on the video tape of a bystander and repeatedly shown on television (see story on page 16), has compelled media editorialists across the country to condemn both this police lawlessness and the attempt by their apologists to portray it as an exception.

Virtually the entire world was made an eyewitness to this graphic example of police methods.

But there are two major factors which compel them to make the record against police brutality: First, is that the sections of the working class most subjected to police terror see the video images as indisputable evidence that this kind of thing goes on in the ghettoes of America all the time!

Second, the ruling class knows that the connection between the police terror and its counterpart in Iraq, and before that Panama, Grenada, the Dominican Republic, Vietnam, and Korea—to name only the most outstanding cases of world imperialist brutality-is all too obvious.

Reactions by the American people to these and other such events in the current period of continuing "prosperity" will be qualitatively more explosive when the coming wave of new taxes, intensified inflation, and increasing unemployment reduces mass toleration of social injustice to the vanishing point. I

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Teachers, parents and students will have to mobilize to protect By CAROLE SELIGMAN SAN FRANCISCO—There is a war on against the youth of California. It takes the form of enormous cutbacks of the public education system-kindergarten through the 12th grade-cutbacks to the state university and college systems, and cutbacks to statefunded pre-school and childcare programs.

Thousands of teachers in every school district in the state have been notified that they may be laid off for the next school year. In San Francisco, some 1300 teachers have received these notices.

Local school boards are meeting in California towns and cities to plan the cuts they will inflict on the children. These include gutting sports programs, the arts, instrumental music, remedial reading programs, classroom aides, and more. Callfornia's student/teacher ratio (class size), which is now the worst in the country, will get even worse if Gov. Pete Wilson gets his way.

The drastic nature of the proposed cuts, coming in the wake of the $1.5 billion-a-day U.S. war against Iraq, is an upsetting contradiction to many of the teachers who face unemployment and parents who face a decline in the quality of their children's education.

San Francisco antiwar groups, who are cosponsoring an April 6 protest demonstration against the U.S. occupation of Iraq, point out that the $25 million proposed cut in the city's school budget is the equivalent of 24 minutes of the Gulf war!

Proposition 98

Gov. Wilson is trying to suspend Proposition 98, the legislation that guarantees that the schools receive a certain percentage (41 percent) of the California budget. This legislation was put on the ballot through a massive petition campaign spearheaded by the California Teachers Association (CTA) and approved by the voters in 1988.

The governor, faced with a deficit in the California budget, wants to suspend this guaranteed minimum school-financing plan and force the teachers and kids to pay for the deficit. Governor Wilson has gone out of his way to attack teachers, claiming that they are overpaid. In the bankrupt Richmond school district, he is trying to get the teachers to give up their collective bargaining agreement as a trade-off for a state-funded bail-out required to keep the schools open.

Wilson and state legislators are playing a series of political games with the the budget. Bandied about are proposals to increase fees for the universities and colleges, taxes on everything not already subject to the state sales tax (like food items), and an increase in the state income tax.

Working people will be forced to pay first for the Gulf war through next year's income taxes and then pay more again through new state taxes for the social services being slashed. No politicians are calling for the obvious solution: Tax the rich! A hundred percent tax on all war industry profits! Tax the oil companies, in whose interests the war was fought!

Many teachers and parents have com.

public education.

mented that the governor's proposed across-the-board cuts for social services needed by working people include no reductions for prisons and other aspects of the "criminal justice" system.

Always money for jails At a recent Socialist Action forum in San Francisco, the Rev. Ellis-Hagler, a leader ot Boston's Black community, reported that the United States has the highest percentage of its population in prison of any country in the world, with 426 incarcerated for every 100,000 people. The rate for African Americans is 3109 for every 100,000.

One out of every four Black males in the United States is under control of the criminal "justice" system (in prison, jail or on parole). This is four times apartheid South Africa's rate of incarceration of Blacks! It seems that the ruling class believes prisons to be a better alternative to quality public education.

Because the school cutbacks affect the entire working class of California, large mobilizations of teachers, parents, and students could be mounted which would defend public education and win the support of the Joseph Ryan/Socialist Action ose Than majority of people in the state.

Each school could be an organizing center for such mobilizations. Meetings of parents, teachers, students, and the community could be organized at each school site to discuss and organize such mobilizations.

This perspective is, unfortunately, at odds with the view put forth by teachers' union leaders. They seem to expect help and support from Democratic Party legislators who support some combination of retaining Proposition 98 with support to new taxes on working people.

The lion's share of organizing by the teachers' unions thus far centers on lobbying legislators through visits, letters, or petitions-with only limited efforts to mobilize those most directly affected by the proposed cuts.

The demonstration planned for April 3 in Sacramento (scheduled to accomodate the Rainbow Coalition's schedule for Democrat Jesse Jackson) hopefully will mobilize a large outpouring of support for funding public education. But holding it on a school and work day will surely cut down its potential size.

While Jackson has spoken in defense of the schools, he has not offered an indepenWhat if the union.

By LITA BLANC SAN FRANCISCO-On March 19, the auditorium of Lincoln High School filled with most of the 1300 San Francisco teachers who had received layoff notices the previous Friday.

The meeting had been planned by the United Educators of San Francisco (UESF), not as an open forum in which to discuss strategies for fighting the cutbacks, but rather as a meeting to inform teachers of their legal status.

Although Joan-Marie Shelley, president of the UESF, made a brief announcement about the April 3 protest march in Sacramento, she requested speakers to limit themselves to specific questions about the layoffs.

The school district sent out layoff notices to all teachers who had been hired since June 1983 with the intent of actually laying off at least 500.

Certain teachers with credentials in "priority" programs such as bilingual and special education, math, and science were supposedly going to be spared regardless of seniority. Needless to say, there was great anxiety among those present over who was actually going to get the axe.

Teacher after teacher went up to the microphone with questions which revealed the impending tragedy if the budget cuts are allowed to go through.

"Is there any way to know where I rank among the 1300 teachers who got layoff notices?" one asked. "If I lose my Job, I Will have to put my house on the market," said another. "I just completed my two-year probationary period and am supposed to be granted tenure. Which will come first, tenure or layoff?"

Most moving of all, was the teacher who asked what he could do for his of AIDS. Layoff for his friend could mean suspension of all disability and medical benefits.

Can nothing be done? What if the union stressed united action of all teachers against the layoffs? What if the union said, "Our unity is our strength!

All teachers should go to Sacramento on April 3 to show that we will not be divided, one against another."

What if the union organized mass membership meetings to involve all the teachers in a democratic discussion about how to protect public education in California? It seems to me that these would all be positive steps.

dent perspective or program for mounting this defense. His affiliation to the Democratic Party precludes such a defense.

Gov. Wilson is hoping that a divide-andconquer strategy of splitting off support for Proposition 98 from the other public employee unions will work. "Equal sacrifice" is the governor's phony rallying call, and it has had some success with some unions-such as the Service Employees International Union, which calls for suspension of Proposition 98.

What's needed is a true united front of all public employee unions and all those who rely on public services to fight together against the cutbacks.

These services are rights, not privileges. We paid for them. We want them. Our children need them. Join the fight for No Cutbacks!

payers can force the government to fund

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friend who had received a layoff notice and was in an intensive-care unit, dying