Between war and peace
JEREMY CORBYN argues that a century of chaos and war awaits unless we change tack.
ON WEDNESDAY, Parliament will be debating policy in Iraq and the Middle East. It is an issue surrounded by huge controversy, yet the government is so confident of its own position that it hasn't even dared to put down a parliamentary motion outlining what its strategy actually is.
Instead, it has retreated into the dishonourable practice of tabling a motion "for the adjournment" of the House. However, the Stop the War group of MPs will be pressing for a procedural vote at the end of the debate in order to show our disagreement with government policy - exactly the same tactic that was used in the famous Norway debate in 1940, which became a vote of confidence in prime minister Neville Chamberlain.
Last Monday, a new "high" was reported from Iraq. More people had died from car bombs in one day than at any time in the previous year.
One hundred people were killed in two separate bomb attacks on markets in Baghdad and Baquba. This tragic carnage was wreaked on very poor people trying to buy second-hand clothes and goods in the Haraj Street market.
On the same day, 3,200 extra US troops arrived in Baghdad to start the Bush-inspired deployment to "clear" the outer suburbs of that benighted city.
Last Saturday, the US lost 25 soldiers in one day. It was the third highest casualty figure suffered by US forces in a day since the invasion.
So, the bloody events of last Saturday alone created over 150 new grieving family members in the US and Iraq.
Aid workers have also drawn attention to the wholly understandable flight of Iraqis to neighbouring countries and to western Europe as they seek safety and security.
The United Nations High Commission for Refugees calculates that, since the 2003 invasion, 1 million Iraqis have fled to Syria, 700,000 to Jordan, over 20,000 to Egypt and 40,000 to the Lebanon. Within Iraq itself, there are 1.7 million internally displaced people.
In total, therefore, Iraqis have lost more than half a million dead in this dreadful conflict and nearly 3 million people have been uprooted.
The only response that George Bush seems able to offer to this unfolding tragedy is to send in more troops. In the case of Tony Blair, the response has simply been to pretend that the current strategy is working.
Parliament has a very obvious duty to debate these issues but it also has a responsibility to assert its authority and to return to the issue of the Prime Minister's war-making powers, which effectively allow him to override the will of the people.
Interestingly, in the US, Senator Edward Kennedy is proposing an extension of the War Powers Act to prevent the US President even increasing troop deployment without the authority of both houses of Congress.
However, we should be cautious of the US congressional opposition to the war. John Kerry lost the last election in part because he was incapable of presenting a clear alternative to Bush.
He initially supported the war, before deciding that he was for a troop reduction, but he was very unclear about his long-term strategy. Bush, on the other hand, was incredibly clear on his strategy, which was to pour in more troops and to continue the war and all its carnage while dressing this up as some kind of patriotic duty.
Hilary Clinton, who is bidding for the US presidency, is in danger of falling into exactly the same trap. She supported the war and went to great efforts to pursue photo opportunities with US soldiers in Iraq, calling for the successful prosecution of the war.
She has only latterly raised the question of US withdrawal and, quite correctly, drawn attention to the Vietnam parallel. Meanwhile, opinion poll opposition to the war in the US is growing very fast and huge demonstrations are planned to continue to put pressure on the political establishment.
The underlying neoconservative argument for US policy on Iraq and the whole region, which is, to some extent, echoed in London, is that Iran is at the centre of all of the problems in the region and that Iranian support for Hezbollah in the Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine is proof of Tehran's destabilising influence.
The plan for UN sanctions against Iran will probably not prove very effective, apart from sending a political message of belligerence towards the people of Iran.
In fact, there is mounting opposition to Washington's strategy on Iran in the US, including from many senators.
West Virginia Democratic Senator John D Rockefeller IV, who has taken control of the Senate intelligence committee, said that he was concerned that the administration knew or understood very little about the internal dynamic of Iran or its intentions in the Middle East.
"To be quite honest, I am a little concerned that it's Iraq again," he said, referring to the events of 2003, when Washington claimed that there were weapons of mass destruction in the country.
The hostile strategy towards Iran is bizarre. It has had the perverse effect of preventing wholly legitimate criticism of the human rights record of the Iranian regime and encouraging a sense of national unity against a common enemy.
The terrible danger of a war in Iran will also once again deflect international opinion away from one of the great tragedies of the 20th and 21st centuries - the people of Palestine.
Not only do Palestinians suffer from unemployment levels of around 70 per cent and, in the case of Gaza, some of the greatest poverty on the planet, they also suffer from Israeli incursions and civil strife as military factions square up to each other.
This is, in part, the result of the failure of the international community to recognise the result of Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2005 and instead trying to punish Palestinians for electing a party that the West does not like.
This, in turn, has encouraged a dangerous fault line in the whole region, as Egypt and Saudi Arabia show general sympathy towards Fatah and Iran and Syria do the same towards Hamas.
Wednesday's debate in our House of Commons provides an opportunity for the government to set out some serious rethinking of our whole policy.
Britain's obsessive pursuit of the neocon strategy since 2001 has led to British deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan, huge military expenditure and draconian anti-libertarian legislation within our society.
Unless we address the fundamental causes of conflict and instability in the Middle East, then the carnage of Iraq will result in its meltdown and will spread instability to all its neighbours.
For the past six years, foreign policy has been the major determinant in British politics. It is now the same in the United States.
The choice is simple - we either engage with the rest of the world positively or march roughshod into the 21st century, provoking more wars, more carnage and more death.
I choose peace by engagement, understanding and the elimination of poverty and distress.
• Jeremy Corbyn is Labour MP for Islington North. He can be contacted at corbynj@parliament.uk
