Every day brings fresh reports of the chaos that is engulfing Iraq. In the month of October, over 100 U.S. troops were killed, but that is the rate at which Iraqis are dying every day!

In fact, a new study funded by MIT suggests that the total number of Iraqis who have died since the beginning of the war is far higher than the 50,000 figure often cited, most likely around 655,000. This study was based on interviews of households, and estimates how many more Iraqis have died since March 2003 than one would expect without the war.

It is very hard to imagine the level of degradation, fear, and despair that have gripped large areas of Iraq. Sectarian fighting, particularly between Sunnis and Shi’as, is now the biggest cause of death. Ethnic cleansing is rampant in Baghdad, with its diverse population of 7 million. Anybody who can get out is doing so. It is estimated that 40,000 people are fleeing every month to neighboring countries, especially Syria and Jordan (UN, 10/11/06).

The only time the streets of Baghdad are safe is when there is a complete curfew, i.e. when all economic activity is stopped. The occupation authorities are now talking about building a 60-mile moat around the city.

The country’s economy has collapsed. The Financial Times recently commented that “oil production is one half of the pre-war level, while provision of basic services such as water, power, and sewage is below that.” To top it off, the $8 billion earmarked by the U.S. Congress for “reconstruction” has now all been spent, with a large chunk of it going to line the pockets of contractors like Halliburton.

Civil War
The most common description of the political situation in Iraq is that it is a low-intensity ethnic civil war. Now the question is posed, as the country collapses, whether this will lead to all-out civil war.

Socialist Alternative pointed to this as a danger from the start of the U.S. occupation, unless a movement uniting Shi’a, Sunni, and Kurdish workers was built. However, many commentators now present the ethnic violence as the inevitable result of the fall of Saddam’s regime, as though Baathist repression was all that was keeping Iraq’s ethnic groups from trying to destroy each other.

This is simply not the case. In fact, the country had powerful secular nationalist and working-class traditions.

Of course, it is absolutely true that Saddam viciously persecuted the Kurds and the Shi’as and his power base rested on certain Sunni tribes. This helped lay the basis for the current ethnic slaughter.

But it is U.S. imperialism, along with the UN, that massively worsened the conditions of the Iraqi masses, first through the punitive sanctions regime of the ‘90s and now through the occupation. It is the desperate economic conditions created by this onslaught that have fueled the drive to separation from Iraq by Kurds and by some Shi’a looking to grab parts of the country’s oil wealth.

In the wake of the U.S. invasion and the destruction of Saddam’s Baath party, sectarian parties and their associated militias moved rapidly to fill the vacuum. The U.S. encouraged this process by leaning on the Shi’a and Kurdish parties for support and setting up puppet regimes made up of a “balance” of sectarian representatives.

Meanwhile, the Iraqi military and especially the police, trained at U.S. taxpayer expense, have become heavily penetrated by the militias that are running death squads in uniform. Political parties linked to the Shi’a militias now play a decisive role in the government. Ordinary Sunnis have come to see the “insurgency” groups, often viciously sectarian, as their defense against Shi’a death squads.

U.S. Loses Control
All this shows why the idea that still exists in some quarters – that the U.S. shouldn’t leave because it would lead to an even worse disaster – is so false. The occupation is the breeding ground for the all-sided disaster engulfing the Iraqi people.

We have argued from the start that the only alternative to civil war and the break-up of the country is united struggle by Shi’a, Sunni, and Kurdish workers against the occupation, against its puppet government, and against neo-liberal policies. This would also mean setting up multi-ethnic defense forces to halt the sectarian killings.

Unfortunately, this is not what’s happening now. What is the likely short-term perspective? The Al-Maliki government, which took 25 weeks to set up after last January’s elections, now has lost any popular support it had at the start. It has also lost the confidence of its main sponsor, the Bush administration.

As we discuss below, the U.S. establishment is preparing to shift gears in Iraq and is desperately looking for an “exit strategy” to minimize its losses. But the truth is that the U.S. has completely lost control of the situation and that the suffering of the Iraqi people will only increase as long as the occupation continues.

Revolt Against Bush
The Domestic Fallout of the War

The past couple of months have seen a collapse in support for Bush’s conduct of the Iraq war, both from within the elite and in the broader population, although for very different reasons.

Perhaps the most dramatic element of dissent has come from a slew of retired military officers, many of whom are very difficult for the Bush/Rumsfeld/Cheney cabal to dismiss. For example, John Batiste, who led the 1st Infantry Division at the start of the war, declared in late September that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was “not a competent wartime leader” and made “dismal strategic decisions” that “resulted in the unnecessary deaths of American servicemen and women, our allies, and the good people of Iraq.”

Furthermore, there have been a number of devastating assessments, some leaked, from intelligence agencies and currently-serving officers. Most dramatic was the statement of the top British commander in Iraq, Sir Richard Dannatt, who said the presence of British troops was “exacerbating” the situation in Iraq.

Meanwhile, the Iraq Study Group, led by senior Republican and Bush family confidante James Baker, is preparing a report. It is clear that broad sections of the elite have concluded that a “change of course” must be made.

The choices facing the ruling class – partitioning Iraq, removing al-Maliki and putting in a “strongman,” pulling back to bases and letting the civil war unfold, increasing the number of troops, or completely withdrawing – are either politically impossible or deeply unappetizing.

But at the end of the day, Bush and his ruling-class critics share common interests: maintaining corporate profits and the military power that protects those profits. The generals worry that a prolonged occupation could degrade the U.S. military’s capacity to intervene in other parts of the world, for example against movements of working people and peasants seeking fundamental change. At all costs, they seek to avoid a humiliating rout like they suffered in Vietnam.

Working-class Anger
The anger of ordinary working-class Americans about the war proceeds from a fundamentally different standpoint. They know they were lied to about the causes of the war, they are sickened by the number of American casualties, and they don’t feel safer as a result of this occupation of another country.

There is now also evidence of increasing dissent among the troops in Iraq, 218 of whom have appealed directly to members of Congress to end the occupation.

As opposition continues to grow and the situation in Iraq continues to unravel, it is worth considering the broader implications. The debacle in Iraq will come to be seen as a critical turning point in the long-term decline of U.S. imperialism. This will have a massive impact on the consciousness of working-class people.

When combined with the weakening of the economy, the possibility of a deep recession, and Corporate America’s relentless attacks on the wages, benefits, working conditions, and rights of working people, it is clear that a massive storm is building. Anger is now directed at Bush, but soon it will be directed at the whole establishment. It is the task of socialists to intervene and explain the need for fundamental change to get rid of the sick capitalist system, which breeds war and misery.