Someone else posted an article by Greg Palast
Bush Didn’t Bungle Iraq, You Fools
THE MISSION WAS INDEED ACCCOMPLISHED
http://www.gregpalast.com/printerfriendly.cfm?artid=483

And what did the USA want Iraq to do with Iraq’s oil? The answer will surprise many of you: and it is uglier, more twisted, devilish and devious than anything imagined by the most conspiracy-addicted blogger. The answer can be found in a 323-page plan for Iraq’s oil secretly drafted by the State Department. Our team got a hold of a copy; how, doesn’t matter. The key thing is what’s inside this thick Bush diktat: a directive to Iraqis to maintain a state oil company that will “enhance its relationship with OPEC.”

Enhance its relationship with OPEC??? How strange: the government of the United States ordering Iraq to support the very OPEC oil cartel which is strangling our nation with outrageously high prices for crude.

Specifically, the system ordered up by the Bush cabal would keep a lid on Iraq’s oil production — limiting Iraq’s oil pumping to the tight quota set by Saudi Arabia and the OPEC cartel.

I agree with your distinction between individual Democrats (the rank and file, an overwhelming majority of whom are antiwar and anti-Empire) and the Democratic leadership. I think a lot of what you say about class and capitalism is true, but I don’t think it’s quite as simple as you say. The majority of our politicians are acting out of their immediate self-interest, rather than any class interest. And there are a few, like Cynthia McKinney and Lynn Woolsey, who act out of principle.

It’s our job to make it easier for the McKinneys and Woolseys, and even the Pauls and Joneses, to act on their principles, and to make it more difficult for the Clintons and Bidens. I’ve heard the political elite is targeting Lynn Woolsey in her primary, as they did McKinney in 2002. We need to support Lynn as best we can, but more importantly, I think Clinton would be vulnerable in her primary if challenged by someone of the stature of Cindy Sheehan or Ralph Nader. Lots of Republicans would cross over just because they hate Hillary. If you have contact with Sheehan, Nader or other well-known names, please encourage one of them to challenge a conservative Democrat in a primary.

For a more thorough explanation of my thinking on this, please see http://antiwarleague.net/blog/index.php?itemid=22

I agree with you that the US has painted itself into a corner and no way will it bomb Iran because one would see a uniting of Iran and Iraq for the occasion. But also at the same time the US would have not been able to put one foot into Iraq if Iran had not aided and abetted the US. So one could assume that the US must have initially promised Iran something for their collaboration.

Muqtada la Sadr was very careful in not helping out the people in Fallujah as it is not really in his political interests to do so - to me this is a sign of political pramatism before humanitarianism. And in the case of Nejafe although hundreds of his ‘followers’ he took there died - he still remains alive because he is part of the fundamentalist team.

From my sources many Iraqis are waking up to him. And many Iraqi Shiite people loathe him.

Like you have said the US should immediately withdraw and leave the Iraqis to determine their own destiny. But sadly,their struggle will now will be more difficult by the Iran intrusion into Iraq.

I wish we could just build our own superior social structure in the empty spaces of the current system, and make it so much better that everyone else wants to drop the old system and embrace the better one. But I don’t see the Big Shots giving up their power without violence.

How do we dismantle a violent system without using violence?

As for exit strategies….my wife grabs me and pulls me away whenever she hears someone use this term for fear i am going to ‘go off’. It is pure western paternalism. Those dumb ass natives will devolve into anarchy without our guidance. (anarchy, like in New Orleans I guess). The likes of trolls like Marc Cooper jabber on about responsible and viable exit strategies — which is just an apology for continued occupation. Colonial occupation….Imperial occupation.
Good work Goff.

“Doesn’t it register that right now the Democrat leadership is still supporting the war, even talking about expanding it, even when the majority now opposes it? ”

I suspect that a fairly large number of Democrats have NEVER supported the war. THey were/are simply too gutless to stand up and oppose it, or, as silly as this sounds, they don’t know how to. Even now, when people like Hilary Clinton call for more troops it is only because she knows it won’t happen and she is betting on reaping the benefits of moving to the right.

The Democratic leadership (if such a thing exists) has chosen to sit back and let this train wreck happen on its own.

After the invasion of Afghanistan there were many options and plans for what could be done next to make America more secure. Your argument that invading or otherwise taking over Iraq was a rational and attractive option for the ruling class makes no sense to me.

If I were American I would be a Democrat (albeit an unhappy one), and with all due respect, I could not take seriously anyone trying to lump me in with the republicans.

RM

Maximalism is a tactical error in activism wherein groups attempt to impose or promote a complete, comprehensive political program (often unintelligible to those who are unititated in leftist ideas) at every event.

Crisis of accumulation is a reference to the whole system of capitalism, which cycles into repeated crises based on the dynamics of a tendency of the rate of profit to fall, of the changing ratio between total commodities produced and the number of human laborers required to “valorize” that capital (organic composition of capital is the Marxian term), and — as we are seeing more and more — the depletion of the “resouces” required for “development.”

No way to explain it in detail in a comment-section, but if you google up the terms “crisis af accumulation,” “organic composition of capital,” and so forth, it’s relatively easy to find very good descriptive peices about capitalist accumulation and crisis.