Iraq and a hard case. posted by Richard Seymour

While the Prime Minister is exposed as a bloodlusty bastard who "relished" first blood in Iraq, and while Iraqi refugees are sent back to that haven of tranquility, it is worth noting that for the first time a clear majority of Americans want the troops withdrawn immediately. The greatest bulk of that anti-occupation feeling is, of course, among Democrat voters who will not fail to be disappointed by the spineless leadership of their preferred party. An even bigger majority doesn't want any more money spent on Iraq (so how exactly are the troops to stay if you won't spend any money on keeping them there?), and the biggest majority - a supermajority of 90% - oppose cutting domestic spending to pay for the war in Iraq. Like FEMA, levee-construction, that sort of thing...

The demand to withdraw troops from Iraq has commanded a majority in Britain for quite some time, but it seems that plans to withdraw some of the troops have been shelved, although as I noted before this was never the beginning of wholesale withdrawal.

What of Iraqis? There has been an anti-occupation majority in Iraq for some time as well. However, this has no started to percolate up into members of the Iraqi puppet reg - ahem! - government. On Thursday, the National Sovereignty Committee, composed of 18 members of the National Assembly, declared that it wanted the occupiers to set a timetable for withdrawal. And it described the occupying forces - for the first time - as occupying forces. Not much chance of that, with the US building huge new prisons and permanent bases across Iraq (as well as elsewhere).

Why on earth would Bush pull out? American capital is raking it in off reconstruction and reparation contracts, while the US is expanding its military reach in the most crucial zones of geopolitical contest. The US economy also gets a boost from a bit of military Keynesianism (although it is interesting that Bush's poll numbers on the economy are worse than those on Katrina). And the example of Iraq was supposed to demonstrate America's extraordinary power to the rest of the world, particularly China - can't very well be seen to be wimping out, can we? One doesn't expect Iraq's new colonial administrators to make things difficult for their paymasters, guarantors and securitors. The US Embassy will 'advise' them of the grotesque error involved in making a big fuss about it, and they will largely comply (or be assassinated). So, the liberation of Iraq resides in the hands of the resistance, both armed and unarmed, and in the international antiwar movement.

Hence, September 24th.