Rapprochement: it's time for negotiations. posted by Richard Seymour

David Clark, a former advisor to the Labour government, prescribed his solutions for re-uniting a "divided left" in The Guardian the other day. Leaving aside the fact that there really isn't much of a division, except that which persists for a small number of liberal anti-intellectuals some of whom are gravitating toward neoconservatism, I have a better plan. Clark suggests all sorts of irrelevancies that appear to address some of the qualms and complaints of the pro-war Left: perhaps the antiwar movement should be more robust in eschewing cultural relativism, perhaps we should be clearer in asserting the superiority of parliamentary democracy, perhaps we should be more nuanced and less Manichean, and perhaps we shouldn't be so mean about President Bush. The truth is that the hysterical shrieking from some of the pro-war liberals on these themes is symptomatic of, and therefore a displacement of, the more fundamental disagreement, which is unlikely to be overcome. This accounts for the curious recursion and exponentialism in their arguments - each stupid, petty point leads to a hundred other miniscule sulks, misrepresentations and so on.

However, in some ways, there ought to be consensus on Iraq at the moment, and if there isn't then one has to be established. It seems to me that the best way to proceed in this is to begin with the obvious. If we can't agree on that, then we're not going to agree on anything that it might entail. Those who were purblind enough to have thought that the US invading Iraq would lead to peace, freedom and prosperity need not be forced to plead guilty, repent and beg forgiveness - they just have to acknowledge the glaringly apparent.

To begin with, the prodigal lefties will have to start by acknowledging that however much they may want the troops to stay in Iraq, Iraqis do not want them there. By every possible means available to them, Iraqis have registered this. In demonstrations, in the January elections, in repeated opinion polls, and in the growing support for the resistance - both passive and active. This is not opinion in flux, it is rock-solid consensus. And if you are advocating the military invasion and occupation of Iraq on behalf of oppressed and humiliated Iraqis, you really ought to pay attention when they tell you that they feel oppressed and humiliated by the occupation. Okay? That ought to be simple enough. If you still insist on telling them that they must put up with the occupation, then you are obliged to explain how you still have the needful Iraqis at heart, and you cannot complain about being called an imperialist, and you certainly can't associate yourself with the left. A withdrawal, as soon as is practicable (rather than expedient) is what Iraqis desire, and it should be decided upon now. So much is obvious.

The next thing is that an occupied people has a right to resist their occupation. Not only is this a legal right , but it is - at least for the left - a political right. Occupiers don't knock, and don't seek an invite - they kick the door down and shoot the place up. The occupied are entitled to undertake all necessary means to evict the invader armies, and those means include military means. In particular, the Iraqis have the right to resist this occupation, the cited one, the one we've been arguing about. Well, why not? Hasn't it been brutal enough for you yet? Regardless of exactly how many deaths, civlian and otherwise, that you lay directly at the door of the occupiers, isn't it obvious that it is too many? And have not the occupying forces repeatedly and persistently announced that, regardless of what Iraqis desire or require, they are there to stay and will not set a timetable for withdrawal? Are we not supposed to notice that when Saddam murders, tortures, rapes and imprisons his population - with or without Western assistance - resistance is heroic, yet when the occupiers mimic all of this resistance is impudent? You can hide if you like behind the chimeric notion that the resistance is composed largely of Baathists and Al Qaeda affiliates, but that's going back to the avoidance of the obvious, and the success of our negotiations relies upon your foreswearing that practise. What is empirically established by most measures available is that the resistance by and large does not target civilians - there is a sectarian element whose strategy centres around the targetting of civilians, but the resistance is dealing with them. The bulk of the resistance, as the CIA itself admits, is nationalist, domestic and emerges from anger at the brutalities of the occupation. This is a legitimate resistance based on a nationalist rejection of foreign occupation, it expresses the hostility of Iraqis to the occupations in both armed and unarmed ways, it is growing, increasingly popular and deserves your support. If the desires and requirements of Iraqis is really what motivates you, then you have to support both military and non-military efforts to get the occupiers out of Iraqi towns and villages, where they have already killed enough. So much is apparent.

Remaining strictly with the obvious, if you are as delighted that Saddam is to be tried for war crimes as you say you are (and there is every reason why he should be), then you have to support efforts to try those who are committing war crimes in Iraq right now. International law is notoriously slippery, and I don't like appealing to it, but if you appeal to the law in dealing with one war criminal, then others merit similar consideration. By which I mean to say, if you merely wanted to see Saddam beheaded or lynched in Firdos Square, then consistency would have Blair hung over the Tyburn and Bush electrocuted in Ricky Ray Rector's chair. Sticking with the law, however, there are clear grounds for trying those who decided to invade Iraq, since Kofi Annan has expressed the clear view that the invasion of Iraq was illegal, and since it proceeded without the authorisation of the UN Security Council. There is an argument over the interpretation of past and present resolutons, but this matter will be for Bush and Blair's lawyers to elaborate on in court. Those who authorised the use of White Phophorus, which we now know the US considers a chemical weapon and therefore banned, and also thermobaric explosives, must also face trial. Those who authorised the occupation of one hospital in Fallujah and the bombing of another should be in the docks with them, as should those who authorised the destruction of electricity and water supplies. The use of torture also invites investigation and judgement up to the highest echelons of government. Also, there is no need to temporally delimit ourselves. If you agree that Saddam should be tried for crimes committed in 1982, then we have a duty to see those who helped murder El Salvador and Nicaragua tried, as well as those who perpetuated the slaughter in Haiti and who ordered the invasion of Panama. Those generals who authorised the destruction of the civilian infrastructure in 1991 should also be before the docks. And those who participated in the 'turkey shoots' will have a charge to answer to as well. We can also include Clinton and those officials who ordered various bombings throughout the 1990s. It's going to be some trial process as broad as it is long, but there is no sarcasm here: if you are serious about using international law to punish war crimes, then we have to make a start with this. And that, too, is obvious.

And one last thing: don't ever try anything this stupid again. Learn your lesson. If you find yourself banking on the power of brute imperialism to emancipate oppressed people, then you will have no right to run away from your guilt and shame when you see to what uses this military might is put to, and what prerogatives the imperialists really pursue. If it isn't nosebleedingly manifest to you by now that you cannot rely upon amoral centres of power to dispense justice and dispose of the tasks of the left, then you may as well forget it, take the blue pill and subside into an early senescence. Just as there is no longer any excuse to be supporting the occupation of Iraq, there is no longer the option of entrusting the lives of the oppressed with agents who are manifestly unconcerned about oppression, since they themselves perpetuate it daily. There never really was that excuse available, but now you have had as stark a warning as you could ask for.

I stress that all of the above is as epistemically apparent as the most banal observations in politics and life in general. Since agreement cannot be based on lies, these elementary facts ought to be acknowledged. Supposing they are, everything else is up for discussion.