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Hope
Out Of Quagmire: New Peace Movement Opportunities
August
12, 2003
By Paul Rogat Loeb
In the glow of the Iraq war's initial military success, most
American peace activists felt profoundly demoralized. Between
the war's portrayal as a glamorous spectacle and Bush's seemingly
overwhelming support, many who'd recently marched by the millions
felt isolated, defensive, and powerless, fearing their voices
no longer mattered.
Now, as Bush's occupation faces a deepening quagmire, shifting
public sentiment opens up major new opportunities for activism.
Just two months ago, the national mood felt so resistant that
it was hard to raise the most cautious dissenting questions.
But polls now suggest the beginning of a very different national
mood, where large numbers of Americans are having significant
doubts. This gives us a chance to challenge the core fallacies
of Bush's foreign policy, revitalize peace movement activism,
and perhaps change our national direction. We can do this
by launching a grassroots campaign to replace the US control
over Iraq with an international transitional authority under
United Nations command - an authority that would control not
only military operations, but also Iraq's political and economic
affairs, including its oil-fields. We can work to transform
a beachhead for American empire into an interim government
that would actually have a shot at bringing democracy.
The shifts in the polls are staggering, even if most peace
activists haven't yet noticed them. Driven by the steady US
casualties in Iraq and continuing chaos, a July Gallup poll
found 43 per cent of Americans believing things are going
badly in Iraq, up from just 13 per cent in early May. In a
mid-July Washington Post-ABC News poll, six in ten of those
surveyed said the war damaged the image of the United States
abroad, half said the conflict permanently damaged US relations
with key allies, and 52 percent considered the level of US
casualties "unacceptable." A Zogby poll around the same time
found 47% actually saying it was time for someone new in the
White House versus 46% who wanted to keep Bush. These shifts
all emerged before Congress's recent questioning of the occupation's
political, economic and human costs.
Before the war, we had a clear goal in trying to stop it.
Once it started, this drastically limited the peace movement's
options. We could bear witness for the future, but it was
hard to influence the war's immediate outcome. Now the landscape
has shifted again, to one far more hospitable toward dissenting
views. Americans are developing significant reservations despite
what until recently has been scant critical media coverage,
minimal questioning by Democratic leaders, and little presence
from the peace movement since late February. If we can begin
coalescing public concern around an alternative to US troops
remaining indefinitely in Iraq, we have a real chance to influence
national debate.
Although the war has created precisely the kind of mess
we predicted, we need to do more than just repeat, "I told
you so." Or gloat about how Bush's imperial dream is unraveling.
It's important to keep pushing on the ways Bush lied to Congress
and the American public. We also need to offer our own vision
of what needs to be done. We can do this by supporting European
initiatives to end US control over Iraq's political and economic
future, and instead place the country under UN charge, policing
it with a multinational force with significant Islamic representation.
To most Iraqis, US troops have become symbols of colonialism
and chaos. The longer they stay, the more they become targets,
and the more Iraqis will resent the US for imposing our will
and grabbing for oil while failing to secure basic needs like
electricity, clean water, and physical safety. Because the
UN represents the entire international community, including
eighteen Arab states, a UN administration, in contrast, would
be far less likely to be seen as a foreign military occupation.
Although the new forces would probably still face some opposition,
both armed and unarmed, they won't be tarred with the same
neocolonial agenda. Iraqis wouldn't view them as simply in
it to dominate their country or project American power. Without
the disruption of a growing armed insurgency, efforts at restoring
basic services, maintaining stability, and setting up a democratic
and representative Iraqi government would be far easier. A
UN Mandate might even allow a similar transition to when UN
forces finally ended Indonesia's bloody occupation of East
Timor and supervised that country's return to democracy.
A shift away from unilateral US control already has broad
potential support. In a late-June Knowledge Network poll,
64% of Americans wanted the UN to take a leadership role in
Iraq, up from 50% in April. Pushing for such a shift will
also let us reach out to American soldiers who are increasingly
frustrated at being given a mission with neither a defined
end nor any clear boundaries between friend and foe. And to
military families angry that they see no clear timetable for
the return of their loved ones. We could contrast Bush's chickenhawk
bluster of "Bring them on," with our own call to "Bring them
Home," and include a vision that demands more than just abandoning
Iraq to chaos.
Ideally, this campaign would be as broad-based as possible,
encouraging citizens to reach out both in our communities
and to elected officials. We'd circulate petitions, table,
canvass, and vigil in local neighborhoods, write letters to
local papers, pass civic resolutions, and resume all the other
kinds of outreach we began so successfully on the eve of the
war. We'd build to more visible rallies and marches. We'd
work to ensure the Iraqi quagmire remains a front-and-center
issue, so the Bush administration can't just move on and ignore
it.
With enough grassroots momentum, we could begin pressuring
key elected officials to take a stand in favor of a shift
to full UN control. Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich
has recently spoken out in favor of major US troop withdrawals.
Howard Dean, John Kerry, and most of the other Democratic
candidates have spoken more generally about the need for greater
UN control. It will take work to get the more conservative
Democrats (and maybe even some independent-minded Republicans)
to follow suit and take as strong a stand as is needed. But
given the shifts in public sentiment, if we muster enough
citizen pressure, at least a few will decide that the political
risk is worth it. We'd want to offer even those who supported
the war the opportunity to say: "I backed Bush in good faith
and I'm glad Saddam Hussein is out. But now the WMD evidence
still hasn't surfaced. We've alienating the rest of the world
by going in alone. And I don't like having been lied to. Since
the Iraqis want us out, it's time to stop putting our brave
young soldiers at risk."
Could this campaign actually force Bush to turn Iraq over
to UN administration? Assuming that the situation continues
to be a morass, Bush will face increasing pressure to cut
his losses, declare victory, and leave. Although some in his
administration are ideologically opposed to any major UN role
whatsoever, with enough pressure and media debate the pragmatist
wing might actually view withdrawal as politically preferable
to facing an election year with American soldiers continuing
to come home from Iraq in body bags.
This raises a difficult question. Is it the job of the peace
movement - or the global community - to help Bush clean up
the mess that he's created? Shouldn't we simply let him stew
in it?
But to stand back and proclaim our own righteousness while
US soldiers and Iraqis continue to needlessly die is a morally
terrible position. It's true that if Bush quickly shifted
Iraq to UN administration, it might raise his re-election
prospects. But it's extremely unlikely that his administration
will readily accede to this demand. Powerful economic, strategic
and ideological motivations led to them to attack this oil-rich
nation to begin with. These motivations make it extremely
unlikely that they'll give up the opportunity to try to control
Iraq's political and economic future without a fight. And
the more they dig in their heels and resist, the more time
the peace movement will have to expose the ways in which this
war was not about bringing freedom and democracy to a long-oppressed
people, but about controlling the future of Iraq's natural
resources and projecting American power in the world. Forcing
the US genuinely to release control over Iraq would be a major
setback for the politics of empire.
Working to bring the troops home will also give us a chance
to address related questions, like the missing WMDs, America's
long tradition of arming dictators, the key role of oil politics,
and the lies and manipulations that fueled our rush to war
- including the notion that we'd be universally hailed as
liberators and the attacks on generals who accurately warned
of massive post-war troop deployments. Raising these issues
will lead to larger questions about the dangers of Bush's
belligerent unilateralism, and the contrast between the four
billion dollars a month he's spending in Iraq and his total
neglect of a sinking domestic economy. The more we succeed
in this task, the more we have a chance to breach Bush's image
as national protector.
If Bush does withdraw after sustained citizen pressure,
his administration will have been significantly tarnished.
And we'll have a major peace movement victory, which will
itself empower further action. A key value of this campaign
would be its ability to help recover activist momentum and
morale - giving people a concrete focus for their actions.
There's a huge reservoir of citizens who became active in
the opposition to the war, but who've since melted back to
private life. If we can get them re-engaged at this point,
they have a chance to become long-term activists. They may
not yet have taken up the particular issue of troop withdrawal,
but that's because most were so demoralized by the war's quick
initial progress and seemingly overwhelming support that they
felt that what happened was totally out of their hands. Now
it isn't. Citizens once again can begin to have a voice, in
a far more potentially receptive environment.
During the countdown to the war, the clock was running against
us. Our movement grew at an amazing pace, but ran out of time
before we could become powerful enough to reverse the administration's
course. Now time should work in our favor. Unless Iraq suddenly
becomes miraculously pacified, the longer our troops are there,
the more casualties they'll take, and the stronger the case
for withdrawal. As we continue to raid houses, round up civilians,
and generally stoke resentment, Iraqi resistance is unlikely
to die down. Bush is already calling for increased military
deployments. Although we'd want to launch a campaign for withdrawal
well before the November 2004 election (to avoid diverting
resources and energy), if we do our work well, it could play
a major role helping unseat George Bush.
If we build sufficiently broad coalitions for this effort,
we have a chance to make a major impact on national debate.
Whether or not we can actually convince the administration
to pursue a wiser course, taking up this issue gives us the
chance to get people moving again, challenge the core politics
of empire, and support policies that would actually make for
a safer world. It gives us the chance once again to do more
than watch from the sidelines as passive spectators.
Paul Loeb, is the author of Soul of a Citizen: Living
With Conviction in a Cynical Time, and board chair of Peace
Action of Washington. See www.soulofacitizen.org
for more information. For a more detailed version of how a
shift to UN control could proceed, see here.
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