Volume 6, No. 4, April 2005

In a nut shell, elections were held as a politics to serve the interests of military occupation in Iraq. The US orchestration of the great fraud on the Iraqi people also included dumb UN dancers dancing to the tune of clanking US guns. The bullets overshadowed the whole exercise. With thousands of dead bodies littered in the streets of Fallujah the threat to the Iraqi people was unambiguous: either bow down or get ready to be mowed down. The US had declared in September 2004 that the Fallujah operation was to prepare the way for the "peaceful" February elections in Iraq. And the month long operation was carried out with "precision"; with pulverization of most of the city after forcing the whole of its population out and killing thousands who could not or did not want to leave their homes. All dead were declared terrorists, a name for the resistance fighters who want their country liberated and dignity of its people restored; no non-combatants, no civilians. The city was rendered a pile of rubble. No one remained even to cremate the dead. No one was allowed to do the counting. Even hospitals were cannoned. Only American ghosts walked the city streets. After Fallujah three more cities were surrounded and heavy bombing conducted to terrorize the population. As the elections must be conducted in a peaceful environment so a lot of destruction by the occupiers was the need.

And Bush declared that the elections were a success, that the people exercised their democratic right to vote without any coercion and fear. That democracy, coming along with fire and bombs out of the barrels of guns, was declared victorious and thus American occupation legitimized. First they said 72 % of voters exercised their franchise, then the figure slid down to 61%, and after a few more days they talked of 40-45% voting. No independent observers were allowed. The UN observers repeated what the US generals barked out. God save the democratic crusaders! Free Arab Voice, an independent website which keeps a record of the daily events in Iraq, says there are 36 towns and cities, mostly in central Iraq, under the virtual control of resistance fighters. The US army dreads to enter the cities or walk on the streets. Whenever it enters the cities it is given cover by aircrafts and helicopters and the ‘brave’ soldiers of the empire remain caged in their armoured vehicles. The footwork is done by the foot soldiers provided by the interim authority of Iyad Allawi. That is why the US suffers "fewer" casualties than expected, and mainly the collaborators take the brunt of the resistance fighters making ordinary Iraqis pay with their blood for the crimes of the imperialist armies.

Where there are about two hundred attacks daily on the occupation forces and their collaborators, spies and foot soldiers, and when a sizable section of the population sides with the resistance movement the figure of even 40% is doubtful without doubt. Yet in an occupied country no percentage is of any significance when it comes to the justness of the cause, the cause of liberation.

A people who sacrificed more than a million in ten years in the strangulating sanctions cannot forget the death of there near and dear ones, and especially the death of half a million of their small sons and daughters. No façade of democracy or a pseudo sense of deliverance from a dictator can make them run to a bigger despot and destroyer under any illusion. Especially, when the sense of being subjugated has overpowered them and thousands and thousands among them have taken to arms to launch a war of liberation from the wicked imperialist colonisers. The US generals estimate that nearly 70 thousands of Iraqis are engaged in guerrilla activities, including either part time or full time. And there are millions who cooperate with the liberation fighters, helping them in various ways from supplying arms, food, funds, shelters, information and all sorts of other logistics. The exercise in the ballot in such circumstances have only a hundred and one percent chance of backfiring in spite of all the hype about voting percentage and the real efforts aimed at dividing the population on sectarian lines. The objectivity of occupation has all the potential to bind together the subjugated and oppressed masses for defeating the conspiracies to divide and rule. And the objectivity of Iraq has all the potential for such a unifying force in spite of deep fissures that the US imperialists are trying to create. Let us have a look.

The day the American forces left the city of Fallujah it again became a dreaded city. The resistance fighters came back along with the returning residents. The US forces had wanted to control the rebellious city with mass scale extermination and destruction. When Fallujah was attacked dozens of other cities saw a surge in attacks on the American forces centered in Central Iraq. Even a few of the predominantly Shia cities in the South also witnessed some sporadic attacks on US and other occupying forces. Yet the upsurge in guerilla activity in the south and inside Shia districts of Baghdad was not of the magnitude it was during the uprising led by the Iraqi Shia leader Muqatada al Sadr, whose Mehdi Army had put up a stiff resistance during the month of April and May 2004. Al Sadr’s call to destroy or drive away the "infidels" from Iraq had seen a great upsurge among the Shia cities of Najaf, Karbala and also the poor Shia al Sadr city of Baghdad. He called on all the Iraqi people to fight till all the invaders are destroyed or forced to flee. It was also well responded to, in Central Sunni cities. And one could remember the 1920s Iraqi rebellion against the British when both Shia and Sunni fighters fought the British army joining hands and shoulders with each other. Such a kind of national unity and fighting spirit in both the major sects of Islam is the last thing the US occupiers would want. The Sunni population of Iraq and all the anti-impoerialist forces around the world celebrated this fighting unity among Shias and Sunnis in Iraq. This raised Ali Sistani’s eyebrows who was working on directives from Iran only to ward off a US invasion on Iran as Sistani is not an Iraqi but an Iranian Shia. The other thing he wanted to have and still wants is an Islamic "revolution" in Iraq.

He became part of the US effort to isolate Saddam during the latter’s last months and enrolled his support for the US invasion of Iraq. It was his factor the US had considered when it had declared before the invasion that the US army would be received in Iraq with welcome arms and dancing crowds. But the US viciousness of the US attack was so great, and also as was no change in the position of the US that Iran is part of the "axis of evil", Sistani and his followers neither opposed not nor actively supported the US invasion and wanted Saddam to be toppled as he was considered the enemy of Iran. Sadr does not like his Iranian connection and that is why he called on all the Iraqis to fulfill their patriotic duty when his forces fought with the US. But when he was caught in a precarious situation inside the holy shrine in Najaf the US used Ali Sistani to neutralize and bail him out and so make him indebted to Sistani’s "kindness" and US’ mercy. The US struck a deal with Muqtada al Sadr with the help of Grand Ayatollah Ali al Sistani when Sadr was trapped. Sadr’s Army reluctantly gave in when he called for a ceasefire with the US and other occupying forces. Though there was no let up in the fight against US occupiers in the Sunni areas. When Fallujah was being quarantined and attacked soon after the agreement with Sadr he did not give a call to fight side by side with other Iraqis and kept quiet. Earlier too his fight with the US was for a honourable representation in the post occupation dispensation and not for driving the US out. In this way the US succeeded in neutralizing the Sadr forces. Whatever support the Fallujah resistance got from the Shia strongholds came from Shia forces other than the followers of Sistani or Sadr, from those who are secular and patriotic. In the February elections Sistani’s United Iraqi Alliance collaborated in the US fraud while Sadr neither fought nor boycotted the elections. In this way, the US, for the time being, has succeeded in creating a wedge in the Iraqi nation as well as the Shia community.

But it is too early to come to a definite conclusion about the Shia Community falling behind the US designs. Not all the Shias have participated in the election process. Even Sistani, who wants to have an Islamic revolution on Iraq may get caught in a very odd situation when and if the US carry on the threat to invade Iran, for which it has an evil eye since the times the puppet Shah of Iran was overthrown by the Islamic revolution in 1979. And Sadr may also be forced to join the liberation forces of Iraq as it is quite clear that US is not willing to yield much leverage for the Sadr faction. The US’s overall intention is to occupy Iran too and control the whole of Middle East for itself and its Zionist lap dog Israel. Sadr is considered an impediment in this scheme. The worst thing the US can work for is the dismantling of the state of Iraq divi-ding it into three parts: Kurdish North, Sun-ni Central and the Shia South. This is not easy given the Turkish opposition to an indep-endent Kurdish state. And another Shia state bordering Iran would be a game with unseen dangerous repercussions and a gamble which Saudi Arabia too resents.

The Kurds in Iraq have been betrayed by the US time and again. The forces which are now collaborating with the US are those of Jalal Talabani who has been having close links with Iran for many decades against the regime of Saddam Hussain. The destruction of the revolutionary movement of the Kurdish Workers Party, led by Abdullah Ocalan in Turkey’s Kurdish areas and a part of Iraq, is still afresh in the minds of the Kurd nation that spans five countries of the region. Ocalan is out of the scene but the nationalist aspirations of the Kurdish people remain. The Talabani forces, collaborating with US imperialism do not command much influence among the Kurds of Iraq. Though the Kurds have voted overwhelmingly in the recent elections but it does not reflect that all are for US domination after the demise of Saddam Hussain. The Talabani collaborators had long abandoned the nationalist cause and lived in Iran for most part of their existence. Now US domination will only bring the Kurdish masses round to the understanding that they cannot rely on another oppressor to get rid of the one. The imperialist US behaviour has nothing rational as per the aspirations of the Kurdish nation. It is only using one faction against the other.

Total control of the region by the US is already facing stiff resistance from the Iraqis, both Sunni and Shia, the people of Palestine, the masses in Syria and the Arab masses in general. and the situation is quite explosive and fraught with doom for the US policies of domination and war against the peoples and nations of the region and of the world. The Iraqi resistance has already stalled the further advance of US forces. They are, in essence, fighting in the forefront of the people of the Middle East while the US is entangled in its own web. These are not the times when nations will tolerate occupation for long, as has been the case in the past when centuries elapsed before powerful liberation struggles came on to the center stage. The times have changed. US calculations in Iraq went into disarray the time it declared in May 2003 that the main war was over in Iraq. In fact the real war had just started at that time and body bags of American soldiers started arriving to the US mainland marring the celebrations there. The guerilla warfare in cities has never been fought with such ferocity in the past. Iraqi people are writing a glorious chapter in the annals of liberation war.

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