US President George Bush used a January 10 "address to the nation" to declare that 2007 will be another year of war. His decision to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq — despite opposition from the overwhelming majority of people in the US, including sections of the military — indicates his government's arrogance, and its unwillingness to learn any lessons from history.
Last year's mid-term congressional elections, which gave the US Democrats majorities in both houses, clearly indicated majority opinion in the US: a war-weary population wants the troops out of Iraq. Most no longer believe that the US is bringing peace and democracy to Iraq. This is backed up by a recent CNN poll indicating that only one in 10 people in the US support sending more troops to Iraq, and fewer than one-third support the war.
That sentiment has even found resonance in some of the US top brass. General John Abizaid, senior commander in Iraq and the region, told the Senate Armed Services Committee at the end of 2006: "I met with every divisional commander, General Casey, the Corps commander, General Dempsey ... And I said ... if we were to bring in more American troops now, does it add considerably to our ability to achieve success in Iraq? And they all said no."
Despite this, Bush is set to launch even deeper into the quagmire, including continuing to threaten Iraq's neighbours Iran and Syria.
There are parallels with Vietnam. It was in April 1970 that President Richard Nixon decided to escalate the war by invading Cambodia. Nixon, Lyndon Johnson and Gerald Ford all stuck to the "Vietnamisation" strategy, arguing that US troops had to stay to train south Vietnamese troops to take control of their country.
The same argument is being put by the warmongers today: more US troops are needed in Iraq to train Iraqi security forces to set up a "democratic" — read "US compliant" — state. Only then can the US contemplate leaving. This strategy, as in Vietnam, is not working.
More than 650,000 Iraqis, mostly civilians, have been killed during the last four years of war. At least 3018 US troops and just over 100 British troops have also died. The Iraqi economy has been shattered, with its assets sold off to US multinational corporations. Its peoples have been increasingly pitted against each other.
Predictably, PM John Howard, one the few remaining "coalition of the willing" partners, is enthusiastically backing Bush's escalation of the war, and has refused to rule out sending more Australian troops. British PM Tony Blair, under serious pressure from the anti-war movement, is now talking about scaling down British troop levels there.
The US anti-war movement has called a major protest in Washington on January 27 to oppose the increase in troop numbers. The anti-war movement in Australia has to rise to the challenge and use this election year, and Bush's visit to Australia for the APEC summit in September, to make a serious push to hold the Coalition government to account.
The movement must also make clear that it expects the ALP opposition, led by Kevin Rudd, to stick to its promise to remove Australian troops if elected to federal government. Getting Australian troops out of Iraq will be politically important, as it will deepen the pressure on Washington and assist the movement to hasten the departure of the US occupation forces.
Politicians may not learn from history, but the movements should. The anti-war movement mounted the biggest ever protest against the war before it started; four years later it must creatively engage with this broad anti-war constituency to better voice its opposition, and force the politicians to account for their criminal war.
For our part, Green Left Weekly will do all we can to build up the movement to point where it is strong enough to end the war on Iraq.