In a major victory for the international anti-war movement, on March 15 Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, one of the staunchest supporters of the US-led occupation of Iraq, announced that he would begin withdrawing Italy's combat troops from Iraq in September.
Reporting the announcement, CNN observed that the "deployment of the 3000 troops has long been unpopular in Italy and the announcement about the planned withdrawal came as Berlusconi geared up his political campaign for general elections, to be held next [northern] spring.
"Pressure to pull out mounted after the March 4 killing [by US troops] in Baghdad of Italian intelligence agent Nicola Calipari who was escorting a recently released hostage to freedom."
What CNN neglected to mention is that public opposition to Italy's participation in the US-led occupation of Iraq has been galvanised by sustained mass anti-war protest actions.
In the largest anti-war protest anywhere in the world following the March 2003 US-led invasion, on March 20 last year a million demonstrators marched in Rome. Even before the killing of Calipari, on February 19 half-a-million anti-war protesters marched in Rome demanding the withdrawal of Italian troops. A day later, Berlusconi was scrambling to "clarify" that his comments represented "hope" rather than a firm timetable. However, anti-war activists intend to hold him to his promise.
Berlusconi's announcement demonstrates that sustained anti-war protests — provided they mobilise large numbers of people — can force even the most pro-war of governments to back down.
This is an example that should give more confidence to anti-war campaigners in Australia — many of whom have been disheartened by the re-election of PM John Howard's Coalition government and its February 22 announcement that it would double the number of Australian combat troops in Iraq.
As in Italy, public opinion polls have repeatedly shown that the majority of Australians are opposed to the Howard government's support for the US-led occupation of Iraq.
The latest evidence of this was a March 12-13 ACNielsen poll, which showed that, for the first time since last October's federal election, support for the Labor opposition has outstripped support for the Coalition parties. The prime minister himself attributed the slump in support for the government to the "unpopularity" of its decision to send 450 extra Australian combat troops to Iraq.
But unlike in Italy, where the centre-left parliamentary opposition Olive Tree coalition has participated in building the
anti-war protests, here the ALP hasn't since the war began. This has been one of major obstacles to building large anti-war protests in Australia.
While Labor opposed the invasion of Iraq, it has an ambiguous position on the occupation. For most of last year, Labor's foreign affairs spokesperson Kevin Rudd criticised the Howard government for not devoting more resources to training the US-recruited Iraqi security forces — a backhanded endorsement of Washington's project to impose a pro-US puppet regime on the Iraqi people.
Former Labor leader Mark Latham's March 2004 call for Australian troops to be brought home by Christmas that year was welcomed by the anti-war movement, but seemed to catch most of his party by surprise. By the time of the federal election, Labor refused to campaign on this policy position, preferring instead to talk up domestic issues.
Current ALP leader Kim Beazley has come out against sending more Australian troops to Iraq, warning that in doing so the government has begun an open-ended escalation of Australian involvement in the Iraq war. However, speaking on ABC TV's Lateline program on March 16, Rudd refused to commit the ALP to oppose sending more Australian troops to Iraq to "protect" the extra troops Howard has decided to send!
While a number of individual federal Labor MPs — most prominently NSW Senator John Faulkner — and some union leaders including from the construction, maritime and manufacturing workers' unions — have continued to speak out publicly against the war and occupation, and have supported the March 20 protests, the ALP is not interested in giving institutional support to rebuilding the anti-war movement.
This has led to a reluctance of the peace movement's traditional institutional components — the unions and churches — to throw their considerable resources into building the anti-war movement. During the build-up of opposition to the war in Vietnam, the movement relied on this support. It will need to obtain it again if the anti-war movement is to attain the necessary strength to defeat Howard's willingness to send even more Australian troops to Iraq.
From Green Left Weekly, March 23, 2005.
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