Stand back and let us show you how it's done

Mary am Namazie has just about nailed it. As the situation in Iraq grows increasingly desperate, it becomes clearer and clearer that the best way to prevent the situation from spiraling completely out of control, into an open civil war that will involve tens of thousands of deaths (if not more) is working-class action. It is possible that the American and Iraqi forces could militarily defeat the Islamist insurgency and the moderately better Shiite thugs. It's possible.

But it seems much more possible that a popular resistance against those forces could rob them of most of their power, isolate them, and crush them. The cautious, bourgeois-democratic solution has been, at best, a mixed blessing, at worst, a failure. As glad as freedom-loving people and most Iraqis are to see Saddam deposed, the most generous thing one can say about the Americans is that we’re all opening flourish, no follow up. I feel certain than many American soldiers went to Iraq with the best intentions and that many have risked their lives to improve and save those of people they do not know. That's commendable, but their actual ability to have any real impact on this situation at this point seems increasingly limited.

All paths lead back to the workers. If they can get together, they can save Iraq. If not, the best outcome is a low-grade, contained civil conflict that would probably end in Iraq divided three ways between a Kurdish democratic state with some serious problems, a Sunni Arab hellhole and another Ayatollacracy in the Shiite south. The Americans could have prevented that, they didn't, and now it's up to the workers to stop it if anybody can.

Serious socialists outside Iraq need to quit debating the rights and wrongs of the invasion, and start doing their best to support the Iraqi workers. They need money, they need moral support, and they need us to put political pressure on our governments to give them assistance if possible. Personally, I'm not even really sure where to start, but it seems like the only solution.

The liberation of the working-class will be achieved by the working-class themselves. Or, in other words, "Stand back and let us show you how it's done."