International Socialists

Eric Ruder

People who oppose Bush’s war drive are rightly fed up with its arrogance – the White House’s determination to have its war, no matter what the rest of the world thinks. But some in the anti-war movement believe that activists need to support a call for UN weapons inspections in Iraq as an alternative to the Bush war drive. This is a mistake for several reasons.

First, calling for weapons inspections only promotes the idea that the US war has anything to do with disarming Iraq or stopping the spread of “weapons of mass destruction.”

The US government wants to dominate the Middle East, control Iraq’s huge oil reserves and send a message that any nation that flouts Washington will be punished. Weapons inspections are secondary. “US policy is that, regardless of what the inspectors do, the people of Iraq and the people of the region would be better off with a different regime in Baghdad,” said Secretary of State Colin Powell last year.

Second, the call for inspections is not an alternative to war. It’s the US government’s main rationale for war. Behind the call for “aggressive” and “intrusive” inspections is an attempt by the US and Britain to make it impossible for Iraq to comply – and provide the grounds for military action.

This sets up a Catch-22. If Iraq says that it has chemical or biological weapons, that’s grounds for war. But if Iraq says that it has no weapons, that’s also grounds for war.

The manipulation of the UN weapons inspectors is nothing new for Washington. In fact, US officials have become quite skilled at it. In 1998, the US staged a confrontation between inspectors and Iraqi officials, then withdrew the inspectors and blamed Iraq for “expelling” them – a lie that the mainstream media repeats to this day.

In 1999, Washington was forced to admit that it had used weapons inspections teams as spies to gather intelligence on targets in Iraq – information that it used during its bombing raids in December 1998.

Rolf Ekeus, head of the UN weapons inspections in Iraq from 1991 to 1997, came forward in July last year to substantiate these claims yet again. “[Security Council members] pressed the inspection leadership to carry out inspections which were controversial from the Iraqis’ point of view, and thereby created a blockage that could be used as a justification for a direct military action,” said Ekeus.

Anti-war activists who call for inspections would find themselves in a compromised position if the US succeeds – as it very well could - in getting the UN to endorse a war based on Iraq’s “unwillingness to cooperate with inspections.”

But there’s a more fundamental reason to steer clear of this demand. What right do the US and Britain have to determine which countries can and can’t possess weapons of mass destruction? After all, Israel has a far bigger arsenal of such weapons – including nuclear weapons. So why doesn’t the US bomb Israel? Because Washington – which itself has the world’s largest arsenal of weapons of mass destruction – only sees these weapons as a problem in the hands of its enemies.

The US government has many times used the UN as a cover for carrying out its imperial aims. The UN isn’t an anti-war alternative to the Bush gang – but a tool in the hands of the US government. Our movement has to expose this fact and build a movement based on opposition to war – whether it’s waged by the US alone or, like the 1991 Gulf War, with the backing of the UN.

Real nature of the UN
Understanding the true purpose and history of the UN is crucial for building an effective anti-war movement. Heads of state aren’t the only ones who have looked to the UN. Many opponents of US wars have called for the UN to take action as an alternative to the US military.

During the lead-up to the 1991 Gulf War, for example, many peace activists supported the slogan of “Let UN sanctions work” against Iraq. In fact, US-led coalition forces – with the approval of the UN – did both, bombing Iraq for a month and a half and then implementing deadly sanctions.

Slogans about letting sanctions work created illusions in the international body being neutral and committed to resolving world conflict peacefully – when the history of the UN shows that it’s quite the opposite.

Already some peace activists argue that the US shouldn’t act unilaterally in a war on Iraq, but should go through UN channels. They support the return of UN weapons inspectors to Iraq to eliminate “weapons of mass destruction” and call for the UN to monitor human rights violations.

But this focuses the anti-war movement in the wrong direction. First, it ignores the hypocrisy of the US government – which has by far the largest arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in the world – determining what should happen in Iraq.

But also, as many opponents of the 1991 Gulf War learned, the US can tolerate UN participation in its war plans without missing a beat – because Washington has the power to use the UN as a cover for its wars. Bush could very well decide to accept the return of weapons inspectors – as long as their role is to pave the way for a new attack.

Opponents of the war can’t afford to be disarmed when their calls for UN monitoring are met and Washington’s war on Iraq takes place anyway.