Where now for the “New World Order

The Gulf war has ended with one of the most comprehensive and least costly victories in military history. At the price of less than 200 casualties Bush has decimated the Iraqi military force and driven Iraq into the stone age. The US is now engaged in “winning the peace” - building new structures to defend imperialist rule and laying down the law to collaborationist regimes in the area.

The imperialists have gained a great deal. On top of the political authority from the collapse of Stalinism that made the Gulf adventure possible they have demonstrated their military supremacy. The short war they gambled on has come off and the US will even gain economically from the donations by the feudal states and by the other imperialist powers. The arms industry, faltering for lack of an enemy, has had a massive shot in the arm. The US has control in the Gulf and has for the time being assured the survival of Israel and the Gulf’s feudal monarchies while winning the support of bourgeois nationaiist regimes like Egypt and Syria.

Is this then the first days of a new world order? Has the US won the undisputed control of the world and the ability to direct us all in the interest of imperialism?

### VIETNAM SYNDROME

Bush claims to have licked “the Vietnam syndrome”. In reality this question is still undecided. The US has yet to demonstrate its ability to crush a genuine popular struggle or that the internal anti-war sentiment that built against the Vietnam war has finally evaporated.

The war had a great deal of support but it was never a popular war in which mass sections of the working class in the West consciously declared support for imperialism. In fact unease during the war has been followed by a general distaste for what was quite clearly a massacre rather than a battle. The hype of imperialism’s crusade for freedom has evaporated as it has become clear that the West prefers the genocide of the Kurds to the overthrow of Saddam’s regime. They would like one of the other butchers to replace him, but the last thing they want in Iraq is the victory of democratic forces.

The imperialists don’t have a political solution; they have no intention of pressuring Israel or allowing any dangerous experiments with democracy that might destabilise imperialist rule. Their main program is to “make the world safe for feudalism” - so they support the Emirates in their expulsion of migrant workers and the attempts of the Al-Sabah family of Kuwait to maintain power and divert the opposition with a pogrom against the Palestinian population. No sooner is the war over than the monster Saddam is given a free hand to carry out genocide against the Kurds.

Other chickens have yet to come home to roost. Two nuclear power stations, what was claimed to be anuclear bomb factory and two poison gas plants have been bombed. Black snow from the Kuwaiti oil fields has fallen in India. The imperialists will not escape the charges of irreAN REABHLOID Page 14

sponsibility and irrationality arising form their adventure.

### IRELAND

The struggle in Ireland will not be decided in isolation from the present struggle bestriding the entire globe. Bush’s new world order would be a long dark nightmare for the working class and for democratic forces everywhere. The prospect of Irish freedom would become a pipedream. On the basis of the Gulf adventure the British military establishment have already made known their willingness to “deal with the IRA”

The Gulf war was only the first in a series of battles to decide the new order. Its outcome will depend on the combativity of working people in many different situations, but it will also depend crucially on a battle of ideas. The imperialists and their loyal opposition in the Stalinist camp and in social democracy all put forward the UN, The face of war. incineratied as he retreated with its long history as a tool of imperialism, as the forum for change. Revolutionaries need to popularise an older idea - of the international organisation of working people. This battle for ideas is especially important in Ireland, where many people believe they know where they stand in relation to the anti-imperialist struggle. Anew debate could help break this logjam and help end the isolation of the revolutionary forces.

In any case we must avoid at all costs the routine striking of attitudes that has characterised what little there has been of international solidarity work in Ireland. If we are not actors in the battle for anew world order we will be its victims. The task of the day is clear enough;

IMPERIALISM! - HANDS OFF THE MIDDLE EAST SELF -DETERMINATION FOR THE KURDS!

SELF -DETERMINATION FOR THE PALESTINIANS!

See a! sm An Iraqi soldier AN REABHLOID Page 15