[D66] European powers support war preparations against Iran

[A.OUT]

wsws.org:

European powers support war preparations against Iran
By Peter Schwarz
11 January 2020

The world held its breath on January 3 after a US drone assassinated 
Iranian Gen. Qassem Suleimani, who was travelling to Iran on an official 
diplomatic mission. The threat of a region-wide conflict that could 
rapidly escalate into a global confrontation loomed large. Leading media 
outlets and political figures spoke of a “1914 moment,” drawing 
parallels to the shots in Sarajevo that triggered the eruption of World 
War I.

But anyone who expected the European powers would protest the United 
States’ criminal act and oppose the war preparations quickly experienced 
a rude awakening.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson rushed to declare that “we don’t 
lament Suleimani’s death,” while Berlin and Paris stressed that they 
also had placed Suleimani on their “terrorist lists.” To the extent that 
they made appeals for “deescalation,” these calls were directed solely 
at the victim, Iran. Not a single leading European politician condemned 
the brutal murder, which was ordered personally by the American 
president, represented a gross violation of international law, and 
exacerbated the already sharp tensions in international relations.

The contrast with 2003 is obvious. Seventeen years ago, Paris and Berlin 
condemned the illegal US invasion of Iraq. “Anyone who casts off the 
legitimacy of the United Nations and puts the use of force above the 
rule of law is taking a grave risk,” stated French President Jacques 
Chirac. German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder made similar statements.

The opposition from Chirac and Schröder was by no means principled. 
Berlin allowed the US to continue using its military bases in Germany, 
and made clear that it would support military intervention in Iraq if 
Baghdad failed to bow to Washington’s diplomatic bullying. Nonetheless, 
their statements encouraged the global anti-war protests, in which 
millions of people took part.

Why is it the case that today, after the wars in Iraq, Libya and Syria 
have proven so disastrous, there is no comparable official protest to be 
heard, even though far from suspending its war preparations, the US is 
intensifying them?

It has nothing to do with any improvement in transatlantic relations. 
Since 2003, they have worsened dramatically. Hardly a week goes by 
without Trump or Secretary of State Mike Pompeo attacking or insulting 
the erstwhile European allies.

Just last month, the US Congress imposed sanctions to stop the 
construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which was to link Russia 
directly with Germany, in what amounted to an affront to an allied 
country. And the unilateral abrogation by Washington of the Iran nuclear 
accord, the prelude to the current war provocation, took place in the 
face of explicit opposition from Germany, France, and Britain.

Despite this, the European powers have joined in with the US war 
preparations. Any criticism was reserved purely for tactical questions. 
Like the US Democrats and sections of the military, they accused Trump 
of acting alone, hastily and without a thought-out strategy, thereby 
threatening US interests in the Middle East.

But they never call into question the “right” of the imperialist powers 
to intervene militarily in the Middle East to subordinate the region to 
their will and in pursuit of their interests. Concepts such as “the 
right of nations to self-determination,” which the League of Nations and 
United Nations used for decades as democratic camouflage, have largely 
vanished from the political lexicon. They are only trotted out when they 
are needed to support separatist forces against a rival power, such as 
China or Russia.

Three decades after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, as the 
International Committee long ago predicted, no new era of democracy has 
emerged. Rather, the anarchy of capitalism and the obsolete nation state 
system have produced an exacerbation of inter-imperialist rivalries and 
a sharpening of class tensions, to which the ruling elites, both in 
Europe and America, are responding by turning to fascism and war.

Today, the European powers are much more deeply implicated in 
imperialist crimes than they were in 2003. Germany and France now both 
have their own troop contingents in Iraq to bring their imperialist 
interests to bear. The Libyan war of 2011, which overthrew the regime of 
Muammar Gaddafi and transformed the country into a nightmarish civil war 
of competing militias, was largely initiated by France. France and 
Germany also played important roles behind the scenes from the outset of 
the Syrian war, including by supporting Islamist militias. And in the 
rapidly escalating conflict in Mali, they are seeking to strengthen the 
presence of the European imperialists in Africa.

However, they are yet to achieve the long-propagated goal of 
establishing Europe as a world power through a joint army and common 
foreign policy capable of going “toe-to-toe” with Washington. Despite 
huge increases in military spending, the combined military budgets of 
the European NATO members amount to some $300 billion, less than half of 
what is spent in the US. The European powers are also deeply divided 
among themselves. They want to act independently of Washington, but they 
see no immediate alternative to reaching an accommodation with the 
United States until they have had the time to rearm.

Specialist foreign policy journals are full of complaints “that Europe’s 
defence remains virtually dependent on the United States.” “The United 
States and China increasingly view their relations with the Europeans 
through the prism of their great power rivalry and deliberately apply 
pressure to single states to compel them to … take sides,” notes a 
contribution from the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) 
entitled “Europe is still defended from Washington.”

“If the Europeans want to avoid becoming the plaything of rival great 
powers, they must better exploit their power in future, defend their 
interests more robustly, and make themselves less vulnerable to attack,” 
concludes the DGAP. The European Union must “learn to conceive of itself 
as a geopolitical power.”

This requires a militarisation of society and an increase in defence 
spending far beyond the current officially proclaimed goal of two 
percent of GDP. Financing this will require savage attacks on the 
working class. This reveals the second, more fundamental reason for the 
European powers’ support for the US war drive. They fear that a mass 
mobilisation against war could unite with the mounting working class 
struggles against social inequality, threatening capitalist rule.

Workers are seething with anger across Europe. In France, this has been 
shown with the outbreak of the Yellow Vest movement and the mass strikes 
against Macron’s pension reform, which still attract hundreds of 
thousands to the streets after five weeks.

While in 2003, pseudo-left, post-Stalinist and Green forces were able to 
dominate and maintain control over the anti-war movement, they have 
since been widely discredited and have shifted into the pro-war camp. 
None of the establishment parties, whether they describe themselves as 
left or right, has even stated its verbal opposition to the war drive.

The relapse into barbarism and war can be prevented only by an 
independent socialist movement of the international working class that 
unites the struggle against war with the fight against its source: the 
capitalist profit system. The objective conditions for the development 
of this mass movement have already ripened. The goal of the 
International Committee of the Fourth International and its sections, 
the Socialist Equality parties, is to lead this movement and provide it 
with a political perspective.