September 1—The US rulers have stepped up air raids over Iraq against the Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL) and may send "advisors" to coordinate with the Kurdish peshmerga or the Iraqi army under the new al-Abadi administration.  US surveillance flights extend over Syria, with air raids possibly to follow. 

Unlike the huge marches before Bush's 2003 Iraq invasion, protests against Obama's return to Iraq are scarce. 

Widely-shown video of IS attacks on Yazidis and the beheading of US journalists promote the lie that US imperialism is waging a humanitarian campaign against fanatic religious butchers, which IS leaders certainly are.  But can anyone believe that US rulers are motivated by humanitarianism? 

New Mideast Oil Politics

There must be another reason.  "Usually it's oil," said a friend at a study group. 

Mideast oil won't be allowed to sustain the dollar as the global reserve currency indefinitely..  Domestic reliance on Persian Gulf oil is dropping (though it's still the world's cheapest) with the rapid expansion of fracking in shale fields, a secure source for US rulers in wartime.

Iraqi oil exports are booming, and China is the biggest winner.  China buys almost half of Iraqi oil, and PetroChina just won a 25% stake (equal to Exxon Mobil's) in the huge West Qurna 1 field.

"We lost out," said a former Defense Department official. "The Chinese had nothing to do with the [Iraq] war, but … they are benefiting from it, and our Fifth Fleet and air forces are helping to assure their supply." (NYTimes, 6/3/13)

US Imperialists Tilt toward Kurdistan

The oil fields of Iraqi Kurdistan are now at stake.  Since the war, Exxon Mobil, Chevron, and others have developed the Taq Taq and Tawke fields.  Kurdistan is selling this oil directly to the world market via Turkey, defying Iraqi law without US objection.

As IS advanced, Kurdish "security" forces seized oil-rich Kirkuk and began pumping, again defying Iraq's central government.  Key US imperialists like Vice-President Biden openly urge US support for an independent Kurdistan, seeing that as their best chance for a foothold (besides Israel) in the region.

IS already controls oil fields, refineries and pipelines in northern Iraq.  Its move on Erbil, a Kurdish oil center, provoked the US military response.  If IS can consolidate a significant oil-producing region, its "caliphate" could become viable like the sultanates of Brunei and Oman or the Emirates. 

No established powers seem to want that.  The Wall Street Journal (8/30/14) analyzes how opposition to IS has thrown together many "strange bedfellows."  It warns that they will collaborate secretly and lie about it. 

Maybe.  But any such unity is relative and temporary, while deadly conflicts are absolute as long as capitalism rules the earth.  For example, the US and Iran both oppose IS, but some analysts consider their simmering conflict to be more likely even than a US-China clash to boil over into all-out war, sooner rather than later. 

US Rulers' Declining Influence

Some say that US military aid to anti-Assad rebels in Syria found its way to IS.  Certainly the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, and its long-term support for al-Maliki, helped to drive Saddam Hussein's generals into IS, where they now play leadership roles. 

"The US strategy has been to keep the region as fragmented as possible, like in Yugoslavia," said a comrade.  "But it's not working as well as they might like."

At the NATO summit in Wales this week, the US is trying to rally support for an air war in Syria and a more vigorous response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.  "But we don't have a strategy yet," admitted President Obama.

Meanwhile, US imperialists argue about how much these crises are derailing their attempted "rebalance" (or "pivot") to Asia.

Industrial Workers: Lead Masses to Communist Revolution!

Forget about trying to get "our" government to "do the right thing."  The governments belong to the capitalists, not to us. 

"The rulers and the workers are pulling in opposite directions," commented a friend.

Instead we must mobilize the masses to prepare for communist workers' power to end the deadly capitalist-imperialist system.

Fifty years ago, the Iraqi Communist Party united Arabs, Kurds, Jews and others in mass organizations based firmly among industrial workers.  Its fatally flawed political line, however, kept it from seizing power even at its strongest in 1959, and led to its slaughter by the CIA-sponsored coup that brought Saddam Hussein to power in 1963. 

Today the potential exists to build a new International Communist Workers' Party from Capetown to Kurdistan, from San Salvador to Seattle.  To find out how, read the ICWP "Industrial Working Class" pamphlet at www.icwpredflag.org.

US sanctions killed 500,000 Iraqi children during the Clinton era.  Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told CBS, "We think the price was worth it."  Another half-million Iraqis, mostly civilians, died because of the US invasion and occupation (2003-2011).  

During the Iraq-Iran war in 1987, the US told Saddam Hussein where to gas Iranian troops.  When the Hussein regime killed 6800 Kurds in Halbja with poison gas in 1988, the US spread the lie that Iran was to blame.  

Can anyone forget US atrocities in Abu Ghraib, Baghram, and Guantanamo?  The "extraordinary renditions" of prisoners to secret torture prisons around the world? 

The Obama administration authorized drone attacks that murdered hundreds (mostly civilians) in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere, including Anwar al-Aulaq and other US citizens. 

Inside the US, local police and sheriffs kill at least 400 people annually, possibly twice that number. At least 93 were murdered by cops in August 2014 alone! 

The US has officially executed 1,385 people since 1975.  None was beheaded, but many died in agony. 

Humanitarian?  Hardly.

Only communist society can truly meet human needs.