The New Dark Age

After weeks of attacks by Iraqi resistance groups, the US and NATO yesterday began evacuating all of their military personnel from Victoria Base in Baghdad.

They are unlikely to return.

This is an unprecedented, momentous achievement, and follows the January withdrawal of US and NATO troops from the Ain al-Asad airbase after years of attacks.

These withdrawals mean the US presence in Iraq is now confined to Kurdistan.

Iraqi fighters, with the support of Iran, have effectively decolonised their country, 23 years after the US invasion, and six years after Iraq’s parliament voted to expel US forces.

At the time, the US refused to honour the democratic vote. Because despite all the lies about freedom and democracy which justified the original invasion, imperialists don’t care about democracy. They care about interests. About oil. About strategic footprints. And all these were best served by maintaining a military presence in Iraq.

Trump was president at the time of the vote, and threatened sanctions in response.

What worked in the end?

Violence. Armed resistance. Speaking the language of imperialists and colonisers back to them.

The resistance to the US-NATO troop presence in Iraq has been long-standing. Attacks by Iraqi fighters have been periodic, aided by Iran in moments of heightened tension. In 2020, after the US assassinated Iran’s General Soleimani, Iran launched a missile attack on Ain al-Asad Airbase, the largest-ever against US forces abroad. The attack left over one hundred American troops with traumatic brain injuries and accelerated US plans to withdraw forces.

And since the US-Israeli sneak attack on Iran last month, Iran and Iraqi resistance groups backed by Iran, have been pounding Victoria Base, a sprawling, city-like complex on the outskirts of Baghdad. The attacks, via drones, missiles, and small arms, have resulted in a significant number of serious injuries, prompting the US over the weekend to request a 24-hour ceasefire so they could evacuate the remaining troop presence.

Violence achieved what votes and diplomacy couldn’t.

Iran has helped liberate Iraq, and in its overall conduct of the war, is teaching the west a harsh lesson.

It is for this reason that western leaders are whining like sex-starved billy goats about Iran’s “reckless attacks.” The west is so used to the impunity that comes with imperial power they can’t accept that a nation they see as sub-human is not only able to fight back, but to do so in a way that imposes material costs on their interests. It infuriates them to see a sovereign nation completely outside the orbit of western imperialism stand up to their bullying.

What we’re seeing are both the limits of imperialism, and the lengths to which the west is willing to go to protect empire and its system of domination.

These lengths are extreme, and include of course the abandonment of international law.

It’s actually crazy when you think about it.

Day after day we see universal condemnation not of an illegal war of aggression, but of the legal response to that aggression. We keep seeing demands for Iran to stop fighting without commensurate demands for the US-Israel to do the same.

“Stop shooting back, but let them keep shooting you.”

The west is demanding Iran surrender to the aggressor without conditions.

It’s so nakedly imperialist, a gloriously teachable moment.

But this abandonment of international law is also incredibly dangerous. Because it has left Iran nowhere to turn but total war. The world’s refusal to acknowledge basic facts about who is the aggressor and who is the victim has left Iran’s leaders with no options other than to go as far up the escalation ladder, in response, as they can.

Look at it from Iran’s point of view. Twice attacked during negotiations, their revolutionary religious leader assassinated during their most important religious festival, toxic rain falling on 9 million people, thousands of civilians murdered, schools, hospitals and clinics bombed. Then when they fight back against unprovoked aggression, almost the entire world condemns them.

Under these conditions, what is Iran supposed to do? Where are they supposed to turn for support? Who can be trusted to arbitrate any deal and guarantee Iran’s territorial security?

The credibility of the UN is shot to pieces.

International law lies dead in Gaza.

International institutions work entirely for empire.

The whole UN Charter system is a lie, its administrators decadent and corrupt.

It means Iran’s only logical strategy is to carve out its future security arrangements through force.

No international body or statute is coming to save them.

Armed struggle and resistance until the enemy retreats first is the only rational choice based on their history and recent experience.

Because for Iran this is an existential war for survival.

And there are signs that Iran’s armed resistance is working.

On Saturday, Trump threatened to bomb Iran’s power infrastructure by the end of today if they didn’t guarantee all ships the right of transit through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran said if the US did it they’d attack all water desalination and oil platforms throughout the Persian Gulf. So this morning Trump revised the deadline. He said good progress had been made on negotiations and gave Iran until the end of the week to open the Strait before he commits a war crime. Iran said Trump was lying about negotiations. The foreign minister said they haven’t talked to the Americans since the war started.

So Trump backed down.

Faced with a credible threat to make the Gulf states effectively uninhabitable and collapse the global economy, he backed down.

Threats of violence worked.

Because violence, as the resistance in Iraq has just proved, is the only language imperialists understand.