WHAT IS the point of continuing to march and organise against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? It is starting to look like the beginning of the end for Bush and Blair in Iraq.
Bush is isolated domestically. Many of the guardians of the long-term interests of American imperialism, such as those who comprised the Iraq Survey Group, feel that the US should withdraw from Iraq.
Some of the candidates for the next presidential elections are re-casting themselves as anti-war. So wouldn't it be easier to let events take their course and stay at home rather than Not one more drop On the spot: Bush and Blair have run out of support as Bush plans a fresh adventure trudging through the chill February streets?
Well for a start not even the self-described anti-war candidates are too opposed to war.
Speaking at a rally in Chicago in 2002 Barack Obama said "| don't oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war." What this means in plain English is that wars that US imperialism thinks it could win are not off the agenda in an Obama presidency.
The Bush administration is not yet fully decided on what it wants to do in Iraq and the surrounding region.
Good sense suggests getting out. But good sense and George Bush have never really got along. That's why last month when he announced the "surge" of troops in Iraq, he presented a new strategy of conflict with Iran. A second aircraft carrier strike group is about to join the USS Dwight Eisenhower in the Gulf region.
American aircraft will patrol even more aggressively close to Iran's airspace and we can expect manufactured provocations.
Part of the American ruling class and military élite cannot bring itself another humiliating deteat.
To be forced out of Iraq while still haunted by the spectre of Vietnam will badly restrict US imperialism's ability to control a disproportionate share of the world's wealth and resources. The grand plans of Rumsfeld's neo-conservatives for containing China will begin to look even more threadbare.
For a state to win an imperialist, aggressive war it requires a high level of support at home. This makes people willing to accept the deaths and injuries of "their own" troops.
It is easier to shrug off atrocities committed by "their own" side and the suffering inflicted on the community that resists. It allows armies to carry on recruiting.
By continuing to organise to show our rejection of Brown and Blair's support for these wars we hasten their end.