main states understand they cannot allow permanent warfare between themselves. France, Germany and Italy cleave to Tony Blair as the one person who can make the US see sense.
Now the contracts in Iraq are up for grabs, things are changing. For example Italian president Berlusconi is arguing for a strong UN role in Iraq, something clearly linked to the desire of Italian state oil firm ENI to get its hands on a share of Iraqi oil.
The line between 'pro' and 'anti"' US factions in the EU is going to be blurred in the next period. Despite that, it cannot be doubted that the war has struck a heavy blow against moves towards any kind of coordinated EU foreign and military policy, much to the frustration of Germany.
Is the US now invulnerable? Are we in for a prolonged period of total US dominance as it does what it wants militarily and politically? Is world politics shifting to the right for decades? There is no simple yes/no answer to these questions.
But there are strong reasons for doubting that the US has the ability to bestride the globe as it wants indefinitely. In a failing US economy there are limits to what the military can undertake. Already the war has had negative impacts on many US companies; tax revenue is going down, and government plans are in financial trouble.
But the danger of American imperimainly financial or military, but political. "Everyone hates us, we don't care" may function for Millwall fans, but cannot be tolerated for long by the US state and particularly by US companies.
At a certain point we can expect a series of political, economic and maybe military setbacks - combined with political chaos in Iraq - to cause a retreat by the wilder plans of the Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz wing of the administration. But if the US does make a partial or total retreat on plans to re-order the world militarily, can it move back to what the Europeans want - a kind of USEuropean condominium, a bipolar world in unpre- of the world order?
That seems very unlikely. More likely will be a continued deepening of inter-imperialist rivalry, with much more serious trade wars and political competition between the major powers.
What does all this mean for the anti-war movement? Whether or not new wars are on the immediate horizon the current militarism is not going to disappear and the war danger will remain.
The extraordinary thing about the antiwar movement, here and elsewhere, has been not only its enormous size, but also its durability. Contrary to what happened during the first Gulf war, it did not immediately collapse once the war started.
The immense 'our boys' propaganda barrage did shift many waverers, and parts of the less hardened anti-war opinion; but the scale of anti-war opposition during a war where Britain was fighting was unprecedented.
The enormous appeal of anti-war sentiment among the youth -especially in Britain and Germany which both saw large-scale school student action - went way beyond anything that happened during the Vietnam War.
There are immense reserves, immense potential for remobilisation against any future war threat, and indeed for action now on the axis of the demand for the US and UK to get out of the Gulf.
And there are wide layers in many countries who now understand or even speak the language of the Left, something that will provide many positive gains in the years ahead.
Finally a note of caution. All perspectives, as a leading Russian Marxist once said, are provisional. We should not leave out the chaotic elements of politics. Look at the Gulf region itself.
A year before it happened nobody predicted the overthrow of the Shah and the Islamic revolution of 1978-9. Bush, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz are sorcerer's apprentices; the present chaos on the streets of Iraq is just the start of the unraveling of their new imperial project.
page 14 of the scan
14 soclalst resistance May 2003 Veronica Fagan
The US Department of Veterans' Affairs released report in September 2002 in which they formally acknowledged that - despite few casualties from opposing fire in the conflict itself - there are now over 160,000 permanently disabled Gulf War veterans, and 8000 dead. In March, the British Veterans Association said that 560 British soldiers have died from Gulf War Syndrome and 5000 are under treatment.
The numbers of Iraqis who have died or become permanently disabled as a result of DU or other toxic after-effects of that war, to which they are exposed on a daily basis, must far exceed these figures
During the first Gulf war, Iraq was a massive laboratory for the western arms industry in terms of Depleted Uranium (DU). The US and Britain fired an estimated 350 tonnes of DU at Iraqi tanks. In the years since, doctors in southern Iraq have reported a marked increase in cancers and birth defects. The Pentagon and Ministry of Defence deny any links - but also refuse to allow systematic follow up research by the World Health Organisation or other repThis time between three to six times as much DU was used during the war. There are no clean up plans in place. Uranium, a naturally occurring heavy metal, is a mixture of two different forms: U235 and U238. The former is more radioactive, but is less than I per cent of the ore. It is enriched to about 5 percent for nuclear power, leaving large amounts of U238 - Depleted uranium. This has a half life of 4.5 billion years. The US has half a million tonnes of DU.
This product is enormously interesting for arms manufactures both because almost free because the extraction costs are paid ment are devastating. Last month, a team of experts carried out extensive research in Bosnia where just I1 tonnes of DU was fired in the war 7 years ago. They found evidence that DU could contaminate local water supplies and that wind or human activity can raise DU-laden dust.
More than 100 coalition troops were exposed to DU when they were victims of "friendly fire" during the first Gulf war. The majority inhaled uranium oxide, while the rest suffered shrapnel injuries. Some still have DU in their bodies. Their governments argue that none have developed cancers or kidney problems, as might have been expected if DU posed a long-term danger.
But researchers in Bremen challenge this. In March, they published results from blood tests carried out on 16 of the veterans which found that DNA abnormalities occurred at five times the rate as in a control group of 40 healthy volunteers.
Another study being carried out for the US Defence Department argues that the combination of toxicity and radioactivity in DU cause genetic damage 8 times more often than previously expected. This is thought to be due to an interaction between the radioactivity and the poisonous nature of DU. Environmental cost of war also "Ingestion of DU from contaminated water and food, and from soil, will be highly variable and may be significant in some cases: for example, children playing in areas where DU shells have impacted."
Obviously if you quote only the first of these three sentences, it means something rather different.
On April 16, the Royal Society issued a statement insisting on the importance of removing the hundreds of tonnes of DU that have been issued in Iraq during recent months. On April 25, the British government was forced to concede that soldiers returning from the Gulf will be offered tests for DU levels, following a further warning earlier the same day from the Royal Society
Perhaps the most damning indict ments of DU have come from Professor Doug Roucke, former Director of the Pentagon's DU programme, who has called on US and UK to "recognise the immoral consequences of their actions and assume responsibility for medical care and thorough environmental remediation".
Roucke himself has had tests which show that in March 1995 he had 5000 times the normal level of radiation in his body and suffers from breathing problems, difficulties with his immune system and with sight in