The competition among imperialists inevitably leads to war. This reality is evident in the conflict over oil that is once again spreading across the Middle East. The forces of ISIS, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, now command an area larger than Great Britain. They rule a third of Syria and a quarter of Iraq. Their ascendance is a product of decades of U.S. imperialism and the bosses’ increasingly desperate grab for control over the Middle East’s third-largest oil producer, after Saudi Arabia and Iran.
To secure Iraq’s energy resources, U.S. capitalists invaded Iraq in the Gulf War of 1990-1991. After 12 years of death-dealing sanctions, they invaded again in the Iraq War of 2003-2011, producing some unintended consequences, notably the rise of ISIS. The breakaway movement’s leaders were initially financed by Saudi Arabian rulers, who wanted to use them against their Shia enemies abroad. But now ISIS is pursuing its own agenda, helped by the support of Sunnis persecuted by deposed Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Maliki.
The emergence of ISIS head Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi “has been shaped by the United States’ involvement in Iraq — most of the political changes that fueled his fight or led to his promotion were born directly from some American action” (NYT, 8/11).  
Amid this imperialist carnage, the international working class has nothing to gain from supporting any group of bosses. Our class can escape the horrors of capitalism only by overthrowing the entire system. The one solution is a communist revolution to create a world without bosses or profits. We must fight for a society run by and for the working class, the class that produces everything of value. That is the goal of the revolutionary communist Progressive Labor Party.
‘Humanitarian’ Obama
Killing Children Worldwide
When Obama launched the U.S. imperialists’ latest air raid campaign against ISIS, he claimed it was a “humanitarian” action to save ISIS victims trapped without food and water. This is the same “humanitarian” whose drones are killing men, women and children in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It’s the same war criminal who puts guns, bombs and helicopter gunships at the beck and call of Israeli rulers to murder the children of Gaza. It’s the same capitalist stooge who ignores the racist cops murdering black youth on the streets of New York and St. Louis (see front page).
Obama says his air war “could last months” but won’t require “boots on the ground,” although 130 soldiers were deployed on August 12. He calculates badly on both counts. U.S. bosses, represented by the two Republican Bushes and Democrat Clinton, have killed 3.3 million Iraqis since 1991 (Global Research, 12/16/12). They have deployed more than 1.6 million troops in Iraq and Afghanistan over 10 years. Yet they still can’t nail down control of Iraq’s oil.
As the James A. Baker Institute (which helped engineer the 2007 U.S. troop surge) noted in 2011, “Iraq has the potential to increase production from 2.5 million barrels a day to over 5 million b/d or more in the next five to ten years [and] an ambition to reach 10 to 12 million b/d of production....in line with the productive capacity of Saudi Arabia.” Exports today average 2.4 million barrels a day.
But ISIS, the latest rival frustrating U.S. oil production hopes, cannot be defeated from the air alone. Rapidly conquering territory, winning recruits, slaughtering potential foes, and threatening U.S.-led oil operations, ISIS has U.S. bosses terrified. Many are demanding a stronger military effort from Obama.
ISIS, Greater Threat than al Qaeda
The profit-driven leaders of ISIS, an offshoot of al Qaeda, are mobilizing Sunni religious fanatics to forge a conservative Islamic state. ISIS has significant advantages over Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda. It now controls territory in Syria and Iraq. It has a formidable military machine, boosted by the capture of U.S. weaponry abandoned by quick-to-run Iraqi forces. ISIS also has huge sources of funding, including captured oil fields. As Patrick Cockburn reported in the London Review of Books, (8/1/14), it may soon be seeking new conquests from Iran to the Mediterranean:
As the attention of the world focused on Ukraine and Gaza, ISIS captured a third of Syria in addition to the quarter of Iraq it had seized in June. The frontiers of the new Caliphate declared by ISIS on 29 June are expanding by the day and now cover an area…inhabited by at least six million people, a population larger than that of Denmark, Finland or Ireland.
Some form of [U.S./EU] military attack, direct or indirect, will probably happen once ISIS has consolidated its hold on the territory it has just conquered....For America, Britain and the Western powers, the rise of ISIS and the Caliphate is the ultimate disaster.
ISIS’s commanders turn out to be shrewd, ruthless capitalists, rather than devout clerics. Oil has proven a lucrative source of funding for ISIS bosses. As ABC News reported on August 9:
ISIS reaps $1 million per day in Iraq in oil profits and if they get the Syrian fields the total would be $100 million per month for both Iraq and Syria combined. They sell it for $30 a barrel because it’s a black market. It’s not pegged to international standards for oil prices, which are over $100 a barrel.
Oil’s at the Root of It All
The U.S. and its Big Oil allies dream of reaping $1.2 billion a day (at current prices) from Iraq. That’s why Obama vowed to defend Erbil and Baghdad. Erbil is the capital of Kurdistan, from which ExxonMobil pumps crude through Turkey in an effort to win it to the U.S. side in a larger global conflict. Losing Baghdad to an ISIS southern march would destroy what’s left of the Iraqi government and imperil Exxon’s access to much richer oil regions.
In Iraq’s Shiite-dominated south lie the mega-fields, including Qurna and Manjoun. Exxon and its allies have large but disappointing operations there. With no viable army, Iraq’s governing Shiites are without an effective counter to ISIS, which has enlisted skilled veterans of Saddam Hussein’s army which the U.S. disbanded. The U.S. bosses have eagerly dumped the disastrous Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki.
Saudi Arabia, a major funder of ISIS, is the oft-unmentioned gorilla in this room. Cockburn quotes Richard Dearlove, ex-head of MI6, Britain’s CIA: “Saudi policy towards jihadis has two contradictory motives: fear of jihadis operating within Saudi Arabia, and a desire to use them against Shia powers abroad.”
Saudi Faction Financed ISIS
Financing for ISIS’s successful summer offensive came in the form of “private donations” from Saudi Arabia, Dearlove said. The donors are disgruntled capitalists frozen out by the Saudi royals, who are keeping a tight hold on both state power and oil revenues. The bin Laden clan belong to this class of ultra-rich but disenfranchised and power-hungry Saudis. Today they are led by the al Rajhi family, who own the biggest Saudi bank and bankroll jihadists like Ayam al-Zawahiri. By May, once ISIS started winning, this al Qaeda chief sought reconciliation with the breakaway movement.
Obama is taking heat from both imperialist Republicans and Establishment policy think tanks. “Sen. Lindsey Graham... sharply criticized President Obama’s limited military response to ISIS” (New York Times, 8/10/14). On July 29, Max Boot of the Council on Foreign Relations testified before Congress that the U.S. needed at least 10,000 soldiers on Iraqi soil. That will be but a small down payment if ISIS forces ever reach Saudi Arabia. U.S. access to Saudi Arabia’s unsurpassed oil production capacity, guaranteed by U.S. military might, is an indispensable cornerstone of U.S. imperialism. A genuine threat to Saudi oil could trigger an all-out U.S. invasion, with all-out opposition from Iran, China, and Russia.
But to mount that kind of offensive, the U.S. ruling class must win the working class to a now unpopular military draft. Worker support for the Afghan-Iraq wars wouldn’t have happened without the 9/11 attack on the homeland. U.S. bosses would exploit a similar attack in order to use workers’ anger to build patriotism and war.
The dominant finance capitalists, who control both the White House and mainstream Republicans, will exert more fascist control to discipline wayward capitalists who balk at their war plans. The dominant bosses will also use racism to further oppress and divide the working class, which will pay for the next war in taxes, increased poverty and the lives of their sons and daughters.
Join, Build PLP Now!
That is why PLP is organizing in the bosses’ mass organizations to win workers away from the Democratic Party. Our goal is to build a revolutionary communist party that will smash capitalism and its mass racist unemployment, racist police murders, the super-exploitation of women, and unending imperialist wars. Now is the time to join and build PLP.