When I think about the near future, vis a vis the anti-war movement and Iraq, I can only think of Yogi Berra's quote: "It's like deja vu all over again."
I was an anti-war activist back in 1991, during the beginning of this Gulf War. If the U.S. political establishment was desperately trying to rid itself of the Vietnam syndrome, the anti-war left was trying to relive that syndrome. The war played out in such a way that it caught the anti-war left with its pants down around its legs. The activists were operating on the assumption that the war would be a quagmire like Vietnam, yet just a few months into 1991, they were having a victory parade down Pennsylvania Avenue here in DC. I was living in Madison, where the Left there was busy trying to get the city council to declare Madison as a "draft sanctuary." Talk about living in the 60s!
I think the most important lesson that the anti-war movement should have learned from that war was to not make any assumptions about how things would play out. If the U.S. invades Iraq next week, the war could be over in day, or it could be over in months or years. What matters is when the American Empire says that the war is over.
What's going to happen to the anti-war movement after the war ends (or is averted)? It will go away, because it is basically a reactionary movement against the schemes of Empire. It is not a pro-active movement of movements like the anti-globalization and anti-capitalist movements. Once the war is over, or the current crisis, many of the people who have attended rallies will go back to their lives.
One of the problems here is how many on the Left view this situation. Many still look at it as an opportunity to build some movement, or add people to their parties. This is why the ISO goes chasing around after student anti-war activists and why the WWP is so desperate to be in the limelight. While many of the rank-and-file activists want to stop the war from happening, I would argue that the leaders and sectarian activists have more selfish priorities.
And any radical upsurge in activism during this period will be wiped out in 2004, as once again the left decides to play the losing game of electoral politics. There was a big drop in activism after Clinton was elected, 'cause lots of Lefties thought that Clinton would undo the legacy of Reagan-Bush. Ha!
This anti-war movement is not going to turn into something that will disarm the US war machine. Its thinking is too narrow and its messages are too simplistic. No blood for oil? Does that make invasion OK if few people are hurt in the process? And a series of protests and rallies are not going to change public opinion on the US war machine. For that to happen, I believe that the movement would need to engage in direct action against the military industrial complex. It will take something more radical to stop war, not just the war du jour.
Sorry to be so cynical, but to me it seems like we keep spinning our wheels in the mud.
Chuck0
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"The state can't give you free speech, and the state can't take it away. You're born with it, like your eyes, like your ears. Freedom is something you assume, then you wait for someone to try to take it away. The degree to which you resist is the degree to which you are free..." ---Utah Phillips