Iraqi communists learned their lesson the hard way

Activists resolve dilemma in favor of joining Americans, interim council

BAGHDAD – Shehab al-Sharif

January 2003

The US occupation of Iraq has divided the Arab world, and leftist group was not an exception.

While communist and socialist parties in the Arab world argue for military resisting US presence in Iraq, the Iraqi leftists have been propagators of supporting the United States in toppling the Iraqi Baathist regime and the subsequent arrest of its leaders.

Leftists in Iraq are organized into three mainstream communist parties namely the Iraqi Communist Party (ICP), the Arab Kurdish Communist Party and the Communist Workers Party. All three parties are in consensus of supporting the US change of regime in Iraq.

During one of the demonstrations that marched the streets of Baghdad to protest “terrorist” military operations against coalition forces, Iraqi communists heavily participated in the 10,000 people protest. ICP’s secretary-general Hamid Majid Jbouri is member of the interim Governing Council.

“Our Arab comrades fail to understand the hardships we were living in under Saddam,” said Hanna Shahbandar, 65, a supporter of ICP. “We do not have the luxury of waging a war under imperialism. Our priorities differ from other comrades worldwide,” he said.

“Once we re-establish our country, we will be able to join others in opposing the World Trade Organization and other capitalist movements, but for the time being, such issues are not on top of our concerns.”

Shahbandar recounted the suffering under the Baathist regime. “We realize the Americans helped the Baathist topple the ‘leftist’ dictator Abdel-Qarim Qassem in 1963, but today we should settle accounts with the Americans for this, we should take their offer to undo what they did back then because this is our only option.”

According to Hassan Madrasi, 21, also a supporter of ICP, “while we lived under Saddam, no one from the left or the right, the east or the west, Arab or non-Arab came to our rescue.” He said that we only heard about their views when the Americans prepared to launch their war against Iraq.

“I believe they are not against Saddam or with the Iraqi people, they want to see scores settled with the Americans here, and we are not ready to solve the world’s problems at our expense.”