Aleksej Scira: I wanted to talk to you about Iraq war and the crisis of democracy that showed, of course in the US, but also in the countries of the "coalition", like Italy and Spain, where there was a clear popular opposition to the war, but the governments supported the US in the war anyway, and sent their troops later to support the US in the occupation. Why do you think that the peace movement, which was quite strong, there were millions of people all over the world, couldn't affect their governments?

Achin Vanaik: Well, I think it is unfair as well as unrealistic to think that - even though that was a wonderful mobilization of 15 February 2003 - it is unfair to expect that movement to have stopped the invasion - the US was going to go ahead regardless. But the importance of the movement is that it robbed the US of the legitimacy that they wanted. However, having a big movement against the invasion is different from the situation that emerged afterwards when you had number of these countries sending troops there. And what you then found was that when it came to the question of opposing the occupation on the principle of "let's get out immediately" support for this stand was much less. In fact, the sentiment of very large numbers of people is that it was wrong to go there, but now that we are there we should at least set up democracy, we have a responsibility to the people suffering under the previous dictatorship; and after all, the soldiers of our countries are also there; and so on. That of course confuses matters. And this is not helped by the fact that, unlike in Vietnam, you don't have a unified, centralized, political resistance movement in Iraq. And then of course one has to recognize that there is a lot of confusion created by the fact that these elections were held. So lots of people, even in the peace movement and elsewhere that opposed invasion got confused by this and did not support as strongly the call for an immediate end to the occupation and immediate withdrawal of foreign troops.

I think here we have to be very clear about the significance of the recent elections. The best way to understand the implications and the meaning of these elections is to realize that these are elections that are being held under de facto colonial rule. They are like elections that were held in the early part of the 20th century in India, under British colonial rule. When you have elections in what is effectively a colonial context, then what happens is that different forces that are participating in and are behind having these elections have different ideas as to what should be the value or purpose of them. What this basically means is that whether one supports or opposes elections under colonial occupation as in Iraq, is essentially a tactical issue. What I mean by this is that you have to recognize that the US, of course, wanted these elections to legitimize their occupation, to promote divide-and-rule (between Shias, Sunnis and Kurds) policies, to hide behind a puppet regime, to win back European support, and so on. And, of course, we must expose these US motives for having these elections and make it clear that to consider these as democratic steps is a falsehood and a mockery. Colonial rule is itself a fundamental negation of democracy and this is not in any way altered or lessened by the fact o f occasional exercises in elections under colonial rule. Indeed, the reason why elections happen under colonial or foreign rule, is itself related to how the relationship of forces between occupier and the occupied changes and shifts. So the form, the timing, the character of elections, etc., are always meant to help the occupying power to continue its rule in the face of such shifts that themselves push for different combinations of indirect and direct rule at different times but always with the purpose - as far as the occupying force is concerned - to maintain its overall control.

From the point of view of those who are occupied, different sections will have different motives for deciding to participate or not participate in elections as in Iraq. On one hand you have out and out collaborators like Allawi and Yawer whose fortunes are completely tied with the occupiers. On the other hand you will have those like Sistani who think such elections will give them greater relative strength and bargaining power vis-à-vis the Americans. Then there are others like Sadr who were playing a wait-and-watch strategy neither opposing nor calling for a boycott. Finally, you have those who out-and-out opposed the elections. Our responsibility as outside supporters of the right to resist in Iraq and as opponents of occupation, is to firmly and unequivocally oppose any effort to pretend that these elections are a step forward towards democracy, and to expose the hypocrisies and real motives and purposes that lie behind the US-European concert that uses the fact of these elections (themselves incidentally very fraudulently carried out in various ways) to justify the unjustifiable. After all, the US is constructing 14 military bases there as well as the world's largest Embassy because they want to maintain permanent control. Obviously they recognize that that control will have to be indirect, but even when you are talking about indirect control you are talking about a fundamental violation of the principle of sovereign independence and therefore of any principle of genuine democracy. Colonial rule, indirect or direct, is antidemocratic.

AS: The peace movement managed to mobilize a lot of people all over the world but of course they haven't managed to stop the war, but they didn't give up and are trying to hold US accountable for the war. So there are initiatives such as World Tribunal on Iraq - a people's tribunal. What kind of influence do you think these initiatives can have?

AV: These are all efforts to de-legitimise and defeat the US, to expose the hypocrisy and defeat it politically. They are all worthy efforts as also, for example, Occupation Watch to monitor what is happening in Iraq and to expose the kind of things that are taking place there. But there are real problems arising from the great difference between the situations of Iraq and Vietnam. The most important difference is that in Vietnam you had a coherent, unified leadership of the resistance movement, which you could see and identify. Here, what is happening is that the resistance in Iraq is both peaceful and violent. The violent resistance is comprised of all kinds of tendencies of various kinds, which makes it much more difficult to be able to identify and to be able to straightforwardly support every resistance action (apart from endorsing the general right to resistance s a principle) or to know which groups to support or which are criminal rather than political elements. And it also means that there is a lack of that kind of political coherence and political strategy within Iraq that you had in Vietnam. Also, of course, Vietnam received at least some significant material support, despite deficiencies of all kinds from the Soviet bloc and political-diplomatic support from a range of other countries made possible because there existed the Soviet bloc of opposition to the West in the first place.

The tragedy in many ways of Iraq is that though this is the absolute center of world politics today and there is a great benefit to be got if the US is defeated, but unlike Vietnam, at the level of governmental support, it is in fact isolated. There are hardly any governments like there were in the Vietnam war- in Sweden, for example, Olaf Palme who was prime minister could lead demonstrations against the Vietnam war. You don't find governments today that are prepared to come out and speak strongly against US. Even the countries that opposed the invasion, including countries like China and Russia, shamefully supported the subsequent UN resolution - I think it was Resolution 1560 - which effectively legitimized the occupation. However, in spite of this isolation, the internal resistance is creating a huge mess for the US, and there is a huge responsibility on us to do whatever we can to provide the kind of solidarity and support that the Vietnamese struggle achieved.

AS: World Tribunal on Iraq is made on the model of the Russell tribunal against the US war against Vietnam in the 60s, which had some effect in the media, but WTI is not that present in the mainstream media. Why do you think it is so?

AV: I think what has happened here is that the earlier tribunal was able to get the support of some very significant, high profile people. The very name of Bertrand Rusell or Jean Paul Sartre had an impact. The current tribunal in that sense is not such a high profile affair, and since the tribunal has to be high profile I think this is an important factor. There is also a change in times we live in. Bertrand Russell and Jean Paul Sartre were very dominant figures in the political culture. The kind of people who oppose US invasion of Iraq today are often very eminent and certainly decent people, but they don't necessarily have the same kind of a profile like the two mentioned above. When somebody asked Charles de Gaulle to criticize, attack or oppose Sartre, he said in effect, " But Jean Paul Sartre is France"! Today you have a much more right wing environment. The media is not playing the same kind of role as in the Vietnam war. During the Vietnam war what happened is that because of the courageous resistance of the Vietnamese people, the mounting casualties that were taking place led over a period of time to a huge movement within the US, and of course in Europe. In both cases, these movements were coordinated and systematized in ways that helped them to steadily grow, which then eventually helped to change Western media perceptions about the war.

The American government is worried about casualty figures - not of Iraqis but of Americans. But the rate at which casualties have been growing for Americans is not quite the same as in Vietnam, where there were 60 000 US soldiers killed. In Iraq we are talking about 1600 dead so far, and there is very conscious policy to "Iraqise" the 'policing' functions so that they take over from the Americans the brunt of the casualties.

AS: But there is also the difference in the coverage, because in Vietnam there were many independent journalists, and this time many journalists are "embedded" with the military.

AV: You are right, and what is now happening is that there is much greater control of the media by the powers that be. They have learned their lessons from the past. So all this makes it much more complicated. At the same time it doesn't seem that they are going to be able to control the situation in Iraq. The situation in Iraq is very fragile and unclear. The US is not in control and the most realistic forecast is over a period of time there is going to be a kind of accumulation of problems for the US. We just have to keep on campaigning on the slogan of immediate US pullout and, of course, we have to try to do two things: we have to have mobilizations in civil society, which will also put pressure on our own governments as well as expressing global civil society's revulsion at what the US is doing. And we have to find various ways of doing this. We can't always secure huge mass demonstrations like on 15 February 2003. For example on 20 March, 2004, in the US the demonstrations were nowhere near as big as on 15 February, but they took place in 700 different places, which was, if you like, a reflection of the fact that they are being locally organized. We have to also support and solidarize with Palestinians.

AS: Although also in Europe it is difficult to get the message against the occupation to the media, it seems more difficult to do it in the US, where there is this paradox of freedom of speech, where for example Chomsky can say anything and nobody is going to threaten him, but the majority follow mainstream TV channels which misrepresent what is happening.

AV: True, but what is still true is that in spite of that there is a great deal of skepticism. What is one of the strengths of the kind of movement that is there in the US is that it is having growing support at the local and grass roots levels. Another factor that makes this war different from Vietnam is that the class and social composition of American soldiers that are going to Iraq (because there is no mass and compulsory conscription) is much more lower class. In Vietnam, middle class people were being conscripted and that had a much bigger impact on domestic society. It is also very interesting that out of 1600 people killed, they are coming from all kind of different places in the US. Another important factor and source of hope is the fact that you have groups like 'military families against the war', that is families who have lost a son or daughter in Iraq, and 'Iraq veterans against the war' that are campaigning from almost the very beginning of this war. Opposition took much longer to coagulate in the case of Vietnam. We should also remember that, although there is this media effect, what happens is that most people in the US have, what I would call contradictory consciousness or stretched consciousness. For the things that they are not aware about and are rather distant from their own everyday lives they are strongly influenced by the media. But the things with which they have some greater intimate knowledge, they are much more able to make up their minds, hence the importance of local activism. And let's not forget that the US is also a society of radio, much more so than even Europe, because it is a society dominated by the car. The radio plays a very crucial role. Much of the construction of right wing attitudes, values and beliefs, and so on, is not just related to Fox and other TV stations. A very big role is being played by radio talk shows of various kinds. But radio is also much more independent, it is not so dominated by the big media corporations, although they are trying to do so, of course. Critical programs coming form local yet independent radio stations also provides real opportunities.

AS: By "iraqisation" of the policing in Iraq the US is trying to reduce casualties of its own soldiers, who themselves come in big numbers from the lower classes...

AV: Yes, it is poor whites, blacks and Latinos. But despite having to introduce the policy of Iraqisation of the occupation, they still need to retain overall control. They would like to reduce their troops, to just stay behind in the bases, but can't do it - they still have to maintain the troop force of 145 - 150 000. These are all kinds of people, reservists, etc. Tthey are fed up, they want to go home. So the US government needs to drastically reduce the number of troops, and very quickly - that also explains their attempts to totally Iraqise the war, so that they don't have to suffer casualties - but they are still far from being able to do that.

AS: There are initiatives to link the Iraqi victims of the occupation with the American families that lost a member in the war. Can they have an impact?

You mean to delegitimise the war by actually linking to poor Iraqis that are suffering to American families suffering a loss of a loved one? That is a very interesting and welcome effort. One of the interesting things both in Iraq and even in Britain is that particular forces like the 'Iraq veterans group', and the 'military families against the war' are having a real impact. One of the persons in Britain who spoke out against the war and actually contested against Tony Blair in his constituency, was just such a person. His son died in Iraq. He had a very good impact on TV and in public debates. He was a person who is just an ordinary British citizen of the kind that Blair would like to say is the ordinary British whose interest he is defending. And this person gets up and says to Blair "look, if this had been legal thing, I would not have come against you. I would have probably been grieving for the loss of my son but not condemning you. But this is an illegal war: there are no weapons of mass destruction, no business to the British, just lies, and lies". And Blair was embarrassed in this face-off. Iraq has had an effect on the recent elections in Britain. In the longer run (because we are fighting in and for the long run) the growing sense of opposition and hostility to the US, the feeling that the US government is a big bully is growing everywhere. And that is very important asset.

AS: Do you think that the peace movement could still play a role in the de-legitimising the occupation?

AV: This is a long-term struggle. We have to do various kinds of things. There are two crucial weak spots in the US empire project today and tomorrow. One, of course, is Iraq, and the other is Palestine. I think it is also very important that what the US and Israel is doing in Palestine is highlighted; that there should be connection between solidarity campaign against the occupation of Iraq and the campaign against the occupation by Israel and backed by the US, of Palestine. You bring together these two solidarity movements, which are obviously connected. In both of these cases there is huge responsibility for us to do whatever we can in civil society because the governments are not doing much. So we have an even greater responsibility in many ways to be able to provide that kind of support to the opposition. The larger issue, of course is how the alter-globalisation movement should also get connected with the peace movement, but that is a much larger project. Certainly in the case of Palestine and Iraq we must try our best to bring the two movements together. Also to situate the Iraq occupation in the larger US empire-building project, then the campaign against US bases also gets connected. So bringing together these various campaigns, that is one thing we need to do.

The second thing is to recognize that the key strategic terrain in which we must fight is within the US, and therefore the movements outside must have two responsibilities. The first is to put pressure on their own governments; the second is to recognise the necessity of connecting with the anti-war movement in the US. Then there can emerge a two way process by which the movements in the US can utilize the resources of the movements and the personnel outside, to get across to the American public the knowledge of the vast opposition to the occupation in the outside world. You must remember that America as an advanced industrial country is the most insular country in the world, and most Americans are only preoccupied about what happens within the US, not outside. Whatever they get about Iraq is also filtered through the press, so this kind of activity at the local, grass roots level, is very important, getting across that message to people here, from Europeans, from Asians, from Africans, from Latin Americans. It is very important to get the message that others are also fighting. Opposition in the rest of the world is very important to promote the US government's isolation as also of its governmental allies. But we also have to get across to the public in our own countries the fact that there are many Americans who themselves are also very opposed to the occupation. I think there should also be a particular appeal to people of color in the US, who as opinion polls often show are usually more skeptical about the foreign policy behaviour of the US government than their other compatriots.

AS: What do you think about the role of Russia? Russia under Putin is not a very democratic country, they are in a way allied with US, as they don't feel powerful enough to confront it.

AV: In fact all of these countries, Russia, China, India are not punching their diplomatic weight. They could do much more to make life difficult for the US, even diplomatically speaking. But basically they are so desperately keen to maintain good relations with US in spite of Iraq that they underestimate (willfully perhaps) their space of what can be called 'safe' opposition, i.e., the fact that they can be more critical without thinking that the US will turn on them because for all sorts of reasons the US does not itself want to risk alienating these countries governments and elites. But they are instead prepared to finesse the issue of Iraq to whatever extent possible. They don't want Iraq to be even a minor irritant in their relations with the US. That's why we have to put pressure on these governments to change and respect the public opinion within their own countries which is far more critical of the US. Of course what will happen is that if the Americans keep on having huge problems in Iraq then that creates its own tensions between them with the US wanting more support and at the same time the weakening of the US creates more space for independent diplomatic manoeuvring for these governments if they are so inclined to use this space, which is an open question.

AS: Russia doesn't have troops in Iraq, but anyway there was not much civil society pressure against the war in Russia.

AV: But I can tell you there is strong sentiment in China, India, etc., on the Iraq issue. In my country, India, on the right we have Hindu fundamentalists, the BJP, which have big support among the middle classes. Even among them, who are otherwise strongly pro-American, the attitude is "yes the Americans are a bully for what they did in Iraq". And these are Hindu fundamentalists who are anti Muslim! Even they have these feelings. There is very widespread feeling, not only in Muslim countries, although probably stronger in Muslim countries, that the Americans are a bully. After September 11 in Europe there was a great sympathy among the public and shock at what had happened, and in four years it has largely disappeared. We have to make a distinction between governments in Europe and the public. There is much greater hostility amongst the public in Europe. The governments shamefully are not respecting these sentiments.

AS: So you think that in the long term the US will not be able to maintain the occupation, especially if civil society keeps pressure on their governments

AV: In the long term I am optimistic that they are going to have increasing problems. We are living in an age of nationalism, fierce nationalism. They never expected - I don't think others also expected - that after the invasion the US would have so many problems; it came as a surprise to them. They still can't handle it. And what has happened is that this puppet government has also discredited itself in Iraq to large extent because it took so long to form. The attitude of many people was "look what's going on, there is backstabbing and dealing and all the rest of it, and that's why it took that many weeks to form the government." The conditions of ordinary Iraqi people are terrible. This government is not able to help them significantly. Then there is the running sore of Palestine. All that is creating new circumstances. Thus we have had Muqtada al Sadr coming out more strongly in opposition to the US. Of course there are attempts to create a Shia - Sunni divide, to reinforce the Kurdish separation. But the American project of getting elite and middle class support from these countries is not working.

AS: Do you think the US is going to interfere in Syria and Iran?

AV: There are two points of view here. One is that they have too many problems in Iraq, and until they solve them they can't afford it. Another point of view is that as a diversion they might seek to do just that. I think Syria no. Can they attack Iran? Certainly they are worried about Iran's nuclear potential, but you have a Shia dominated government in Iraq - there are connections between this government and Iran. They might do it, I can't say that they will not attack Iran, but I suspect that if they do that it would be an even graver miscalculation. I am not saying that they cannot do that, because you have to allow for stupidity of calculations. There are bound to be people close to decision-making or involved in them who say "maybe we should do this or that...we have to worry about Iran having nuclear weapons". So any judgement or at least mine must remain open ended. I can't say that because they would face much greater problems than they already have in Iraq that therefore they will not attack Iran.

One must always remember that from a geo-strategic point of view, the biggest assault, indeed defeat, to US ambitions and control of the Middle East region, was not the resistance to or problem posed by Saddam Hussein, but what happened in 1979, when the Shah of Iran was overthrown. That was in fact the reason why the US supported Iraq against Iran in Iraq-Iran war 1980-1988. That was the biggest strategic defeat for the US since 1945. Their most important player, the Shah of Iran, was gone, and Iran is a more powerful country than Iraq, and they still remember that. And if they have this logic, which they do, that they must re-establish their control over the region, they have to eventually take on Iran. That is a fact that might lead them to think that they must attack Iran. But if they do that it would be an enormous political and strategic mistake. But they might think they can get away with it.

AS: Thank you for this long interview

AV: You are very welcome