Where Did It All Go Wrong?

Rahul Mahajan has written a highly recommended (and quite short) piece on the collapse of the anti-war movement. In light of the string of disasters which have befallen the occupiers he argues,

Across the political spectrum, people know that we were right and they were wrong. Yet there has hardly been a peep out of the antiwar movement. There RNC protest was great, but it was basically an anti-Bush protest – there wasn’t even any messaging about the just-concluded offensive against Najaf in which probably 2000 or more people were killed.

The problem is a real one and must be confronted by anyone who is interested in alleviating the suffering of the Iraqi people and exerting influence on US foreign policy.

Mahajan cites two reasons for this collapse, although he acknowledges that there are more: the drive to get Kerry elected and "that, with regard to protest actions, we have dumbed down our message to the ultimate demand 'Bring the troops home now!'" It is his comments on the latter which I find particularly interesting:

I have no problem with calling to end the occupation now. But we have to realize that even people who don’t support the war don’t look to us as some kind of spiritual authority. Nobody cares about our demands. People will listen to our arguments, information, and plans, but no longer to our ultimate demand.

We must, he contends, offer "responses to immediate political developments and transitional positions and campaigns." He argues that the struggle against the occupation of Iraq will be a long one and so to must the campaign against it:

Everything that happens in Iraq should build our base. We must mobilize against bombing of civilian areas and build our base. We must mobilize against torture and build our base. Right now, we must mobilize against Bush administration plans to manipulate the January elections in Iraq (and the upcoming election in Afghanistan). Any election held under military occupation is illegitimate. But we can’t stop the elections in Iraq. Thus, we have to mobilize to ensure that the elections, while remaining illegitimate, are as free and fair as possible. In the process, we bring into the movement people who believe in democracy but were unsure about the occupation; we may even derail plans to fix the elections.

The problems Mahajan presents are serious and how we respond to them could have important consequences.