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political accomodation not only with the Saudi Arabian monarchy-the most economically powerful imperialist ally in the Middle East-but also with the imperialist nations themselves, through a proliferation of trade deals with the USA, France and Britain.

Despite its leftist rhetoric, the bonapartist regime. of Hussein's Arab Ba'ath Socialist Party retains its power only by the most vigorous repression of trade union and democratic rights within Iraq.

Political executions of opponents have included not only Communist Party members and militant student and trade union leaders, but also opposition elements from within the Ba'athists' own ranks.

And the regime, even while declaring itself in favour of 'self-determination' for the Iranian Arabs of Khuzestan has pursued its own persecution of the Kurdish minority within Iraq's borders. Indeed the initial motivation of the now LIAISON COMMITTEE DISCUSSIOI BULLETIN No. 2 Articles on Nicaragua, Parity Commission and TILC Declaration Price 40p plus 15p p&p from WSL, BM Box 5277, London WC1V 6XX contested 1975 treaty with the Shah was to establish a common framework for repression of the Kurdish struggle for national independence.

Sovereignty

In exchange for Iranian help in containing the Kurds, the Ba'athists conceded Iranian sovereignty over - the Shatt al-Arab estuary.

Now Hussein has calculated that the time is right to reverse this humiliating concession.

But the Iraqi forces have plainly found the military going harder than they-or anyone else-expected. And, far from being forced to a rapid surrender, the Khomeini regime plainly regards this external threat as an ideal opportunity to win back some of its lost mass support in a war of "national defence"

Already the 'Marxist forces of the Fedayeen have been pulled back into line, publishing a statement in the rabidly Islamic daily paper Etala'at calling upon their thousands of supporters-still hounded by Khomeini's supporters-to rally to "defend the revolution and independence of the country in the face of attacks from the Iraqi fascist regime"

The fact is that in neither Iraq nor Iran do the masses have any interest in the military defence of the ruling cliques. Though neither is a direct client state of imperialism, their anti-imperialist rhetoric cannot hide the fact that both are reactionaly governments administered by petty bourgeois demagogues within the framework of domestic and world capitalism.

Persecution

They are locked into the world capitalist market, and seek to defend the existing balance of class forces.

Both therefore pursue the persecution of national minorities, the vicious oppression of women and of gays, and seek to suppress all forms of socialist. political opposition.

That both are now prepared to engage in a futile war over a waterway which both need to use in order to export their oil, rather than throw their military resources behind the struggles of the Palestinians and present a common front against imperialism and its stooges in the Middle East, is further testimony to their contempt and hostility to the oppressed masses of the Civil war Socialist Press stands opposed to support for either side in this war. We defend neither Khomeini nor Hussein against the other: we would however defend either or both against an imperialist attack.

In the present war, the task before both Iraqi and Iranian workers is to turn the struggle from a terrițorial dispute with an external "enemy" to a struggle against the Hussein and Khomeini regimes at home.

This means the fight within the armed forces on each side 40] rank and file committees and soviets to halt the hostilities and the formation in Iran and Iraq of factory committees and committees of poor peasants to turn the war into a civil war in which the masses confront the state forces that daily repress them, and take up the fight for a workers' and peasants' government.

Minimum step

It would be necessary to demand that such a government should, as a minimum step, move to end the national oppression of the Kurds and other minorities; extend democratic rights to the workers' movement; open the books of industry to the workers' movement; expropriate capitalist holdings and establish workers' management over state-owned enterprises; and adopt a genuinely internationalist anti-imperialist foreign policy, pledg,ing active support to revolutionary struggles in the Middle East and elsewhere.