Everyday our television screens are filled with images of horrific bloodshed and carnage in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hundreds die, men, women and children, in a single day. Some estimate that one million people have perished since the invasion of 2003. This is the reality after more than four years of foreign occupation.

George Bush and the Christian fundamentalist clique in Washington are desperate to hold the line. Bush is like some latter-day King Canute, hopelessly ordering the waves of defeat to retreat. An extra 30,000 troops were sent to bolster the crisis situation, but the situation is going from bad to worse. This month a report has been submitted to Congress about the bleak prospects facing the occupation. It will dress up the failings, but will also point to an unsustainable position.

Defeat

American officials openly talk about the defeat of the British army in southern Iraq. They have already been driven off the streets of Basra. "The insurgents are calling the shots . . . and in a worst-case scenario will chase us out of southern Iraq", said a senior British officer.

In a pre-emptive counter-attack Bush has drawn parallels with the Vietnam War, concluding that American army should have stayed and fought. But American imperialism was decisively defeated in Vietnam, not least by the massive anti-war movement at home. They were forced to get out or the army would have mutinied and social unrest would have reached revolutionary proportions at home. Bush, who is increasingly isolated, is burying his head in the sand, hoping everything will turn out fine. But the war is unsustainable economically and militarily. As in Vietnam, the Americans (and the British) will be driven out of Iraq. It is just a matter of time.

In the New York Times, a recent article written by several US army sergeants underlined the real situation on the ground. "In a lawless environment where men with guns rule the streets, engaging in the banalities of life has become a death-defying act. Four years into our occupation, we have failed on every promise, while we have substituted Ba'ath Party tyranny with a tyranny of Islamist, militia and criminal violence. When the primary preoccupation of average Iraqis is when and how they are likely to be killed, we can hardly feel smug as we hand out care packages. As an Iraqi man told us a few days ago with deep resignation, ‘We need security, not free food.'." (19 August)

This occupation had nothing to do with "weapons of mass destruction" or a "war for democracy", but everything to do with imperialism and its drive for resources and its strategic domination of the region. "War is the continuation of politics by other means", stated Clausewitz.

Western imperialism's intervention in this troubled region has a long history. "British commercial influence remains paramount", stated the British ambassador to Iraq in 1934. Britain is now fighting its fourth war in Afghanistan in 170 years.

After the Iranian Revolution of 1978-9 removed the Shah of Iran, US's most powerful ally in the region, Washington gave military support to the Ba'athist regime of Saddam Hussein. At that time Saddam was a "good" dictator and friend of the United States. But all that was to change as the interests of the United States changed.

In Afghanistan, the US imperialists supported the Taliban and Osama bin Laden in their quest to remove the progressive government of President Najibullah. At that time, girls were encouraged to go to school and university, women accounted for almost half the country's teachers and civil servants and the government redistributed land to the rural poor. But that was all destroyed when the Taliban fundamentalists seized power in Kabul in 1996. Women were oppressed, left-wingers were systematically eradicated and thieves were punished by amputating a hand or foot. But the imperialists had created a Frankenstein monster which was to threaten their interests. 9/11 provided the pretext for an invasion and laid the ground for war in Iraq - fully supported by the US Democrats and the Blair/Brown government.

While there is talk of the British withdrawing from Iraq, they are planning to pour more troops into Afghanistan (classified as a "good war"). According to the foreign secretary, David Miliband, Britain is in Afghanistan for the long haul. "We should be thinking in terms of decades," stated the British ambassador, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles.

"Liberation"

For the Afghan masses, six years after their "liberation", life is getting worse. Civilians are suffering the blight of insecurity and violence in an increasingly dirty war. In the south, 80,000 have been driven from their homes. The civilian casualty rate has doubled over the past 12 months. More than 200 were killed by US and other occupying forces in June alone. Meanwhile, the indiscriminate US aerial bombings have played into the hands of the Taliban and have provoked violent civilian demonstrations.

Afghanistan is turning into a nightmare scenario. The US and its imperialist allies, in a desperate gamble to extend their support through a tactic of ‘divide and rule', have ended up backing different warlords and turning most of the country into a collection of lawless and brutal fiefdoms. The British government's talk of "democracy" is a sick joke. The election of the Afghan government was marked by large-scale fraud and intimidation that gave regional warlords pride of place in a government made up of fundamentalists, assassins and gangsters. Gordon Brown, echoing the delusions of Bush, now claims Afghanistan is "the frontline against terrorism"!

Despite the fairy-tales of the politicians, there will be no peace or stability in Afghanistan or Iraq while foreign troops remain. In fact, there will be no peace on a capitalist basis. Only with the overthrow of landlordism and capitalism and the creation of a Socialist Federation of the Middle East, can the horrors of poverty, squalor, hunger and sectarian strife be eliminated. Only then can the rich resources of the region be used for the benefit of its oppressed peoples.