“Protests failed to stop the war in Iraq. However it is possible that international outrage stopped the administration from fulfilling neoconservative desires to follow up on the invasion with assaults on Syria and Iran.” — Mark Engler, How To Rule the World, The Coming Battle Over the Global Economy, 2008
I’ve read similar claims about the 1960s antiwar demonstrations, that they may have prevented Johnson and Nixon from nuking North Vietnam. It is, of course, hard to prove a case by what didn’t happen, but this idea seems credible to me, then and now.
I’m wondering if peace activists will be willing to protest against a Democratic administration, when Obama reduces the Iraq war, while leaving tens of thousands of troops there, and escalates the war in Afghanistan.
Engler’s book is excellent. He says that the American ruling class is not unified, that there are different factions with different interests. War, he writes, only serves the economic interests of a minority of American corporations, mainly those involved in weapons production and energy. For the rest war is bad for business, or simply irrelevant. Neither faction is interested in democracy, or meeting the needs of most of the world’s population. Trying to make that happen is our job.
