Excerpts from a recent speech by Nadia Mahmood of the Worker-communist Party of Iraq arguing for a "third force" in Iraq:
Many sections of the left who do not have socialist perspectives no more believe in the power of workers and therefore rely on nationalist and Islamic movement to fight imperialism, regardless of the price or the interests that these movements represent...
Left groups like SWP want to see al- Sadr winning the current conflict. This stand has nothing to do with socialist movement, not just in Iraq but also worldwide.
Almost every day we see a new group formed of handful of masked men holding swords or Kalashnikovs and standing in front of a green or a black banner reading some Koran verses and beheading people... This camp of the left is either supporting all these groups or at least some of them. What this stand has to do with people’s fair and urgent demand to get rid of US forces and Islamists in the same time?
Guilty feeling toward the colonial past of their countries moves these left groups, which ally with political Islam.
The other camp of the left spearheads the struggle of the working class and progressive people to achieve their urgent and fair demands. This camp has no illusion in the anti- human nature of nationalist and Islamic movements.
It represents a third force. In Iraq the Worker-communist Party of Iraq represents this third force and it is in the fore. Worker-communism is an international force and exists everywhere. However, internationally, it needs to come to the fore. We socialists worldwide need to get together and appear as an international force.
