February 15, 2003 Anti-war Protest - Effect

Effect

At the time, many commentators were hopeful that this global mobilization of unprecedented scale would stop the coming Iraq war. New York Times writer Patrick Tyler claimed that they showed that there were "two superpowers on the planet - the United States, and worldwide public opinion".

The unprecedented size of the demonstrations was widely taken to indicate that the majority of people across the world opposed the war. However, the pro-war Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard, claimed that the protests were not representative of public opinion, saying "I don't know that you can measure public opinion just by the number of people that turn up at demonstrations."

The potential effect of the protests was generally dismissed by pro-war politicians; the then US National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice was reported as saying that the protests would "not affect determination to confront Saddam Hussein and help the Iraqi people".

Her view was borne out as the day of protests, along with the protests that followed it, failed to stop the war. However, the protests and other public opposition have been held up as a key factor in the decisions of the governments of many countries, such as Canada, to not send troops to Iraq.

Though demonstrations against the Iraq war and subsequent occupation have continued none has matched this day in terms of size. One explanation for this that has been suggested is that people have become disillusioned with marching as a political tactic because of the failure of these demonstrations to achieve their explicit aim. In 2006 three years after this day, in an article arguing for people to attend a further march, Mike Marqusee put forward two counter arguments to this. Firstly he claimed that it was too soon to judge the long-term significance of the demonstrations noting that "People who took part in the non-cooperation campaigns in India in the 20s and 30s had to wait a long time for independence." and that "There were eight years of protest and more than 2 million dead before the Vietnam war came to an end". Secondly, he claimed that while the effect of marching may be uncertain, the effect of not marching would surely be to make it more likely that the occupation would continue.

According to Alex Callinicos some people argue from the idea that the demonstrations have failed, to the notion that the anti-war movement should concentrate on direct action rather than mass demonstrations. He argues against this claiming that putting pressure on governments not to join in with "Bush’s imperial project" requires an expression of opposition of large numbers of people and claims that "scattered, localised direct actions do not provide the necessary visibility" He further claims that "big national demonstrations are also important in sustaining the momentum of the movement".

Despite failing in its explicit aim, the February 15 global day of anti-war protests had many effects that, according to some, were not directly intended. According to United Kingdom left-wing anti-war activist Salma Yaqoob, one of these was that they were a powerful antidote to the idea that the war was a "Clash of Civilizations", or a religious war, an idea she claimed was propagated both by Western leaders and reactionary forces in the Arab world. This is echoed in the words of former Hizb ut-Tahrir organiser Hadiya Masieh who said of the non-Muslims marching in London "How could we demonise people who obviously opposed aggression against Muslims?".