As Tony Blair seeks re-election for a third time, many voters will judge his latest term as Prime Minister on the role he has played as assistant to Bush in the war and occupation of Iraq.

A colonial occupation which has caused the deaths of up to 100,000 Iraqis and has cost nearly $300 billion. The economic costs of the occupation are spiralling out of control and putting huge pressure on the British exchequer. This is money that could be better spent dealing with the problems of the NHS or the underfunding of education.

Recent revelations suggest that Blair's senior New Labour friends put "huge pressure" on attorney general Lord Goldsmith to lie by declaring the war "legal" before Bush went in, back in 2003. But the invasion and occupation of Iraq has been based on one lie after another from the weapons of mass destruction to the latest lie which is that Iraq has entered a new dawn of democracy and freedom.

On 6 April the unrepresentative stooge Iraqi parliament elected Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani as the interim President. Adil Abd al-Mahdi (a Shia) and Ghazi al-Yawir (Sunni) have been elected vice-Presidents. Hajim al-Hasani, a Sunni has also been elected as speaker, and this appointment immediately came under attack by Sunnis who claim that al-Hasani is a traitor because of his support for the US assault last year on Fallujah which resulted in the deaths of up to 3,000 Iraqis.

Al-Hasani said, "It is an Iraq where all the people are unified", he said he would work to "erect an independent and united Iraqi state based on democracy". This is an impossible task for the new Iraqi government that was elected under the guns of the occupation armies and with a minority of the support of the Iraqi people.

The sharing out of leading government posts amongst the Shi'ites, Kurds and Sunnis is an attempt at establishing a power-sharing type regime similar to the Lebanon in the hope that it will lead to unity and co-operation. This is a flawed strategy that is doomed to failure. The majority of Shi'ites voted in the January elections to put in power a government that would lead to a quick withdrawal of the occupation forces. However there is no short-term prospect of the US and British withdrawing from Iraq.

They are determined to stay to ensure that the country's oil resources remain in safe pro-western hands and to stop civil war and a further destabilisation of the Middle East. The US military has boasted that attacks on their forces have fallen to 50-a-day as "proof" that "democracy" is working. This new Iraqi regime depends on the 150,000 occupying troops to remain in power as it has no real independent military force to defend it from the 200,000 members of the resistance forces.

The Kurds were voting for independence, which will be opposed by the US, Turkey and the Shi'ites and Sunnis. And the majority of Sunnis boycotted the election and completely oppose this administration. This power-sharing government will be unstable from the beginning and the conflicting aspirations of the various factions who make it up will eventually lead to it becoming an impotent symbol of imperialism's failed plan to bring democracy to Iraq. A similar power-sharing plan in the Lebanon led to a bloody 15 year long civil war, and recently Lebanon has been on the brink of sectarian conflict once again.

The Socialist Party supports the resistance of the Iraqi people to the colonial occupation. This does not mean that we support the aims of all of the factions of the resistance movement, for example those who support Islamic fundamentalism. We also do not support actions that are sectarian and are aimed at causing conflict between Sunni and Shia.

The Iraqi people will only achieve peace, democracy and a future free from poverty and occupation when all of its peoples are united in a struggle against imperialism and for a socialist Iraq. As a step towards this, a democractically run resistance movement which is controlled by the Iraqi working class and poor must be established as well as independent trade unions and workers' organisations that can fight against mass unemployment and the daily problems which afflict the Iraqi people.

This new government will be quickly exposed for what they are - pro US stooges who will do the bidding of Washington and London and the majority of Iraq's, Shia, Sunni and Kurds are destined to oppose it and increase and swell the ranks of the resistance movement.