'Any Meaningful Democracy Is Unlikely'

Why did the U.S. invade Iraq, in your view?

These are naturally speculations, and policy makers may have varying motives. But we can have a high degreeof confidence about the answers given by Bush-Powell and the rest; these cannot possibly be taken seriously.They have gone out of their way to make sure we understand that, by a steady dose of self-contradiction eversince last September when the war drums began to beat. 

One day the "single question" is whether Iraq will disarm; in today's version (April 12):"We have high confidence that they have weapons of mass destruction -- that is what this war was aboutand is about." That was the pretext throughout the whole UN-disarmament farce, though it was never easyto take seriously; UNMOVIC was doing a good job in virtually disarming Iraq, and could have continued, if thatwere the goal. 

But there is no need to discuss it, because after stating solemnly that this is the "singlequestion," they went on the next day to announce that it wasn't the goal at all: even if there isn't apocket knife anywhere in Iraq, the US will invade anyway, because it is committed to "regimechange." 

The next day we hear that there's nothing to that either; thus at the Azores summit, where Bush-Blairissued their ultimatum to the UN, they made it clear that they would invade even if Saddam and his gang leftthe country. So "regime change" is not enough. 

The next day we hear that the goal is "democracy" in the world. Pretexts range over the lot,depending on audience and circumstances, which means that no sane person can take the charade seriously.

The one constant is that the US must end up in control of Iraq. Saddam Hussein was authorized to suppress,brutally, a 1991 uprising that might have overthrown him because "the best of all worlds" forWashington would be "an iron-fisted Iraqi junta without Saddam Hussein" (by then an embarrassment),which would rule the country with an "iron fist" as Saddam had done with US support and approval (NYTchief diplomatic correspondent Thomas Friedman). 

The uprising would have left the country in the hands of Iraqis who might not have subordinated themselvessufficiently to Washington. The murderous sanctions regime of the following years devastated the society,strengthened the tyrant, and compelled the population to rely for survival on his (highly efficient) systemfor distributing basic goods. 

The sanctions thus undercut the possibility of the kind of popular revolt that had overthrown an impressiveseries of other monsters who had been strongly supported by the current incumbents in Washington up to thevery end of their bloody rule: Marcos, Duvalier, Ceausescu, Mobutu, Suharto, and a long list of others, someof them easily as tyrannical and barbaric as Saddam. 

Had it not been for the sanctions, Saddam probably would have gone the same way, as has been pointed outfor years by the Westerners who know Iraq best, Denis Halliday and Hans van Sponeck (though one has to go toCanada, England, or elsewhere to find their writings). But overthrow of the regime from within would not beacceptable either, because it would leave Iraqis in charge. The Azores summit merely reiterated that stand.

The question of who rules Iraq remains the prime issue of contention. The US-backed opposition demands thatthe UN play a vital role in post-war Iraq and rejects US control of reconstruction or government (Leith Kubba,one of the most respected secular voices in the West, connected with the National Endowment ofDemocracy). 

One of the leading Shi'ite opposition figures, Sayed Muhamed Baqer al-Hakim, who heads the Supreme Councilfor Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), just informed the press that "we understand this war to be aboutimposing US hegemony over Iraq," and perceive the US as "an occupying rather than a liberatingforce." He stressed that the UN must supervise elections, and called on "foreign troops to withdrawfrom Iraq" and leave Iraqis in charge.

US policy-makers have a radically different conception. They must impose a client regime in Iraq, followingthe practice elsewhere in the region, and most significantly, in the regions that have been under USdomination for a century, Central America and the Caribbean. That too is well-understood. Brent Scowcroft,National Security Adviser to Bush I, just repeated the obvious: "What's going to happen the first time wehold an election in Iraq and it turns out the radicals win? What do you do? We're surely not going to let themtake over."

The same holds throughout the region. Recent studies reveal that from Morocco to Lebanon to the Gulf, about95% of the population want a greater role in government for Islamic religious figures, and the same percentagebelieve that the sole US interest in the region is to control its oil and strengthen Israel. Antagonism toWashington has reached unprecedented heights, and the idea that Washington would institute a radical change inpolicy and tolerate truly democratic elections, respecting the outcome, seems rather fanciful, to say theleast.

Turning to the question, one reason for the invasion, surely, is to gain control over the world's secondlargest oil reserves, which will place the US in an even more powerful position of global domination,maintaining "a stranglehold on the global economy," as Michael Klare describes the long-termobjective, which he regards as the primary motive for war. However, this cannot explain the timing. Why now?

The drumbeat for war began in September 2002, and the government-media propaganda campaign achieved aspectacular success. Very quickly, the majority of the population came to believe that Iraq posed an imminentthreat to US security, even that Iraq was involved in 9-11 (up from 3% after 9-11) and was planning newattacks. Not surprisingly, these beliefs correlated closely with support for the planned war. The beliefs areunique to the US. Even in Kuwait and Iran, which were invaded by Saddam Hussein, he was not feared, though hewas despised. They know perfectly well that Iraq was the weakest state in the region, and for years they hadjoined others in trying to reintegrate Iraq into the regional system, over strong US objections. But a highlyeffective propaganda assault drove the American population far off the spectrum of world opinion, a remarkableachievement.

The September propaganda assault coincided with two important events. One was the opening of the mid-termelection campaign. Karl Rove, the administration's campaign manager, had already pointed out that Republicanshave to "go to the country" on the issue of national security, because voters "trust theRepublican Party to do a better job of...protecting America." 

One didn't have to be a political genius to realize that if social and economic issues dominated theelection, the Bush administration did not have a chance. Accordingly, it was necessary to concoct a hugethreat to our survival, which the powerful leader will manage to overcome, miraculously. For the elections,the strategy barely worked. Polls reveal that voters maintained their preferences, but suppressed concernsover jobs, pensions, benefits, etc., in favor of security. Something similar will be needed for thepresidential campaign. 

All of this is second nature for the current incumbents. They are mostly recycled from the more reactionarysectors of the Reagan-Bush administrations, and know that they were able to run the country for 12 years,carrying out domestic programs that the public largely opposed, by pushing the panic button regularly: Libyanattempting to "expel us from the world" (Reagan), an air base in Grenada from which the Russianswould bomb us, Nicaragua only "two-days driving time from Harlingen Texas," waving their copies ofMein Kampf as they planned to take over the hemisphere, black criminals about to rape your sister (WillieHorton, the 1988 presidential campaign), Hispanic narcotraffickers about to destroy us, and on and on.

To maintain political power is an extremely important matter if the narrow sectors of power represented bythe Bush administration hope to carry out their reactionary domestic program over strong popular opposition,if possible even to institutionalize them, so it will be hard to reconstruct what is being dismantled.

Something else happened in September 2002: the administration released its National Security Strategy,sending many shudders around the world, including the US foreign policy elite. The Strategy has manyprecedents, but does break new ground: for the first time in the post-war world, a powerful state announced,loud and clear, that it intends to rule the world by force, forever, crushing any potential challenge it mightperceive. 

This is often called in the press a doctrine of "pre-emptive war." That is crucially wrong; itgoes vastly beyond pre-emption. Sometimes it is called more accurately a doctrine of "preventivewar." That too understates the doctrine. No military threat, however remote, need be"prevented"; challenges can be concocted at will, and may not involve any threat other than"defiance"; those who pay attention to history know that "successful defiance" has oftenbeen taken to be justification for resort to force in the past.

When a doctrine is announced, some action must be taken to demonstrate that it is seriously intended, sothat it can become a new "norm in international relations," as commentators will soberly explain.What is needed is a war with an "exemplary quality," Harvard Middle East historian Roger Owenpointed out, discussing the reasons for the attack on Iraq. The exemplary action teaches a lesson that othersmust heed, or else.

Why Iraq? The experimental subject must have several important qualities. It must be defenseless, and itmust be important; there's no point illustrating the doctrine by invading Burundi. Iraq qualified perfectly inboth respects. The importance is obvious, and so is the required weakness. Iraq was not much of a militaryforce to begin with, and had been largely disarmed through the 1990s while much of the society was driven tothe edge of survival. 

Its military expenditures and economy were about one-third those of Kuwait, with 10% of its population, farbelow others in the region, and of course the regional superpower, Israel, by now virtually an offshoremilitary base of the US. The invading force not only had utterly overwhelming military power, but alsoextensive information to guide its actions from satellite observation and overflights for many years, and morerecently U-2 flights on the pretext of disarmament, surely sending data directly back to Washington.

Iraq was therefore a perfect choice for an "exemplary action" to establish the new doctrine ofglobal rule by force as a "norm of international relations." A high official involved in draftingthe National Security Strategy informed the press that its publication "was the signal that Iraq would bethe first test, but not the last." "Iraq became the petri dish in which this experiment inpre-emptive policy grew," the New York Times reported -- misstating the policy in the usual way,but otherwise accurate.

All of these factors gave good reasons for war. And they also help explain why the planned war was sooverwhelmingly opposed by the public worldwide (including the US, particularly when we extract the factor offear, unique to the US). And also strongly opposed by a substantial part of economic and foreign policyelites, a very unusual development. They rightly fear that the adventurist posture may prove very costly totheir own interests, even to survival. 

It is well-understood that these policies are driving others to develop a deterrent, which could be weaponsof mass destruction, or credible threats of serious terror, or even conventional weapons, as in the case ofNorth Korea, with artillery massed to destroy Seoul. With any remnants of some functioning system of worldorder torn to shreds, the Bush administration is instructing the world that nothing matters but force -- andthey hold the mailed fist, though others are not likely to tolerate that for long. Including, one hopes, theAmerican people, who are in by far the best position to counter and reverse these extremely ominous trends.

There is some cheering in the streets of Iraqi cities. Does this retrospectively undercut the logic ofantiwar opposition?

I'm surprised that it was so limited and so long delayed. Every sensible person should welcome theoverthrow of the tyrant, and the ending of the devastating sanctions, most certainly Iraqis. But the antiwaropposition, at least the part of it I know anything about, was always in favor of these ends. That's why itopposed the sanctions that were destroying the country and undermining the possibility of an internal revoltthat would send Saddam the way of the other brutal killers supported by the present incumbents in Washington.

The antiwar movement insisted that Iraqis, not the US government, must run the country. And it still does-- or should; it can have a substantial impact in this regard. Opponents of the war were also rightly appalledby the utter lack of concern for the possible humanitarian consequences of the attack, and by the ominousstrategy for which it was the "test case." The basic issues remain: (1) Who will run Iraq, Iraqis ora clique in Crawford Texas? (2) Will the American people permit the narrow reactionary sectors that barelyhold on to political power to implement their domestic and international agendas?

There have been no WMD found. Does this retrospectively undercut Bush's rationales for war?

Only if one takes the rationale seriously. The leadership still pretends to, as Fleischer's current remarksillustrate. If they can find something, which is not unlikely, that will be trumpeted as justification for thewar. If they can't, the whole issue will be "disappeared" in the usual fashion.

If WMD are now found, and verified, would that retrospectively undercut antiwar opposition?

That's a logical impossibility. Policies and opinions about them are determined by what is known orplausibly believed, not by what is discovered afterwards. That should be elementary.

Will there be democracy in Iraq, as a result of this invasion?

Depends on what one means by "democracy." I presume the Bush PR team will want to put into placesome kind of formal democracy, as long as it has no substance. But it's hard to imagine that they would allowa real voice to the Shi'ite majority, which is likely to join the rest of the region in trying to establishcloser relations with Iran, the last thing the Bushites want. Or that they would allow a real voice to thenext largest component of the population, the Kurds, who are likely to seek some kind of autonomy within afederal structure that would be anathema to Turkey, a major base for US power in the region.

One should not be misled by the recent hysterical reaction to the crime of the Turkish government inadopting the position of 95% of its population, another indication of the passionate hatred of democracy inelite circles here, and another reason why no sensible person can take the rhetoric seriously. Same throughoutthe region. Functioning democracy would have outcomes that are inconsistent with the goal of US hegemony, justas in our own "backyard" over a century.

What message has been received by governments around the world, with what likely broad implications?

The message is that the Bush administration intends its National Security Strategy to be taken seriously,as the "test case" illustrates. It intends to dominate the world by force, the one dimension inwhich it rules supreme, and to do so permanently. A more specific message, illustrated dramatically by theIraq-North Korea case, is that if you want to fend off a US attack, you had better have a credible deterrent.

It's widely assumed in elite circles that the likely consequence is proliferation of WMD and terror, invarious forms, based on fear and loathing for the US administration, which was regarded as the greatest threatto world peace even before the invasion. That's no small matter these days. Questions of peace shade quicklyinto questions of survival for the species, given the case of means of violence.

What was the role of the American media establishment in paving the way for this war, and thenrationalizing it, narrowing the terms of discussion, etc.?

The media uncritically relayed government propaganda about the threat to US security posed by Iraq, itsinvolvement in 9-11 and other terror, etc. Some amplified the message on their own. Others simply relayed it.The effects in the polls were striking, as often before. Discussion was, as usual, restricted to"pragmatic grounds": will the US government get away with its plans at a cost acceptable at home.Once the war began it became a shameful exercise of cheering for the home team, appalling much of the world.

What is next on the agenda, broadly, for Bush and Co., if they are able to pursue their preferredagendas?

They have publicly announced that the next targets could be Syria and Iran -- which would require a strongmilitary base in Iraq, presumably; another reason why any meaningful democracy is unlikely. It has beenreliably reported for some time that the US and its allies (Turkey, Israel, and some others) have been takingsteps towards dismemberment of Iran. But there are other possible targets too. The Andean region qualifies. Ithas very substantial resources, including oil. It is in turmoil, with dangerous independent popular movementsthat are not under control. It is by now surrounded by US military bases with US forces already on the ground.And one can think of others.