Doctrines And Visions

We have just passed the first anniversary of the President's declaration of victory in Iraq. I won't speakabout what is happening on the ground. There is more than enough information about that, and we can draw ourown conclusions. I will just mention one aspect of it: What has happened to Iraqis? About that, we knowlittle, because it is not investigated. Some surprise has recently been voiced in the British press about thisgap in our knowledge. That's a misunderstanding. It is quite general practice.

Thus we do not know within millions how many people died in the course of the US wars in Indochina.Information and concern are so slight that in the only careful study I have found, the mean estimate ofVietnamese who died is 100,000, about 5% of the official figure and probably 2-3% of the actual figure.Virtually no one knows that victims of the US chemical warfare that began in 1962 are estimated at about600,000, still dying, or that it was recently discovered that the use of devastating carcinogens was at twicethe announced rate, and at levels incomparably beyond anything tolerated within the industrial societies --all in South Vietnam; the North was spared this particular atrocity.

As a thought experiment, we might ask how we would react if Germans estimated deaths in the Holocaust at2-300,000 and had little knowledge or interest about the modalities of the slaughter.

There is one exception to lack of information about casualties in Indochina. There have been very intensiveefforts from the start to reveal, or very often simply to invent, atrocities that could be attributed to theKhmer Rouge. Post-KR literature on the topic is substantial, ranging from astonishingly low estimates of KRcrimes in the curious 1980 CIA demographic study, when evidence had become available about the peaking ofatrocities at the end, to far higher and more credible estimates by serious and extensive scholarship. One canhardly fail to observe that the single exception to the rule involves crimes that are doctrinally useful.

Turning to Iraq, information is as usual slight, but not entirely lacking. A study bythe London-based health organization MEDACT last November, scarcely mentioned in the US, gave a rough estimateof between 22,000-55,000 Iraqi dead, and also reported rising maternal mortality rates, near doubling of acutemalnutrition, and an increase in water-borne diseases and vaccine-preventable diseases. "The mostimportant thing that comes out of [the study] is that the data are not available," Dr. Victor Sidelcommented. He is a noted US health authority, past president of International Physicians for the Prevention ofNuclear War and an adviser to the study.

Two months ago, a fact-finding mission by the Belgian NGO Medical Aid for the Third World found that eventhe devastating effects of the US-UK sanctions have not been overcome, including their veto of medicines, andthat infant mortality is apparently increasing and general health declining because of deteriorating livingconditions: lack of access to food, potable water, or medical aid and hospitals, and a sharp decline inpurchasing power - largely the result of the remarkable failures of what should have been one of the easiestmilitary occupations ever. "It has been one of the most extraordinary failures in history," theveteran British correspondent Patrick Cockburn observed, quite plausibly.

The best explanation I have heard was from a high-ranking official of one of the world's leadinghumanitarian and relief organizations, who has had extensive experience in some of the most awful places inthe world. After several frustrating months in Baghdad, he said he had never seen such a combination of"arrogance, ignorance, and incompetence" -- referring not to the military, but to the civilians whorun the Pentagon.

In Iraq they have succeeded in achieving pretty much what they did in the international arena: quicklyturning the US into the most feared and often hated country in the world. The latest in-depth polls in Iraq--beforethe recent revelations about torture -- found that among Iraqi Arabs, the US is regarded as an "occupyingforce" rather than a "liberating force" by 12 to 1, and increasing. If we count also Kurds, whohave their own distinct aspirations and hopes, the figures are still overwhelming: 88% of all Iraqis accordingto one recent poll, also pre-Abu Ghraib.

Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz and associates have even succeeded in turning the young cleric Moqtada al-Sadr,previously a marginal figure, into the second most popular leader in Iraq, right below Grand Ayatollah AliSistani, with 1/3 of the population "strongly supporting" him and another third "somewhatsupporting" him. Other Western polls find support for the occupying forces in single digits, and the samefor the Governing Council they appointed.

But I will put Iraq aside, and turn to the "new imperial grand strategy"that was to be set in motion with the conquest of Iraq, and the doctrines and visions that underlie it.

The phrase "new imperial grand strategy" is not mine. It has a much more interesting source: theleading establishment journal, Foreign Affairs, the journal of the Council on Foreign Relations. Theinvasion of Iraq was virtually announced in Sept 2002, along with the Bush Administration's National SecurityStrategy, which declared the intention to dominate the world for the indefinite future and to destroy anypotential challenge to US domination. The UN was informed that it could be "relevant" if itauthorized what Washington would do anyway, or else it could become a debating society, as Administrationmoderate Colin Powell instructed them. The invasion of Iraq was to be the first test of the new doctrineannounced in the NSS, "the petri dish in which this experiment in pre-emptive policy grew," the NewYork Times reported as the experiment was declared a grand success a year ago.

The doctrine and its implementation in Iraq elicited unprecedented protest around the world, including theforeign policy elite at home. In Foreign Affairs, the "new imperial grand strategy" wasimmediately criticized as a threat to the world and to the US. Elite criticism was remarkably broad, but onnarrow grounds: the principle is not wrong, but the style and implementation are dangerous, a threat to USinterests. The basic thrust of the criticism was captured by Madeleine Albright, also in Foreign Affairs.She pointed out that every President has a similar doctrine, but keeps it in his back pocket, to be used whennecessary. It is a serious error to smash people in face with it, and to implement it in brazen defiance evenof allies, let alone rest of world. That is simply foolish, another illustration of the dangerous combinationof "arrogance, ignorance, and incompetence."

Albright of course knew that Clinton had a similar doctrine. As UN Ambassador, she had reiterated to theSecurity Council President Clinton's message to them that the US will act "multilaterally when possiblebut unilaterally when necessary." And later as Clinton's Secretary of State, she surely knew that theWhite House had spelled out the meaning in messages to Congress declaring the right to "unilateral use ofmilitary power" to defend vital interests, which include "ensuring uninhibited access to keymarkets, energy supplies and strategic resources," without even the pretexts that Bush and Blair devised. Taken literally, the Clinton doctrine is more expansive than Bush's NSS, but it was issued quietly, not in amanner designed to arouse hostility, and the same was true of its implementation. And as Albright correctlypointed out, the doctrine has a long tradition in the US--elsewhere as well, including precedents that onemight prefer not to think about.

Despite the precedents, the new imperial grand strategy was understood to be highly significant. HenryKissinger described it as a "revolutionary" doctrine, which tears to shreds the international orderestablished in the 17th century Westphalian system, and of course the UN Charter and modern international law,not worth mentioning. The revolutionary new approach is correct, Kissinger felt, but he also cautioned aboutstyle and implementation. And he added a crucial qualification: it must not be "universalized." Theright of aggression at will (dropping euphemisms) is to be reserved to the US, perhaps delegated to selectedclients. We must forcefully reject the most elementary of moral truisms: That we apply to ourselves the samestandards we apply to others.

Others criticized the doctrine and its first test on sharply different grounds. One was Arthur Schlesinger,perhaps the most respected living American historian. As the first bombs fell on Baghdad, he recalled thewords of FDR when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor on "a date which will live in infamy." Now it isAmericans who live in infamy, Schlesinger wrote, as their government follows the course of imperial Japan. Headded that Bush and his planners had succeeded in converting a "global wave of sympathy" for the USto "a global wave of hatred of American arrogance and militarism." A year later, it was much worse,international polls revealed. In the region with the longest experience with US policies, opposition to Bushreached 87% among the most pro-US elements, Latin American elites: 98% in Brazil and almost as high in Mexico.Again, an impressive achievement.

As also anticipated, the war increased the threat of terror. Middle East specialistswho moniter attitudes in the Muslim world were astonished by the revival of the appeal of "global jihadiIslam," which had been in decline. Recruitment for al-Qaeda networks increased. Iraq, which had no tiesto terror before, became a "terrorist haven" (Harvard terrorism specialist Jessica Stern), alsosuffering its first suicide attacks since the 13th century. Suicide attacks for 2003 reached their highestlevel in modern times. The year ended with a terror alert in the US of unprecedented severity.

On the first anniversary of the war, New York's Grand Central Station was patrolled by heavily-armedpolice, a reaction to the Madrid bombing, the worst terrorist crime in Europe. A few days later, Spain votedout the government that had gone to war against the will of the overwhelming majority, and by so doing, hadwon great praise for its stellar role in the New Europe was the hope of the future; Western commentatorssucceeded brilliantly in "not noticing" that the criterion for membership in New Europe waswillingness to dismiss the popular will and follow orders from Crawford, Texas.

A year later, Spain was bitterly condemned for appeasing terror by calling for withdrawal of Spanish troopsfrom Iraq unless they were under UN authority. Commentators failed to point out that this is essentially theposition of 70% of Americans, who call for the UN to take the lead in security, economic reconstruction, andworking with Iraqis to establish a democratic government. But such facts are scarcely known, and the issuesare not on the electoral agenda, another illustration of the reality of "democratic credentials."

There is a curious performance underway right now among Western commentators, who are solemnly debatingwhether the Bush administration downgraded the "war on terror" in favor of its ambitions in Iraq.The only surprising aspect of the revelations of former Bush administration officials that provoked the debateis that anyone finds them surprising - particularly right now, when it is so clear that by invading Iraq theadministration did just that: knowingly increased the threat of terror to achieve their goals in Iraq.

But even without this dramatic demonstration of priorities, the conclusions should be obvious. From thepoint of view of government planners, the ranking of priorities is entirely rational. Terror might kill 1000sof Americans; that much has been clear since the attempt by US-trained jihadis to blow up the World TradeCenter in 1993. But that is not very important in comparison with establishing the first secure military basesin a dependent client state at the heart of the world's major energy reserves - "a stupendous source ofstrategic power" and an incomparable "material prize," as high officials recognized in the1940s, if not before.

Zbigniew Brzezinski writes that "America's security role in the region" - in plain English, itsmilitary dominance - "gives it indirect but politically critical leverage on the European and Asianeconomies that are also dependent on energy exports from the region." As Brzezinski knows well, concernthat Europe and Asia might move on an independent course is the core problem of global dominance today, andhas been a prime concern for many years.

Fifty years ago, the leading planner George Kennan observed that control of the stupendous source ofstrategic power gives the US "veto power" over what rivals might do. Thirty years ago, Europecelebrated the Year of Europe, in recognition of its recovery from wartime destruction. Henry Kissinger gave a"Year of Europe" address, in which he reminded his European underlings that their responsibility isto tend to their "regional responsibilities" within the "overall framework of order"managed by the US. The problems are more severe today, extending to the dynamic Northeast Asian region.Control of the Gulf and Central Asia therefore becomes even more significant. The importance is enhanced bythe expectation that the Gulf will have an even more prominent role in world energy production in decades tocome. US-UK support for vicious dictatorships in Central Asia, and the jockeying over where pipelines will goand under whose supervision, are part of the same renewed "great game."

Why, then, should there be any surprise that terror should be downgraded in favor of the invasion of Iraq?Or that Wolfowitz-Rumsfeld-Cheney and associates were pressuring the intelligence community to come up withsome shreds of evidence to justify invasion, Blair and Straw as well: Iraqi links to terror, WMD, anythingwould do. It is rather striking that as one after another pretext collapses, and the leadership announces anew one, commentary follows dutifully along, always conspicuously avoiding the obvious reason, which isvirtually unmentionable. Among Western intellectuals, that is; not in Iraq. US polls in Baghdad found that alarge majority assumed that the motive for the invasion was to take control of Iraq's resources and reorganizethe Middle East in accord with US interests. It is not unusual for those at the wrong end of the club to havea clearer understanding of the world in which they live.

There are plenty of other current illustrations of the fact, obvious enough toBaghdadis, that terror is regarded as a minor issue in comparison with ensuring that the Mideast is properlydisciplined. There was a revealing example just last week, when Bush imposed new sanctions on Syria,implementing the Syria Accountability Act passed by Congress in December, virtually a declaration of warunless Syria follows US commands. Syria is on the official list of states sponsoring terrorism, despiteacknowledgment by the CIA that Syria has not been involved in sponsoring terror for many years and has beenhighly cooperative in providing important intelligence to Washington on al-Qaeda and other radical Islamistgroups, and in other anti-terrorist actions.

The gravity of Washington's concern over Syria's links to terror was revealed by Clinton ten years ago,when he offered to remove Syria from the list of states sponsoring terror if it agreed to US-Israeli peaceterms. When Syria insisted on recovering its conquered territory, it remained on the list. Had it beenremoved, that would have been the first time a country was dropped from the list since 1982, when the presentincumbents in Washington, in their Reaganite phase, removed Saddam from the list so that they could providehim with a flow of badly needed aid while he carried out his worst atrocities, joined by Britain and manyothers - which again tells us something about the attitude towards terror and state crimes, as does the factthat Iraq was replaced on the list by Cuba, perhaps in recognition of the fact that the US terrorist waragainst Cuba that has been underway since the Kennedy years had reached a peak of ferocity just then.

None of this, and much more like it, is supposed to tell us anything about the "war on terror"that was declared by the Reagan administration in 1981, quickly becoming a murderous terrorist war, andre-declared with much the same rhetoric 20 years later.

The implementation of the Syria Accountability Act, passed near unanimously, deprives the US of a majorsource of information about radical Islamist terrorism in order to achieve the higher goal of establishing inSyria a regime that will accept US-Israeli demands - not an unusual pattern, though commentators continuallyfind it surprising no matter how strong the evidence and regular the pattern, and no matter how rational thechoices in terms of clear and understandable planning priorities.

The Syria Accountability Act of last December tells us more about state priorities and prevailing doctrinesof the intellectual and moral culture, as international affairs scholar Steven Zunes points out. Its coredemand refers to UN Security Council Resolution 520, calling for respect for the sovereignty and territorialintegrity of Lebanon, violated by Syria because it still retains in Lebanon forces that were welcomed there bythe US and Israel in 1976 when their task was to carry out massacres of Palestinians. Overlooked by thecongressional legislation, and news reporting and commentary, is the fact that Resolution 520, passed in 1982,was explicitly directed against Israel, not Syria, and also the fact that while Israel violated this and otherSecurity Council resolutions regarding Lebanon for 22 years, there was no call for any sanctions againstIsrael or for reduction in the huge unconditional military and economic aid to Israel.

The silence for 22 years includes those who now signed the Act condemning Syria for its violation of theSecurity Council resolution ordering Israel to leave Lebanon. The principle is very clear, Zunes writes:"Lebanese sovereignty must be defended only if the occupying army is from a country the United Statesopposes, but is dispensable if the country is a US ally." The principle applies quite broadly in variousmanifestations, not only in the US of course.

A side observation: by 2-1, the US population favors an Israel Accountability Act, holding Israelaccountable for development of WMD and human rights abuses in the occupied territories.