US THEATRE OF TERROR THREATENS MIDDLE EAST
Western governments, analysts and pundits are currently displaying the usual pre-performance nerves we have seen so often before the onset of the ‘show’ in the ‘theatre’ of war. Advisers, analysts and markets are engaged in a daily temperature-taking of the situation: of the Bush administration’s propaganda victories and losses; of the true nature of Saddam’s arsenal; to the effects of the military build up on oil prices and equity markets – as the increasingly fragile Western capitalist system wonders whether its future is now dependent on the emergent US war economy, and the profits it may make from “regime change” in the Middle East; or conversely, whether such action would in fact precipitate widespread political and economic chaos.
With this propaganda war have come some momentous and deeply disturbing developments. In an attempt to justify the pursuit of “regime change” in Iraq, the Bush administration has unilaterally reversed decades of US foreign policy by announcing that from now on, the Americans are fully justified in pursuing pre-emptive strikes on states (or groups) they consider may pose a threat to US interests. The specific threat posed by Iraq has been touted by the publication of the UK government’s much vaunted intelligence “dossier” purporting to prove just how extensive Saddam’s military capacities really are, and intense negotiations are currently underway at the UN to get backing for Bush’s war aims in the event of Iraq failing to comply with the re-admission of weapons inspectors. UN capitulation is absolutely vital for Bush, since not only does it give any action in Iraq the veneer of legality, it could also act as a precedent in effectively legalising the policy of pre-emptive strikes itself. Yet, Iraq’s military capacity is itself the subject of debate: an alternative report circulated among UK Labour MPs for example, has stated that Saddam’s military capacity was all but annihilated by the Gulf War and subsequent inspections teams, and even the UK government dossier concedes Iraq is 5 years from producing nuclear weapons. Moreover, as many commentators have pointed out, even if Iraq does have an extensive military capability, this does not in itself prove any hostile intention – especially to the US, nor does it explain why Iraq should be attacked for having weapons of mass destruction (WMD), when countries such as Israel – or indeed the US - are not. Thus the case for a pre-emptive strike on Iraq has not been made, and if it accedes to the demands of the Bush administration, the UN will effectively concede a fundamental principle of international law. If the UN refuses to back military action as a “last resort” – which is possible, if unlikely - Bush will not have even the trappings of legitimacy to justify invasion. The threat of military action has already provoked widespread protests across the world; if undertaken unilaterally, such opposition, at home and abroad, is likely to increase massively.
“Regime change” in Iraq has been a central, driving tenet of a particular brand of American right wing ideology for around 10 years, but it has less to do with Saddam’s military arsenal and aspirations as with the US and Israel’s own grandiose ambitions in the region. As Brian Whittaker in the UK Guardian makes clear, this plan was articulated in a paper published in 1996 by an Israeli think tank, the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies and authored by among others, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, David and Meyrav Wurmser – who now hold key positions of power or influence in the current US administration. Entitled ‘A clean break: a new strategy for securing the realm’, it outlines the advantages to Israel of the removal of Saddam and replacing him with a Jordanian-derived Hashemite monarchy, allowing Israel to create an axis of dominance from which to “roll back” Syria and Lebanon. Such aims were more recently reiterated by a report published in 2000 by the neo-conservative think-tank Project for the New American Century (PNAC). In ‘Rebuilding America's Defences: Strategies, Forces And Resources For A New Century’ - drawn up for Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz among others, the US administration’s true strategy towards Iraq was made quite clear: “The United States” it says, “has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.” In other words, the US is after political and economic control of the region, and this current regime, it appears, will do anything in order to achieve it.
This flagrant flouting of international law comes on the back of a whole series of double standards. It is the Americans, in fact, who are in breach of the UN brokered Gulf War ceasefire agreement, which among other things, calls for an ending of sanctions and the demilitarisation of the entire Middle East region. Yet, as the journalist Robert Fisk has pointed out, if sanctions have failed to prevent Iraq from acquiring WMD, then half a million Iraqi children, dead as a direct result of Western sanctions, have died in vain. Moreover, the Bush administration has made no attempt to demilitarise Israel’s WMD, including its powerful nuclear capacity. Extreme regional destabilisation caused by the effects of a US attack is the most likely scenario in which Saddam will use his chemical and biological weaponry; what are the prospects that the US will persuade Israel not to retaliate if hit by an Iraqi scud missile, or rounds of anthrax? The generalised chaos that would engulf a region as complex as the Middle East in the event of attempted “regime change” would not only precipitate unforeseen catastrophes, in which the Iraqi, the Palestinian and the Kurdish people would be the principal victims, but far from “securing” a US presence in the region, is more likely to precipitate a version of World War 3, in which states such as Saudi Arabia, currently in a state of precarious, if deeply undemocratic stability could be capitulated into profound destabilisation. This is especially the case since 9/11, as the US now believe they have a carte-blanche to wage war against anyone they deem threatening to their interests; and the growth of US enemies after two decades of neo-liberal economics, the grotesque dominance of Israel in the region and the growth of Islamic fundamentalism, all of which are unlikely to bring stability any closer in the event of an invasion.
The current US administration is driven by two goals: the first is a crazed far-right ideological belief that America should rule the world; the second is a need for a buoyant economy. There is no doubt that the US, and indeed the world economy is in deep trouble. After a year or more of attempts to fight off recession, the US is using militarisation as a way of trying to boost the domestic market: projected defence spending is set to rise under Bush from $343 billion in 2002 to $469 billion by 2007 – and justifications for using these weapons will need to be sought. However, jacking up the defence budget is unlikely to rescue an economy that, after years of gold-rush boom, is currently on the skids. Share prices in the US, the UK and Japan are at a six year low and are still over valued: most Western economies are saddled with a chronic debt problem and to compound things, the US economy is now overly dependent on the purchase of foreign goods and services – so if foreign investors start to pull out, its economy will collapse. In these circumstances, war in Iraq is a desperate attempt at shore up, based on weapons production at home and control of oil supplies abroad. It is, however unlikely to work. If world oil supply becomes an overt form of war booty – as it will do if the US invade - prices will soar and the US economy will implode.
It is to be hoped that those players at the UN – the Russians, the Chinese and the French – block the call for a new resolution, that weapons inspectors are allowed back into Iraq, and multilateral attempts to solve the issues faced by the region are given a new urgency. Iraq is currently under a huge amount of pressure to concede to all existing and future UN resolutions, and looks likely to do so. However, the US will want to make it as hard as possible for Iraq to comply, and Bush and Blair continue to trumpet bellicose threats to go it alone if necessary, despite the fact that such action is opposed by a majority of the UK and US populations. In such circumstances, the massive anti-war protests in London, and across the world this weekend, were the manifestation of the increasingly desperate feeling that people are not being heard. Over 300,000 people marched in London on Saturday – an exhilarating combination of British radicals and Muslims; another 100,000 protested in Rome, with protests also staged in Cairo, San Franscico, Berlin and Cyprus. Such action is likely to increase in size and urgency if the politicians continue to flout international law, destabilise the Middle East and ignore the wishes of the people. Who gets to decide “regime change”, whether in the US or Iraq is the real war in these unfolding geopolitical theatrics, and over which it will be fought – and lost or won.
Playing skittles with Saddam:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,785394,00.html
Bush planned Iraq 'regime change' before becoming President:
http://www.traprockpeace.org/sundayherald0915.html
Dark Passage:
http://www.moscowtimes.ru/stories/2002/09/20/120.html
The dishonest case for war on Iraq:
http://www.traprockpeace.org/counter-dossier.html
The Economic Costs of Going to War with Iraq: http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2002/0209warimpact.html
Post-9/11 Economic Windfalls for Arms Manufacturers:
http://www.fpif.org/briefs/vol7/v7n10arms.html
The dishonesty of this so-called dossier
http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=336404
It's the economy, stupid
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,798092,00.html
Coverage of anti-war protests in London and across the world:
http://uk.indymedia.org/