As this is written the week before Thanksgiving, we find ourselves in an odd moment of public calm before an impending cataclysm.
The mid-term elections are over. Twenty-two thousand votes and the tragic death in a plane crash of one of the most honorable of US Senators, Paul Wellstone, determined an outcome in terms of control of the Senate that could have serious consequences for world peace and for the well being of people in Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Cuba.
UN inspectors are beginning to return to Iraq while the US military build-up for war proceeds unabated. The Security Council voted unanimously for a resolution on Iraq that fourteen members saw as a restraint on the rush to war and one member saw as providing legitimacy for military action.
An article in the New York Times magazine of November 17th quotes the Brazilian Ambassador to the UN, “You have a situation of dual containment: you have to contain the United States; you have to contain Iraq.”
Certainly a large part of the responsibility for this crisis, and the means of its resolution, lies with Saddam Hussein. His over-the-edge behavior from the invasion of Kuwait until the present, including brutal treatment of his own people, have made him a prime candidate for international sanction and police action. Cooperation with UN weapons inspectors may be humiliating, but it is a minimal step to protect his people from an American war. Whether it is a sufficient step ultimately depends on what Washington’s goals really are - disarmament of weapons of mass destruction or conquest of a hostile regime.
We cannot ignore that mixed in with the argument over Iraq is a fundamental struggle to determine the role and character of the US in the world of the 21st century. The playing out of this conflict will determine large events effecting the lives of all of us, including the preservation of liberties vital to our own civil society. It will also have significant impact on US relations, and thus our own work, with the four nations of special concern to readers of Interchange.
There is a presumption in most countries that something about their national character or history makes them special. Identification with the nation historically was a step up from identification with one’s tribe/race, religious/ethnic group or principality whose interest was to be set above that of immediate or distant neighbors. However, preferential devotion to the interests of ones national birthplace resulted in two world wars and countless smaller conflicts.
The Cold War was about two powerful nation-states assembling and maintaining by whatever means necessary allies, clients and, if required, puppets in order to improve their advantage relative to each other. Sometimes that meant brute force; more often it meant negotiated compromises with your own allies so they were not prone to break ranks. America’s perceived requirements for its own security led to tragic and unnecessary consequences for Indochina, in violation of our own values.
When the Cold War ended, restraints were removed from old conflicts because they did not immediately seem threatening to the interests of major powers. Previously the victory of a particular group could add or detract from one’s position on the international chessboard. Now the costs of containment loomed larger than its necessity. But the forces let loose had their own agenda which brought them into conflict with the status quo and those who benefit from and seek to preserve it. Militant Islamic fundamentalism has wreaked havoc in the homeland of both former superpowers and has created an elusive power of terrorism.
Toward the end of the first Bush Administration, some key figures concluded that the means of reducing instability in the post Cold War world was, in effect, for the US to take charge. They argued there should be no country or collection of countries allowed to rival US power, and no country would be permitted to support terrorism or to have weapons of mass destruction if its leaders were misguided enough to potentially use them against the US. The exercise of US power would in reality be unilateral, but any and all supportive allies would be welcomed both for tactical requirements and protective coloration (a.k.a. a “coalition of the willing”).
The Clinton Administration recognized that even as the sole superpower American interests were best protected by forming real alliances with other countries, and by being willing to accept the compromises and commitments that a true coalition entails. There are multilateralist tendencies in the current Administration but their message is obscured because they must frame consultation as a more effective means of achieving unilateral goals. In addition, globalization of economic interests does have a mitigating effect on national chauvinism.
However, the unilateralist world view appears to be dominant as reflected in the National Security Strategy document issued by the White House in October. The Administration did not voluntarily bring the Iraq problem into the multilateral framework of the United Nations. Public opinion in the US, and even more so in England, plus the need for international legitimacy to gain access to regional bases and overflight rights, required this step. But regardless of what the US asserts to be its own legitimate right to preemptive self defense or to unilaterally enforce UN resolutions, 14 of the 15 Security Council members believe that no military action against Iraq can be taken without further explicit authorization by the Security Council.
The drama of the next few months is likely not to be whether Iraq violates the UN resolution, but who decides if it is in violation. The extreme case coming from the Pentagon is that since we already know a priori that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction, any failure of the UN to find unconfessed weapons proves that Iraq is in violation of the resolution and therefore war is authorized.
Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, like most other countries, do not accept the US view of the legitimacy of externally dicatated regime change in Iraq, regardless of its sins. Moreover, their recent personal experience of the horrors of war and the tenderness of their relations with the US make such differences of opinion potentially problematic bilateral issues if the US does launch a war. In addition, the self-absorbed unilateralism of key Washington policy makers is likely to heighten pressure to accelerate political changes within Indochina to bring these countries into the “zone of democracy”. The call by an influential Republican Senator for “regime change” in Cambodia suggests how easily the rhetoric can spill over (see page 10). Cuba is already placed beyond the pale, listed as a state supporter of terrorism and accused of developing germ warfare agents, both allegations made without any real evidence.
Should the US go to war, some experts predict another quick and easy victory for technology, perhaps even an internal coup that saves the US the trouble of ousting Saddam Hussein (although it may still open the door to US occupation). Others suggest that it will be a brutal battle with hundreds of thousands of dead and wounded, among them a sizable number of Americans. Doomsday scenarios include Iraqi use of chemical or biological weapons against Israel, Israeli retaliation with nuclear weapons, and the whole region descending into chaos. Certainly US occupation of Iraq and assignment of its oil resources (for purposes of reconstruction) will provoke widespread outrage.
Although the media pays little attention, mass protests in the anticipation of war have already taken place in several US cities and are bound to escalate dramatically in the face of a prolonged conflict and substantial casualties. The Administration has already shown little respect for traditional guarantees of civil liberties, even without facing a serious domestic challenge.
Like it or not, developments in the middle east will affect us as citizens and as people involved with Indochina and Cuba, professionally or personally. Please let me know what you and your organization are thinking about this situation (iraqinfo@ffrd.org) and if you would like to be added to an e-mail distribution list of occasional articles about these issues.
—John McAuliff
Excerpts from “The National Security Strategy of the United States of America” (full text available at www.Whitehouse.gov):
“Effective coalition leadership requires clear priorities, an appreciation of others’ interests, and consistent consultations among partners with a spirit of humility.”
“...we will respect the values, judgment and interests of our friends and partners. Still, we will be prepared to act apart when our interests and unique responsibilities require”
“We will take the actions necessary to ensure that our efforts to meet our global security commitments and protect Americans are not impaired by the potential for investigations, inquiry or prosecution by the International Criminal Court, whose jurisdiction does not extend to Americans and which we do not accept.”
Suggestions for further reading
Nicholas Lemann, “The Next World Order”
A prescient description of how the agenda was set at the end of Bush I.
The New Yorker, April 1,2002
http://newyorker.com/fact/content/?020401fa_FACT1
Frances FitzGerald, “George Bush & the World”
Key people in the Administration’s foreign policy apparatus and what they believe.
The New York Review of Books, September 26, 2002
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/15698
Anatol Lieven, “The Push for War”
A comprehensive analysis of the way US politics, religion, culture and radical nationalism shape the Iraq crisis
The London Review of Books, October 3, 2002
www.lrh.co.uk/v24/n19/liev01_.html
Henrick Hertzberg, “The New Bush National Security Strategy” Analysis of the text and its implications.
The New Yorker, October 14, 2002
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/?021014ta_talk_hertzberg
James Fallows, “The Fifty-first State, the consequences of US occupation of Iraq”
The practical implications of US defeat of Saddam Hussein and occupation of Iraq, including impact on the region..
The Atlantic, November 2002
www.theatlantic.com
Don Kraus and Mark Epstein, “A War Avoided?”
Analysis of the UN resolution
Foreign Policy in Focus, November 11, 2002
www.fpif.org
