[Dryerase] Alarm!--War Notes

[The Alarm!Newswire]

War Notes

by sasha k
The Alarm! Newspaper contributor

Losing Steam?
After months of feeding the media “frenzy”—as Secretary of Defense 
Donald Rumsfeld likes to call it—with war talk, Bush is now claiming to 
be a “patient man” when it comes to dealing with Iraq and Saddam 
Hussein.  Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesperson, went so far as 
to argue that there is “no one beating a war drum.”  Is the spectacular 
power that the Bush Administration—particularly its hawks like Rumsfeld 
and Vice President Dick Cheney—gained from 9/11 finally wearing off?

In the international arena it certainly is. Even Britain, the sole 
power still wholeheartedly supporting the US, is beginning to change 
its tune.  Removing Saddam Hussein “is not an object of British foreign 
policy,” said British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw on August 22. The 
resumption of UN weapon inspections, on the other hand, is the center 
piece of British policy.  This shift from complete to qualified support 
is a significant change of stance, or at least of marketing, and it 
comes as Prime Minister Tony Blair is facing mounting opposition from 
within his own Labour Party.

Even in the domestic arena Bush, or rather Rumsfeld and Cheney, seem to 
be losing their touch, and the most serious questioning has come from 
members of the Republican Party.  Of course, few of these recent 
critics are against the war per se, it is more a question of how the 
war is packaged.  The first serious shot—and, of the Republicans, 
probably the most inimical to the war in Iraq—came from Brent 
Scowcroft, former National Security Advisor for Bush senior.  Scowcroft 
argued that war with Iraq would seriously disrupt the international war 
on terrorism because it does not command sufficient international 
support.  None other than Henry Kissinger has also questioned the way 
the war is being packaged, stating, “The notion of justified 
pre-emption runs counter to modern international law, which sanctions 
the use of force in self-defense only against actual—not 
potential—threats.”

James Baker III, secretary of state from 1989 to 1992, stated in a New 
York Times op-ed that, “although the United States could certainly 
succeed, we should try our best not to have to go it alone, and the 
president should reject the advice of those who counsel doing so.  The 
costs in all areas will be much greater, as will the political risks, 
both domestic and international, if we end up going it alone or with 
only one or two other countries.”  Therefore, Baker argued, the US 
should push for a new UN Security Council resolution requiring Iraq to 
allow weapons inspections.  This move would build international support 
for an attack if and when Iraq failed to allow inspectors full access, 
according to Baker.

It is interesting that the Democrats have actually been making less 
noise against the war than many prominent Republicans.  In this 
election year the Democrats are looking to be seen as patriotically 
pro-war, though in a more responsible way than the White House hawks. 
First and foremost, they are asking that the president seek 
Congressional approval before the war is launched.  In addition, they 
want the president to gain more international support and to explain 
the costs of the war.  The telling phrase most often heard in Congress, 
however, is that the president must “make the case.”  Again, with the 
Democrats as with the Republicans, it is the matter of PR and 
salesmanship that counts the most.

Making the Case
In a world where image is all important, the hawks, of course, have 
been hitting back.  Condoleeza Rice was the first to return fire in a 
moralistic August 15 speech, the argument of which—in typical Bush 
language—can be summed up as, “Saddam is EVIL.”  But as we move further 
away from 9/11, “evil” alone no longer seems a very convincing 
argument.  Increasingly, there is a demand for evidence of real present 
danger.

With Bush returning to Washington from his month-long vacation, 
Rumsfeld and Cheney have hit the road making speeches intended to shore 
up the hawk’s position.  No new details emerged in their war rantings.  
In fact, vagueness itself was offered as as evidence of evil: “the 
absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence,” said Rumsfeld to 
support the charge that Iraq has a significant arsenal of weapons of 
mass destruction.  The administration has also tried to claim that Iraq 
is harboring al Qaeda members, failing to mention that they are based 
in Kurdish-controlled regions, not in areas Hussein’s army dominates.

So why are we about to go to war?  What are we going to war for?  
(scenario two):
The hawks are not the only ones working in the public relations 
business.  The government of Saudi Arabia, stung by recent suggestions 
that it is the real enemy of the US, has started its own advertising 
campaign that included a trip by Saudi ambassador Prince Bandar bin 
Sultan down to the Texas ranch. US-Saudi relations are worse than ever. 
  Differences over Bush’s desire for war in Iraq and the 
Israeli-Palestinian conflict have strained relations. And it hasn’t 
helped that fifteen of the nineteen September 11 hijackers were Saudi 
citizens.  This has prompted a $3 trillion dollar lawsuit against the 
Saudis by victims of the attacks in Washington, New York and 
Pennsylvania.

Worse still, a report made to the influential Defense Policy Board by 
the private RAND Corporation called the Saudis an emerging enemy, and 
urged the US to target Saudi oil fields and financial assets if the 
Saudis didn’t stop funding Islamic fundamentalism. (Can you imagine if 
the Saudis claimed they were going to attack Texas oil fields if 
American conservatives didn’t stop funding Christian fundamentalists?)  
The report, leaked to the Washington Post, went as far as stating that 
“Saudi [Arabia] is the kernel of evil, the prime mover, the most 
dangerous opponent in the Middle East.”

The Bush administration was quick to distance itself from the report, 
stating the importance of the Saudi-US relationship.  But perhaps there 
is more to the strained relationship than we would like to admit.

And, no matter the protests and public relations campaigns, even many 
Saudis are are beginning to ask hard questions.  “It is necessary to 
hold a national dialogue on the future of our ties with the United 
States because we are getting repeated signals from Washington that 
they no longer see our relations in the same way,” according to an 
editorial in the conservative Riyadh daily newspaper.  Yet, maybe it 
isn’t the US that needs to worry, but the Saudis.

The Saudi-US relationship is built on a rather simple deal: the US will 
protect the Saudis in return for a stable and relatively cheap supply 
of oil.  The US is continually looking for a way out of this deal, but 
with the Saudis controlling the world’s largest oil reserves the US 
hasn’t found much room to maneuver. But if the US took control of Iraq 
through a US-managed regime change, neighboring Saudi Arabia would be 
in a much weaker position.  Not only would the US control the Iraqi oil 
supply (with which it could flood the market in order to control the 
Saudis), but it would be able to base a huge military force in Iraq, 
poised on the Saudi border.  A US puppet in Iraq is the best scenario 
for the US to change the balance of power with the Saudis, so it is no 
wonder that the Saudis are against the war.

Luckily for the Saudis, almost no other country seems willing to go 
along with the US plan.  However, hawks like Rumsfeld, Cheney and, 
increasingly, Bush himself might just be crazy enough to go it alone 
after all.

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