[Peace-political] Michael Klare's insights

[Sharon Irish]

WILL interviewed Professor Klare earlier this week. These comments from the 
Hampshire College website make so much sense.

"Asking Why"

A preliminary analysis of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack on New 
York and Washington, and its implications for U.S. foreign & military 
policy. Based on a talk at Smith College given by Michael Klare, Five 
College Professor of Peace and World Security Studies, based at Hampshire 
College, on September 13, 2001.]

Ever since Tuesday, Sept. 11, I have been asking myself "why?" - Why did 
they do it? What could possibly drive a dozen or so people to such a fever 
pitch of rage and anger that they would not only kill thousands of ordinary 
American people but also kill themselves in the process? Consider that the 
perpetrators of the attack (about 20 or so) got up that day and said to 
themselves, today we will die. I think its almost impossible for us in this 
country to conceive of what would drive people to this state of rage. And 
we are certainly getting no help on this from government officials or the 
usual crowd of pundits, who seem to be avoiding this very question. 
Instead, all we hear is talk of unidentified "terrorists" and "enemies." 
But we have to understand these people, if we are to protect ourselves and 
the world from this type of slaughter.
Simply on the basis of what we witnessed on September 11 and what is known 
of the likely perpetrators, I believe that the people who took over the 
planes were (from THEIR point of view) engaged in a holy war to drive the 
United States out of the Persian Gulf area. This is a war, as they see of 
it, of the strong and resolute in spirit but weak in military power against 
those who are weak or corrupt in spirit but strong in military power. 
Throughout history, the weapon of those who see themselves as strong in 
spirit but weak in power has been what we call terrorism. Terrorism is the 
warfare of the weak against the strong: if you have an army, you wage war; 
if you lack an army, you engage in suicide bombings and other acts of 
terrorism. (Remember: this is exactly what the American Revolution looked 
like to the British, the strong force in 1775.)
So what is it they seek? What are the goals of this war against the United 
States?
To understand their goals, we have to look at the Middle East, and 
particularly at the U.S. role and presence in the region - especially in 
the Persian Gulf area. From the point of the United States, the Persian 
Gulf - or more specifically, Persian Gulf oil - is essential to the 
security of the United States. This was made explicit in the "Carter 
Doctrine" speech of January 23, 1980, issued just after the Iranian 
Revolution. Carter declared: "An attempt by any outside force to gain 
control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the 
vital interests of the United States of America [and] will be repelled by 
any means necessary, including military force." This was the basis upon 
which President Bush senior launched Operation Desert Storm in 1991, and 
upon which President Clinton vastly expanded the U.S. military presence in 
the Gulf area over the past eight years.
In examining the U.S. military role in the Gulf, special attention has to 
be paid to the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is not 
just another oil country - it alone possesses one-fourth of the world's 
known oil reserves. No other country comes even close to Saudi Arabia in 
terms of total oil reserves. The Western world would not be able to enjoy 
the level of growth and prosperity we have seen over the past few decades 
without the cheap and abundant oil of Saudi Arabia, and we will be even 
less able to do so in the future, as other supplies run out. For this 
reason, U.S. policy in the Gulf has always centered on Saudi Arabia, with 
which the United States maintains a very special relationship.
This relationship was first forged in 1945, when President Franklin D. 
Roosevelt met with King Abdel-Aziz ibn Saud, the founder of the modern 
Saudi regime. In that meeting, President Roosevelt concluded an 
extraordinary bargain with ibn Saud: in return for unlimited and perpetual 
U.S. access to Saudi oil, the United States would protect the Saudi Royal 
family against its enemies, both external and internal.
This bargain has shaped U.S. foreign and military policy ever since. At 
first, we relied principally on the British (the original hegemon in the 
region) to protect our interests, but, since 1972 (when the British 
departed), we have assumed direct responsibility for the protection of the 
Saudi regime. This was most evident in August 1990, when the Iraqis invaded 
Kuwait: it was not the occupation of Kuwait that drove the original Bush 
Administration (meeting at Camp David on August 3-4, 1990) to decide to 
intervene in the Gulf, but the fear that Saddam Hussein was aiming to take 
over Saudi Arabia. All of the original plans for Operation Desert Shield - 
the prelude to Operation Desert Storm - were aimed at inserting a 
protective force between Iraqi forces in Kuwait and the major oilfields in 
Saudi Arabia. Since then, the United States has maintained (and steadily 
expanded) a military presence in the Gulf whose primary purpose is to 
prevent any future attack on Saudi Arabia, whether from Iraq or Iran.
But while such actions, focused on EXTERNAL threats to Saudi Arabia, have 
been the most visible expression of U.S. involvement, the United States has 
also gone to great lengths to defend the Saudi regime against its INTERNAL 
enemies. The primary instrument of Saudi internal security is the Saudi 
Arabian National Guard (SANG), which is almost entirely armed, trained, and 
managed by the United States (largely through a network of military 
contractors). When anti-regime elements in Saudi Arabia staged a brief 
revolt in 1981, SANG was sent in to crush the rebellion. When asked about 
this incident, then President Ronald Reagan told reporters: "I will not 
permit [Saudi Arabia] to be an Iran," meaning the U.S. would not stand by 
and permit the overthrow of the Saudi regime, as it had in Iran in 1979.
This remains the basis of U.S. policy in Saudi Arabia. And this is where 
our current troubles begin. The government we back in Saudi Arabia, the 
Saudi royal family, is an autocratic, totalitarian regime that allows no 
public expressions of dissent. There is no constitution, no Bill of Rights, 
no political parties, no freedom of the press or assembly, no parliament. 
Those who express any forms of dissent are arrested and put in jail, exiled 
(as in the case of Osama bin Laden), or executed. In this environment, any 
form of opposition to the regime, whatever its orientation, must operate 
underground, and in secrecy.
It was in this environment of repression and secrecy that the milieu of 
Osama bin Laden and his followers emerged. From what we know of their 
beliefs, these rebels believe that the Saudi regime is fundamentally 
corrupt and evil - corrupt both in the economic sense, that it has 
squandered the wealth of the Arab nation on palaces and other forms of 
conspicuous consumption (thereby denying the Arab world of essential 
resources), and in the moral sense, that it has allied itself with the 
United States (which is the primary backer of the anti-Islamic regime in 
Israel) and allowed infidels (American soldiers) into the holy land of 
Islam. Because it is corrupt and evil in this way, they believe, it is 
anti-Islamic. Because it is anti-Islamic, it must be swept away by a jihad, 
a holy war. Because the United States is the primary protective force of 
the Saudi regime, it must be driven out of the region so that the true 
Islamists can clear out the corrupt Saudi regime and establish an authentic 
Islamic state (like that of the Taliban in Afghanistan). And because the 
soldiers in this holy struggle to oust the American military are very weak 
(in the military sense), they must rely on terrorism to accomplish their 
objectives.
And so: to accomplish their ultimate goal, the bin Laden network (and 
others with which it is linked) must make war against the United States, so 
as to drive them out of the region. Initially, this war effort focused on 
U.S. military assets within Saudi Arabia itself. This was the genesis of 
the November 1995 bombing of the SANG headquarters in Riyadh (in which five 
U.S. servicemen attached to SANG were killed) and the June 1996 attack on 
the Khobar Towers in Dhahran, which killed 19 U.S. military personnel. When 
this failed to drive out the United States, they attacked U.S. facilities 
outside the region, such as the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. And 
because this didn't produce the desired effect, they have brought the war 
to the United States. In all cases, however, the goal is the same: to drive 
the United States out of Saudi Arabia. By attacking the World Trade Center 
and the Pentagon, I believe, they hope to diminish America's will to retain 
its forces in Saudi Arabia. I do not think that they will succeed at that, 
but I do think that this was the intended aim of the attacks on September 11.
What does all this mean? There are no quick and easy answers. I do think 
that the people behind the September 11 attacks will strike again and 
again, until they achieve their ultimate objective. So we cannot expect the 
attacks to stop (though, no doubt, the form of the attacks will change). 
And so we will have to take action to protect people against further 
outbreaks of violence.
Does this mean conducting a war in the Middle East, as proposed by the 
current Bush Administration? No doubt such action will severely impede the 
operations of bin Laden's networks, but I doubt very much that it will 
eliminate his capacity to attack, in that his forces are widely dispersed 
and demonstrably capable of operating independently from multiple 
locations. Much more serious, a war of this sort will produce enormous 
numbers of Muslim casualties, further discrediting the conservative 
monarchies aligned with Washington and producing thousands of fresh 
volunteers for bin Laden's jihad against the United States.
So I think that we have to take a different approach, based on coordinated, 
unrelenting international police work aimed at identifying bin Laden's 
cells and eradicating them one by one. To gain international support for 
this effort and to give it widespread legitimacy, such an effort should be 
conducted in the context of a U.N.-mandated war crimes tribunal, such as 
that now operating in The Hague to try perpetrators of war crimes in Bosnia 
and Kosovo.
At the same time, we will have to conduct a moral crusade against bin 
Laden, portraying HIM as the enemy of Islam, on the grounds that no TRUE 
believer in the Islamic tradition could take innocent human lives in this 
manner. To succeed at this, however, we will have to reassess U.S. policy 
in the Persian Gulf, showing more sympathy for the Arab Muslim masses and 
calling on the Saudi regime to announce a timetable for democratization and 
the provision of basic human rights. Only when Saudi citizens are allowed 
to express their grievances in a lawful, peaceful manner will it be 
possible to eliminate the threat of anti-American jihad.
[Michael Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies at 
Hampshire College and author of "Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global 
Conflict" (Metropolitan Books, 2001).]