[Peace-discuss] Eminently worth reading

[John Wason]

This was forwarded to me by a friend in Dublin recently, but it was
apparently published in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution; I don't know
exactly when.  This is probably the most comprehensive and yet concise
analysis of American foreign policy I've yet seen.  Jerry Landay evidently
borrowed from it for his Cityview column a couple of weeks ago.

Read it and weep.

John


> Subject: The president's real goal in Iraq, Jay Bookman, Atlanta Journal-
Constitution
> Date: Thu, 17 Oct 2002 19:06:39 -0700
> 
> The president's real goal in Iraq
> By JAY BOOKMAN
> 
> -----------------------------------------------
> Bookman is the deputy editorial page editor of
> The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
> -----------------------------------------------
> 
> The official story on Iraq has never made sense. The connection that the
> Bush administration has tried to draw between Iraq and al-Qaida has always
> seemed contrived and artificial. In fact, it was hard to believe that smart
> people in the Bush administration would start a major war based on such
> flimsy evidence.
> 
> The pieces just didn't fit. Something else had to be going on; something
> was missing.
> 
> In recent days, those missing pieces have finally begun to fall into place.
> As it turns out, this is not really about Iraq. It is not about weapons of
> mass destruction, or terrorism, or Saddam, or U.N. resolutions.
> 
> This war, should it come, is intended to mark the official emergence of the
> United States as a full-fledged global empire, seizing sole responsibility
> and authority as planetary policeman. It would be the culmination of a plan
> 10 years or more in the making, carried out by those who believe the United
> States must seize the opportunity for global domination, even if it means
> becoming the "American imperialists" that our enemies always claimed we
were.
> 
> Once that is understood, other mysteries solve themselves. For example, why
> does the administration seem unconcerned about an exit strategy from Iraq
> once Saddam is toppled?
> 
> Because we won't be leaving. Having conquered Iraq, the United States will
> create permanent military bases in that country from which to dominate the
> Middle East, including neighboring Iran.
> 
> In an interview Friday, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld brushed aside
> that suggestion, noting that the United States does not covet other
> nations' territory. That may be true, but 57 years after World War II
> ended, we still have major bases in Germany and Japan. We will do the same
> in Iraq.
> 
> And why has the administration dismissed the option of containing and
> deterring Iraq, as we had the Soviet Union for 45 years? Because even if it
> worked, containment and deterrence would not allow the expansion of
> American power. Besides, they are beneath us as an empire. Rome did not
> stoop to containment; it conquered. And so should we.
> 
> Among the architects of this would-be American Empire are a group of
> brilliant and powerful people who now hold key positions in the Bush
> administration: They envision the creation and enforcement of what they
> call a worldwide "Pax Americana," or American peace.   But so far, the
> American people have not appreciated the true extent of that ambition.
> 
> Part of it's laid out in the National Security Strategy, a document in
> which each administration outlines its approach to defending the country.
> The Bush administration plan, released Sept. 20, marks a significant
> departure from previous approaches, a change that it attributes largely to
> the attacks of Sept. 11.
> 
> To address the terrorism threat, the president's report lays out a newly
> aggressive military and foreign policy, embracing pre-emptive attack
> against perceived enemies. It speaks in blunt terms of what it calls 
> "American  internationalism," of ignoring international opinion if that
> suits U.S. interests. "The best defense is a good offense," the document
> asserts.
> 
> It dismisses deterrence as a Cold War relic and instead talks of"convincing
> or compelling states to accept their sovereign responsibilities."
> 
> In essence, it lays out a plan for permanent U.S. military and economic
> domination of every region on the globe, unfettered by international treaty
> or concern. And to make that plan a reality, it envisions a stark expansion
> of our global military presence.
> 
> "The United States will require bases and stations  within and beyond
> Western Europe and Northeast Asia," the document warns, "as well as
> temporary access arrangements for the long-distance deployment of U.S.
> troops."
> 
> The report's repeated references to terrorism are misleading, however,
> because the approach of the new National Security Strategy was clearly not
> inspired by the events of Sept. 11. They can be found in much the same
> language in a report issued in September 2000 by the Project for the New
> American Century, a group of conservative interventionists outraged by the
> thought that the United States might be forfeiting its chance at a global
> empire.
> 
> "At no time in history has the international security order been as
> conducive to American interests and ideals," the report stated two
> years ago. "The challenge of this coming century is to preserve and enhance
> this 'American peace.' "
> 
> Overall, that 2000 report reads like a blueprint for current Bush defense
> policy. Most of what it advocates, the Bush administration has tried to
> accomplish. For example, the project report urged the repudiation of the
> anti-ballistic missile treaty and a commitment to a global missile defense
> system. The administration has taken that course.
> 
> It recommended that to project sufficient power worldwide to enforce Pax
> Americana, the United States would have to increase defense spending from 3
> percent of gross domestic product to as much as 3.8 percent. For next year,
> the Bush administration has requested a defense budget of $379 billion,
> almost exactly 3.8 percent of GDP.
> 
> It advocates the "transformation" of the U.S. military to meet its expanded
> obligations, including the cancellation of such outmoded defense programs
> as the Crusader artillery system. That's exactly the message being preached
> by Rumsfeld and others.
> 
> It urges the development of small nuclear warheads "required in targeting
> the very deep, underground hardened bunkers that are being built by many of
> our potential adversaries." This year the GOP-led U.S. House gave the
> Pentagon the green light to develop such a weapon, called the Robust
> Nuclear Earth Penetrator, while the Senate has so far balked.
> 
> That close tracking of recommendation with current policy is hardly
> surprising, given the current positions of the people who contributed to
> the 2000 report.
> 
> Paul Wolfowitz is now deputy defense secretary. John Bolton is
> undersecretary of state. Stephen Cambone is head of the Pentagon's Office
> of Program Analysis and Evaluation. Eliot Cohen and Devon Cross are
> members of the Defense Policy Board, which advises Rumsfeld. I. Lewis Libby
> is chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. Dov Zakheim is comptroller
> for the Defense Department.
> 
> 
> 'Constabulary duties'
> 
> Because they were still just private citizens in 2000, the authors of the
> project report could be more frank and less diplomatic than they were in
> drafting the National Security Strategy. Back in 2000, they clearly
> identified Iran, Iraq and North Korea as primary short-term targets, well
> before President Bush tagged them as the Axis of Evil. In their report,
> they criticize the fact that in war planning against North Korea and Iraq,
> "past Pentagon war games have given little or no consideration to the force
> requirements necessary not only to defeat an attack but to remove these
> regimes from power."
> 
> To preserve the Pax Americana, the report says U.S. forces will be required
> to perform "constabulary duties" -- the United States acting as policeman
> of the world -- and says that such actions "demand American political
> leadership rather than that of the United Nations."
> 
> To meet those responsibilities, and to ensure that no country dares to
> challenge the United States, the report advocates a much larger military
> presence spread over more of the globe, in addition to the roughly 130
> nations in which U.S. troops are already deployed.
> 
> More specifically, they argue that we need permanent military bases in the
> Middle East, in Southeast Europe, in Latin America and in Southeast Asia,
> where no such bases now exist. That helps to explain another of the
> mysteries of our post-Sept. 11 reaction, in which the Bush administration
> rushed to install U.S. troops in Georgia and the Philippines, as well as
> our eagerness to send military advisers to assist in the civil war in
> Colombia.
> 
> The 2000 report directly acknowledges its debt to a still earlier document,
> drafted in 1992 by the Defense Department. That document had also
> envisioned the United States as a colossus astride the world, imposing its
> will and keeping world peace through military and economic power. When
> leaked in final draft form, however, the proposal drew so much criticism
> that it was hastily withdrawn and repudiated by the first President Bush.
> 
>
> Effect on allies
> 
> The defense secretary in 1992 was Richard Cheney; the document was drafted
> by Wolfowitz, who at the time was defense undersecretary for policy.
> 
> The potential implications of a Pax Americana are immense.
> 
> One is the effect on our allies. Once we assert the unilateral right to act
> as the world's policeman, our allies will quickly recede into the
> background. Eventually, we will be forced to spend American wealth and
> American blood protecting the peace while other nations redirect their
> wealth to such things as health care for their citizenry.
> 
> Donald Kagan, a professor of classical Greek history at Yale and an
> influential advocate of a more aggressive foreign policy -- he served as
> co-chairman of the 2000 New Century project -- acknowledges that likelihood.
> 
> "If [our allies] want a free ride, and they probably will, we can't stop
> that," he says. But he also argues that the United States, given its unique
> position, has no choice but to act anyway.
> 
> "You saw the movie 'High Noon'?" he asks. "We're Gary Cooper."
> 
> Accepting the Cooper role would be an historic change in who we are as a
> nation, and in how we operate in the international arena. Candidate Bush
> certainly did not campaign on such a change. It is not something that he or
> others have dared to discuss honestly with the American people. To the
> contrary, in his foreign policy debate with Al Gore, Bush pointedly
> advocated a more humble foreign policy, a position calculated to appeal to
> voters leery of military intervention.
> 
> For the same reason, Kagan and others shy away from terms such as empire,
> understanding its connotations. But they also argue that it would be naive
> and dangerous to reject the role that history has thrust upon us. Kagan,
> for example, willingly embraces the idea that the United States would
> establish permanent military bases in a post-war Iraq.
> 
> "I think that's highly possible," he says. "We will probably need a major
> concentration of forces in the Middle East over a long period of time. That
> will come at a price, but think of the price of not having it. When we have
> economic problems, it's been caused by disruptions in our oil supply. If we
> have a force in Iraq, there will be no disruption in oil supplies."
> 
>
> Costly global commitment
> 
> Rumsfeld and Kagan believe that a successful war against Iraq will produce
> other benefits, such as serving an object lesson for nations such as Iran
> and Syria. Rumsfeld, as befits his sensitive position, puts it rather
> gently. If a regime change were to take place in Iraq, other nations
> pursuing weapons of mass destruction "would get the message that having
> them . . . is attracting attention that is not favorable and is not
> helpful," he says.
> 
> Kagan is more blunt.
> 
> "People worry a lot about how the Arab street is going to react," he notes.
> "Well, I see that the Arab street has gotten very, very quiet since we
> started blowing things up."
> 
> The cost of such a global commitment would be enormous. In 2000, we spent
> $281 billion on our military, which was more than the next 11 nations
> combined. By 2003, our expenditures will have risen to $378 billion. In
> other words, the increase in our defense budget from 1999-2003 will be more
> than the total amount spent annually by China, our next largest competitor.
> 
> The lure of empire is ancient and powerful, and over the millennia it has
> driven men to commit terrible crimes on its behalf. But with the end of the
> Cold War and the disappearance of the Soviet Union, a global empire was
> essentially laid at the feet of the United States.  To the chagrin of some,
> we did not seize it at the time, in large part because the American people
> have never been comfortable with themselves as a New Rome.
> 
> Now, more than a decade later, the events of Sept. 11 have given those
> advocates of empire a new opportunity to press their case with a new
> president. So in debating whether to invade Iraq, we are really debating
> the role that the United States will play in the years and decades to come.
> 
> Are peace and security best achieved by seeking strong alliances and
> international consensus, led by the United States?  Or is it necessary to
> take a more unilateral approach, accepting and enhancing the global
> dominance that, according to some, history has thrust upon us?
> 
> If we do decide to seize empire, we should make that decision knowingly, as
> a democracy. The price of maintaining an empire is always high. Kagan and
> others argue that the price of rejecting it would be higher still.
> 
> That's what this is about.
>