US imperialism and the New American Century
Socialist Outlook2000sTranscribed by hand from the printed page.
Alan Thornett examines the world political situation after 9/11, America's plans for furthering its neo-liberal agenda, globalisation and the difficulties facing the US/British coalition in Iraq.
Governments usually gain popularity from short, sharp victorious wars. Margaret Thatcher won her crucial second term, substantially if not exclusively, as war leader in the Falklands. The 1991 Gulf war did not do John Major any harm in the 1992 election, even if he had Neil Kinnock's incompetence on his side as well. Blair's popularity increased with the bombing of Serbia in 1999. This time it is very different. Three months after the invasion of Iraq Blair is fighting for his political life and Bush is going down dangerously in the polls. The reasons for this are not hard to find. The war was based on a pack of lies and the aftermath is descending into disaster. The strategic objectives of Bush's 'war on terrorism', however, are being pursued with vigour despite the mounting problems.
At one level the plans of Bush and the Pentagon were simple. By occupying Iraq in a three week blitzkrieg, US imperialism dramatically underlined its overwhelming military superiority. As Noam Chomsky put it recently, the US 'is now the most -powerful state that ever existed'. Bush was able to stamp out, in Iraqi blood, the new world order his father aspired to in 1991, but failed to establish. The British commitment to the invasion and occupation (albeit involving a third of its army) was political window - dressing, designed to alleviate the political isolation in which the USA launched the war.
The war was popularly seen by many of its opponents (who were probably a majority of the population of the globe) as a grab for oil - and it was. At least if Iraq had not had oil it would not have been Bush's preferred target for invasion. The war was first and foremost, however, a grab for world military, political, and economic hegemony - but control of oil is a major lever in such a project. The issue, therefore, was more the control of the oil market than direct ownership of reserves. The two things go together. Whilst it was Iraq the tanks rolled into, the real target was elsewhere in both the third world and the imperialist rivals of the USA, not least in Europe. The invasion was therefore the military wing of the efforts of the US to stabilise its economy, control the process of economic globalisation, and put the power in the hands of US based multi-national capital.
Bush Administration
Bush may have been ballot-rigged into office by his brother Jed [sic] in Florida, and by decision of the supreme court to validate the election, but the result is a right-wing Republican administration which is the most aggressive, militaristic, and conservative in modern times. It was unilateralist from the start, even before September 11th when it was politically weak: it rejected Kyoto and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and was prepared to open up vast protected areas of the USA to oil and mineral exploitation. Domestic policy was based on tax cuts for the rich and further deregulation.
At the core of the administration are a group of right-wingers who had already established, the Project for the New American Century, as a response to the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989, the collapse of Stalinism and the emergence of a unipolar world under the hegemony of the USA.
The Project was a think tank based in Washington. It published a paper in September 2000 arguing that the USA should massively increase its military budget to a level which would maintain its superiority to unchallengeable strategic domination of the world and establish a policing role across the globe to impose what the White House regards as in the interest of the USA. Its geo-political aim was to reshape the world to the advantage of the USA under the concept of 'full spectrum dominance'. The US would maintain its massive military superiority, use it to maintain its political and economic interests, and ensure it would never be overtaken. We had already seen the consequences of this approach during the 1990s : first the Gulf war of George Bush senior, then the Balkan wars and the Somalia adventure which reflected the thinking of the Project under Clinton.
Those involved were Dick Cheyney [sic], Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz and Jed Bush [sic] - all key to the Bush administration today. How all this was to be implemented is not clear, but that problem was resolved by September 11th which was the best thing which could have happened for George Bush and he grasped it with both hands. It brought to an end the Vietnam syndrome, from which the US had 'suffered' for nearly 30 years. Bush then declared his 'war (or crusade) on terrorism' which would go on until victory, over the course of years if not decades, ignoring the fact that such a victory is impossible. The theory of 'failed' or 'rogue' states was wheeled out, and then in his State of the Union speech Bush named his 'axis of evil' list of target states which included Iran, Syria, Iraq, North Korea, and Libya. At the same time a huge assault on civil and democratic rights was launched, which became symbolised by the torture chambers of Guantanamo Bay.
Bush had little direct interest in Afghanistan itself once the war there was won, but the rapid collapse of the Taliban told Bush and Rumsfeld that bombing worked and that Iraq was next. What resulted from the invasion of Afghanistan was a series of strategic bases in the oil-rich Caspian region.
War against Iraq
Bush's decision to invade Iraq set in train a military build-up which was unstoppable from the beginning. The invasion was going to take place in the spring of this year, even if the US had to do it alone. The time table was hardly affected when Turkey vetoed the Northern front. This was the reality behind the posturing and debates at the UN and the splits on the Security Council. In the end the ambiguous resolution 1441 was enough to give Bush and Blair a spurious legal cover for the war. The UN was effectively sidelined and Russian, Chinese, German and French objections were ignored. The result was a damaging inter-imperialist rift between the USA and two of the core states of the European Union, which replicates itself inside the EU with Britain playing the Atlanticist role, closely allied with the US side of the split.
In the end we had a 'coalition of the willing' which launched a war that was transparently illegal in terms of bourgeois international law. We were told that the war was not about regime change, prohibited under bourgeois law, but because Saddam was refusing to carry out UN resolutions. This blatantly ignored the dozens of UN resolutions, including the withdrawal from the occupied territories, which successive Israeli governments have refused to carry out and which are at the centre of the Palestinian/Israel conflict.
The invasion itself introduced the concept of 'shock and awe', in other words the terrorisation of the population and the Iraqi military through a display of air power and ground weaponry. This was not new: in fact it was a World War One tactic, then involving mainly artillery. The military strategy was the use of massive force. Even now the range of weaponry used remains unknown. Although parts of the Iraqi military resisted, they stood no chance and the collapse soon came. Even now there are no realistic figures for Iraqi military casualties and the claimed figure of 5,000 is ridiculously low.
A torrent of lies was pumped out to try to justify the coming invasion. The many crimes of Saddam Hussein were brazenly paraded, ignoring the fact that he had British and American support when he carried most of them out. We were repeatedly reminded that he had gassed the Kurdish people, with no mention of who had supplied the gas. In Britain we had the 'dodgy dossier' (gleaned from a PhD thesis on the Internet) and the claim there was absolutely no doubt that WMD existed and could be used against the rest of the world at forty-five minutes' notice. We were told that it was not a war for oil and that in fact oil revenue would be 'kept in trust' for the Iraqi people until the industry could be handed back to them. We were told that after the war Iraq would be reconstructed and that 'democracy' would be restored. An elected Iraq government would be established within a short period of time. In Britain all this resulted in a parliamentary majority in favour of the war, despite the record revolt by Labour MPs.
There were a few cheering crowds when US forces reached the centre of Baghdad. Some were organised by the US military; in any case, the bulk of the population was glad to see the Saddam dictatorship go. But the US military were unprepared for the rapid disintegration of Iraqi society which took place, and had no plans to protect the infrastructure of the country. The result was devastation. What had not already been destroyed by thirteen brutal years of UN sanctions or the bombing or the invasion, was taken by the looters. The only ministry building the US protected was the ministry of oil, and the only installations they protected were oil installations. At least they had that organised in advance. The US denied the UN any role other than humanitarian aid, saying that it had failed in not giving full support to US war plans and was a spent and irrelevant force.
The Occupation
Claims that what had taken place was a liberation rather than an occupation could not be sustained and were short lived. All other pledges and promises have proven to be false. In the four months since the completion of the occupation, the descent into anarchy has accelerated. Power and water supplies are minimal and any kind of social structure non-existent. Disease is rife and medical facilities unavailable for most people. Paul Bremer hides behind concrete bunkers, with the discredited interim administration he appointed, surrounded by American tanks.
On top of that a well-organised guerrilla campaign of resistance has developed which mounts an average of twelve or thirteen attacks a day, killing a member of the occupation forces more or less every day. George Bush claims that this is being carried out by remnants of the Saddam regime and 'foreign intruders' (sic) into the country. The reality is likely to be very different. Occupation engenders resistance on almost every occasion, and particularly when occupations create worse social conditions than existed before. The result seems to be a plethora of independently organised groupings, some of them secular with Baathist origins, some with no coherent ideology, alongside Islamic groupings joining a new Jihad against the USA and its allies. They appear to have increasing resources and expertise.
The recent bombings of the Jordanian embassy, regarded as pro-US, the UN compound and most recently the Shrine of Imam Ali in Najaf show the scale and complexity of the problem. The bombing of the shrine which killed 95 people suggests that the slide into anarchy has exacerbated the divisions within Islam which were repressed under Saddam. In such conditions civil war between sections of Islam or between Islamic and secular forces may not be far around the corner.
The bombing of the United Nations compound in Baghdad shows another process which is taking place: those doing the bombing see all foreigners as linked to the US-led occupation forces. This is not surprising given that the UN has imposed sanctions on Iraq for thirteen years and, despite being split over the invasion, was able to provide the ambiguous resolution which gave the invasion its spurious legal cover. But the Red Cross and the aid NGOs feel that they are also targets and are pulling out as well. Even the favoured US corporations, some connected to members of the Bush team, which are being given lucrative multi-billion dollar contracts in Iraq, are feeling nervous as well.
The reality is that it was never going to be possible for the US to bring 'democracy' to Iraq. That would require the construction of a viable civil society. This, in turn, would require a level of investment in the country which the US is never going to contemplate. It would need to rival the sums of money used for the reconstruction of Europe after the second World War. Today the US has neither the economic strength nor the political will for a programme of investment. And far from being able to use oil revenue for the reconstruction, they have found an oil industry run down by sanctions and made worse by looting. On top of that, every time they produce any oil at all, the pipeline is blown up by the opposition before they can market it. The future is bleak indeed for the occupation forces.
And the political consequences of this in the US (let alone Britain) are already showing. George Bush is going down in the polls and the Democrats are seeing their chance. This, at a time when the possibility of the Iraqi opposition getting a large car or lorry bomb through to American forces must be getting closer all the time.
Where Next?
Where does all this leave the US as far as the 'axis of evil' is concerned, or the wider 'war on terror'? Firstly we should not expect a repeat of the invasion of Iraq against other members of the 'axis of evil' in the near future. Whilst the invasion of Afghanistan prepared the way for the war against Iraq, the latter is not the springboard for invasions of Iran, Syria, or Libya, let alone North Korea, which may well have nuclear weapons and might well be prepared to use them. The US is bogged down in a war of resistance which will intensify and against which it has no answer. Its problem is more how to resist this and stay in Iraq, not who to invade next. Suddenly even Rumsfeld is saying the UN could now play a military role, providing it was under US command.
The effects on the region, however, remain profound. The existence of a huge US force and what will inevitably be permanent bases in Iraq, massively strengthens the hand of US imperialism. It allows the US to pull most of its forces out of the Saudi Kingdom, long the source of deep resentment and one of the factors directly behind Al Qaeda and September 11th. Although the US will not close its bases there altogether, at the same time the pressure it can exert on the Arab bourgeois regimes has been greatly increased. The support it gives to the Israeli state, as the main agent of imperialism in the region, is increased massively at the same time.
The 'road map' was already in tatters the day George Bush announced it. It was never more than a cynical ploy, conceived in the hope that the impact of the occupation of Iraq would demoralise the Palestinians into submission. There was never any chance that Sharon would make concessions to the Palestinians at precisely the time when, with the occupation of the Iraq by US forces, the whole power structure in the regions shifted towards Israel. Since September 11th the number of Palestinians killed every week by the Israeli Defence Force has multiplied sharply. The military crackdown has escalated. The assassinations of Palestinian leaders are more open and more frequent. And since the announcement of the 'road map' the fence is still being built, the settlements expand, and the incursions into Palestinian town and cities continue.
At the same time we have the proliferation of the US military around the world from the Philippines to the Horn of Africa and Colombia. With Texan reserves running out, the US not only had its eye on Middle East oil, and to a lesser extent the much smaller reserves in the Caspian, but also the emerging market and potential threat of China, which is being increasingly surrounded by US military bases. The name of the game is the globalisation of the world economy and its subordination to US capital and multinational corporations.
Globalisation
Globalisation is not new of course, but the globalisation which developed during the 1990s is qualitatively different in its scope and effects from previous periods of globalisation; for example, gigantic movements of speculative capital and the ability to move production around the globe as never before. It is a globalisation based on the neo-liberal agenda of privatisation, an economics which results from the ascendancy of the US during the 1990s over Japan and the Pacific Rim.
Globalisation does not arise 'naturally' at this stage of capitalist development, nor is it merely the consequence of technological progress, even if advances in information technology facilitate it. It is the chosen strategy of the dominant capitalism, and designed to work in its interest. At the core of globalisation is the internationalisation of capital, the rapid liberalisation and deregulation of world markets and trade, wholesale privatisation, the growing importance and autonomy of the financial sector, the strengthening of the position of multinational corporations, a restricted role for the state and low tax economies. It is a reconstruction of the world market in the interests of US big business.
It has not, however, as some argue, rendered the nation state powerless in the face of huge multi-national corporations. The USA itself is testimony to that. In fact the imperialist states of the developed world still have tremendous power if they choose to use it, rather than use globalisation as an alibi to justify unpopular policies or for handing over power to the international institutions. In fact it is they who dominate third world countries, through the process of globalisation and the opportunities this gives them. Nor has globalisation overcome the capitalist drive to crisis. The Mexican crisis in 1994, the crisis in South Asia in 1997, the Brazilian crisis of 1999 followed by Argentina, are testimony to that. These events exploded the delusion promoted by imperialism that the countries of the third world could pull themselves up in the globalised, free market economy, if they adopted the IMF/World Bank/ WTO/US model. In fact the process of globalisation exacerbates the contradictions of the capitalist system, increasing its instability, rather than stabilising it. This is reflected in the problems of reconstruction in Iraq. Economically the USA is in a very different position than it was when it launched the Marshall Plan for Europe after World War Two. Today the US has a budget deficit of 460 billion dollars.
Global Opposition
The other problem they have is the rise in opposition to the process of globalisation which first emerged in 1994 with the Zapatista revolt, was reflected in Europe in the European Marches and then burst out with the Battle of Seattle in 1999. An international movement emerged within months. What followed was a series of mobilisations which were met by increasing violence from the state forces as the size and combativity of the demonstrations escalated.
Then there was the worldwide response to the invasion of Iraq itself. We saw a completely unprecedented anti-war movement on a global scale which brought tens of millions onto the streets. Even in the USA where public support for the war was at its strongest, we saw demonstrations of hundreds of thousands. This world movement merged with the anti-capitalist/anti-globalisation movement and resulted in the most radical political developments since the 1970s.
It is this great movement which is behind the increasing unpopularity of Bush and the crisis faced today by new Labour in Britain. It is what makes the Hutton inquiry so dangerous for Blair. In a BBC poll at the end of August 67% of those phoning in thought that the government had misled the country over the war. On top of this the war in Iraq is not over but is intensifying by the day. These are the factors which keep the Stop the War movement in Britain at such a continuing high level of mobilisation and show its continued importance.