Washington's neo-Trotskyites
The US might be changing political tack but Palestine is the one thing the neo-cons and the moderates agree upon, writes Gamil Mattar*
A political system that allows governments to change tack as needed without fear of military coups, civil wars or outbursts of public fury is not without merit. I wonder, however, if the changes the US has introduced in its foreign policy over the past few weeks are genuine or just diversionary tactics aimed at shoring up the popularity and credibility of the US and its current administration? Were these changes conducted due to divisions within the governing elite, or as a result of a new consensus between the so-called neo-cons and moderates in both Congress and the State Department? Will these changes encompass US policy on Palestine and the Arab-Israeli conflict, or is this part of US policy immutable, the subject of universal agreement by the US ruling elite, extremists and moderates alike? Because on this issue everyone seems extreme, at least from the Arab point of view. Only a few days ago Secretary Colin Powell spoke with a fair amount of moderation about various US foreign policy issues, but remained adamantly hard-line towards Palestine and the Arab-Israeli conflict.
US policy changes are made according to assessments prepared by US officials working for political agencies, the intelligence services or the White House -- people the likes of Karl Rove, senior advisor to President Bush in the re-election campaign. Here I am restating a simple view -- one repeatedly expressed -- that whatever decisions are passed in Washington affect the domestic affairs of other nations.
We need to know what Washington intends to do about the worsening crisis in Iraq. I don't wish to gloat but it was obvious to everyone -- except US politicians, that is -- that Iraq was not going to welcome US troops with flowers and garlands, and that Iraq does not share a political profile with, for instance, the countries of Central America. We consistently argued, before the war, against the US notion that the Iraqi experience would lead to fast and radical changes across the Middle East. US politicians had assumed that the Arabs were ready to democratise and only waiting for the US to show them how. Their assumption, so far, has been off the mark.
The United Stateswent to war in Iraq on the basis of a number assumptions, all doubtful. Prior to the war Iraq had known no other form of terror, aside from that conducted by the state. Iraq is now the scene of every possible form of violence. A part of this violence may be classified as terror, as American officials are likely to suggest but at least some is the normal expression of resistance to occupation.
Level-headed observers warned on the eve of the war that US violence would lead to more violence, and even terror, in Iraq. It is now clear that the people who planned the war -- in the Pentagon and other US agencies --did not take into account the post-war difficulties. Washington thought all it had to do was bring together army people, civilian advisers with dual nationality, and true or imagined experts on political development and the construction of nations. It thought it had funds sufficient to protect its forces in Iraq and repair the damage icaused by war and economic blockade. Now the Americans admit that the men, materiel, and funds they earmarked for Iraq were insufficient. Some of the people who planned the war in Iraq were evangelists with hard-line ideologies. Others were individuals who hoped the fall of Iraq would boost Israel's status and ensure its security for decades to come. The alliance among the empire-builders, the evangelists, and the Zionist propagandists is what created, in the aftermath of 11 September, a domestic and foreign situation that undermined the US's international standing, to use the words of former US President Bill Clinton.
We need to know more about US foreign policy because all of us -- in the Middle and Far East, in "old" Europe and Russia -- feel that Washington's ruling elite treats us, politically and through the media, as subject of its emerging empire, not citizens of sovereign states. Inside and outside Americadissent is being repressed. No one is allowed to contradict US concerns, or distract US soldiers as they stomp around the globe. US forces are not just deployed in Iraq. As Robert Kaplan notes in a recent article in The Atlantic Monthly they are active in dozens of countries under a variety of names: special forces, political advisers, military trainers, terror experts, and crime and drug experts. US special forces, Kaplan says, are currently making policy in eastern European, Latin American, African, and Arab countries. They are deployed in small numbers in many countries so as not to drain the resources of the emerging empire, a risk of which historian Paul Kennedy once warned.
Under the British empire people who lived outside the empire did not have particular obligations toward it. The Germans, Argentineans, Mexicans, Japanese and Russians did not feel they were subjects of the British empire. Are US policy makers trying to create such a sense of obligation intentionally, or are we just imagining things? Perhaps it does not matter. What does matter is that ordinary citizens everywhere feel that US policies interfere with their interests, security, and lives.
In the two and half years since the extreme political and religious right came to power US international credibility has plummeted. Contrary to the expectations of US politicians, the Arabs are endlessly outraged by the successive military and political, Zionist-inspired, offensives against them. The Taliban, having been blown to near smithereens in the first of President Bush's wars, are resuming attack on the US and allied troops in Afghanistan, with a ferociousness exceeding that of their resistance to the US invasion. India, Washington's new ally (some US officials hoped India would be the jewel of the crown in the emerging empire) is still refusing to send even a token military force to Iraq. China has refused to float its currency as a favour to the US economy, a measure which would have alleviated the US recession and perhaps even boosted Chinese exports in the process. North Korea has refused to bow to US pressures in the talks held in Beijing. Still smarting from the dismissive remarks made by Donald Rumsfeld at a time when he was still intoxicated with victory over Iraq, "old" Europe is sending the message that Washington cannot act unilaterally. Actually, Washington would be well-advised to benefit from Europe's experience and replace its strategy team with people who are more level-headed and politically mature.
I admire a regime that is aware of its mistakes and willing to change some aspects of its foreign policy. Still, I am worried over what those who planned the Iraq war and the open-ended war on terror may do next. In the run-up to the next presidential elections what will Bush's top advisers do to reverse the damage done to America's reputation and credibility? Will they seek a symbolic victory in a far off part of the world so as to stir again nationalistic sentiments in America, in the manner that happened after 11 September? Will they dodge such complicated issues as Iraq by stirring civil wars, factional strife, or other conflagrations worldwide? What if they find that their best bet ahead of the presidential election is to encourage Israel to keep bullying the Palestinians while Washington hurls abuse at the Palestinian Authority and the Arabs in general?
Washington's political elite is the nearest equivalent today to the Trotskyism of the early period of Soviet history. The Trotskyites wanted to export communism and set off a global revolution in favour of Marxist values and principles. Washington's elite wants to build a new "international" led by President Bush, a self-proclaimed "born-again" Christian with a global sense of mission.
* The writer is director of the Arab Centre of Development and Futuristic Research.
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : 2 - 8 October 2003 (Issue No. 658)
Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/658/op33.htm