[A-List] Britain/US split: US global hegemony

["Keaney Michael" <Michael.Keaney@xxxxxx>]

Iraq first, Iran and China next

Weapons of mass destruction aren't the issue, it's about global control

Dan Plesch
Friday September 13, 2002
The Guardian

President Bush's concern over Iraq's weapons of mass destruction is a
pretext for a global strategy of pre-emptive attack. He and his advisers
intend to establish precedents with Iraq that can be used against other
states that stand out against US global control. The US, he says, cannot
allow anyone the capacity to attack it, but the country will keep its
own power to destroy all-comers.

How we tackle this debate is critical. How the Iraq crisis is resolved
will shape future crises, for Iraq will probably be part of a series of
campaigns against the "axis of evil". It is likely that Saddam does have
some WMD, likely that the security council will endorse action that ends
in his overthrow and likely that the war will be won quite easily.
Iraq's forces were shattered and have not been rebuilt, US power is
unbelievably greater.

Why then should President Bush's policy be opposed and what changes must
we insist on? He summarises his policy as tackling "the worst weapons in
the hands of the worst leaders". But little is being done with respect
to the "worst weapons". Attempts by the international community to
control nuclear, biological and chemical weapons have been relentlessly
undermined by Bush's Republican party for more than a decade.

Military action against states flouting international norms on WMD can
only be justified if we and the US are implementing them too. Saying "do
as we say", not "do as we do", is an invitation to everyone to acquire
them. Tony Blair is making terrorism and proliferation far easier by
accepting Bush's deliberate introduction of anarchy in international
security. Members of the Bush administration were in office in the 1980s
and were silent when Iraq used poison gas on Iran, the US's arch-enemy
at the time. And we in Britain may have forgotten that our airforce used
poison gas to suppress rebellion in Iraq in the inter-war period; one
can be sure that the Iraqis have not.

You will hear two further arguments in support of US policy. The first
is: "We are democracies so our weapons are OK and we do not need further
control." This is no more than saying that because we are good we cannot
be bad. The second is that only western nations believe in ethics and
law, so they are no good in the real world. This is as
self-contradictory as the first, and insidiously racist.

Sustained by such principles, the architects of President Bush's policy
hope to see it applied to Iran, North Korea and, ultimately, China. For
those Republicans who pride themselves on having destroyed the Soviet
Union and unified Germany, their duty now is to achieve the same success
over Beijing's nuclear-armed communist dictatorship, which oppresses the
Tibetans, runs its economy from a prison gulag and represses religious
freedom.

Friends look at me as if I have lost the plot when I say this. But John
Bolton, Richard Perle, Condoleezza Rice, Frank Gaffney and Paul
Wolfowitz have no problem with a pre-emptive political-military strategy
towards an emerging China. Ambassador David Smith, who contributed to
the influential National Institute for Public Policy report on nuclear
strategy, explained that "the US has never accepted a deterrent
relationship based on mutual assured destruction with China" and will
act to prevent China gaining such a capability.

Even though we were told that deterrence had stopped Saddam from using
his weapons in the last Gulf war, now it is said that he cannot be
deterred and must be pre-empted. Yet it is safer and easier to replace
deterrence with elimination of all WMD. A policy of inspections that are
militarily enforced would be quite useful if it were applied universally
and provided a guarantee against one nation breaking a global ban on
nuclear arms. We need to use the fact that WMD and human rights are now
on the international agenda as an opportunity. The introduction of a
pre-emptive strategy by Washington contradicts Nato strategy and must be
rejected at the alliance's November summit.

Our immediate focus should be a precise and public debate on the terms
of the cabinet discussion, in accordance with the constitutional
principle of collective responsibility. We should insist that the UN
mandate a conference to manage and eliminate all WMD without exception -
including American and British nuclear weapons - in accordance with the
existing obligations of UN member states.

If economic and other events do not deflect an attack on Iraq, there
will be no declaration of war by the Commons because our constitution
gives that power to the prime minister. Perhaps people should insist
that parliament change the constitution, so that it appropriates the
power to make war on behalf of the people. Britain would then be
importing some of America's democratic, rather than its military,
strength.

· Dan Plesch is senior research fellow at the Royal United Services
Institute and author of Sheriff and Outlaws in the Global Village