[A-List] US imperialism: Iraq

["John Gulick" <john_gulick@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Mark Jones wrote:

Interesting insights as ever. But the real house-to-house fight is going on
in the UN Security Council right now where the French, Russians, Chinese and
others have not caved in when the script said they oughta ... They won't
agree to do it because US imperialism is now too weak, vulnerable and
exposed to make its writ run even among its allies. This is therefore a true
moment of truth in the history of US world hegemony ... The one condition on
which Bush will do it? Because he decides to rewrite the political map not
only of the Middle East but of the whole world, and to rip up the entire
post-1945 world order. He hasn't decided to do that yet, because the
consequences will be awesome, cataclysmic, well, just call it WW3 for short
(coming our way any time now) ... if Bush doesn't face off his allies now
(and they are his real enemies, not the cheap gangster in Baghdad) then it's
the big Finito to the American Empire; no war=dollar collapse=slump=the end.

I now write:

Breathtaking analysis, per usual. I want to pick your brain on this a little
more, since I haven't done the homework myself. Could you spell out more
precisely why the _absence_ of a US occupation of Iraq necessarily portends
rapid imperial decline ? Supposing the annexation doesn't go down, these are
the bits I get: 1) Continued shift toward
invoicing petroleum receipts in Euros, bad news for US seignorage
privileges, how will the US prop up its sagging balance of payments position
w/o raising the returns on T-Bills (thrusting thousands, millions of
debt-loaded households into personal bankruptcy proceedings
and stifling the anemic recovery), how will the US pay for new outposts in
Central Asia, the Caucasus, SE Asia, etc. (not to mention fat "cost-plus"
government contracts with the leftover wreckage from the IT crash, now
selling "homeland security" services) etc. w/o doing the same w/the same
effects; 2) If Tommy Franks and henchmen don't get the honor of ripping up
existing drilling claims and oilfield leases and such and reparceling them
out, then the US doesn't get its way in its myriad trade disputes with the
EU, in its attempts to open up the Japanese financial sector to Wall Street,
in its bickering w/the PRC over WTO implementation, in its blah-de-blah
w/Putin (I don't know what
to say here, you have promised us a special nugget); 3) If the Security
Council calls the US bluff and the US blinks, then all the worse for 1) and
2), all the worse for the US being able to wield NATO like a blunt
instrument while the EU foots the bill, all the worse for the US' insistence
that Japan not creep forward with changing its constitution
in deed by developing offensive military capability, all the worse for
US intransigence on Taiwan, yadda yadda yadda.

I get all this (supposing I am channeling you more or less accurately),
but here's what I don't get: are you saying that Bush and company have
gone too far out on a limb, too many inflexible commitments have been made,
such that a liberal internationalist foreign policy of the sort favored by
most sectors of capital in the U.S. (minus the military contractors that
feed at the trough and the energy giants) could not be
restored come 2005, that an easing of hegemonic succession (of the sort
you speculated about some months ago in your China post, which I must
revisit) is utterly out of the picture ? Or, perhaps you are saying that
the last gasp of multilateralism was predicated on the IT bubble, and
those days are over with, never to return ? (I know I'm also omitting the
ever-present oil peak, a no-no). But, absent a more profound commitment to
cultivating effective demand in their own respective backyards, the ruling
classes of Europe and especially East Asia are
utterly dependent on the US "cash register" (Jim O'Connor's turn of phrase)
aren't they ? Or maybe what you're saying is that worldwide
deflation keeps on knocking at the door, this necessitates an
intensification of inter-imperialist rivalry, and the US having its bluff in
Iraq called will only embolden its erstwhile allies to become bona fide foes
in a zero-sum game.

Anyway, gotta go ... a late dinner (Chinese noodles) awaits.

John Gulick

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