Re: [A-List] 'Regime' or 'Region' change?

[Chris Burford <cburford@xxxxxxxxxx>]

They are definitely going for regional change.

I append a post I sent to PEN-L on 10th Dec on the same article, quoting
from a revealing source.

Chris Burford



Subject: [PEN-L:32941] Re: Imperial ambitions 

> At 09/12/02 15:39 -0500, you wrote: 
> Toronto Sun 
>
> December 8, 2002
>
> Bush's Mideast plan: Conquer and divide
>
> By ERIC MARGOLIS -- Contributing Foreign Editor NEW YORK -- Arms
> inspections are a "hoax," said Tariq Aziz, Iraq's deputy prime
> minister, in a forthright and chilling interview with ABC News last week.
> "War is inevitable."
> Aziz is the smartest, most credible member of President Saddam Hussein's
> otherwise sinister regime - my view after covering Iraq since 1976.
>
> What the U.S. wants is not "regime change" in Iraq but rather
> "region change," charged Aziz.



I was surprised to see on the book stands in the elite shopping area of
South Kensington, London, last week, a copy of "Foreign
Affairs" with an article suggesting that US strategy should indeed
be directed against the whole region.
"Foreign Affairs" is a bi-monthly magazine claimed to be wide
ranging but published by the US Council on Foreign Relations.

The article is
The Real Roots of Arab Anti-Americanism
by Barry Rubin, who is "Director of the Global Research in
International Affairs Center and Editor of the Middle East Review of
International Affairs. His latest books are The Tragedy of the Middle
East and Anti-American Terrorism and the Middle East."

For years now, anti-Americanism has served as a means of last resort by
which failed political systems and movements in the Middle East try to
improve their standing. The United States is blamed for much that is bad
in the Arab world, and it is used as an excuse for political and social
oppression and economic stagnation. By assigning responsibility for their
own shortcomings to Washington, Arab leaders distract their subjects'
attention from the internal weaknesses that are their real problems. And
thus rather than pushing for greater privatization, equality for women,
democracy, civil society, freedom of speech, due process of law, or other
similar developments sorely needed in the Arab world, the public focuses
instead on hating the United States.


It concluded

The final question seems a simple one, but is perhaps the most difficult
to answer: What should Washington do in the face of this most difficult
problem? Given the practical political benefits that anti-Americanism can
provide in the Arab world, the United States will never persuade its
adversaries and critics that they are simply mistaken in their hatred.
Even if the United States were to pressure Israel, end sanctions on Iraq,
or pull its troops out of the Persian Gulf, Arab journalists and
politicians will not start praising America as a wonderful friend and
noble example. Instead, further concessions will only encourage even more
contempt for the United States and make the anti-American campaign more
attractive.
What, then, should Washington do? U.S. policymakers should understand
that various public relations efforts, apologies, acts of appeasement, or
policy shifts will not by themselves do away with anti-Americanism. Only
when the systems that manufacture and encourage anti-Americanism fail
will popular opinion also change. In the interim, the most Washington can
do is show the world that the United States is steadfast in support of
its interests and allies. This approach should include both standing by
Israel and maintaining good relations with moderate Arab states -- which
should be urged to do more publicly to justify U.S. support.
Steadfastness and bravery remain the best way to undermine the practical
impact of Arab anti-Americanism.


So to read between the lines, the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime will
hopefully just be the first of a number of dominoes that will establish
liberal democracies allied to the USA in islamic state after islamic
state, if necessary backed by US police action, (of the sort that the USA
is just arranging with Algeria).

What is consistent with this wider scenario is that the USA has chosen
just this moment to sharpen the tensions with Saudi Arabia. If they
merely wanted to defeat Saddam Hussein they would not do that. But they
want the end of the Saudi regime which has been playing a double game
with terrorists. This is probably the explanation of the logic of why in
the war against terrorism they want to turn the screws on Saddam Hussein
who has such tenuous links with terrorism.

They will have worked through different scenarios in Iran too.

The Bush strategy is to turn over the whole middle east, in the struggle
to establish pro-imperialist domestically-liberal regimes. Liberal in
domestic politics, neo-liberal in domestic and international
economics.

Chris Burford
London