[A-List] US imperialism: "creative destruction"

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

Conflict and catchphrases

Brian Whitaker explains what 'creative destruction' and 'total war' mean in
the context of current US foreign policy
The Guardian
Monday February 24, 2003

Faced with obstruction from the French and Germans, ransom demands from the
Turks, and opposition from millions of demonstrators around the world, the
desired invasion of Iraq has fallen behind schedule.

But not to worry. The process of selecting the next candidates for regime
change is already under way.

In a meeting with American congressmen last week, the Israeli prime
minister, Ariel Sharon, nominated three countries to be tackled after Iraq:
Iran, Libya and Syria.

Mr Sharon also met John Bolton, the US under secretary of state, who
reportedly told him that it will be "necessary" to deal with Syria, Iran and
North Korea after an attack on Iraq. That puts Syria and Iran into the lead
with two votes each, followed by Libya and North Korea, with only one.

The attraction of this approach is easy to see. After Afghanistan and Iraq,
conquering Syria and Iran would create an unbroken chain of puppet regimes
stretching from the Mediterranean to China.

Elsewhere in the Middle East, Palestinian regime change, or rather regime
dismantling, has begun. Yasser Arafat is now more or less written off,
although there is nobody to replace him, which suits Mr Sharon just fine.
The Saudis are also being targeted and, ultimately, Egypt will be, too.

While all this may be sold to the public, and to gullible leaders like Tony
Blair, on the basis of specific issues, such as suicide bombings in the case
of the Palestinians, the vision driving US policy under the president,
George Bush, is far broader.

The two key phrases are "creative destruction" and "total war". Writing in
National Review Online , Michael Ledeen, one of the US's leading right wing
ideologues, explained: "We should have no misgivings about our ability to
destroy tyrannies. It is what we do best.

"It comes naturally to us, for we are the one truly revolutionary country in
the world, as we have been for more than 200 years. Creative destruction is
our middle name. We do it automatically, and that is precisely why the
tyrants hate us and are driven to attack us."

The concept of total war, which is also espoused by Mr Ledeen, was
elaborated upon in the same publication by Adam Mersereau, a former Marine
Corps officer.

He contrasted total war with "limited" war, in which military force is used
to achieve a particular foreign policy objective "without mobilising the
entire nation, and while minimising casualties".

"By total war," he wrote, "I mean the kind of warfare that not only destroys
the enemy's military forces, but also brings the enemy society to an
extremely personal point of decision, so that they are willing to accept a
reversal of the cultural trends that spawned the war in the first place.

"A total war strategy does not have to include the intentional targeting of
civilians, but the sparing of civilian lives cannot be its first priority
... The purpose of total war is to permanently force your will onto another
people group.

"Limited war pits combatants against combatants, while total war pits nation
against nation, and even culture against culture."

This sort of thing may strike the average non-American as power-crazed and
mad (and, before the emails start flooding in from the US, I should add that
many Americans find it abhorrent, too). However, the real point is not
whether such ideas are mad, it is the amount of influence that they have on
policy.

Many of the total war and creative destruction crowd get their ideas across
to the public through an agency called Benador Associates, which arranges
their TV appearances and speaking engagements, and helps to place their
articles in newspapers.

The agency, which has offices in New York, London and Paris, is run by
Eleana Benador, a Peruvian-born linguist. Since I last wrote about Ms
Benador (US thinktanks give lessons in foreign policy World dispatch, August
19 2002), her business seems to have expanded remarkably.

She has added 10 more "experts" to her list of clients and, on February 13,
hosted a free lunch for a question and answer session with the Pentagon's
leading hardline adviser, Richard Perle.

In addition, she has started a mailing service, through which subscribers
receive, free of charge, up to six daily articles. Anyone who wishes to
monitor the developing thoughts of America's neo-conservatives, and can
resist being offended by the content, will find a subscription informative.

Ms Benador has been busy networking on the political-social circuit, too.
Although details are scarce, the website of Bob Guzzardi , a Pennsylvania
property man and Israel enthusiast, shows photographs of a jolly party
attended by Ms Benador along with Senator Joseph Lieberman, Representative
Joseph Hoeffel, Daniel Pipes (the bete noire of American Muslims) and Reza
Pahlavi, the pretender to the throne of Iran.

Several of her experts regard the fall of the Iranian regime as a certain
consequence of war in Iraq, whether as a result of deliberate US efforts or
those of Iran's supposedly rebellious youth. At least one of them has been
talking up the possibility that Mr Pahlavi could take over as Iran's new
Shah.

"It is no surprise that Reza Pahlavi, son of the late Shah, has arisen
seemingly out of nowhere to become the leading opposition figure, not only
among Iranians in Los Angeles, but among Iranians still living under the
mullahs in Tehran."

Those words were written by Michael Rubin, who has also promoted the idea
that ex-Crown Prince Hassan of Jordan might become king of Iraq.

Mr Rubin, a Benador client and once a prolific article writer, has been
silent for several months. This, Ms Benador's website explains, is because
he is "currently on assignment as an Iran and Iraq adviser in special plans
at the Pentagon, and will be unavailable for public appearances until
October 2003."

Still, there are plenty of others to fill the gap while Mr Rubin hatches his
special plans. The Benador website lists more than 220 published articles,
including 50 in the National Review, 42 in the Washington Times, 37 in the
Washington Post, 18 in the National Post, 17 in the Wall Street Journal, 15
in the Los Angeles Times, eight each in the New York Post and the Jerusalem
Post, and six in the New York Times.

Two others appeared in Britain, one in the Financial Times, and the other in
the Daily Telegraph.

Readers who like to keep an eye on such things should watch out for media
appearances by any of the following Benador "experts": AM Rosenthal,
Alexander M Haig Jr, Amir Taheri, Arnaud de Borchgrave, Azar Nafisi, Barry
Rubin, Charles Jacobs, Charles Krauthammer, Fereydoun Hoveyda, Frank J
Gaffney Jr, George Jonas, Hillel Fradkin, Ismail Cem, John Eibner, Kanan
Makiya, Khalid Duran, Khidhir Hamza, Laurie Mylroie, Mansoor Ijaz, Martin
Kramer, Max Boot, Meyrav Wurmser, Michael A Ledeen, Michael Rubin, Michel
Gurfinkiel, Paul Marshall, R James Woolsey, Richard O Spertzel, Richard
Perle, Richard Pipes, Ruth Wedgwood, Shaykh Kabbani, Stanley H Kaplan,
Tashbih Sayyed, Tom Rose and Walid Phares.