[Marxism] Not just a tactical debate

[Philip Ferguson <plf13@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Marv wrote:
> 1) If the Bush administration wasn't able to get the Europeans to
> sanction the invasion with a UN resolution using all kinds of coercive
> tactics, why do you suppose Kerry could have done so using sweet talk?


Precisely because 'sweet talk' could have made it look like some kind of
partnership, and they might have offered the other imperialists some
kind of stake, whereas the road Bush took was not only unilateralist but
  ultimatimist.

With the Soviet Union gone and with the postwar boom long over, the days
when the other major imperialists are simply going to fall in behind
Washington, especially when Washington cracks the whip over them, are
well gone.




> 2) The important point about Bush Sr. is that he only got international
> support in exchange for a commitment NOT to invade Iraq. US forces
> stopped at the Iraq-Kuwait border. The Shias still consider this a
> betrayal.


Didn't Bush the Elder also advise his idiot son against precisely the
course the idiot son took?  And I think the dominant elements in the
elder Bush's regime regarded as right-wing loonies the people that have
got in charge of policy in the idiot son's administration.

Bush the Elder actually rose up via the CIA and so had a functioning
brain.  Of course, the monied family background helped a lot, but even
so you don't get to be head of the CIA without having some smarts.

The younger Bush has never done any job that actually required having
any intelligence at all.  Most people outside the US - left, right and
centre - regard him as a complete buffoon.  That stuff on Letterman
where they do "George W. Bush's Joke That Isn't a Joke" actually sums up
how the rest of the world sees him.

What surprised me was that Washington plunged into Iraq.  I thought the
smarter elements in the US ruling class would actually put a hand on
Bush's shoulder and tell him not to lead US imperialism into what could
well turn out to be a hopeless quagmire.

I don't actually think the invasion of Iraq was about oil.  The US
doesn't need to occupy countries to dominate world supplies of oil.  I
think it was partly about inter-imperialist rivalry, partly about
sections of capital close to Bush making a big killing (but at the
expense of the other sections of US capital as well, of course, as the
expense of the Iraqi population who pay the ultimate price) and partly
about the Bush government just stuffing it up.



> 3) I agree worldwide public opinion would have swung as you suggest if
> the UN had sanctioned the US invasion. Frankly, that was the outcome I
> expected. I was surprised that the French, German, Russian and other
> governments defied the Bush administration the way they did. I fully
> expected them to capitulate at the eleventh hour and come up with a
> resolution for war.


But you shouldn't be surprised.  During the Cold War, US imperialism
ruled the roost and the other imperialists had little alternative but to
get in behind.  Those days are gone.  In the post-Cold War world, why
would any self-respecting, serious imperialist government allow itself
to be told what to do by US imperialism, let alone a US imperialism led
by a moron like Bush?

If you are a serious capitalist and some other capitalist comes along
and tells you how you should do business, would you submit just because
the other capitalist was bigger?  You wouldn't be lasting long in
business if you did.



> 4) The big split between the early Bush admin, before it was tamed, and
> everyone else wasn't over ends, ie. US-led OECD control of the world
> economy and the isolation and punishment of small rogue states. The
> difference, IMO, has always been over means, ie. the Kosovo method
> (economic blockade, use of air power) which is safer and less costly vs.
> Iraq/Vietnam method (massive commitment of ground forces), which is much
> riskier and more expensive.


I'd say it's now over ends as well, in the sense that other imperialists
are more and more flexing their muscles.  They all want to plunder the
Third World - there's no disagreement about that.  But they all want
*their* capital to be the winner.  So we're now seeing more competition
between national capitals, rather than the kind of Empire stuff that
people like Negri claim and rather than the total and unchallenged US
world hegemony that some on the left still see because their analysis
hasn't been updated in over a decade.

Philip Ferguson












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