[PEN-L:32941] Re: Imperial ambitions

[Chris Burford <cburford@xxxxxxxxxx>]

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