Iraq and the US - Our Fantasy Island Foreign Policy

Increasingly, American foreign policy has little to do with events overseas, and
everything to do with politics on the home front. During the cold war
era, this tendency of US policy to be self-referential was subordinated
to the requirements of an actual military threat – albeit overblown
– from the Soviet Union. In the post-cold war world, however, such
restraints have been thrown completely overboard. With the US elevated
to the status of a "hyperpower" – so far beyond the military
capabilities of our closest competitor that the difference is
qualitative not quantitative – the need to be in touch with reality is
no longer quite so compelling. The result is a foreign policy that might
have been formulated by the rulers of Fantasy Island. . . . WHOSE
CRISIS?
Iraq is a perfect example of the Fantasy Island Syndrome. Here is a
nation which has lost 1.2 million citizens, mostly the very young and
the very old, as a direct result of US-imposed sanctions. Bombed into a
pile of smoking rubble, Iraq today has no ballistic missile program and
no way to pose a threat to any of its neighbors. Yet the US is
supposedly so concerned about a "possible threat" from Iraq during the
presidential campaign that the Pentagon, on Thursday, sent an Army
Patriot missile to Israel – a move, as the Washington Post put it,
made "only in times of crisis." But whose crisis – and where is it
occurring . . . ?
LAID BACK BARAK
Not in Israel, that's for sure. If Saddam's poison-tipped Scuds were on
their way to pierce the heart of Tel Aviv, Israeli Prime Minister Barak
couldn't have been more relaxed about it: "I don't know if this Patriot
missile battery really needs to be bothered," he said, when informed of
the Patriot's imminent arrival. The New York Times reports that "he did
not think Israelis should worry or be distracted by the reports. Indeed,
there is no state of alert here, no palpable feeling that there is any
cause of concern. The lead story on the evening news was the opening of
the new school year."
THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME
No, the "crisis" is right here at home: quadrennial crisis whereby power
is transferred in the US from one ruling clique to another -- or not
transferred, as the case may be, otherwise known as a presidential
election. The race for the White House is shaping up to be quite a
horse-race, and that is precisely how it is being covered by the US news
media. The big issues are microscopic in their significance: is Al Gore
an "alpha male"? Will Dubya apologize for calling Adam Clymer, a
reporter for the New York Times, an a*s*o*e? Since both "major"
candidates agree on all the significant issues – and are especially
united in their fulsome support for an interventionist foreign policy
– the campaign has degenerated into a grown-up version of an election
for class president, high school version, in which the studious dork is
fighting an uphill campaign against the popular but stupid captain of
the football team. It's all far less interesting than an episode of
Daria. But don't be fooled. With the rapid dispatch of the Patriot
missile battery to Israel, sending a signal that we may be in for an
"October surprise," it looks like the action is about to heat up. . . .
BOMBED TO DISTRACTION
The politicization of US foreign policy was frankly confessed by an
anonymous administration official, cited in the Washington Post, who,
along with his colleagues in the inner councils of Clintonia, believes
that Saddam Hussein "has miscalculated in past U.S. elections, thinking
we were somehow distracted" -- and will be sorely tempted to do so
again. Here it is necessary to apply the Inversion Principle, as we
always must in trying to interpret the words of this administration and
its Liar-in-chief, by assuming that the complete opposite is the case.
It is this administration that is doing the calculating, hoping to
distract an American electorate already irked by high gasoline prices
away from the presidential election, and focus their attention on some
manufactured overseas "crisis." The Iraqis are convenient Arabic
villains. With Al Gore in deep trouble up until very recently, and his
wife's New York Senate campaign up against a tough challenge, the crisis
was and is in the political fortunes of the President's party, with only
one logical way out of it. . . .
THE ASPIRIN FACTORY SOLUTION
It looks like what might be called the Aspirin Factory Solution –
after the bombing of the Al Shifa pharmaceutical factory in the Sudan as
the other shoe was about to drop in l'affaire Lewinsky – is in the
works. With the deadline for Iraqi compliance with the UN weapons
inspection program fast approaching, Iraq was bound to be an election
year issue – and one in which Dubya is surprisingly vulnerable. For
any GOP attempt to critique US Iraq policy from a
more-interventionist-than-thou perspective invariably runs up against
the need to ask a question that only George Herbert Walker Bush can
answer: why didn't we take Baghdad at the end of the Gulf war? This is
the mantra of those who want a final solution to the problem of Saddam.
Dubya is hardly going to criticize, or even second-guess, dear old Dad,
and so the Democrats are inoculated against the charge of being "soft on
Saddam" this election year. This gives them the freedom to launch a
not-very-surprising October Surprise, without necessarily having to go
all the way all at once. . . .
THE LEGACY QUESTION
This would accomplish two things: it would take the focus of public
attention away from the election, away from Al Gore's glaring
unlikeability, and shift it toward someone even less likable – Saddam
Hussein, the favorite hate object of both parties. It would also give
Bill Clinton his heart's desire – or, at least, the printable version
– and that is a Legacy. William Jefferson Clinton – the President
who took out Saddam. While not exactly wiping the slate clean – it
took Hercules to clean the Augean stables, a roughly comparable task –
such a Legacy would certainly burnish his image with the sort of
gravitas likely to impress historians. It would be self-serving,
politically astute, and brazenly immoral to make war on Iraq for these
reasons and under these circumstances. Now ask yourself: is Clinton
capable of it . . .?
THE HYPERPOWER
I am fascinated by this concept of America the hyperpower – a
superpower so powerful that it is beyond challenge, or even reproach.
This super-superpower is beyond good and evil, a Nietzschean nation
whose dominance is not only military but also cultural. History begins
with its founding, and ends with its hegemony. Its rulers are the
emperors of a New Rome, whose centurions guard the far frontiers of the
imperial domain – while at home the people are too narcotized to
notice that their old Republic is gone. The hyperpower plays with other
countries like a cat plays with a cornered mouse. There is no question
as to how it will end, only how long it will take the cat to pounce and
finish off his already half-dead prey. The whims of a cat are naturally
inscrutable, but the actions of politicians in power are much less
opaque – in this case to the point of absolute transparency. . . . GET
REAL
Now we get into the "Fantasy Island" aspect of this whole Patriot
missile affair. For the reality is that it is physically impossible for
the Iraqis to have manufactured ballistic missiles, let alone tested and
developed them, since 1998, when UN weapons inspectors testified that
Iraq's missile capability was nonexistent. As one of those inspectors,
Scott Ritter, put it in an interview with CNN: "I have to agree totally
with the Iraqis. There's absolutely no substance to any accusation that
Iraq continues to possess a ballistic missile capability that can reach
Israel. This is a fact that's well-known to the United States and to
Israel. Prime Minister Barak has recently just said that there is no
Iraqi missile threat. And he doesn't know what all the hype is about.
This seems to be a purely political move on the part of the United
States to continue to demonize Iraq by hyping it's perceived
capabilities."
US POLICY – AN ABJECT FAILURE
In an excellent op ed piece for the Los Angeles Times, Ritter notes the
Saddam-centric Iraq policy of both major party presidential candidates
and despairingly predicts that "the next four years will see a
continuation of America's decade-long fixation on the president of
Iraq." He then homes in on the essential issue by not only pointing out
the total defeat of the US effort to oust Saddam, but also accurately
depicting an Iraq politically and diplomatically strengthened: "Over the
past eight years, the Clinton administration was trapped in a
Saddam-centric policy of regime removal, which dictated the containment
of the Iraqi dictator through economic sanctions regardless of the
reality of Iraq's disarmament obligation and the horrific humanitarian
cost incurred by the people of Iraq. This policy has been an abject
failure, a fact that has prompted much of the international community to
start viewing Iraq and its leader more sympathetically. Whoever wins the
election in November will face the daunting task of overcoming the
Clinton legacy on Iraq: a hopelessly divided Security Council, an
impasse on weapons inspections, a degenerating system of economic
sanctions, the loss of American credibility and a resurgent Saddam
Hussein."
WHIPPING BOY
Ah, but it isn't too late to transform the bitter legacy of abject
failure into a glorious "victory" – the capstone of Clinton's horrific
career as the most militaristic and intervention-prone president of
modern times. There's still time for Clinton to make his mark as a world
leader worth remembering, plenty of time to come up with a pretext –
any pretext – to take out Saddam the whipping boy and give him a few
lashes. The sadistic aspect of all this – which is usually subsumed
under the general rubric of "war hysteria" and "rallying 'round the
flag" – is an important ingredient in appealing to the decadent
appetites of a depraved populace, or at least that portion of it that
can be counted on as the Clintonian "base." But the other political
benefits due our rulers in wartime are equally appealing to the
Clintonian mindset. . . .
HILLARY'S FATE
A major reason for sending a Patriot missile to Israel, while it may be
mystifying to that nation's Prime Minister, is not so mysterious to the
New York Jewish voters who will in large part determine Hillary
Clinton's political fate. Hillary, as you may have heard, has given the
New York Jewish community at least some reason for doubting her
professed love for them. In the event of war with Iraq, the evening news
would amount to the kind of political ad for the Rodhamites that money
couldn't buy: a shot of the First Lady on the tarmac reviewing our
pilots as they prepare another sortie over Iraqi skies would be worth at
least several hundred thousand votes.
AMEN!
Back in 1991, when Patrick J. Buchanan pointed out that Saddam
represented a threat, not to the US, but to Israel, and that Israel's
"amen corner" in the US was responsible for beating the drums of war, he
was denounced as a vicious "anti-Semite" – and so began a campaign of
vilification that continues to this day. Yet what are we to make of
this? -- Iraq, its economy destroyed, its military capability reduced
beyond the ability to even keep the country together, is in the end
depicted as a threat exclusively to . . . Israel. FOR ENTERTAINMENT
PURPOSES ONLY
That this alleged threat is a complete fabrication, based on nothing put
the political necessity of preparing the country for war, is neither
here nor there: here on Fantasy Island, any relationship between the
foreign policy of the US and reality is for entertainment purposes only.
The Iraqis are mere spectators in a drama that is taking place in the
United States: their fate will be decided, not by Saddam Hussein, but by
American political consultants, the pollsters, and the two contestants
for the office of America's number one Alpha Male. HOW LONG, OH LORD –
HOW LONG?
Isn't that, after all, what it means to be a hyperpower? To be at the
center of everything – to permanently capture the world's attention,
to excite the world's envy, to provoke the world's fear, with no need to
take reality into account – and unlimited power to punish. To live
like the gods on Olympus, hurling the occasional thunderbolt at an
impertinent mortal but otherwise governing and presiding over your
dominion, routinely deciding matters of life and death while
administering the natural order of things – such are the benefits of
hyperpower-dom. The ideology of this "natural" order has gone through
many names over the years – "the four freedoms," "collective
security," "democracy," "humanitarianism," and especially
"globalization" – but nothing has really changed since medireview times,
when conquerors and kings proclaimed that they ruled by divine right.
The divine right of the Clintons – and their successors – to use the
rest of the world for target practice: this, in the end, is what the mad
dream of global hegemony comes down to. And we have the ultimate nerve
to label our enemies "terrorists"! No wonder there is a move afoot to
put up a missile defense shield – how long before the rest of the
world gets sick and tired of being treated like chattel and decides to
strike back?
AN APOLOGY TO HARRY BROWNE
I want to do something unusual and completely out of character, and what
could fit the bill better than an apology? I'm afraid that my recent
article on Harry Browne's appearance on Bill Maher's "Politically
Incorrect" was a bit, uh, intemperate, to say the least. Several
emailers wondered at the sheer vehemence of my epithets, and thought I
was making a mountain out of a molehill. I don't agree that this is an
unimportant issue, but the way I expressed my displeasure at this new
development in libertarian thought by engaging in unnecessary (and
distracting) name-calling did nothing to make my case. Many, including
Harry, sought to explain my tone as due to my generally supportive
attitude to Pat Buchanan's candidacy, but the real explanation is that I
am reacted with undue emotion due to my own lingering attachment to the
Libertarian Party. This is an emotional, sentimental attachment, not at
all wistful but still a bit angry – after a good decade of LP
activism, and a lot of scars from the old factional wars of the 1980s
that reduced the party to its present parlous state, what else could you
expect? See? There I go getting angry again, and so I'd better quit
while I'm ahead and get around to the apology: Harry, I sincerely regret
calling you those names, and promise to be on my best behavior in the
future. I will, from this moment forward, cover your campaign with more
objectivity, and give you what I would give to any fellow libertarian
– the benefit of a doubt.
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