"A POVERTY OF POLICY"
by Brent A. Schoenfeld
The current occupiers of the white house in their "stratigery" thinking seem to all be stuck in the cold war mind set...with plenty of bluff leading all their arguments for their foreign policy. The bluff, of course, ultimately means, "I have more 'nukes' than you do and I can deliver one or more right on your sorry head anytime I feel like it." I personally worry that our enemies (the ones we keep making up who then, after being threatened, become real ones) may not be counter-bluffing as much as we would like to believe them to be. As we have them cornered and desperate, why should they be honest with us.
Basically, what is playing out now are all the implications of Bush's "axis of evil" speech. We now actively consider Iraq, Iran, North Korea and a growing handful of other countries as enemies bent on the destruction of the 'civilized world' (that means the United States and its closest friends), and anyone else in the world who isn't "with us" in this consideration can consider themselves part of this same "axis of evil".
That is the stated part of the Bush foreign policy. The unstated part has to be inferred from the actions of the administration as well as the implied motives behind these actions and behind the stated part of their foreign policy. The most obvious and popular inference drawn is that the motive of 'empire' is primary to the Bush foreign policy. Before the fall of the Soviet Union, America engaged in such imperial practices as attempts at destabilizing governments friendly to the Soviets or sympathetic to socialism (Cuba, Nicaragua and Chile to name just a few), as well as the installation of puppet governments in regions of strategic importance to America (the Shah in Iran, the Saudi royal family in Saudi Arabia and South Korea, also to name just a few) as well as supporting dictators like Saddam Hussein in Iraq. The Soviets engaged in similar tactics in the 'Soviet Block' and it should be remembered that the Baath party in Iraq successfully played both sides of the street, courting both American and Soviet military aid. More often than not these puppet governments cared little for their own people, usually persecuting and suppressing them, while currying the favor of the U.S. and its generosity, or that of the Soviets, or avoiding the iron fists of the two super-powers. This usually meant the sale of, at ridiculously low prices, the natural resource wealth of those countries, often the labor of their people at peasant wages and sometimes military favors. American activities were justified to the rest of the 'free' world as necessary 'cold war' steps to keep the Soviets in check. Whether they were or not, the result of this meddling in the governments and ultimately the lives of the people of these nations is at least two generations of human beings in these countries who now deeply resent or even actively hate us and/or the Russians.Now that the Soviet Union can no longer be seen as the evil arch enemy the U.S. is faced with a choice whether to take a leadership role in the building of a new and sustainable peace with prosperity for all on the planet, or, now that the opponent's defense has collapsed, to barrel head long for the 'end zone' for an uncontested and game deciding 'touchdown' in which domination of all the worlds remaining resources and peoples is the prize. What better way to accomplish the latter than to create a new arch enemy and go back to the cold war mentality that both those in government and the American people remember, understand and, of course, were apparently victorious at in the cold war conflict with the Soviet Union? I submit that it is not far fetched to believe that a significant number of Americans would find such a cold war mentality much more comfortable than they would find the responsibility and psychological insecurity of fashioning a new mentality to go along with choosing to build a 'new age' of sustainable peace and prosperity. Indeed, the postulation of a new 'evil' enemy provides a nostalgic return to the strategies and bravado of Ronald Reagan. Indeed, what we are seeing looks like a remake of that movie.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union it became surprisingly apparent that, although a significant threat really existed, it was much smaller than we were led to believe. Our reactionary build up of our own military capabilities were far out of proportion to the actual Soviet military threat. Whether the overblown description of that threat was intentional disinformation by the American government to keep the American people in a state of fear and therefore in support of government military spending, or whether the Soviet propaganda was a successful bluff swallowed by the American intelligence community is a question that will probably never be honestly answered. Neither alternative, indeed if there are only two, are particularly palatable. What may we eventually find to be the reality of the actual military threat of the new arch enemy, the 'axis of evil'?
In the case of North Korea, early in his first term Clinton agreed to provide them assistance in the generation of electricity by supplying them with shipments of fuel oil and 'safe' western nuclear technology that did not involve the use of the graphite reactors common in the Russian sphere of influence - the design that nearly melted down at Chernobyl as they are a proved dangerous design on a planetary scale, as well as, I think, readily adaptable to plutonium and weapons production. In return, North Korea promised not to produce any new nuclear weapons or produce any plutonium and to have all their peaceful nuclear activities monitored with U.N. cameras. Now that they have been re-branded a rogue nation and an enemy in Bush's version of foreign policy and Bush has reneged on the Clinton agreement leaving them stranded, so they say, in regard to electrical power generation. So they have removed the cameras, given the boot to International inspectors and fired up some old reactors and we no longer know what they might be up to. If you were now being threatened by the biggest bully on the block, who pretended to be your friend just two years ago and who has made war on one of a list of three that you share a place on, and you are probably next, what would you do?
An issue that I find troubling is the particular composition of the evil axis. The Administration has never really given us any direct evidence to justify the position on any these three particular States and neither do we have any reports on the military progress on the war on terrorism in Afghanistan except that they apparently keep letting Bin Laden slip through their fingers. What is readily conjecturable is that preemptively invading Iraq and then possibly Iran can very possibly result in a major de-stabilization of the entire western portion of the Asian continent, perhaps even all out world war. Consider the reactions of the people of the region to an occupying American military presence. I have heard very little about any plans for after a victory and a regime change. It is not clear that we have stabilized Afghanistan, nor is it clear that the reports of the Taliban returning and Al Queda regrouping in that country are false. The main stream American press seems both unable and unwilling to tell us anything about such things (indeed, they seem to function only as cheerleaders for the Bush war making agenda). If we now take military action in North Korea we run the risk of further alienating China and de-stabilizing the rest of the Asian continent and a possible world war of truly horrifying proportions. Could we militarily handle that? Well, we probably have enough 'nukes', but...they're 'nukes'. To me, pushing desperate nations to desperate measures is not a particularly civilized approach to foreign policy. The whole point of the 'cold war', agreed to by both sides, was to avoid a 'hot war'.
I have purposely omitted 9/11 so far, as I wanted to have the previous views unclouded by such an emotional and important issue. I still do not see that the administration has made the connection, except perhaps for a weak argument with some circumstantial evidence, between 9/11 and any of the 'axis of evil' countries. What does seem evident to me is that the people of those countries hate America, and are growing to hate Americans as well, enough to be willing participants in acts as occurred on 9/11 against us.
The 'axis of evil' policy seems to me to be a reckless invention that tempts, even invites disaster. It is embarrassingly weak in creativity, originality and diplomatic integrity. It weekly becomes more unwieldy. Bush never seems to react to the brinkmanship of any of his 'evil' opponents with anything except an appeal to the military prowess of America. We could very easily be facing a two front world war, strategically just as difficult as World War II, but with way fewer allies. It will be paid for by poor and middle-class American blood, and poor and middle-class American tax dollars. The very rich will send neither their sons, nor their daughters, nor will they be asked to help out with footing the bill, indeed their tax cuts will just keep coming on line, and many of them will make huge economic profits from such a mammoth military adventure. At best, the most we can hope for, if the administration unleashes this new devastation in the world, even if we win militarily, is a vast increase in the numbers of people who will hate us and wish for the end of not just American hegemony, but America itself. I do not see anything to win for anyone . . .
. . . except maybe some oil . . . for a few . . .
. . . for awhile.
Brent A. Schoenfeld 01/03/03
Copyright © 2003 (Brent A. Schoenfeld)