Untitled Document
Nuclear blackmail: The essence of U.S. foreign policy
Is anyone surprised that our Supreme
Leader has refused
to rule out nuking Iran? Asked if there was anything to Seymour
Hersh's scoop revealing U.S. plans for a nuclear strike against Tehran,
Bush replied:
"All options are on the table. We want to solve this issue diplomatically
and we're working hard to do so."
All options? Including genocide? Well, uh, yes – but don't worry. We'll
issue a good number of threats before we actually commit mass murder: we'll
bellow and beat
our chests, like King
Kong atop the Empire State Building. Then we'll nuke 'em!
That's "diplomacy"
in the Age of Bush II.
Bush says he plans to discuss the Iran issue in his talks with Chinese President
Hu Jintao. One hopes the
discussion will be informed by Mr. Jintao's knowledge of Chinese history, especially
including Mao Tse-Tung's crazy-yet-plausible belief
that China could survive a nuclear war and still come out on top. Maybe then
the Americans will realize that someone, someday, will finally call their bluff.
I think we have reason to be grateful, at
least on this one occasion, for our president's crudity. His bluntness is
a blessing. Now we know that, stripped of its moral
pretensions, its "strategic
doctrines," and its highfalutin'
rhetoric, American foreign policy is nuclear blackmail, pure and simple.
In the interest of parsimony, both budgetary and literary, let us dispense
with the high-flown policy pronouncements, communiqués, and other effluvia
of diplomatic parlance, and boil it down to a simple statement of unmistakable
clarity:
Defy us and we'll destroy you.
There are, of course, degrees of destruction, and also various styles. There
is economic warfare, ranging in intensity from the Iraq
sanctions that Madeleine Albright infamously characterized as "worth
it" – in spite of the horrific human toll, including half
a million children – to the wrist-slapping diplomatic
sanctions imposed on Belarus as punishment for President
Lukashenko having won the election. This latter example blends into the
realm of ideological warfare, aimed at provoking hatred and war hysteria at
home, while rationalizing war preparations in the eyes of the world, and is
usually carried out indirectly
by the government's spear-carriers in the media. Reporters who take dictation
from government officials, often their sources; columnists who function as courtiers;
and lobbyists, especially those in the pay (or under the influence of) foreign
governments – all these are the shock troops of the War Party's propaganda
corps, whose function is to send out scouting parties in search of fresh
conquests.
The shooting begins only after the last volleys have been fired in the war
on the home front over the future of America's foreign policy. Will we adopt
a frankly terrorist doctrine that asserts a "right" to initiate force
anywhere, at
any time, against anyone for any – or no publicly revealed –
reason? This is the question that confronts us as we begin to evaluate –
or, rather, back away from in horror – the consequences of the so-called
Bush Doctrine to date.
Over 2,300 U.S. troops dead, tens
of thousands horribly
wounded. It's no wonder the U.S. military refuses
to estimate the number of Iraqi dead and debilitated. After all, we can't expect
every mass murderer to enumerate his own criminality – although some
do.
As the neocons try to beat the rap – in
a court of law, as well as the court of public opinion – the debate
hinges on the awareness and inherent
skepticism of the American people when it comes to government. That's where
Antiwar.com comes in. The War Party is relentless: no
sooner had we invaded
Iraq than we were already
preparing for war against Iran, and now that we are moving
against the mullahs one can only wonder which future targets are being contemplated:
Damascus?
Beirut? One is reminded
of the most extravagant expression of neoconservative triumphalism, uttered
by one Laurent Murawiec
in those halcyon days when war advocates were confidently predicting the road
to Baghdad would be strewn with rose
petals. Murawiec, a former LaRouche cultist who somehow talked his way into
the Rand
Corporation, told members of the president's Foreign Policy Advisory Board
that we ought to prepare an invasion of Saudi Arabia, adding with a flourish:
"Iraq is the tactical
pivot , Saudi Arabia the strategic pivot, Egypt the prize."
As a pure expression of the brazen kookery, the odd mixture of naïveté
and pure evil, that lies at the dark heart of neoconservative foreign policy
doctrine, that statement has few equals. Murawiec was dismissed as a marginal
crank at the time, but now that the administration is moving
against Iran and rattling its saber elsewhere in the Middle East, one has
to ask whether the inmates have taken over the asylum.
In the Bizarro
World we've fallen into, on account of the sheer force
of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, such "logic" as Murawiec's makes perfect
sense – that is, if you're as completely disconnected from reality as
those strategic geniuses in the Pentagon.
In the world of reality-as-it-is,
however, the consequences
of our crazed foreign policy continue to roll in, to our growing horror. How
will the American people respond?
If we mean to take our foreign policy – and our country – back
from the little
Napoleons [.pdf] who have seized the reins of power, we have to turn Murawiec's
words on their heads, and realize that Iraq is the tactical pivot – and
if we don't draw the right lessons from that disaster, we will live to repeat
them. It's time to start identifying, blaming, and when appropriate prosecuting
the gang
that lied us into war.
If we take Saudi Arabia as a metaphor for our relations with the whole of the
Sunni Arab world, we have to realize what the
furor over the Dubai ports deal really means: the start of a civilizational
war that is not in our interest to launch. The strategic pivot of our struggle
with Islamist extremism has to be an effort to isolate the Osama bin Ladens,
not empower them.
As for "the prize," it is not Egypt, but the reclaiming
of our foreign policy and our government from those who purport to speak –
and act – in our name. The reputation and moral standing of the United
States has been badly damaged, but the destructive effects are not irreparable.
We can win, because we have the truth on our side. Our main task is to get the
truth out there – and that, my friends, is what Antiwar.com
is all about.