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Iraq:
Invasion That Will Live in Infamy
by
Noam Chomsky
August
12, 2003
September
2002 was marked by three events of considerable importance, closely related. The
United States, the most powerful state in history, announced a new national
security strategy asserting that it will maintain global hegemony permanently.
Any challenge will be blocked by force, the dimension in which the US reigns
supreme. At the same time, the war drums began to beat to mobilize the
population for an invasion of Iraq. And the campaign opened for the mid-term
congressional elections, which would determine whether the administration would
be able to carry forward its radical international and domestic agenda.
The
new "imperial grand strategy", as it was termed at once by John
Ikenberry writing in the leading establishment journal, presents the US as
"a revisionist state seeking to parlay its momentary advantages into a
world order in which it runs the show", a unipolar world in which "no
state or coalition could ever challenge it as global leader, protector, and
enforcer." (1) These policies are fraught with danger
even for the US itself, Ikenberry warned, joining many others in the foreign
policy elite.
What
is to be protected is US power and the interests it represents, not the world,
which vigorously opposed the concept. Within a few months studies revealed that
fear of the US had reached remarkable heights, along with distrust of the
political leadership. An international Gallup poll in December, which was
barely noticed in the US, found almost no support for Washington's announced
plans for a war in Iraq carried out unilaterally by America and its allies - in
effect, the US-United Kingdom coalition.
Washington
told the United Nations that it could be relevant by endorsing US plans, or it
could be a debating society. The US had the "sovereign right to take
military action", the administration's moderate Colin Powell told the
World Economic Forum, which also vigorously opposed the war plans: "When
we feel strongly about something we will lead, even if no one is following
us." (2)
President
George Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair underscored their contempt
for international law and institutions at their Azores summit meeting on the
eve of the invasion. They issued an ultimatum, not to Iraq, but to the Security
Council: capitulate, or we will invade without your meaningless seal of
approval. And we will do so whether or not Saddam Hussein and his family leave
the country. (3) The crucial principle is that the US must
effectively rule Iraq.
President
Bush declared that the US "has the sovereign authority to use force in
assuring its own national security", threatened by Iraq with or without
Saddam, according to the Bush doctrine. The US will be happy to establish an
Arab facade, to borrow the term of the British during their days in the sun,
while US power is firmly implanted at the heart of the world's major
energy-producing region. Formal democracy will be fine, but only if it is of a
submissive kind accepted in the US's backyard, at least if history and current practice
are any guide.
The
grand strategy authorizes the US to carry out preventive war: preventive, not
pre-emptive. Whatever the justifications for pre-emptive war might be, they do
not hold for preventive war, particularly as that concept is interpreted by its
current enthusiasts: the use of military force to eliminate an invented or
imagined threat, so that even the term "preventive" is too
charitable. Preventive war is, very simply, the supreme crime that was
condemned at Nuremberg.
That
was understood by those with some concern for their country. As the US invaded
Iraq, the historian Arthur Schlesinger wrote that Bush's grand strategy was
"alarmingly similar to the policy that imperial Japan employed at the time
of Pearl Harbor, on a date which, as an earlier American president [Franklin D
Roosevelt] said it would, lives in infamy". It was no surprise, added
Schlesinger, that "the global wave of sympathy that engulfed the US after
9/11 has given way to a global wave of hatred of American arrogance and
militarism" and the belief that Bush was "a greater threat to peace
than Saddam Hussein." (4)
For
the political leadership, mostly recycled from the more reactionary sectors of
the Reagan-Bush Senior administrations, the global wave of hatred is not a
particular problem. They want to be feared, not loved. It is natural for the
Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, to quote the words of Chicago gangster
Al Capone: "You will get more with a kind word and a gun than with a kind word
alone." They understand just as well as their establishment critics that
their actions increase the risk of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction
(WMD) and terror. But that too is not a major problem. Far higher in the scale
of their priorities are the goals of establishing global hegemony and
implementing their domestic agenda, which is to dismantle the progressive
achievements that have been won by popular struggle over the past century, and
to institutionalize their radical changes so that recovering the achievements
will be no easy task.
It
is not enough for a hegemonic power to declare an official policy. It must
establish it as a new norm of international law by exemplary action.
Distinguished commentators may then explain that the law is a flexible living
instrument, so that the new norm is now available as a guide to action. It is
understood that only those with the guns can establish norms and modify
international law.
The
selected target must meet several conditions. It must be defenseless, important
enough to be worth the trouble, an imminent threat to our survival and an
ultimate evil. Iraq qualified on all counts. The first two conditions are
obvious. For the third, it suffices to repeat the orations of Bush, Blair, and
their colleagues: the dictator "is assembling the world's most dangerous
weapons [in order to] dominate, intimidate or attack"; and he "has
already used them on whole villages leaving thousands of his own citizens dead,
blind or transfigured. If this is not evil then evil has no meaning."
Bush's eloquent denunciation surely rings true. And those who contributed to
enhancing evil should certainly not enjoy impunity: among them, the speaker of
these lofty words and his current associates, and all those who joined them in the
years when they were supporting that man of ultimate evil, Saddam Hussein, long
after he had committed these terrible crimes, and after the first war with
Iraq. Supported him because of our duty to help US exporters, the Bush Senior
administration explained.
It
is impressive to see how easy it is for political leaders, while recounting
Saddam the monster's worst crimes, to suppress the crucial words "with our
help, because we don't care about such matters". Support shifted to
denunciation as soon as their friend Saddam committed his first authentic
crime, which was disobeying (or perhaps misunderstanding) orders, by invading
Kuwait. Punishment was severe - for his subjects. The tyrant escaped unscathed,
and was further strengthened by the sanctions regime then imposed by his former
allies.
Also
easy to suppress are the reasons why the US returned to support Saddam
immediately after the Gulf war, as he crushed rebellions that might have
overthrown him. The chief diplomatic correspondent of the New York Times,
Thomas Friedman, explained that the best of all worlds for the US would be
"an iron-fisted Iraqi junta without Saddam Hussein", but since that
goal seemed unattainable, we would have to be satisfied with second best. (5) The rebels failed because the US and its allies held the
"strikingly unanimous view [that] whatever the sins of the Iraqi leader,
he offered the West and the region a better hope for his country's stability
than did those who have suffered his repression." (6)
All
of this was suppressed in the commentary on the mass graves of the victims of
the US- authorized paroxysm of terror of Saddam Hussein, which commentary was
offered as a justification for the war on "moral grounds". It was all
known in 1991, but ignored for reasons of state.
A
reluctant US population had to be whipped to a proper mood of war fever. From
September grim warnings were issued about the dire threat that Saddam posed to
the US and his links to al-Qaida, with broad hints that he had been involved in
the 9/11 attacks. Many of the charges that had been "dangled in front of
[the media] failed the laugh test," commented the editor of the Bulletin
of Atomic Scientists, "but the more ridiculous [they were,] the more the
media strove to make whole-hearted swallowing of them a test of
patriotism." (7) The propaganda assault had its
effects. Within weeks, a majority of Americans came to regard Saddam Hussein as
an imminent threat to the US. Soon almost half believed that Iraq was behind
the 9/11 terror. Support for the war correlated with these beliefs. The
propaganda campaign was just enough to give the administration a bare majority
in the mid-term elections, as voters put aside their immediate concerns and
huddled under the umbrella of power in fear of a demonic enemy.
The
brilliant success of public diplomacy was revealed when Bush, in the words of
one commentator, "provided a powerful Reaganesque finale to a six-week war
on the deck of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln on 1 May". This
reference is presumably to President Ronald Reagan's proud declaration that
America was "standing tall" after conquering Grenada, the nutmeg
capital of the world, in 1983, preventing the Russians from using it to bomb
the US. Bush, as Reagan's mimic, was free to declare - without concern for
skeptical comment at home - that he had won a "victory in a war on terror
[by having] removed an ally of al-Qaida." (8) It has
been immaterial that no credible evidence was provided for the alleged link
between Saddam Hussein and his bitter enemy Osama bin Laden and that the charge
was dismissed by competent observers. Also immaterial was the only known
connection between the victory and terror: the invasion appears to have been
"a huge setback in the war on terror" by sharply increasing al-Qaida
recruitment, as US officials concede. (9)
The
Wall Street Journal recognized that Bush's carefully staged aircraft carrier extravaganza
"marks the beginning of his 2004 re-election campaign" which the
White House hopes "will be built as much as possible around
national-security themes". The electoral campaign will focus on "the
battle of Iraq, not the war", chief Republican political strategist Karl
Rove explained : the war must continue, if only to control the population at
home. (10)
Before
the 2002 elections Rove had instructed party activists to stress security issues,
diverting attention from unpopular Republican domestic policies. All of this is
second-nature to the re cycled Reaganites now in office. That is how they held
on to political power during their first tenure in office. They regularly
pushed the panic button to avoid public opposition to the policies that had
left Reagan as the most disliked living president by 1992, by which time he may
have ranked even lower than Richard Nixon.
Despite
its narrow successes, the intensive propaganda campaign left the public
unswayed in fundamental respects. Most continue to prefer UN rather than US
leadership in international crises, and by two to one prefer that the UN,
rather than the US, should direct reconstruction in Iraq. (11)
When
the occupying coalition army failed to discover WMD, the US administration's
stance shifted from absolute certainty that Iraq possessed WMD to the position
that the accusations were "justified by the discovery of equipment that
potentially could be used to produce weapons." (12)
Senior officials then suggested a refinement in the concept of preventive war,
to entitle the US to attack a country that has "deadly weapons in mass
quantities". The revision "suggests that the administration will act
against a hostile regime that has nothing more than the intent and ability to
develop WMD." (13) Lowering the criteria for a
resort to force is the most significant consequence of the collapse of the
proclaimed argument for the invasion.
Perhaps
the most spectacular propaganda achievement was the praising of Bush's vision
to bring democracy to the Middle East in the midst of an extraordinary display
of hatred and contempt for democracy. This was illustrated by the distinction
that was made by Washington between Old and New Europe, the former being
reviled and the latter hailed for its courage. The criterion was sharp: Old
Europe consists of governments that took the same position over the war on Iraq
as most of their populations; while the heroes of New Europe followed orders
from Crawford, Texas, disregarding, in most cases, an even larger majority of
citizens who were against the war. Political commentators ranted about
disobedient Old Europe and its psychic maladies, while Congress descended to
low comedy.
At
the liberal end of the spectrum, the former US ambassador to the UN, Richard
Holbrooke, stressed the "very important point" that the population of
the eight original members of New Europe is larger than that of Old Europe,
which proves that France and Germany are "isolated". So it does,
unless we succumb to the radical-left heresy that the public might have some
role in a democracy. Thomas Friedman then urged that France be removed from the
permanent members of the Security Council, because it is "in kindergarten,
and does not play well with others". It follows that the population of New
Europe must still be in nursery school, at least judging by the polls. (14)
Turkey
was a particularly instructive case. Its government resisted the heavy pressure
from the US to prove its democratic credentials by following US orders and
overruling 95% of its population. Turkey did not cooperate. US commentators
were infuriated by this lesson in democracy, so much so that some even reported
Turkey's crimes against the Kurds in the 1990s, previously a taboo topic
because of the crucial US role in what happened, although that was still
carefully concealed in the lamentations.
The
crucial point was expressed by the deputy Secretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz,
who condemned the Turkish military because they "did not play the strong
leadership role that we would have expected" - that is they did not
intervene to prevent the Turkish government from honoring near-unanimous public
opinion. Turkey had therefore to step up and say, "We made a mistake -
let's figure out how we can be as helpful as possible to the Americans." (15) Wolfowitz's stand was particularly informative because
he had been portrayed as the leading figure in the administration's crusade to
democratize the Middle East.
Anger
at Old Europe has much deeper roots than just contempt for democracy. The US
has always regarded European unification with some ambivalence. In his Year of
Europe address 30 years ago, Henry Kissinger advised Europeans to keep to their
regional responsibilities within the "overall framework of order managed
by the US". Europe must not pursue its own independent course, based on
its Franco-German industrial and financial heartland.
The
US administration's concerns now extend as well to Northeast Asia, the world's
most dynamic economic region, with ample resources and advanced industrial
economies, a potentially integrated region that might also flirt with
challenging the overall framework of world order, which is to be maintained
permanently, by force if necessary, Washington has declared.
Noam Chomsky is an
internationally renowned Professor of Linguistics at MIT, and is America's
leading dissident intellectual. He is the author of many books, including most
recently Power and Terror (Seven Stories Press, 2003), 9-11
(Seven Stories Press, 2001), A New Generation Draws the Line (Verso,
2000), The New Military Humanism (Common Courage, 1999), and The
Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel & the Palestinians (South
End Press, new edition 1999). This article first appeared in ZNET (www.zmag.org/weluser.htm)
* Campus
Activism and the Unpredictability of History
* The Case
Against US Adventurism in Iraq
* Why
Not Let Iran Institute Democracy in Iraq?
* What
Americans Have Learnt - and not Learnt - Since 9/11
* Noam
Chomsky On the Middle East and the US War on Terrorism
* Iraq
and the US Imperial Grand Strategy
(1) John Ikenberry,
Foreign Affairs, Sept.-Oct. 2002.
(2) Wall Street
Journal, 27 January 2003.
(3) Michael Gordon,
The New York Times, 18 March 2003.
(4) Los Angeles Times,
23 March 2003.
(5) The New York
Times, 7 June 1991. Alan Cowell, The New York Times, 11
April 1991.
(6) The New York
Times, 4 June 2003.
(7) Linda Rothstein,
editor, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, July 2003.
(8) Elisabeth
Bumiller, The New York Times, 2 May 2003; transcript, 2
May 2003.
(9) Jason Burke, The Observer,
London 18 May 2003.
(10) Jeanne Cummings
and Greg Hite, Wall Street Journal, 2 May 2003.
Francis Clines, The
New York Times, 10 May 2003.
(11) Program on
International Policy Attitudes, University of Maryland,
April 18-22.
(12) Dana Milbank, Washington
Post, 1 June 2003
(13) Guy Dinmore and
James Harding, Financial Times, 3/4 May 2003.
(14) Lee Michael Katz,
National Journal, 8 February 2003; Friedman, The
New York Times, 9
February 2003.
(15) Marc Lacey, The
New York Times, 7/8 May 2003.