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Haaretz.com, the online edition of Haaretz Newspaper in Israel
White man's burden
By Ari Shavit
The war in Iraq was conceived by 25 neoconservative intellectuals,
most of them Jewish, who are pu****ng President Bush to change the
course of history. Two of them, journalists William Kristol and
Charles Krauthammer, say it's possible. But another journalist, Thomas
Friedman (not part of the group), is skeptical
1. The doctrine
WA****NGTON - At the conclusion of its second week, the war to liberate
Iraq wasn't looking good. Not even in Wa****ngton. The assumption of a
swift collapse of the Saddam Hussein regime had itself collapsed. The
presupposition that the Iraqi dictator****p would crumble as soon as
mighty America entered the country proved unfounded. The ****'ites
didn't rise up, the Sunnis fought fiercely. Iraqi guerrilla warfare
found the American generals unprepared and endangered their
overextended supply lines. Nevertheless, 70 percent of the American
people continued to sup****t the war; 60 percent thought victory was
certain; 74 percent expressed confidence in President George W. Bush.
Wa****ngton is a small city. It's a place of human dimensions. A kind
of small town that happens to run an empire. A small town of
government officials and members of Congress and personnel of research
institutes and journalists who pretty well all know one another.
Everyone is busy intriguing against everyone else; and everyone
gossips about everyone else.
In the course of the past year, a new belief has emerged in the town:
the belief in war against Iraq. That ardent faith was disseminated by
a small group of 25 or 30 neoconservatives, almost all of them Jewish,
almost all of them intellectuals (a partial list: Richard Perle, Paul
Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, William Kristol, Eliot Abrams, Charles
Krauthammer), people who are mutual friends and cultivate one another
and are convinced that political ideas are a major driving force of
history. They believe that the right political idea entails a fusion
of morality and force, human rights and grit. The philosophical
underpinnings of the Wa****ngton neoconservatives are the writings of
Machiavelli, Hobbes and Edmund Burke. They also admire Winston
Churchill and the policy pursued by Ronald Reagan. They tend to read
reality in terms of the failure of the 1930s (Munich) versus the
success of the 1980s (the fall of the Berlin Wall).
Are they wrong? Have they committed an act of folly in leading
Wa****ngton to Baghdad? They don't think so. They continue to cling to
their belief. They are still pretending that everything is more or
less fine. That things will work out. Occasionally, though, they seem
to break out in a cold sweat. This is no longer an academic exercise,
one of them says, we are responsible for what is happening. The ideas
we put forward are now affecting the lives of millions of people. So
there are moments when you're scared. You say, Hell, we came to help,
but maybe we made a mistake.
2. William Kristol
Has America bitten off more than it can chew? Bill Kristol says no.
True, the press is very negative, but when you examine the facts in
the field you see that there is no terrorism, no mass destruction, no
attacks on Israel. The oil fields in the south have been saved, air
control has been achieved, American forces are deployed 50 miles from
Baghdad. So, even if mistakes were made here and there, they are not
serious. America is big enough to handle that. Kristol hasn't the
slightest doubt that in the end, General Tommy Franks will achieve his
goals. The 4th Cavalry Division will soon enter the fray, and another
division is on its way from Texas. So it's possible that instead of an
elegant war with 60 killed in two weeks it will be a less elegant
affair with a thousand killed in two months, but nevertheless Bill
Kristol has no doubt at all that the Iraq Liberation War is a just
war, an obligatory war.
Kristol is pleasant-looking, of average height, in his late forties.
In the past 18 months he has used his position as editor of the right-
wing Weekly Standard and his status as one of the leaders of the
neoconservative circle in Wa****ngton to induce the White House to do
battle against Saddam Hussein. Because Kristol is believed to exercise
considerable influence on the president, Vice President Richard Cheney
and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, he is also perceived as having
been instrumental in getting Wa****ngton to launch this all-out
campaign against Baghdad. Sitting behind the stacks of books that
cover his desk at the offices of the Weekly Standard in Northwest
Wa****ngton, he tries to convince me that he is not worried. It is
simply inconceivable to him that America will not win. In that event,
the consequences would be catastrophic. No one wants to think
seriously about that possibility.
What is the war about? I ask. Kristol replies that at one level it is
the war that George Bush is talking about: a war against a brutal
regime that has in its possession weapons of mass destruction. But at
a deeper level it is a greater war, for the shaping of a new Middle
East. It is a war that is intended to change the political culture of
the entire region. Because what happened on September 11, 2001,
Kristol says, is that the Americans looked around and saw that the
world is not what they thought it was. The world is a dangerous place.
Therefore the Americans looked for a doctrine that would enable them
to cope with this dangerous world. And the only doctrine they found
was the neoconservative one.
That doctrine maintains that the problem with the Middle East is the
absence of democracy and of freedom. It follows that the only way to
block people like Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden is to disseminate
democracy and freedom. To change radically the cultural and political
dynamics that creates such people. And the way to fight the chaos is
to create a new world order that will be based on freedom and human
rights - and to be ready to use force in order to consolidate this new
world. So that, really, is what the war is about. It is being fought
to consolidate a new world order, to create a new Middle East.
Does that mean that the war in Iraq is effectively a neoconservative
war? That's what people are saying, Kristol replies, laughing. But the
truth is that it's an American war. The neoconservatives succeeded
because they touched the bedrock of America. The thing is that America
has a profound sense of mission. America has a need to offer something
that transcends a life of comfort, that goes beyond material success.
Therefore, because of their ideals, the Americans accepted what the
neoconservatives proposed. They didn't want to fight a war over
interests, but over values. They wanted a war driven by a moral
vision. They wanted to hitch their wagon to something bigger than
themselves.
Does this moral vision mean that after Iraq will come the turns of
Saudi Arabia and Egypt?
Kristol says that he is at odds with the administration on the
question of Saudi Arabia. But his opinion is that it is impossible to
let Saudi Arabia just continue what it is doing. It is impossible to
accept the anti-Americanism it is disseminating. The fanatic Wahhabism
that Saudi Arabia engenders is undermining the stability of the entire
region. It's the same with Egypt, he says: we mustn't accept the
status quo there. For Egypt, too, the horizon has to be liberal
democracy.
It has to be understood that in the final analysis, the stability that
the corrupt Arab despots are offering is illusory. Just as the
stability that Yitzhak Rabin received from Yasser Arafat was illusory.
In the end, none of these decadent dictator****ps will endure. The
choice is between extremist Islam, secular fascism or democracy. And
because of September 11, American understands that. America is in a
position where it has no choice. It is obliged to be far more
aggressive in promoting democracy. Hence this war. It's based on the
new American understanding that if the United States does not shape
the world in its image, the world will shape the United States in its
own image.
3. Charles Krauthammer
Is this going to turn into a second Vietnam? Charles Krauthammer says
no. There is no similarity to Vietnam. Unlike in the 1960s, there is
no anti-establishment subculture in the United States now. Unlike in
the 1960s, there is now an abiding love of the army in the United
States. Unlike in the 1960s, there is a determined president, one with
character, in the White House. And unlike in the 1960s, Americans are
not deterred from making sacrifices. That is the sea-change that took
place here on September 11, 2001. Since that morning, Americans have
understood that if they don't act now and if weapons of mass
destruction reach extremist terrorist organizations, millions of
Americans will die. Therefore, because they understand that those
others want to kill them by the millions, the Americans prefer to take
to the field of battle and fight, rather than sit idly by and die at
home.
Charles Krauthammer is handsome, swarthy and articulate. In his
spacious office on 19th Street in Northwest Wa****ngton, he sits
upright in a black wheelchair. Although his writing tends to be
gloomy, his mood now is elevated. The well-known columnist (Wa****ngton
Post, Time, Weekly Standard) has no real doubts about the outcome of
the war that he promoted for 18 months. No, he does not accept the
view that he helped lead America into the new killing fields between
the Tigris and the Euphrates. But it is true that he is part of a
conceptual stream that had something to offer in the aftermath of
September 11. Within a few weeks after the attacks on the Twin Towers
and the Pentagon, he had singled out Baghdad in his columns as an
essential target. And now, too, he is convinced that America has the
strength to pull it off. The thought that America will not win has
never even crossed his mind.
What is the war about? It's about three different issues. First of
all, this is a war for disarming Iraq of its weapons of mass
destruction. That's the basis, the self-evident cause, and it is also
sufficient cause in itself. But beyond that, the war in Iraq is being
fought to replace the demonic deal America cut with the Arab world
decades ago. That deal said: you will send us oil and we will not
intervene in your internal affairs. Send us oil and we will not demand
from you what we are demanding of Chile, the Philippines, Korea and
South Africa.
That deal effectively expired on September 11, 2001, Krauthammer says.
Since that day, the Americans have understood that if they allow the
Arab world to proceed in its evil ways - suppression, economic ruin,
sowing despair - it will continue to produce more and more bin Ladens.
America thus reached the conclusion that it has no choice: it has to
take on itself the project of rebuilding the Arab world. Therefore,
the Iraq war is really the beginning of a gigantic historical
experiment whose purpose is to do in the Arab world what was done in
Germany and Japan after World War II.
It's an ambitious experiment, Krauthammer admits, maybe even utopian,
but not unrealistic. After all, it is inconceivable to accept the
racist assumption that the Arabs are different from all other human
beings, that the Arabs are incapable of conducting a democratic way of
life.
However, according to the Jewish-American columnist, the present war
has a further im****tance. If Iraq does become pro-Western and if it
becomes the focus of American influence, that will be of immense
geopolitical im****tance. An American presence in Iraq will project
power across the region. It will suffuse the rebels in Iran with
courage and strength, and it will deter and restrain Syria. It will
accelerate the processes of change that the Middle East must undergo.
Isn't the idea of preemptive war a dangerous one that rattles the
world order?
There is no choice, Krauthammer replies. In the 21st century we face a
new and singular challenge: the democratization of mass destruction.
There are three possible strategies in the face of that challenge:
appeasement, deterrence and preemption. Because appeasement and
deterrence will not work, preemption is the only strategy left. The
United States must implement an aggressive policy of preemption. Which
is exactly what it is now doing in Iraq. That is what Tommy Franks'
soldiers are doing as we speak.
And what if the experiment fails? What if America is defeated?
This war will enhance the place of America in the world for the coming
generation, Krauthammer says. Its outcome will shape the world for the
next 25 years. There are three possibilities. If the United States
wins quickly and without a bloodbath, it will be a colossus that will
dictate the world order. If the victory is slow and contaminated, it
will be impossible to go on to other Arab states after Iraq. It will
stop there. But if America is beaten, the consequences will be
catastrophic. Its deterrent capability will be weakened, its friends
will abandon it and it will become insular. Extreme instability will
be engendered in the Middle East.
You don't really want to think about what will happen, Krauthammer
says looking me straight in the eye. But just because that's so, I am
positive we will not lose. Because the administration understands the
implications. The president understands that everything is riding on
this. So he will throw everything we've got into this. He will do
everything that has to be done. George W. Bush will not let America
lose.
4. Thomas Friedman
Is this an American Lebanon War? Tom Friedman says he is afraid it is.
He was there, in the Commodore Hotel in Beirut, in the summer of 1982,
and he remembers it well. So he sees the lines of resemblance clearly.
General Ahmed Chalabi (the ****'ite leader that the neoconservatives
want to install as the leader of a free Iraq) in the role of Ba****r
Jemayel. The Iraqi opposition in the role of the Phalange. Richard
Perle and the conservative circle around him as Ariel Sharon. And a
war that is at bottom a war of choice. A war that wants to utilize
massive force in order to establish a new order.
Tom Friedman, The New York Times columnist, did not oppose the war. On
the contrary. He too was severely shaken by September 11, he too wants
to understand where these desperate fanatics are coming from who hate
America more than they love their own lives. And he too reached the
conclusion that the status quo in the Middle East is no longer
acceptable. The status quo is terminal. And therefore it is urgent to
foment a reform in the Arab world.
Some things are true even if George Bush believes them, Friedman says
with a smile. And after September 11, it's impossible to tell Bush to
drop it, ignore it. There was a certain basic justice in the overall
American feeling that told the Arab world: we left you alone for a
long time, you played with matches and in the end we were burned. So
we're not going to leave you alone any longer.
He is sitting in a large rectangular room in the offices of The New
York Times in northwest Wa****ngton, on the corner of 17th Street. One
wall of the room is a huge map of the world. Hunched over his
computer, he reads me witty lines from the article that will be going
to press in two hours. He polishes, sharpens, plays word games. He
ponders what's right to say now, what should be left for a later date.
Turning to me, he says that democracies look soft until they're
threatened. When threatened, they become very hard. Actually, the Iraq
war is a kind of Jenin on a huge scale. Because in Jenin, too, what
happened was that the Israelis told the Palestinians, We left you here
alone and you played with matches until suddenly you blew up a
Passover seder in Netanya. And therefore we are not going to leave you
along any longer. We will go from house to house in the Casbah. And
from America's point of view, Saddam's Iraq is Jenin. This war is a
defensive ****eld. It follows that the danger is the same: that like
Israel, America will make the mistake of using only force.
This is not an illegitimate war, Friedman says. But it is a very
presumptuous war. You need a great deal of presumption to believe that
you can rebuild a country half a world from home. But if such a
presumptuous war is to have a chance, it needs international sup****t.
That international legitimacy is essential so you will have enough
time and space to execute your presumptuous project. But George Bush
didn't have the patience to glean international sup****t. He gambled
that the war would justify itself, that we would go in fast and
conquer fast and that the Iraqis would greet us with rice and the war
would thus be self-justifying. That did not happen. Maybe it will
happen next week, but in the meantime it did not happen.
When I think about what is going to happen, I break into a sweat,
Friedman says. I see us being forced to impose a siege on Baghdad. And
I know what kind of insanity a siege on Baghdad can unleash. The
thought of house-to-house combat in Baghdad without international
legitimacy makes me lose my appetite. I see American embassies
burning. I see windows of American businesses shattered. I see how the
Iraqi resistance to America connects to the general Arab resistance to
America and the worldwide resistance to America. The thought of what
could happen is eating me up.
What George Bush did, Friedman says, is to show us a splendid mahogany
table: the new democratic Iraq. But when you turn the table over, you
see that it has only one leg. This war is resting on one leg. But on
the other hand, anyone who thinks he can defeat George Bush had better
think again. Bush will never give in. That's not what he's made of.
Believe me, you don't want to be next to this guy when he thinks he's
being backed into a corner. I don't suggest that anyone who holds his
life dear mess with Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and President Bush.
Is the Iraq war the great neoconservative war? It's the war the
neoconservatives wanted, Friedman says. It's the war the
neoconservatives marketed. Those people had an idea to sell when
September 11 came, and they sold it. Oh boy, did they sell it. So this
is not a war that the m***** demanded. This is a war of an elite.
Friedman laughs: I could give you the names of 25 people (all of whom
are at this moment within a five-block radius of this office) who, if
you had exiled them to a desert island a year and a half ago, the Iraq
war would not have happened.
Still, it's not all that simple, Friedman retracts. It's not some
fantasy the neoconservatives invented. It's not that 25 people
hijacked America. You don't take such a great nation into such a great
adventure with Bill Kristol and the Weekly Standard and another five
or six influential columnists. In the final analysis, what fomented
the war is America's over-reaction to September 11. The genuine sense
of anxiety that spread in America after September 11. It is not only
the neoconservatives who led us to the outskirts of Baghdad. What led
us to the outskirts of Baghdad is a very American combination of
anxiety and hubris
--
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Pucker your lips for the Apocalypse!
Johnny Asia, Guitarist from the Future
http://music.download.com/johnnyasia
http://johnnyasia.info/
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