Bush since arriving in office has followed two policies on the international level, both related to this historical conjuncture and both drawing from similar but not quite so pronounced approaches by preceding administrations.
First he has been bellicose, looking for enemies well before S11 - China which was shaping up for a fight.
Second he has gone out of his way to repudiate, neglect and destroy international treaties and global forms of governance where they are not simply fronts for US interests.
The added element has to be seen in the light of an emerging international civilty which the retrobates in the US are resisting with unilateral action of which Afganhistan is a clear expression. The first thing ruled out, was any diplomatic/legal or peaceful resolution, nor can that be brought up - for this is what Bush is struggling against (he struggles not against terrorism but for US terrorism).
Add to this the vital position of the Middle East, its instability because of past Imperial endevours and we a looking at not some minor war but a historic turning point. In this the US cannot win but in a sense is forced to follow the logic of terror, which ignores every peaceful alternative, must create abstract enemies and strike them with massive force.
In this ObL has the advantage that his strategy is actually working, he is using and will continue to us attacks to draw in US forces and destroy the regimes of the Middle East that have been sustained by it. The US in the other hand is locked in a struggle which cannot have an outcome, there is a severe disconnection between its public aims and its methods and that contradiction is irresolvable in this struggle (that is the struggle Bush is actually waging).
Bush has to draw in as much of the International force he can muster, maintaining it is a struggle against an opposite force pulling from below and from above which wants a move towards a real international civility where the US becomes a nation among many. It is a battle towards exhaustion. The critical point will be the first, however minor, defeat of US military forces (not another terrorist attack on the US which will momentarily strengthen, fatally, US resolve). At that point the Middle East is likely to erupt and then things are really going to get out of hand.
Old style unilateral US Imperialism may get a repreive if it can remove itself from active conflict, other than that it may overwhelm the Taliban and forestal the contradictions for a while by appearing to win against ObL. Tghe third alternative is to see ObL startegy actually suceed (perhaps the most likely), draw in US forces for a number of symbolic defeats and set in train the toppling of the house of cards that is the Middle East.
I will not draw out what the political consequences for us are, how we should view should I believe, take the above in as a vital historical point of view which puts into perspective the various economic interests also at work.
Greg Schofield Perth Australia
--- Message Received --- From: Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com Date: Sun, 04 Nov 2001 13:32:58 -0600 Subject: Re: "Drawing the Enemy in Deep" A Speculation
Hakki Alacakaptan wrote:
>
> Carrol, Exxon and Halliburton have already got the oil rights. The problem
> is getting the stuff to the Asian market. The western pipeline routes aren't
> that profitable.
O.K. but let's pursue it a bit further, by distinguishing between the interests of the _ruling class of capitalists_ of an imperialist nation and the interests of particular sectors of that ruling class. [1] Exxon, Halliburton, etc. are a sector of a sector (the oil interest as a whole), and it may well be that that sub-sector now has hegemony within the ruling circles and can dictate state action in its own interests. In this case, you are correct to focus on the question of profits.
My focus was on the imperial interests of the U.S. (and/or its ruling class) _as a whole_: and that interest is, in very real ways, potentially quite indifferent to the 'local' interests of EXXON or UNOCAL (or GM for that matter), though as a matter of empirical fact oil (and connected) interests have pretty much driven u.s. policy for a century or so. In respect to oil that general interest dictates only that the oil be available -- not that its profits be retained by this or that oil company. [Remember the second half of my subject line: A Speculation.)
Those interests _also_ (as a whole) are concerned with the safety of imperial power -- and if my speculation is correct, it is that safety (rather than UNOCAL profits which they may be misjudging, and in the process allowing themselves to be "drawn in deep." "They" (whoever they are) may be judging that they _must_ respond in force; that they must continue to teach lessons (this is Sartre's argument re the vietnam war) to (Twain's phrase) "The Person Sitting in Darkness." And that may be a strategic error on their part. I am thinking that it is along these lines that leftists (and A Left if we succeed in forming one) should make _our_ strategic plans: that we should organize now on the assumption that the Ruling Class is indeed waist deep in the big muddy, and the damn fool says, wade on.
Carrol
[1] All I am asserting is a multiplicity of special interests, and the possible predominance at a given time of one group or another of those interests. I am NOT asserting that in any significant sense there exist antagonistic contradictions within the ruling class. That assumption is (has been for a century) the premise of opportunism in the u.s. -- i.e. the belief of some leftists that "the left" can ally with this or that sector of the ruling class.
Carrol