State of the Union: Cold War Nostalgia
President George W. Bush targeted the 'axis of evil' in his state of the Union address: not the three countries that trained, armed and funded the 'Afghan Arab' militias, America, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, but three countries that the president conceded had 'been quiet' recently, Iran, Iraq and Korea. The defining characteristic of all three states is not that they represent a threat to US interests, but that each, having fought the US in the past and survived to tell the tale, represent a moral affront to American predominance.
The State of the Union address is framed in terms of a retro Cold War paranoia, both domestically and internationally, with only the names of the enemies changed for reasons of convenience.
The speech is a forced attempt to reorient US foreign policy after the unexpected success of the 'War Against Terror'. The fluke success of Al-Qaeda on September 11, 2001, came about less due to its popular support, than its relative independence of action and absence of restraint - themselves indications of the organisation's isolation. Subsequently, US victory came relatively easily, leaving Bush in the peculiar position of having a considerable well of support for an active foreign policy, but no clearly defined objective.
Targeting America's traditional whipping boys in the Middle and Far East is a relatively safe option for Bush, and one that draws on the alliances that were re-emphasized under previous Republican administrations. For European powers, which had hoped to use September 11 to lock the Bush into the international cooperation outlined by his predecessor, the State of the Union address creates problems.
Visiting American, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who had been at the forefront of European attempts at rapprochement with Iran, shrugged off the speech as being for domestic consumption. European attempts to sponsor the Palestinian Authority have similarly been torpedoed by the Bush Administration's support for Israel's hawkish policy.
Resisting the obvious interpretation that the administration is raising what Senator Lieberman calls a 'theological iron curtain' against Islam, the President insists that a country can have any culture as long as it recognises the 'nonegotiable demands of human dignity: the rule of law, limits on the power of the state, respect for women, private property, free speech, equal justice and religious tolerance'.
And yet these are precisely the rights that are being compromised in the atmosphere of retro-Cold War paranoia that the administration is promoting. The rule of law is descending into arbitrary powers of pre-emptive action, through suspect profiling; the power of the state is un-checked by any critical opposition; rights of private property, religious tolerance and freedom of speech are jeopardised by police actions against Muslim educational and financial institutions. And the 'rights of women' have been reduced from a real demand to a foreign policy initiative to undermine the credibility of third world states.
It is ironic that the language of the address appeals to the principles of the free market, when its substantial component is to boost the domestic economy through deficit spending, and to dictate terms to the world economy by politicising international relations as a war against evil in which suspect trading partners are readily criminalized.
-- James Heartfield Sustaining Architecture in the Anti-Machine Age is available at GBP19.99, plus GBP5.01 p&p from Publications, audacity.org, 8 College Close, Hackney, London, E9 6ER. Make cheques payable to 'Audacity Ltd'. www.audacity.org