The president's real goal in Iraq

[Mark Pavlick]

>  The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: 9/29/02 ]
>
>The president's real goal in Iraq
>
>
>  By JAY BOOKMAN
>
>
>The official story on Iraq has never made sense. The connection that the
>Bush administration has tried to draw between Iraq and al-Qaida has always
>seemed contrived and artificial. In fact, it was hard to believe that smart
>people in the Bush administration would start a major war based on such
>flimsy evidence.
>
>The pieces just didn't fit. Something else had to be going on; something was
>missing.
>
>In recent days, those missing pieces have finally begun to fall into place.
>As it turns out, this is not really about Iraq. It is not about weapons of
>mass destruction, or terrorism, or Saddam, or U.N. resolutions.
>
>This war, should it come, is intended to mark the official emergence of the
>United States as a full-fledged global empire, seizing sole responsibility
>and authority as planetary policeman. It would be the culmination of a plan
>10 years or more in the making, carried out by those who believe the United
>States must seize the opportunity for global domination, even if it means
>becoming the "American imperialists" that our enemies always claimed we
>were.
>
>Once that is understood, other mysteries solve themselves. For example, why
>does the administration seem unconcerned about an exit strategy from Iraq
>once Saddam is toppled?
>
>Because we won't be leaving. Having conquered Iraq, the United States will
>create permanent military bases in that country from which to dominate the
>Middle East, including neighboring Iran.
>
>In an interview Friday, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld brushed aside that
>suggestion, noting that the United States does not covet other nations'
>territory. That may be true, but 57 years after World War II ended, we still
>have major bases in Germany and Japan. We will do the same in Iraq.
>
>And why has the administration dismissed the option of containing and
>deterring Iraq, as we had the Soviet Union for 45 years? Because even if it
>worked, containment and deterrence would not allow the expansion of American
>power. Besides, they are beneath us as an empire. Rome did not stoop to
>containment; it conquered. And so should we.
>
>Among the architects of this would-be American Empire are a group of
>brilliant and powerful people who now hold key positions in the Bush
>administration: They envision the creation and enforcement of what they call
>a worldwide "Pax Americana," or American peace. But so far, the American
>people have not appreciated the true extent of that ambition.
>
>Part of it's laid out in the National Security Strategy, a document in which
>each administration outlines its approach to defending the country. The Bush
>administration plan, released Sept. 20, marks a significant departure from
>previous approaches, a change that it attributes largely to the attacks of
>Sept. 11.
>
>To address the terrorism threat, the president's report lays out a newly
>aggressive military and foreign policy, embracing pre-emptive attack against
>perceived enemies. It speaks in blunt terms of what it calls "American
>internationalism," of ignoring international opinion if that suits U.S.
>interests. "The best defense is a good offense," the document asserts.
>
>It dismisses deterrence as a Cold War relic and instead talks of "convincing
>or compelling states to accept their sovereign responsibilities."
>
>In essence, it lays out a plan for permanent U.S. military and economic
>domination of every region on the globe, unfettered by international treaty
>or concern. And to make that plan a reality, it envisions a stark expansion
>of our global military presence.
>
>"The United States will require bases and stations within and beyond Western
>Europe and Northeast Asia," the document warns, "as well as temporary access
>arrangements for the long-distance deployment of U.S. troops."
>
>The report's repeated references to terrorism are misleading, however,
>because the approach of the new National Security Strategy was clearly not
>inspired by the events of Sept. 11. They can be found in much the same
>language in a report issued in September 2000 by the Project for the New
>American Century, a group of conservative interventionists outraged by the
>thought that the United States might be forfeiting its chance at a global
>empire.
>
>"At no time in history has the international security order been as
>conducive to American interests and ideals," the report said. stated two
>years ago. "The challenge of this coming century is to preserve and enhance
>this 'American peace.' "
>
>Familiar themes
>
>Overall, that 2000 report reads like a blueprint for current Bush defense
>policy. Most of what it advocates, the Bush administration has tried to
>accomplish. For example, the project report urged the repudiation of the
>anti-ballistic missile treaty and a commitment to a global missile defense
>system. The administration has taken that course.
>
>It recommended that to project sufficient power worldwide to enforce Pax
>Americana, the United States would have to increase defense spending from 3
>percent of gross domestic product to as much as 3.8 percent. For next year,
>the Bush administration has requested a defense budget of $379 billion,
>almost exactly 3.8 percent of GDP.
>
>It advocates the "transformation" of the U.S. military to meet its expanded
>obligations, including the cancellation of such outmoded defense programs as
>the Crusader artillery system. That's exactly the message being preached by
>Rumsfeld and others.
>
>It urges the development of small nuclear warheads "required in targeting
>the very deep, underground hardened bunkers that are being built by many of
>our potential adversaries." This year the GOP-led U.S. House gave the
>Pentagon the green light to develop such a weapon, called the Robust Nuclear
>Earth Penetrator, while the Senate has so far balked.
>
>That close tracking of recommendation with current policy is hardly
>surprising, given the current positions of the people who contributed to the
>2000 report.
>
>Paul Wolfowitz is now deputy defense secretary. John Bolton is
>undersecretary of state. Stephen Cambone is head of the Pentagon's Office of
>Program, Analysis and Evaluation. Eliot Cohen and Devon Cross are members of
>the Defense Policy Board, which advises Rumsfeld. I. Lewis Libby is chief of
>staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. Dov Zakheim is comptroller for the
>Defense Department.
>
>'Constabulary duties'
>
>Because they were still just private citizens in 2000, the authors of the
>project report could be more frank and less diplomatic than they were in
>drafting the National Security Strategy. Back in 2000, they clearly
>identified Iran, Iraq and North Korea as primary short-term targets, well
>before President Bush tagged them as the Axis of Evil. In their report, they
>criticize the fact that in war planning against North Korea and Iraq, "past
>Pentagon wargames have given little or no consideration to the force
>requirements necessary not only to defeat an attack but to remove these
>regimes from power."
>
>To preserve the Pax Americana, the report says U.S. forces will be required
>to perform "constabulary duties" -- the United States acting as policeman of
>the world -- and says that such actions "demand American political
>leadership rather than that of the United Nations."
>
>To meet those responsibilities, and to ensure that no country dares to
>challenge the United States, the report advocates a much larger military
>presence spread over more of the globe, in addition to the roughly 130
>nations in which U.S. troops are already deployed.
>
>More specifically, they argue that we need permanent military bases in the
>Middle East, in Southeast Europe, in Latin America and in Southeast Asia,
>where no such bases now exist. That helps to explain another of the
>mysteries of our post-Sept. 11 reaction, in which the Bush administration
>rushed to install U.S. troops in Georgia and the Philippines, as well as our
>eagerness to send military advisers to assist in the civil war in Colombia.
>
>The 2000 report directly acknowledges its debt to a still earlier document,
>drafted in 1992 by the Defense Department. That document had also envisioned
>the United States as a colossus astride the world, imposing its will and
>keeping world peace through military and economic power. When leaked in
>final draft form, however, the proposal drew so much criticism that it was
>hastily withdrawn and repudiated by the first President Bush.
>
>Effect on allies
>
>The defense secretary in 1992 was Richard Cheney; the document was drafted
>by Wolfowitz, who at the time was defense undersecretary for policy.
>
>The potential implications of a Pax Americana are immense.
>
>One is the effect on our allies. Once we assert the unilateral right to act
>as the world's policeman, our allies will quickly recede into the
>background. Eventually, we will be forced to spend American wealth and
>American blood protecting the peace while other nations redirect their
>wealth to such things as health care for their citizenry.
>
>Donald Kagan, a professor of classical Greek history at Yale and an
>influential advocate of a more aggressive foreign policy -- he served as
>co-chairman of the 2000 New Century project -- acknowledges that likelihood.
>
>"If [our allies] want a free ride, and they probably will, we can't stop
>that," he says. But he also argues that the United States, given its unique
>position, has no choice but to act anyway.
>
>"You saw the movie 'High Noon'? he asks. "We're Gary Cooper."
>
>Accepting the Cooper role would be an historic change in who we are as a
>nation, and in how we operate in the international arena. Candidate Bush
>certainly did not campaign on such a change. It is not something that he or
>others have dared to discuss honestly with the American people. To the
>contrary, in his foreign policy debate with Al Gore, Bush pointedly
>advocated a more humble foreign policy, a position calculated to appeal to
>voters leery of military intervention.
>
>For the same reason, Kagan and others shy away from terms such as empire,
>understanding its connotations. But they also argue that it would be naive
>and dangerous to reject the role that history has thrust upon us. Kagan, for
>example, willingly embraces the idea that the United States would establish
>permanent military bases in a post-war Iraq.
>
>"I think that's highly possible," he says. "We will probably need a major
>concentration of forces in the Middle East over a long period of time. That
>will come at a price, but think of the price of not having it. When we have
>economic problems, it's been caused by disruptions in our oil supply. If we
>have a force in Iraq, there will be no disruption in oil supplies."
>
>Costly global commitment
>
>Rumsfeld and Kagan believe that a successful war against Iraq will produce
>other benefits, such as serving an object lesson for nations such as Iran
>and Syria. Rumsfeld, as befits his sensitive position, puts it rather
>gently. If a regime change were to take place in Iraq, other nations
>pursuing weapons of mass destruction "would get the message that having them
>. . . is attracting attention that is not favorable and is not helpful," he
>says.
>
>Kagan is more blunt.
>
>"People worry a lot about how the Arab street is going to react," he notes.
>"Well, I see that the Arab street has gotten very, very quiet since we
>started blowing things up."
>
>The cost of such a global commitment would be enormous. In 2000, we spent
>$281 billion on our military, which was more than the next 11 nations
>combined. By 2003, our expenditures will have risen to $378 billion. In
>other words, the increase in our defense budget from 1999-2003 will be more
>than the total amount spent annually by China, our next largest competitor.
>
>The lure of empire is ancient and powerful, and over the millennia it has
>driven men to commit terrible crimes on its behalf. But with the end of the
>Cold War and the disappearance of the Soviet Union, a global empire was
>essentially laid at the feet of the United States. To the chagrin of some,
>we did not seize it at the time, in large part because the American people
>have never been comfortable with themselves as a New Rome.
>
>Now, more than a decade later, the events of Sept. 11 have given those
>advocates of empire a new opportunity to press their case with a new
>president. So in debating whether to invade Iraq, we are really debating the
>role that the United States will play in the years and decades to come.
>
>Are peace and security best achieved by seeking strong alliances and
>international consensus, led by the United States? Or is it necessary to
>take a more unilateral approach, accepting and enhancing the global
>dominance that, according to some, history has thrust upon us?
>
>If we do decide to seize empire, we should make that decision knowingly, as
>a democracy. The price of maintaining an empire is always high. Kagan and
>others argue that the price of rejecting it would be higher still.
>
>That's what this is about.
>
>Bookman is the deputy editorial page editor of The Atlanta Journal-
>Constitution