[lbo-talk] An Endless War

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Mon Sep 17 21:00:08 PDT 2007


"In any event, the planting of a large-scale, long-term American military presence in the Middle East represents a huge strategic initiative- a gamble, in fact, of the sort that makes or breaks empires." Thomas Powers, from the excerpt copied below.

The U.S. is clearly committed to a permanent staging of troops in the Middle East. Whether that makes war with Iran inevitable I do not know, but it clearly makes Iran, whatever its defects, a major friend of the people of the world, including the people of the United States.

Carrol

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/20597 The Reason Why By Bob Guldin, Reply by Thomas Powers


>From Powers Reply:

My "best assessment of the real motives for war" suffers from the obstacle common to all assessments-none of the principals has been talking. But the fact that Bush, Cheney, and company had a central idea seems unmistakable to me. Their determination to invade and occupy Iraq says a great deal by itself. A useful way to look at things is to recall the reaction in Washington to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. Sympathy for the Afghans was several places down the list. What most aroused Washington, and American allies in Europe, was the prospect that the Soviet Union would keep on going to fulfill a longstanding Russian dream of establishing a military presence on the Persian Gulf. The prospect of that had policymakers like Zbigniew Brze-zinski seriously worried, because Soviet control of the movement of oil would provide a mighty tool for coercion of the entire developed world.

What it was only feared the Rus-sians might do the Americans have actually done-they have planted themselves squarely astride the world's largest pool of oil, in a position potentially to control its movement and to coerce all the governments who depend on that oil. Americans naturally do not suspect their own motives but others do. The reaction of the Russians, the Germans, and the French in the months leading up to the Iraq war suggests that none of them wished to give Americans the power which Brzezinski had feared was the goal of the Soviets. In any event, the planting of a large-scale, long-term American military presence in the Middle East represents a huge strategic initiative- a gamble, in fact, of the sort that makes or breaks empires.

Just as interesting as the Bush administration's motives for going to war is the evident wish of the Democratic majority not to know what they were. How else to explain the failure to probe this question deeply? The Democratic majority is equally reluctant to question the drift of events now. All assume that the 2006 midterm elections marked the beginning of the end of the American adventure in Iraq. All favor some form or degree of withdrawal. But none to my ear seems to grasp that getting out will take just as much resolution as getting in-and something else as well, which Bush has in plenty: willingness to ignore the consequences. On this rock Democrats already seem to have run aground. The administration, meanwhile, shows no sign of abandoning its goals, and on the points that matter, Democrats seem to go along.



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