----- Original Message ----- From: Jeffrey Blankfort Sent: Friday, February 09, 2007 12:21 PM
This is a long but very interesting and important article analyzing the positions of the competing factions in the US ruling class and well worth the time.-JB *** Ed's notes: It's long if you click on 'read further,' at the end of this half, but still valuable and interesting if you don't. Though couched as a critique it touches on critical factors and provides tools for understanding current and future events around the war. I also read and recommend today's column by Frank Rich in the NY Times. Its focus is Barack Obama, but succinctly dissects current doings in congress. Not so deep as Cutler, but also valuable. Click on http://select.nytimes.com/2007/02/11/opinion/11rich.html?pagewanted=1&th&emc=th http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=10185 Beyond Incompetence: Washington's War in Iraq by Jonathan Cutler Z Magazine If there is a central principle animating Noam Chomsky's commentaries on US foreign policy, it is his affinity for Realpolitik analysis. As Chomsky argues in a recent interview, "Our leaders have rational imperial interests. We have to assume that they're good-hearted and bumbling. But they're not. They're perfectly sensible." This methodological axiom presents some serious challenges for those trying to understand the US war in Iraq. With so much evidence of bumbling within the Bush White House, it is tempting to join the chorus of critics, led by the Democrats, who say that incompetence is the defining feature of US foreign policy. Is it possible to tell the story of the US invasion of Iraq as "perfectly sensible"? Chomsky is adamant and he is right to warn against the idea that foreign policy elites are more fool than knave. "Consider the actual situation, not some dream situation... If we can enter the real world we can begin to talk about it... We have to talk about it in the real world and know what the White House is thinking. They're not willing to live in a dream world." What, then, is the "actual situation" that led the Bush administration to make the "perfectly sensible" -- if entirely imperialist -- decision to invade Iraq and topple the regime of Saddam Hussein? Here, according to Chomsky, is the real world: "If [Iraq is] more or less democratic, it'll have a Shiite majority. They will naturally want to improve their linkages with Iran, Shiite Iran. Most of the clerics come from Iran... So you get an Iraqi/Iran loose alliance. Furthermore, right across the border in Saudi Arabia, there's a Shiite population which has been bitterly oppressed by the U.S.-backed fundamentalist tyranny. And any moves toward independence in Iraq are surely going to stimulate them, it's already happening. That happens to be where most of Saudi Arabian oil is. Okay, so you can just imagine the ultimate nightmare in Washington..." Chomsky isn't making this stuff up. One can get quick confirmation of Chomsky's characterization of this "ultimate nightmare" scenario from the key "realists" of Republican foreign policy establishment -- folks like Bush Sr., former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, former Secretary of State James Baker, and Colin Powell. When presented with a Shiite uprising against Saddam Hussein in 1991, the "realists" opted to leave Saddam in power, rather than let the nightmare become reality. In a co-authored 1998 memoir, A World Transformed, Bush Sr. and Scowcroft insist that they acted to preserve "the long-term balance of power at the head of the Gulf" (p.489). In his 1995 memoir The Politics of Diplomacy, James Baker recalls that he didn't want to "play into the hands of the mullahs in Iran, who could export their brand of Islamic fundamentalism with the help of Iraq's Shiites and quickly transform themselves into the dominant regional power" ( p.437). Colin Powell, in his 1995 memoir My American Journey, is equally blunt. "Why didn't we finish him off?... In March, the Iraqi Shiites in the south rose up in arms... But our practical intention was to leave Baghdad enough power to survive as a threat to an Iran that remained bitterly hostile toward the United States" ( pp.512, 516). The problem is that fear of this "ultimate nightmare" provided the rationale in 1991 for not invading Iraq, or more precisely, not promoting the political ascendance of the Iraqi Shiite majority. Chomksy argues that fear of the nightmare scenario will deter realists from supporting US withdrawal from Iraq. But did the "realists" get us into Iraq? "Realists" may keep us in Iraq, but did the "realists" unleash Iraqi Shiite power by terminating Sunni Baathist political and military rule? "Realists" may, in fact, be sensible -- at least in a self-serving way -- but Scowcroft, Baker, and Bush Sr. all publicly warned George W. Bush about the risks of unleashing the ultimate nightmare. Kissinger -- who first floated the idea of seizing the Eastern Province from the Saudis in the mid-1970s, prior to the Iranian revolution -- was explicit in a Washington Post Op-Ed. The key to any move to topple Saddam, he insisted, was the contour of "the political outcome," especially insofar as Saudi Arabia would be unlikely to cooperate in the formation of a "Shiite republic" that "would threaten the Dhahran region in Saudi Arabia, and might give Iran a new base to seek to dominate the gulf region." Chomsky is at a loss to explain -- in Realpolitik terms -- the 2003 decision by George W. Bush to invade Iraq and empower the Iraqi Shiite majority. Gilbert Achcar, like Chomsky, is inclined to stipulate the decisive role of Realpolitik in US foreign policy. Looking at the case of Iraq, however, Achcar makes an exception. "In the case of Iraq, and in this case exclusively," writes Achcar in a 2004 CounterPunch article, "the Bush administration has acted on ideological views so contrary to the 'reality principle' that they could only lead into this major nightmare of U.S. imperial policy... History will probably record this venture as one of the most important blunders ever committed by an administration abroad from the standpoint of U.S. imperial interests." Chomsky and Achcar both agree that the general aim of the invasion was based on "realism." As Chomsky says, the US would not have invaded Iraq "if its main product was lettuce and pickles... If you have three gray cells functioning, you know... the US invaded Iraq because it has enormous oil resources." Likewise, Achcar is "fully aware of the very oily factors" involved in US military intervention. However, Achcar insists that "many of its concrete decisions" -- chiefly the "clumsiness of de-Baathification... [and the] dissolution of the Iraqi military" -- represented "blunders" and "wild dreams" of "crackpot idealists" who allow "high-flying moral rhetoric" to help guide foreign policy "in a way that stands in blatant contradiction to pragmatic needs." For Achcar, the crucial decisions were not the ones that simply toppled Saddam Hussein but the ones -- made in May 2003, at the start of the formal US occupation -- to actively undermine authoritarian Sunni minority rule in Iraq. "Whatever the reason," says Achcar, "the fact is that Bush Jr. and his collaborators have acted for a while in conformity with their democratic proclamations." These decisions unleashed a major "nightmare" because they "opened the way for the Iraqi people to seize control of their own destinies... to the benefit of Islamic fundamentalist forces, somewhat on the Iranian pattern." The "clumsiness" is particularly difficult to explain in the terms of Realpolitik since regime change -- without Shiite empowerment -- could have been accomplished "more effectively...had the Bush administration acted from a craftily Machiavellian perspective and managed to get hold of Iraq through an arrangement with the Iraqi army and other apparatuses of the Baathist state." If there is room for rapprochement between Achcar and Chomsky, it is because Achcar actually agrees that the familiar "realist" crowd never would -- and never did -- jettison craftily Machiavellian perspectives on foreign policy. Achcar insists, however, that on the key questions regarding the political outcome in Iraq -- de-Baathification, military dissolution, and Shiite power -- the "administration was divided." Realists fought against all of these policies for post-invasion Iraq, favoring something more like a US-backed military coup that would result in a political outcome akin to Saddamism-without-Saddam and an "arrangement" with the Baathist state. There was, however, a rival faction within the Bush administration: the so-called neo-conservatives, vaguely defined as those who favored a "crusade for bringing democracy" to Iraq. Neo-conservatives championed comprehensive de-Baathification and dissolution of the Sunni-led military establishment -- even if it meant empowering Iraqi Shiites. Chomsky, however, seems not to have taken note of neo-conservatives or any factional battles within the Bush administration. In his many interviews on the war in Iraq, he rarely if ever says anything about neo-conservatives (a peculiar asymmetry in light of neo-conservative vilification of Chomsky). His analysis posits not only Realpolitik, but a unified actor. One of the great merits of Achcar's analysis, by contrast, is his attention to the crucial split between neo-conservatives and realists in Washington. To read further, go to http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=10185 *** Historic Los Angeles and Long Beach appearances by the legendary poet, playwright, activist & revolutionary Amiri Baraka. His new book is "Tales of the Out and the Gone" Amiri Baraka is the last poet laureate of the state of New Jersey. He is the author of numerous books of essays, poems, drama, music history and criticism, and has founded and co-founded a number of organizations, including Yugen magazine, Totem Press, the Black Arts Reportory Theatre, and the Congress of African People ** Eric Mann interviews Amiri Baraka Monday, 2/12. 4pm on KPFK, 90.7 fm, 98.7 FM in Santa Barbara, live on the web at www.kpfk.org On Tuesday 2/13/07, Amiri Baraka will be at UCLA in Rolfe 1200. No fee, but a donation to the African Student Union is appreciated. Lot Parking is $8, but free at the Federal Bldg. Wilshire & Veteran. Wednesday 2/14 7pm CSULong Beach 131 Peterson Hall-- Bellflower & 7th, Long Beach. AMIRI BARAKA at Skylight Books (free event) Thursday, Feb 15 at 7:30pm Skylight Books 1818 N Vermont Ave (between Hollywood Blvd & Franklin) Los Angeles, CA 90027 323 660-1175 www.skylightbooks.com Skylight Books is an independent bookstore in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles (open 10am-10pm daily), at the site of the former Chatterton's. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digest: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! 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