War and Empire |
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By Johan Saravanamuttu The Invasion and Occupation of Iraq
Iraq has now been occupied by American and British forces
after they rained down bombs across the nation down in one of the
most unprecedented developments of contemporary history. The military campaign against Iraq began on March 20 with an
assault on its capital to “decapitate” its leadership by the
firing of some 40 Tomahawk missiles. This was followed through by
the so-called “shock and awe” massive bombing of Baghdad and
other cities, as well as a land invasion from the South. By all
accounts, the war was a complete mismatch and it was never likely
that Iraq could resist the military might and technological
superiority of the US and Britain. As we all know, Iraq was
probably militarily at its weakest and had been subjected not only
to disarmament measures of the UN but for the last twelve years
had had more than half of its airspace monitored as no-fly-zones
and on many occasions been bombarded by the US as well. Invasion and Occupation The invasion and occupation of sovereign states by outside
powers last occurred in the World War II whether this was with
respect to Axis or Allied states during or after the war. While it
is true that powers such as the US and Soviet Union have waged war
against sovereign states in the post-World-War II period, never
have such actions entailed the full-scale occupation of a country.
In the cases of the US war in Vietnam and the Soviet one in
Afghanistan, the intention had never been full occupation, even if
‘regime change’ was an unstated objective. In the post-9/11
toppling of the Taliban regime of Afghanistan, which had little
recognition, the US-led campaign accomplished this with the
support of local resistance to the regime and then helped install
a coalition government at the end of the war phase. The action had
the sanction of UN. In the Iraqi situation today, there is no evidence of active
local resistance to the Baathist (socialist) state of Iraq, which
in any case is recognized by the United Nations. There is also no
ostensible evidence of the prospect of an alternative or even
“puppet” government in the offing in Iraq. In the light of
this, the US-British invasion seems rather unprecedented. Attempts of the US to sponsor anti-Saddam groups have all but
failed to date. Therefore, the action of the United States and its
allies in Iraq today is clearly not in support of any local Iraqi
group or force pitting itself as a legitimate and credible
alternative to the government under Saddam Hussein. The military
campaign is thereby a stark, unilateral action to defeat and take
over another sovereign state. Or, to put it differently, the
US-British action is an outright affront to international norms
and laws respecting national sovereignty and for all intents and
purposes can be considered unlawful and illegitimate. We have all heard the familiar argument offered by the Bush
Administration and the Blair government that the military campaign
follows upon the failure of Iraq to comply with Security
Resolution 1441 passed in November 2002. This disingenuous stance
is clearly contradicted by the fact that the Iraqi government,
until the onset of war, was actively cooperating with UN
inspections for disarming weapons of mass destruction (WMD) from
Iraqi territory. Nowhere in the text of Resolution 1441 does it
sanction military force as a measure for material breach, even if
such a breach had occurred. It was also patently clear that the majority of the 15
members of the Security Council including permanent members,
France, Russia and China, did not find Iraq in material breach of
1441 and rejected in no uncertain terms a British attempt to
sponsor a new resolution to sanction war. Given the egregious
British diplomatic failure, and worse, its subsequent alacrity to
participate in the war, we can surmise also that British actions
were by far more in bad faith than that of the US and by that
token illegitimate and illegal from the perspective of
international norms and law. Why has the occupation of Iraq come about? Project for the New American Century Let’s begin by looking closely at the shift in American
foreign policy under the current Bush Administration. George W.
Bush’s foreign policy is in many ways a continuation of that of
his father, George Herbert Walker Bush, to create what the latter
dubbed a “New World Order”. Indeed, Bush Sr. virtually began
his presidency with the Gulf War of 1991. In that war, through
Resolution 678 of the Security Council, the US led allied forces
to defeat and to largely disarm the Saddam Hussein regime, which
had foolishly invaded Kuwait. The disarmament process for one
reason or other was not fully completed in the aftermath of that
war and so Bush Jr. worked hard in getting UN support last year
for Resolution 1441. The rest, as they say, is now history. Not only is the younger Bush’s foreign policy a
continuation of that of the older Bush and other Republican
administrations, his cabinet members and policy advisers are from
daddy’s administration; Cheney was defence secretary to dad,
Powell was dad’s military chief and Rumsfeld was President
Ford’s White House chief of staff. Since then, Republican think
tanks, which have been waiting for the transition of policy from
the Clinton Administration, have worked hard to fashion what is
called a “Project for the New American Century”. From the
Republican standpoint, President George W. Bush is evidently
slated to be the prime mover for this project. Note that this
so-called Project for the New American Century was conceived
in1997 long before 9/11. We will be drawing from a document published in 2000 by
project co-chairmen Donald Kagan and Gary Schmitt and principal
author Thomas Donnelly, entitled “Rebuilding American’s
Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century,” Report
of the Project for the New American Century, (henceforth, Report)
to illuminate the rest of this article. The New American Century’ s (NAC) overall objective is
clear enough: “As the 20th century draws to a close, the United States
stands as the world’s most preeminent power. Having led the West
to victory in the Cold War, America faces an opportunity and a
challenge: Does the United States have the vision to build upon
the achievement of the past decades? ….what we require is a
military that is strong and ready to meet both present and future
challenges; a foreign policy that boldly and purposely promotes
American principles abroad; and national leadership that accepts
the United States’ global responsibilities” (Preamble, Report).
The point about US global leadership is made with no fanfare
and with a candid lack of humility further down the report: “The US is the world’s only superpower, combining
preeminent military power, global technological leadership, and
the world’s largest economy. Moreover, America stands at the
head of a system of alliances which include the world’s other
leading democratic powers. At present the US faces no global
rival. America’s grand strategy should aim to preserve and
extend this advantageous position as far into the future as
possible” (Report, p. i). Core Missions In order to achieve the goals of the NAC, the US must
establish four core mission for its military forces: ·
Defend the American homeland; ·
Fight and decisively win multiple major
theatre wars; ·
Perform the ‘constabulary’ duties
associated with shaping the security environment in critical
regions; ·
Transform US forces to exploit the
“revolution in military affairs”. These core missions have to be effected in tandem with
measures to: ·
Maintain nuclear strategic superiority; ·
Restore the personnel strength of US
military forces as outlined by the Bush Administration to an
active-duty strength from 1.4 million to 1.6 million; ·
Reposition US forces to respond to 21st
century strategic realities by deployment patterns to reflect the
growing US strategic concerns. Among some of the imperatives of the new US policy is the
need to control the new “international commons” of space and
cyberspace and pave the way for the creation of a new military
service - US Space Forces - with the mission of controlling outer
space. (Report, pp. iv –v). In short, the proponents of the NAC unabashedly advocate a Pax
Americana as the basis for global security. But it is a Pax
Americana that has to be actively pursued through American
political, economic and military dominance throughout the world.
The project propounders have argued that the 1990s has been a
decade of “defence neglect” and it is now time to fix it. The
event of 9/11 was in this sense an extremely timely event since it
allowed this group to make their arguments a fortiori to
the American people. Theatre Wars There are two concepts in the NAC project that need some
explanation. These are “major theatre wars” and
“constabulary duties”. The first refers to the US capability
to rapidly deploy forces and win multiple simultaneous large-scale
wars in various parts of the world. Constabulary duties refer to
on-going engagements and post-conflict activities to maintain
stability in various regions. Note that all of these policies are
stated without one mention of the United Nations. With respect to theater wars, the new policy goes beyond the
“two-war” standard of the past decade. The Report does not
mention Africa and Latin America but gives focus to three major
“theatres” in the globe: The Persian Gulf Region: Here the US
seeks to establish a permanent role and the Report refers to
unresolved conflict in Iraq. It also argues that the need for a
substantial American presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of
the regime of Saddam Hussein (p. 14). Europe: NATO remains the lynchpin of US
policy here. However, “US Army Europe” should be transformed
into “versatile, combined-arms brigade-sized units capable of
independent action and movement over operational distances.”
(Report, p. 16). East Asia: US presence needs
to be enhanced here not least of all to cope with “the rise of
China to great power status”. The Report argues that it is time
to increase American presence in Southeast Asia: “…. a return
to Southeast Asia will add impetus to the slow process of
alliance-building now afoot in the region.” Some ideas include
establishing “forward operating bases” and turning the ASEAN
Regional Forum into an alliance-like arrangement (Report, p. 19.) Pax Americana? From the vantage point of the Project for the New America
Century, it is evident that the invasion and occupation of Iraq is
part and parcel of the Bush Administration’s plan to begin its
new foreign policy of implementing a Pax Americana which
increasingly will witness setting aside the use of globally
sanctioned instruments such as the United Nations to maintain
global security and peace. If multilateral instruments are used at
all, it will be those which see the predominant participation of
the US in them such as the NATO alliance in Europe. It is very
likely that a similar alliance may emerge in the Persian Gulf in
the post-Saddam period. We could call this the “New Baghdad
Pact.” The fact that the US now prefers to act unilaterally on a
global scale will make the current Iraq campaign an historic
turning point for it in the direction of the realization of a Pax
Americana. However, there now seems to be a split between American and
European approaches to global security. We should note that the
government of Britain, under ‘New Labour’, (and less
significantly, that of Spain and Italy) have chosen to break ranks
with their more natural European allies, like France and Germany.
Yet, “Old Europe”, as some have put it, has put up a putative
challenge to the American global vision and policy we have just
discussed. One aspect of this European vision has been propounded by
Robert Cooper, ironically himself a former British diplomat in a
much-discussed article which did the rounds last year. His piece
has been published as “The Postmodern State” in a volume
called Reordering the World: The Long-Term Implications of
September 11. (The Foreign Policy Centre). Cooper argues that Europe has become “postmodern.” The EU
as a political entity has rejected the use of violence or force as
a means for settling conflicts. He says basically that Europeans,
tired of war, have rejected it as an instrumentality. However,
there is a catch here. There should be no use of force among
European states but for the outside world, which is still not
“postmodern”, force could still be instrumental. Europe will
only apply such force outside judiciously – hence the French and
Germany objections to US military action in Iraq. Are the rest of us in the world today up against a stark
choice, whether to accept the harsh reality of a Pax Americana or
to go for the gentler imperialism of Pax Europa? I do sincerely
hope not! As has been put rather elegantly, there are only two
superpowers in the world today – The United States and world
public opinion. Throughout the American and British campaign for
war in Iraq, global protests were unprecedented in terms of
numbers of participants, cross-section of protesters and sheer
frequency and all of this long before the actual military action.
It’s not just Europe that’s tired of war. The whole world is
tired of war! It is utterly unconscionable that the governments of Britain
and the US went ahead with their action despite overwhelming
domestic opinion against their war actions. If democracy has any
meaning at all, the Bush and Blair governments will not survive
the next round of elections and perhaps, with that, so too will
recede the unacceptable quest for empire by any state in today’s
world.
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