On the ruins of Iraq, a new order
April 24th, 2003
The US attack on Iraq and its success has demonstrated the overwhelming military superiority of the United States. It has not demonstrated that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, or that he had links with al-Qaeda. It has so far not demonstrated either that the United States is as expert in the arts of construction and rebuilding as it is in the sullen craft of destruction and killing.
But it has marginalized the United Nations and what, at least on paper, it represents: the peaceful resolution of disputes through international mediation, and the use of force only when necessary and sanctioned by the international community.
The US “victory” in Iraq has also meant the victory of the superhawks over relative moderates like State Department Secretary Colin Powell in the Bush administration, which means their preeminence in the making and implementation of US global policy.
The superhawks had believed that it was fruitless to seek a UN mandate for any attack on Iraq, and that the US should go it alone, though with whatever allies it can muster. The superhawks included US Vice President Richard Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and the far-right intellectuals of their favored think tanks, the American Enterprise Institute and the Project for a New American Century.
Apparently concerned over world opinion as well as the impact on the US Atlantic alliance of the unilateralism favored by the superhawks, it was Powell who convinced US President George W. Bush that it would be best if a US attack on Iraq had UN Security Council mandate.
The possibility of such a mandate was limited from the very start, among other reasons because of the economic interests of France, Germany and Russia in keeping Saddam Hussein’s government in power. But they also correctly feared that a successful attack on Iraq would lead to an era of absolute US military dominance—to a new world order of undeterred US power over the globe and gradual enfeeblement of the European voice in world affairs. Thus the resistance of these countries to the US attack on Iraq, as well as that of China, whose leaders feared the same outcome.
Powell appears to have miscalculated the depths of European and Chinese suspicion and fear of US purposes which led to the US failure to obtain a Security Council mandate for the invasion of Iraq. For much of the last three weeks since March 19, Powell’s voice has been muted as a consequence of Bush’s likely perception that he should not have listened to Powell’s advice in the first place.
Now that the US attack has resulted in exactly what the superhawks intended—i.e., removing Saddam Hussein from power, securing the Iraqi oil fields and establishing a formidable US military presence in the region—Powell is likely to be increasingly marginalized, and with him the multilateral approach that, though often lapsing into tokenism, at least clothed naked US power with the blessings of the “international community.”
The triumph of the superhawks in US officialdom means the triumph of their particular viewpoints and approach, of which the marginalization of the United Nations is not an incidental result, but a major purpose.
Thus the vague Bush-Blair declaration during their meeting two weeks ago in Belfast, Northern Ireland, that the UN would play a “vital” role in postwar Iraq. Although neither British Prime Minister Tony Blair nor Bush was willing to provide details, the subsequent statements of Bush officials made it clear that the UN role would be limited only to providing humanitarian assistance in postwar Irag and making suggestions on the composition of the Iraq interim authority.
According to US wishes, UN involvement in postwar Iraq would not involve any administrative or political role. It would instead consist of work a vast array of humanitarian organizations like the Red Cross could do, as well as of legitimizing the US occupation of Iraq—i.e., sanctioning colonial rule.
Russia’s ambassador to the UN has taken issue with the US-British position, as have most of the representatives of Security Council member nations. To prevent their own individual marginalization as well as that of the UN, they want a bigger UN role in Iraq beyond the supporting and bystander role the US wants for it.
Such a role as the US desires would complete the UN’s impotence and humiliation, which were already evident when it not only failed to stop the US invasion of Iraq, but even cleared the way for it when Secretary-General Kofi Annan ordered UN personnel out of Iraq before the US invasion.
But it would also establish a precedent in which the UN would be a mere provider of humanitarian aid and a bystander on US call as the United States uses its military superiority to secure and enhance its political and economic interests throughout the planet.
This has always been the preferred role for the UN of the superhawks in the Bush government. They regard world opinion as of no consequence, and believe that the UN has in the past infringed on US sovereignty—i.e., its “right” to act in the pursuit of its interests anywhere—and if given the chance, will continue to do so. In their belief it is in the US interest to further weaken the UN.
Not only Bush Jr.’s, but past US governments as well, have acted unilaterally. Clinton administration Secretary of State Madeline Albright is credited with saying that the US acts multilaterally when it can, and unilaterally when it must. Clinton after all did act without UN sanction against the Sudan, when he ordered the bombing of “chemical plants” that turned out to be that country’s medical drug manufacturing facility, while the elder Bush did order the bombing of Libya during his term as president.
Despite the Albright principle, which has withstood changes in administration for decades, the ultraconservative constituencies of the Bush administration have always believed and continue to believe that the UN, far from having served to legitimize US actions in the past, is on the contrary a threat to US sovereignty.
The National Rifle Association, which supported Bush’s campaign for the US presidency with generous contributions and political support, for example believes that the UN wants to disarm the 50 million Americans who own firearms ranging from pistols and revolvers to hunting and high-powered assault weapons. It bases this belief on the UN campaign against arms smuggling and for gun control world-wide.
The fundamentalist Christian churches hold the same view. Practically all of these churches defied the major churches’ opposition to the US attack on Iraq before March 20 by endorsing such an attack, and urging the Bush administration to forgo a UN mandate.
These views have always existed in the United States. Only during the Bush administration, however, have these views appeared to have gained the status of policy. In the aftermath of the US “victory” in Iraq and its occupation of that country—in the US’ having secured the second largest oil reserves in the world and the trillions of barrels of oil under Iraq sand—superhawk triumphalism is emerging to, among others, reject any significant UN role not only in Iraq but also in world affairs.
The superhawks after all have an agenda to follow beyond Iraq. The agenda includes subduing through pressure diplomacy, propaganda and even war those states that are either hostile to or are likely to be a threat to the goal of assuring US global preeminence. The superhawks correctly believe that the UN, by at least providing a world forum for debates on US actions, will be a hindrance to the pursuit of that agenda. That is why the UN has to be cut down to size, or has to go the way of the League of Nations.
(Today/abs-cbnNEWS.com, April 15, 2003)