Former UN Special Rapporteur Richard Falk. (photo: EPA)
Slouching
Toward Global Disaster
By Richard Falk,
CounterPunch
01 January 16
There
are many disturbing signs that the West is creating conditions in the Middle
East and Asia that could produce a wider war, most likely a new Cold War,
containing, as well, menacing risks of World War III. The reckless
confrontation with Russia along its borders, reinforced by provocative weapons
deployments in several NATO countries and the promotion of governing regimes
hostile to Russia in such countries as Ukraine and Georgia seems to exhibit
Cold War nostalgia, and is certainly not the way to preserve peace.
Add to
this the increasingly belligerent approach recently taken by the United States
naval officers and defense officials to China with respect to island disputes
and navigational rights in the South China Seas. Such posturing has all the
ingredients needed for intensifying international conflict, giving a militarist
signature to Obama’s ‘pivot to Asia.’
These
developments are happening during the supposedly conflict averse Obama
presidency. Looking ahead to new leadership, even the most optimistic scenario
that brings Hillary Clinton to the White House is sure to make these pre-war
drum beats even louder.
From a
more detached perspective it is fair to observe that Obama seems rather
peace-oriented only because American political leaders and the Beltway/media
mainstream have become so accustomed to relying on military solutions whether
successful or not, whether dangerous and wasteful or not, that is, only by
comparison with more hawkish alternatives.
The
current paranoid political atmosphere in the United States is a further
relevant concern, calling for police state governmental authority at home,
increased weapons budgets, and the continuing militarization of policing and
law enforcement.
Such
moves encourage an even more militaristic approach to foreign challenges that
seem aimed at American and Israeli interests by ISIS, Iran, and China. Where
this kind of war-mongering will lead is unknowable, but what is frighteningly
clear is that this dangerous geopolitical bravado is likely to become even more
strident as the 2016 campaign unfolds to choose the next American president.
Already
Donald Trump, the clear Republican frontrunner, has seemed to commit the United
States to a struggle against all of Islam by his foolish effort to insist that
every Muslim is a terrorist suspect Islam as a potential terrorist who should
be so treated. Even Samuel Huntington were he still alive might not welcome
such an advocate of ‘the clash of civilizations’!
Historical
Deep Roots
It has
taken almost a century for the breakup of the Ottoman Empire to reap the
colonialist harvest that was sown in the peace diplomacy that followed World
War I. In the notorious Sykes-Picot Agreement diplomats of England and France
in 1916 secretly negotiated arrangements that would divide up the Middle East
into a series of artificially delimited territorial states to be administered
as colonies by the respective European governments.
Among
other wrongs, this devious undertaking representing a betrayal of promises made
to Arab leaders that Britain, in particular, would support true independence in
exchange for joining the anti-Ottoman and anti-German alliance formed to fight
World War I. Such a division of the Ottoman spoils not only betrayed wartime
promises of political independence to Arab leaders, but also undermined the
efforts of Woodrow Wilson to apply the principle of ethnic self-determination
to the Ottoman aftermath.
As a
result of diplomatic maneuvers the compromise reached at Versailles in 1919 was
to accept the Sykes-Picot borders that were drawn to satisfy colonial ambitions
for trade routes and spheres of influence, but to disguise slightly its
colonialist character, by creating an international system of mandates for the
Middle East in which London and Paris would administer the territories,
accepting a vague commitment to lead the various societies to eventual
political independence at some unspecified future time. These Sykes-Picot
‘states’ were artificial political communities that never overcame the
indigenous primacy of ethnic, tribal, and religious affinities, and could be
maintained as coherent political realities only by creating oppressive state
structures. If World War II had not sapped European colonial will and
capabilities, it is easy to imagine that the societies of the Middle East would
remain subjugated under mandate banners.
After
World War II
Is it
any wonder, then, that the region has been extremely beset by various forms of
authoritarian rule ever since the countries of the Middle East gained their
independence after the end of the Second World War?
Whether
in the form of dynastic monarchies or secular governments, the stability that
was achieved in the region depended on the denial of human rights, including
rights of democratic participation, as well as the buildup of small privileged
and exploitative elites that linked national markets and resources to the
global economic order. And as oil became the prime strategic resource, the
dominance of the region became for the West led by the United States as
absolutely vital.
From
these perspectives the stable authoritarianism of the region was quite
congenial with the Cold War standoff between the United States and Soviet Union
that was interested in securing strategic and economic partnerships reflecting
the ideological rivalries, while being indifferent to whether or not the people
were being victimized by abusive and brutal governments.
The
American commitment to this status quo in the Middle East was most vividly
expressed in 1980 after the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan and the Iranian
Revolution of the prior year by the enunciation of the Carter Doctrine.
President
Carter in his State of the Union Address was warning the Soviet Union by a
strong diplomatic signal that the United States was ready to defend its
interests in the Persian Gulf by force, which because of supposed Soviet
superiority in ground warfare was understood at the time as making an implied
threat to use nuclear weapons if necessary.
After
the Cold War
When the
Cold War ended, the United States unthinkingly promoted the spread of
capitalist style constitutional democracy wherever it could, including the
Middle East. The Clinton presidency (1992-2000) talked about the ‘enlargement’
of the community of democratic states, implying that any other political option
lacked legitimacy (unless of course it was a friendly oil producer or strategic
ally).
The
neocon presidency of George W. Bush (2000-2008) with its interventionist bent
invoked ‘democracy promotion’ as its goal, and became clear in its official
formulation of security doctrine in 2002 that only capitalist democracies were
legitimate Westphalian states whose sovereign rights were entitled to respect.
This
kind of strident militarism reached a new climax after 9/11.
The
White House apparently hoped to embark on a series regime-changing
interventions in the Middle East and Asia with the expectation of producing at
minimal cost shining examples of liberation and democratization, as well as
secure the Gulf oil reserves and establish military bases to undergird its
regional ambitions.
The
attacks on Afghanistan, and especially Iraq, were the most notorious
applications of this misguided approach. Instead of ‘democracy’ (Washington’s
code word for integration into its version of neoliberal globalization), what
emerged was strife and chaos, and the collapse of stable internal governance.
The strong state that preceded the intervention gave way to localized militias
and resurgent tribal, clan, and religious rivalries leading domestic
populations to wish for a return to the relative stability of the preceding
authoritarian arrangements, despite their brutality and corruption.
And
even in Washington one encounters whispered admissions that Iraq was better
off, after all, under Saddam Hussein than under the kind of sectarian and
divisive leaders that governed the country since the American occupation began
in 2003, and now threaten Iraq with an implosion that will produce at least two
states replacing the shattered one.
The
Arab Spring
Then
came the Arab Spring in 2011 creating an awkward tension between the professed
wish in Washington for democracy in the Arab world and the overriding
commitment to upholding strategic interests throughout the Middle East. At
first, the West reacted ambivalently to the Arab uprisings, not knowing whether
to welcome, and then try to tame, these anti-authoritarian movements of the
Arab masses or to lament the risks of new elites that were likely to turn away
from neoliberal capitalism and strategic partnerships, and worst of all, might
be more inclined to challenge Israel.
What
happened in the years that followed removed the ambiguity, confirming that
material and ideological interests took precedence over visionary endorsements
of Arab democracy.
The
reality that emerged indicated that neither the domestic setting nor the
international context was compatible with the existence of democratic forms of
governance. What unsurprisingly followed was a series of further military
interventions and strategic confrontations either via NATO as in Libya or by
way of its regional partners, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates
as in Iran, Syria, Bahrain, and Yemen.
With
few tears shed in Washington, the authentic and promising democratic beginnings
in Egypt that excited the world in the aftermath of the 2011 Tahrir Square were
crushed two years later by a populist military coup that restored Mubarak Era
authoritarianism, accentuating its worst features.
What
amounted to the revenge of the urban secular elites in Cairo included a genuine
bonding between a new majority of the Egyptian people and its armed forces in a
bloody struggle to challenge and destroy the Muslim Brotherhood that had taken
control of the government by winning a series of elections.
Despite
its supposed liberalism the Obama leadership played along with these
developments. It obliged the new Sisi-led leadership by avoiding the term
‘coup’ although the military takeover was followed by a bloody crackdown on the
elected leadership and civil society leadership.
This
Orwellian trope of refusing to call a coup by its real name enabled the United
States to continue military assistance to Egypt without requiring a new
Congressional authorization.
The
folk wisdom of the Arab world gives insight into the counterrevolutionary
backlash that has crushed the populist hopes of 2011: “People prefer 100 years
of tyranny to a single year of chaos.”
And
this kind of priority is shared by most of those who make and manage American
foreign policy. Just as clearly as the Arab masses, the Pentagon planners
prefer the stability of authoritarianism to the anarchistic uncertainties of
ethnic and tribal strife, militia forms of governance that so often come in the
wake of the collapse of both dictatorial rule and democratic governance.
And
the masters of business and finance, aside from the lure of post-conflict
markets for the reconstruction of what has been destroyed militarily, prefer to
work with dependable and familiar national elites that welcome foreign capital
on lucrative terms that benefit insiders and outsiders alike, while keeping the
masses in conditions of impoverished thralldom.
In
many respects, Syria and Iraq illustrate the terrible human tragedies that have
been visited on the peoples of these two countries. In Syria a popular uprising
in 2011 was unforgivably crushed by the Basher el-Assad regime in Damascus,
leading to a series of disastrous interventions on both sides of the internal
war that erupted, with Saudi Arabia and Iran engaged in a proxy war on Syrian
soil while Israel uses its diplomatic leverage to ensure that the unresolved
war would last as long as possible as Tel Aviv wanted neither the regime nor
its opponents to win a clear victory.
During
this strife, Russia, Turkey, and the United States were intervening with a
bewildering blend of common and contradictory goals ranging from pro-government
stabilization to a variety of regime changing scenarios. These external actors
held conflicting views of the Kurdish fighters as either coveted allies or
dangerous adversaries.
In the
process several hundred thousand Syrians have lost their lives, almost half the
population have become refugees and internally displaced persons, much of the
country and its ancient heritage sites devastated, and no real end of the
violence and devastation is in sight.
The
Iraq experience is only marginally better.
After
a dozen years of punitive sanctions following the 1991 ceasefire that exacted a
heavy toll on the civilian population, the ‘shock and awe’ of US/UK attacks of
2003, an occupation began that rid the country of its cruel and oppressive
leader, Saddam Hussein, and his entourage.
What
followed politically became over time deeply disillusioning, and actually worse
than the overthrown regime, which had been hardly imaginable when the
American-led occupation began. The Iraqi state was being reconstructed along
sectarian lines, purging the Sunni minority elites from the Baghdad bureaucracy
and armed forces, thereby generating a widespread internal violent opposition against
foreign occupation and a resistance movement against the Iraqi leadership that
had gained power with the help of the American presence.
This
combination of insurgency and resistance also gave rise to widespread feelings
of humiliation and alienation, which proved to be conducive to the rise of
jihadi extremism, first in the form of al-Qaeda in Iraq and later as ISIS.
Toxic
Geopolitics
It is
impossible to understand and explain such a disastrous failure of military
interventionism without considering the effects of two toxic ‘special
relationships’ formed by the United States, with Israel and Saudi Arabia.
The
basic feature of such special relationships is an unconditional partnership in
which the Israelis and Saudis can do whatever they wish, including pursuing
policies antagonistic to U.S. interests without encountering any meaningful
opposition from either Washington or Europe.
This
zone of discretion has allowed Israel to keep Palestinians from achieving
self-determination while pursuing its own territorial ambitions via constantly
expanding settlements on occupied Palestinian territory, fueling grassroots
anti-Western sentiment throughout the Arab world because of this persisting
reliance on a cruel settler colonialist approach to block for seven decades the
Palestinian struggle for fundamental and minimal national rights.
The
special relationship with Saudi Arabia is even more astonishing until one
considers the primacy of economic strategic priorities, especially the
importance of oil supplied at affordable prices. Having by far the worst human
rights record in the region, replete with judicially decreed beheadings and
executions by stoning, the Riyadh leadership continues to be warmly courted in
Western capitals as allies and friends. At the same time, equally theocratic
Iran is hypocritically bashed and internationally punished in retaliation for
its far less oppressive governing abuses.
Of
course, looking the other way, is what is to be expected in the cynical conduct
of opportunistic geopolitics, but to indulge the Saudi role in the worldwide
promotion of jihadism while spending trillion on counter-terrorism is much more
difficult to fathom until one shifts attention from the cover story of
counter-terrorism to the more illuminating narrative of petropolitics. Despite
fracking and natural gas discoveries lessening Western dependence on Middle
Eastern oil, old capitalist habits persist long after their economic
justifications have lapsed and this seems true even when such policies have
become damaging in lives and financial burdens.
Finding
Hope is Difficult
In
such circumstances, it is difficult to find much hope in the current cosmodrama
of world politics.
It is
possible, although unlikely, that geopolitical sanity will prevail to the
extent of finding a diplomatic formula to end the violence in Syria and Yemen,
as well as to normalize relations with Iran, restore order in Iraq and Libya,
although such sensible outcomes face many obstacles, and may be years away.
The
alternatives for the Middle East in the near future, barring the political
miracle of a much more revolutionary and emancipatory second Arab Spring, seems
to be authoritarian stability or anarchic strife and chaos, which seems far
preferable if the alternative is the deep trauma associated with enduring
further American military interventions.
If you
happen to hear the Republican candidates give their prescriptions for fixing
the Middle East it comes down to ‘toughness,’ including the scary recommendations
of ‘carpet bombing’ and a greatly heightened American military presence.
Even
the more thoughtful Democrats limit their proposals to enhanced militarism,
hoping to induce the Arab countries to put ‘the boots on the ground’ with nary
a worry about either igniting a regional war or the imaginative collapse that
can only contemplate war as the recipe for peace, again recalling the degree to
which Orwellian satiric irony is relied upon to shape foreign policy
prescriptions by ambitious politicians.
Imaginative
diplomacy, talking and listening to the enemy, and engaging in self-scrutiny
remains outside the cast iron cage of the military mentality that has long
dominated most of the political space in American foreign policy debates with
the conspicuous help of the passive aggressive mainstream media.
In
this respect, American democracy is a broken reality, and conscientious
citizens must look elsewhere as a prison break of the political imagination is
long overdue.
C 2015 Reader Supported News
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"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives."
Eugene Victor Debs
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