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http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0413-06.htm
April 13, 2003 by the Toronto Star
Bush Doctrinaires: Analysts Point to Strong Signs America's War Machine Will Continue to Roll
by Linda Diebel
Thank God for Helen Thomas.
She sits hunched over in the front row at White House press
briefings and, as the slick boys and girls of the press corps
respectfully clear their
throats and try to catch Ari's eye, she goes in for the kill.
She's 82 years old, already. What does she have to fear from
White House
flaks and media spin-doctors?
And so, on Thursday, the legendary Ms. Thomas, formerly with
UPI and now
with Hearst, raised her head, squeezed one eye shut, took lethal
aim and
fired.
"Is the president contemplating any other regime changes
in the Middle
East," she asked Bush spokesperson Ari Fleischer. "I
mean ... there seems to be something in the air that he may not
stop with Iraq."
Bull's-eye!
It's more than something in the air in the administration
of President
George W. Bush. Even as fighting continues in Iraq, even amidst
signs of
chaos for the civilian population, there are warnings Operation
Iraqi
Freedom is about more than freedom for Iraq.
It's about reshaping the Middle East, say analysts and policy-makers
alike
(although they attribute different motives and results), and
applying
America's new foreign policy doctrine to the world.
"Duly armed, the United States can act to secure its
safety and to advance
the cause of liberty ― in Baghdad and beyond," write Lawrence
Kaplan and
William Kristol in their best-selling The War Over Iraq, the
Bush policy
bible. It's subtitled: "Saddam's Tyranny And America's Mission."
The war against Iraq bears witness to the unfolding of this new policy ― the Bush doctrine that evolved over a decade and was set in stone last September as the National Security Strategy of the United States.
Its architects are powerful players in the Bush administration.
Master
planner is Paul Wolfowitz, deputy defense secretary. Then, among
many
others, there's Vice-President Dick Cheney; Defense Secretary
Donald
Rumsfeld; defense adviser Richard Perle; and Lewis "Scooter"
Libby, Cheney's
chief-of-staff and national security adviser.
These are the fabled hawks of the Bush White House, the so-called "neo-cons" who, after 9/11, according to lore, hoisted neophyte student George Dubya firmly into their tribe.
The three principal elements of the Bush doctrine, as we see
in Operation
Iraqi Freedom, are pre-emptive strike, regime change and the
supremacy of U.S. leadership in the world, backed by military
might and guided by "moral authority."
There are no qualms about going it alone, or almost, without
the United
Nations.
"It's not totally new because Americans have always felt
they can defend
themselves anywhere," says Stephen Clarkson, Canadian author
and visiting scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center
in Washington.
"What's new is the attitude, the close-mindedness, of the Bush group. This place is completely closed. They know the truth. It comes from God. They're right and everybody else is wrong."
Bush casts issues in terms of moral right and wrong. His is an Old Testament White House, of vengeance sayeth the Lord against the foes of America.
Freedom, said Bush on Friday, eyes cast heavenward, "is
a gift from the
Almighty God."
Toronto international criminal lawyer David Jacobs views the Bush doctrine as a "terrifying doctrine of empire ... wholly unlawful."
"The United States' almost religious fervor to control
the planet is
dangerous," says Toronto international criminal lawyer David
Jacobs.
But there are "many countries and peoples around the world who do not like the system and practices of the American government, and do not think the U.S. option holds advantages over their own. The rest of the planet does not believe the U.S. has the moral or legal authority to impose its views."
It does appear to have the military might.
There are more than 300,000 coalition troops on the ground
in Iraq. And
there are signs, despite denials, the Bush administration is
already looking elsewhere in the region, starting with Syria
and Iran.
Former CIA chief James Woolsey says we're poised on the brink
of World War
IV. He's a Bush hawk, touted to take over the information directorate
in the provisional government in Iraq.
"This Fourth World War, I think, will last considerably
longer than either
the First or Second World Wars did for us," Woolsey told
a UCLA conference last week, referring to the Cold War as World
War III.
"Hopefully," he added, "not the full four decades of the Cold War."
That's not what Fleischer told Thomas when she asked about upcoming regime changes in the Middle East.
"Iraq is unique. Iraq presented a whole set of threats
to the world that
were unique," he replied, with condescension. "But
every region in the world presents a unique set of challenges
or difficulties for the United States, and for partners in peace,
and each is dealt with separately."
"So," asked Thomas, "the answer is, no?"
Not likely, according to military analyst John Stanton, formerly
with the
conservative American Enterprise Institute think-tank.
"Nobody worth their salt in international relations believes
this is just
about Iraq.
"You've got to be dispassionate about it. It's about
a vision, whether you
like it or not, about taking care of festering problems. `Let's
go in and
clean house in Iran, in Syria and in other countries who harbor
terrorists.'"
The hawks "believe there is no way the Middle East can
be stabilized unless you deal with all those countries in the
region. "This is not some
conspiracy. They've been very open about their views; it's all
out there.
The reality is that they see things through a narrow prism. In
order for
things to be right, they say, `We've got to set things right
in the Holy
Land.'"
He says all the region's countries should be very nervous.
Bush doctrine advocate Perle told the Foreign Policy Institute in 2001: "We could deliver a short message, a two-word message: `You're next, You're next unless you stop the practice of supporting terrorism.''
Wolfowtiz has been asked about pro-Israeli views.
"There is a widespread view in the Arab world (that the
Iraqi war) is for
U.S. strategic interests to help Israel," the pan-Arab station,
Al Arabiya,
asked him last week.
"People know you by name, they know (others) and they
point out that you
have a strong interest in a hegemonic Israel, if you will,"
said the interviewer.
Responded Wolfowitz: "The Arab-Israeli issue is a painful
running sore for everybody ... I have believed for a long time
that peace is the only
solution there ... two states living side by side in peace."
Opinion polls show Americans are ready to reshape the Middle East.
A survey last week by the Los Angeles Times shows public opinion
increasingly in favor of a broader U.S. military role in the
Middle East,
It shows 50 per cent would support an attack on Iran if that
country
continues to develop nuclear weapons, and 42 per cent favor moving
U.S.
troops over from Iraq and invading Syria.
Seven out of 10 Americans, according to the poll, think the
U.S. has the
"moral authority" to attack Iraq and 60 per cent say
the world is being made a better place by the U.S. military.
And that's before Bush and his Pentagon spinners have even really honed in on a campaign to ready the public for war against Syria or Iran.
To date, we've just had a taste of what looks like a serious
campaign to
come.
But it is heating up.
"I think we're going to be obliged to fight a regional
war whether we want
to or not," Michael Ledeen, former U.S. national security
official, recently
told The American Prospect policy magazine.
"It may turn out to be a war to remake the world."
The administration has stepped up verbal attacks on Syria and Iran. In fact, Stanton thinks the escalation of war at the Iraqi-Syrian border mirrors the escalation of the Vietnam War into Laos and Cambodia.
Rumsfeld has accused Syria of harboring Saddam Hussein henchmen
and of
hiding Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Bush repeated the allegations
Friday.
Damascus calls these charges "fabrications."
In Rome last week, John Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control and another Bush doctrine originator, urged Syria and North Korea to "draw the appropriate lessons from Iraq."
Rumsfeld attacked Iran for allowing the presence of "hundreds"
of armed
Shiite Muslim fighters, warning the entrance into Iraq of military
forces
from Iran "will be taken as a potential threat to coalition
forces"
And, on Thursday, Wolfowitz told the Senate armed services committee that Syria is "behaving badly."
"In recent days, the Syrians have been shipping killers
into Iraq to try to
kill Americans," he said. "We don't welcome that ...
so it is a problem. I
think it is important that Iraq's neighbors not meddle with Iraq.
"If they continue, then we need to think about what our
policy is with
respect to a country that harbors terrorists or harbors war criminals."
He was referring to the anti-Israel groups, Hamas (Islamic
Resistance
Movement), Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah, as well as Palestinian
groups.
Asked by West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd if he is advocating
war,
Wolfowitz said: "Taking action against Syria ... would be
a decision for the president and the Congress."
Bush doctrine policy on countries harboring terrorists is
already clear: It
is unacceptable.
Views that evolved in the 1990s came together in a document by the Project for a New American Century think-tank and signed by Rumsfeld and other future Bush administration hawks two years before Bush took office.
"The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security," it says.
"While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the
immediate
justification, the need for a substantial American force presence
in the
Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein."
It also notes: "Iran may well prove as large a threat
to U.S. interests as
Iraq has."
The heart of the Bush doctrine surfaced in a 1992 defense-planning
guide
written by Wolfowitz, then working under defense secretary Cheney.
It was leaked to the New York Times.
"This was all gamed and played out by folks from the
think-tanks for years," says military analyst Stanton, explaining
that they waited out the
presidency of William Clinton, biding their time.
The Bush doctrine says the U.S. "must dissuade potential
adversaries from
pursuing a military buildup in hopes of surpassing or equaling
the power of the United States."
As Kaplan and Kristol make clear: "It defends American supremacy on moral grounds."
This gung-ho militaristic approach to the world holds particular dangers for Canada, warns lawyer Jacobs.
"The ambiguity of the Canadian government's position
has been quite
worrisome," he says, noting his concerns about Ottawa's
tentative steps to get involved in post-war Iraq without, at
least so far, United Nations
support for reconstruction.
"We have to have serious regard for Canadian sovereignty" in this new Bush doctrine world, he says.
"It's grotesquely immoral to agree to go with the U.S.
on life-or-death
issues just because they can hurt us economically. We might as
well give up
now."
For the moment, the United States is still not finished bringing democracy to Iraq.
Since the indomitable Helen Thomas began this piece with her question for the Bush administration, it seems fitting that she close it with another query on the war.
"How do you bomb people back to democracy?" she
asked Fleischer in the
opening days of the Pentagon's Shock and Awe campaign against
the Iraqi
regime.
That time, she got no answer.
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