Re: casus belli

This is very interesting exchange, though I'm not quite convinced yet
that US assertion of power is the primary reason.  It seems in this
friendly debate, some of us give priority to the material-political
benefits (US corporate interests, money politics, regional power), and
the other to the longer run geopolitical benefits (attempted reassertion
of global power vis-à-vis allies, and the bolstering of a slipping
national esteem).  But both sides agree these are the key benefits
sought by the hawks.  I've two responses.

First, as I noted before, the US effort to reassert power is a dismal
failure obvious to all.  ("Isn't it obvious to everyone, including the
hawks, that their unilateralism is having just the opposite result? Does
Powell really believe it when he claims that he's going to get the
allies support no matter what US intelligence provides?")  

I find it hard to fathom that that Bush et. al. really believed all
along that they would succeed in putting "Old Europe" (i.e. European
states that can have independent foreign policies), or other states,
such as Russia, in their place.  Indeed, what they are doing is making
new alliances with "new Europe" and others because they know they
*cannot* put those states "in their place."  (But let's not exaggerate
the rift either.)  Further, keep in mind that this rift could be mended
in two years if the Bush hawks are re-elected, and that this war and the
rift probably wouldn't have happened at all if Bush hadn't been made
President in a fluke election.  The point was well made in a previous
post that we shouldn't "overdetermine" these events as if they are
inevitable -- that they constitute evidence that supports one theory
about the long run processes of US hegemonic decline and system
transition/bifurcation.

Second, in response to Boris' comment below:

>For the issue is not just why 
> go to war with IRAQ, but why go to WAR with Iraq. If the 
> primary purpose was not to assert US leadership in a highly 
> dramatic manner, other means might suffice to bring Iraq to 
> heel, means that would not jeopardize the US relationship 
> with Europe and risk such grave consequences for regional 
> (and probably, global) stability.

The truly false issue since 1990 is the one that Boris cites: that the
US, or "international community," has been trying to get Iraq to heel.
Nor could I agree that there are other means for the US to get want it
wants other than war --  precisely because of allied resistance, which
isn't rooted primarily in oppostion to US hegemony.  One overlooks the
middle-run developments or trajectory of events that were leading the US
toward a first, and now second, war with Iraq.  It's a trajectory which
begin well before the end of the Cold War (though so does US decline). 

The issue of making Saddam "heel" is a false issue because it was the US
and allies that armed Iraq to the teeth since Rumsfeld's visit in 1983,
and because it was the US that actively-militarily supported Iraq's use
of chemical weapons against Iran.  Also, keep in mind, it was not Iraq
which sank half of Iran's navy, but the US, in the largest naval
operation since WWII, through a coordinated US-Iraq operation.  The US
was involved in a secret war against Iran from 1983-1988, which
ostensibly was to prevent Iran from invading Kuwait and exporting
fundamentalism.  

But after that war, it was the US, not the allies, that gave Iraq the
green light to invade Kuwait (on the green light, see "A line in the
sand [videorecording] : an ABC News special on the Persian Gulf Crisis /
hosted by Peter Jennings, 1990, -- not to be confused with their 1991,
follow up, "A line in the sand [videorecording] : war or peace?" -- and
Edward Greer's piece in Monthly Review, 1991, Vol.43, No.1).  

To reiterate, it was *not* the allies that gave a green light to Iraq's
invasion, but the US.  Why?  If the US was a key "orchestrator" of
Iraq's military build up, and of sales of chemical and biological
materials during the 1980s, it was in fact France and Russia, and
others, that were selling more conventional military hardware.  Iraq was
also cutting more deals with France and Russia to develop it's oil
fields.  In the meantime, from 1988 on, Saddam was becoming an
embarrassment to the US because he gassed the Kurds (which the US tried
to blame on Iran), and because knowledge of the US-Iraq alliance and the
US secret war (in which the US shot down an Iranian airliner), was
becoming public.  By that time, Saddam was already "heeled" (no more
gassing attacks on the Kurds), but he was less and less of any help to
"US national interests" in the region.  With his new found military
power, he began to choose his own course, which took less and less
direction from the US.  Perhaps only in this respect was Iraq to be
"heeled," not because of the gassing of people with US help.

The invitation to invade Kuwait legitimized a war that would reduce
Iraq's power and legitimized increased US forces in neighboring states,
Saudi Arabia above all (with blowback repercussions), and enormously
benefited the US military-industrial complex.  All this in an emerging
post-cold war situation that would see even greater cuts to the Pentagon
budget otherwise.  (Indeed, between 1980-1990s, the status of Saudi
Arabia going from creditor status to deep indebtedness in part because
of massive weapons procurements from the US, was one of the mechanisms
by which the US got back some of the petro dollars.) 

Meanwhile, after the Gulf War Iraq naturally made few contracts US oil
companies (Halliburton being the conspicuous exception -- gotta keep the
doors open) and far more with Russian, French, British.   But there were
the sanctions, which no one could say were illegitimate, given the
invasion.  The UN efforts during the 1990s to ostensibly make Saddam
"heel" was little more than the efforts of Russia and France and others
to get the sanctions lifted or eased so that the oil and military
contracts on hold could be fulfilled.  The US wouldn't benefit from the
lifting of the sanctions, either in terms of access to oil fields, or in
terms of geopolitical power; Saddam wasn't too keen on the US anymore.
And so the US pressed in the opposite direction to toughen the sanctions
and fire a few crusie missiles now and then.  But clearly, that didn't
work for the US.  The hawks knew there was only one way to secure US
interests, and the stakes seemed worthwhile even if it meant causing a
rift with old allies, France, Germany, and a new Russia.

The Bush hawks had been planning the invasion for years, since they
realized in the mid-1990s that they were getting no-where in the UN.
Bush got elected, but a pretext had to be created.  The 9-11 attack
provided that pretext and thensome, regardless of anything that the
allies could say or do about Iraq.  Now the wrangling over the sanctions
paid off; the US has been able to say that Saddam won't heel and never
would.

In short, it's quite hard for me to not see the middle and short run
interests and benefits and processes as what's primarily been driving US
actions regarding Iraq.

Elson

> 
> On Wed, 29 Jan 2003, Chris wrote:
> 
> > >The upshot is that the war is undertaken primarily out of 
> ideological 
> > >considerations - it is about the defense of the leading US 
> position 
> > >globally.  Both the means of this policy (projection of military 
> > >power) and its ultimate aim bespeak the fundamental 
> weakness of the 
> > >US position.
> > >
> > >This is not to say that economic (i.e. oil) and geostrategic (i.e. 
> > >Israel) concerns are irrelevant to the adoption of the 
> current course 
> > >- the background of the major players in this administration's 
> > >security and foreign policy teams make it impossible to argue 
> > >otherwise.
> >
> > I think this would be a classic case of "overdetermination". The 
> > necessary task is the assertion of US global dominance, OK. 
> However, 
> > there are a lot of places that could serve that purpose. 
> Afghanistan 
> > did quite well. Libya would work. Cuba. Iran. North Korea. Syria. 
> > Colombia (FARC). Somalia. However, Iraq has the distinct 
> advantages of 
> > (1) massive oil reserves (2) proximity to Israel (3) no 
> close allies, 
> > or neighbours that would strongly object to its invasion (4) an 
> > already decimated economy and military (5) a history of 
> hostility to 
> > the US, including a culturally "pre-demonized" face and
> > (importantly) an image of being a credible military threat 
> (6) being 
> > previously defeated, but with "unfinished business" - amongst other 
> > factors. It will be noted that I think that "path 
> dependency" plays a 
> > definite role here. In any case, the point is that there 
> are multiple 
> > reasons that all lead to the same target - a greater density of 
> > reasons than any current alternative.
> >
> > On a strict "king of the castle" logic, beating a country 
> like Iran or 
> > North Korea - which could offer much more credible 
> resistance - would 
> > actually be *more* effective. But they are not so overdetermined. 
> > Indeed, the fact that they could *actually* offer credible 
> resistance, 
> > rather than just the image of it, is most likely a drawback. Which 
> > just goes to support the conclusion that current bluster, however 
> > deadly, is more a sign of weakness than of strength.
> >
> > Chris
> >
> >
> 
> -- 
> Boris Stremlin
> bstremli@binghamton.edu
> 
>