The
Resort To Force
By Noam Chomsky
18 September , 2004
TomDispatch
As Colin Powell explained the National
Security Strategy (NSS) of September 2002 to a hostile audience at the
World Economic Forum, Washington has a "sovereign right to use
force to defend ourselves" from nations that possess WMD and cooperate
with terrorists, the official pretexts for invading Iraq. The collapse
of the pretexts is well known, but there has been insufficient attention
to its most important consequence: the NSS was effectively revised to
lower the bars to aggression. The need to establish ties to terror was
quietly dropped. More significant, Bush and colleagues declared the
right to resort to force even if a country does not have WMD or even
programs to develop them. It is sufficient that it have the "intent
and ability" to do so. Just about every country has the ability,
and intent is in the eye of the beholder. The official doctrine, then,
is that anyone is subject to overwhelming attack. Colin Powell carried
the revision even a step further. The president was right to attack
Iraq because Saddam not only had "intent and capability" but
had "actually used such horrible weapons against his enemies in
Iran and against his own people" -- with continuing support from
Powell and his associates, he failed to add, following the usual convention.
Condoleezza Rice gave a similar version. With such reasoning as this,
who is exempt from attack? Small wonder that, as one Reuters report
put it, "if Iraqis ever see Saddam Hussein in the dock, they want
his former American allies shackled beside him."
In the desperate
flailing to contrive justifications as one pretext after another collapsed,
the obvious reason for the invasion was conspicuously evaded by the
administration and commentators: to establish the first secure military
bases in a client state right at the heart of the world's major energy
resources, understood since World War II to be a "stupendous source
of strategic power" and expected to become even more important
in the future. There should have been little surprise at revelations
that the administration intended to attack Iraq before 9-11, and downgraded
the "war on terror" in favor of this objective. In internal
discussion, evasion is unnecessary. Long before they took office, the
private club of reactionary statists had recognized that "the need
for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the
issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein." With all the vacillations
of policy since the current incumbents first took office in 1981, one
guiding principle remains stable: the Iraqi people must not rule Iraq.
The 2002 National
Security Strategy, and its implementation in Iraq, are widely regarded
as a watershed in international affairs. "The new approach is revolutionary,"
Henry Kissinger wrote, approving of the doctrine but with tactical reservations
and a crucial qualification: it cannot be "a universal principle
available to every nation." The right of aggression is to be reserved
for the US and perhaps its chosen clients. We must reject the most elementary
of moral truisms, the principle of universality -- a stand usually concealed
in professions of virtuous intent and tortured legalisms.
Arthur Schlesinger
agreed that the doctrine and implementation were "revolutionary,"
but from a quite different standpoint. As the first bombs fell on Baghdad,
he recalled FDR's words following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, "a
date which will live in infamy." Now it is Americans who live in
infamy, he wrote, as their government adopts the policies of imperial
Japan. He added that George Bush had converted a "global wave of
sympathy" for the US into a "global wave of hatred of American
arrogance and militarism." A year later, "discontent with
America and its policies had intensified rather than diminished."
Even in Britain support for the war had declined by a third.
As predicted, the
war increased the threat of terror. Middle East expert Fawaz Gerges
found it "simply unbelievable how the war has revived the appeal
of a global jihadi Islam that was in real decline after 9-11."
Recruitment for the Al Qaeda networks increased, while Iraq itself became
a "terrorist haven" for the first time. Suicide attacks for
the year 2003 reached the highest level in modern times; Iraq suffered
its first since the thirteenth century. Substantial specialist opinion
concluded that the war also led to the proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction.
As the anniversary
of the invasion approached, New York's Grand Central Station was patrolled
by police with submachine guns, a reaction to the March 11 Madrid train
bombings that killed 200 people in Europe's worst terrorist crime. A
few days later, the Spanish electorate voted out the government that
had gone to war despite overwhelming popular opposition. Spaniards were
condemned for appeasing terrorism by voting for withdrawing troops from
Iraq in the absence of UN authorization -- that is, for taking a stand
rather like that of 70 percent of Americans, who called for the UN to
take the leading role in Iraq.
Bush assured Americans
that "The world is safer today because, in Iraq, our coalition
ended a regime that cultivated ties to terror while it built weapons
of mass destruction." The president's handlers know that every
word is false, but they also know that lies can become Truth, if repeated
insistently enough.
There is broad agreement
among specialists on how to reduce the threat of terror -- keeping here
to the subcategory that is doctrinally acceptable, their terror against
us -- and also on how to incite terrorist atrocities, which may become
truly horrendous. The consensus is well articulated by Jason Burke in
his study of the Al Qaeda phenomenon, the most detailed and informed
investigation of this loose array of radical Islamists for whom bin
Laden is hardly more than a symbol (a more dangerous one after he is
killed, perhaps, becoming a martyr who inspires others to join his cause).
The role of Washington's current incumbents, in their Reaganite phase,
in creating the radical Islamist networks is well known. Less familiar
is their tolerance of Pakistan's slide toward radical Islamist extremism
and its development of nuclear weapons.
As Burke reviews,
Clinton's 1998 bombings of Sudan and Afghanistan created bin Laden as
a symbol, forged close relations between him and the Taliban, and led
to a sharp increase in support, recruitment, and financing for Al Qaeda,
which until then was virtually unknown. The next major contribution
to the growth of Al Qaeda and the prominence of bin Laden was Bush's
bombing of Afghanistan following September 11, undertaken without credible
pretext as later quietly conceded. As a result, bin Laden's message
"spread among tens of millions of people, particularly the young
and angry, around the world," Burke writes, reviewing the increase
in global terror and the creation of "a whole new cadre of terrorists"
enlisted in what they see as a "cosmic struggle between good and
evil," a vision shared by bin Laden and Bush. As noted, the invasion
of Iraq had the same effect.
Citing many examples,
Burke concludes that "Every use of force is another small victory
for bin Laden," who "is winning," whether he lives or
dies. Burke's assessment is widely shared by many analysts, including
former heads of Israeli military intelligence and the General Security
Services.
There is also a
broad consensus on what the proper reaction to terrorism should be.
It is two-pronged: directed at the terrorists themselves and at the
reservoir of potential support. The appropriate response to terrorist
crimes is police work, which has been successful worldwide. More important
is the broad constituency the terrorists -- who see themselves as a
vanguard -- seek to mobilize, including many who hate and fear them
but nevertheless see them as fighting for a just cause. We can help
the vanguard mobilize this reservoir of support by violence, or can
address the "myriad grievances," many legitimate, that are
"the root causes of modern Islamic militancy." That can significantly
reduce the threat of terror, and should be undertaken independently
of this goal.
Violence can succeed,
as Americans know well from the conquest of the national territory.
But at terrible cost. It can also provoke violence in response, and
often does. Inciting terror is not the only illustration. Others are
even more hazardous.
In February 2004,
Russia carried out its largest military exercises in two decades, prominently
exhibiting advanced WMD. Russian generals and Defense Minister Sergei
Ivanov announced that they were responding to Washington's plans "to
make nuclear weapons an instrument of solving military tasks,"
including its development of new low-yield nuclear weapons, "an
extremely dangerous tendency that is undermining global and regional
stability,... lowering the threshold for actual use." Strategic
analyst Bruce Blair writes that Russia is well aware that the new "bunker
busters" are designed to target the "high-level nuclear command
bunkers" that control its nuclear arsenal. Ivanov and Russian generals
report that in response to US escalation they are deploying "the
most advanced state-of-the-art missile in the world," perhaps next
to impossible to destroy, something that "would be very alarming
to the Pentagon," says former Assistant Defense Secretary Phil
Coyle. US analysts suspect that Russia may also be duplicating US development
of a hypersonic cruise vehicle that can re-enter the atmosphere from
space and launch devastating attacks without warning, part of US plans
to reduce reliance on overseas bases or negotiated access to air routes.
US analysts estimate
that Russian military expenditures have tripled during the Bush-Putin
years, in large measure a predicted reaction to the Bush administration's
militancy and aggressiveness. Putin and Ivanov cited the Bush doctrine
of "preemptive strike" -- the "revolutionary" new
doctrine of the National Security Strategy -- but also "added a
key detail, saying that military force can be used if there is an attempt
to limit Russia's access to regions that are essential to its survival,"
thus adapting for Russia the Clinton doctrine that the US is entitled
to resort to "unilateral use of military power" to ensure
"uninhibited access to key markets, energy supplies, and strategic
resources." The world "is a much more insecure place"
now that Russia has decided to follow the US lead, said Fiona Hill of
the Brookings Institution, adding that other countries presumably "will
follow suit."
In the past, Russian
automated response systems have come within a few minutes of launching
a nuclear strike, barely aborted by human intervention. By now the systems
have deteriorated. US systems, which are much more reliable, are nevertheless
extremely hazardous. They allow three minutes for human judgment after
computers warn of a missile attack, as they frequently do. The Pentagon
has also found serious flaws in its computer security systems that might
allow terrorist hackers to seize control and simulate a launch --"an
accident waiting to happen," Bruce Blair writes. The dangers are
being consciously escalated by the threat and use of violence.
Concern is not eased
by the recent discovery that US presidents have been "systematically
misinformed" about the effects of nuclear war. The level of destruction
has been "severely underestimated" because of lack of systematic
oversight of the "insulated bureaucracies" that provide analyses
of "limited and `winnable' nuclear war"; the resulting "institutional
myopia can be catastrophic," far more so than the manipulation
of intelligence on Iraq.
The Bush administration
slated the initial deployment of a missile defense system for summer
2004, a move criticized as "completely political," employing
untested technology at great expense. A more appropriate criticism is
that the system might seem workable; in the logic of nuclear war, what
counts is perception. Both US planners and potential targets regard
missile defense as a first-strike weapon, intended to provide more freedom
for aggression, including nuclear attack. And they know how the US responded
to Russia's deployment of a very limited ABM system in 1968: by targeting
the system with nuclear weapons to ensure that it would be instantly
overwhelmed. Analysts warn that current US plans will also provoke a
Chinese reaction. History and the logic of deterrence "remind us
that missile defense systems are potent drivers of offensive nuclear
planning," and the Bush initiative will again raise the threat
to Americans and to the world.
China's reaction
may set off a ripple effect through India, Pakistan, and beyond. In
West Asia, Washington is increasing the threat posed by Israel's nuclear
weapons and other WMD by providing Israel with more than one hundred
of its most advanced jet bombers, accompanied by prominent announcements
that the bombers can reach Iran and return and are an advanced version
of the US planes Israel used to destroy an Iraqi reactor in 1981. The
Israeli press adds that the US is providing the Israeli air force with
"`special' weaponry." There can be little doubt that Iranian
and other intelligence services are watching closely and perhaps giving
a worst-case analysis: that these may be nuclear weapons. The leaks
and dispatch of the aircraft may be intended to rattle the Iranian leadership,
perhaps to provoke some action that can be used as a pretext for an
attack.
Immediately after
the National Security Strategy was announced in September 2002, the
US moved to terminate negotiations on an enforceable bioweapons treaty
and to block international efforts to ban biowarfare and the militarization
of space. A year later, at the UN General Assembly, the US voted alone
against implementation of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and alone
with its new ally India against steps toward the elimination of nuclear
weapons. The US voted alone against "observance of environmental
norms" in disarmament and arms control agreements and alone with
Israel and Micronesia against steps to prevent nuclear proliferation
in the Middle East -- the pretext for invading Iraq. A resolution to
prevent militarization of space passed 174 to 0, with four abstentions:
US, Israel, Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands. As discussed earlier,
a negative US vote or abstention amounts to a double veto: the resolution
is blocked and is eliminated from reporting and history.
Bush planners know
as well as others that the resort to force increases the threat of terror,
and that their militaristic and aggressive posture and actions provoke
reactions that increase the risk of catastrophe. They do not desire
these outcomes, but assign them low priority in comparison to the international
and domestic agendas they make little attempt to conceal.
Noam Chomsky is
a Professor of Linguistics and Philosophy at MIT. This article is a
shortened and slightly adapted version of the new afterword to the just-released
paperback edition of his Hegemony or Survival, America's Quest for Global
Dominance (part of The American Empire Project series, Metropolitan
Books). The footnotes to the well-sourced "Afterword" have
been removed from this version. An expanded version of the afterword
is also available as part of an expanded e-book version of Hegemony
or Survival.
Copyright C2004
Aviva Chomsky, Diane Chomsky and Harry Chomsky. Reprinted by arrangement
with Metropolitan Books, an imprint of Henry Holt and Company, LLC .
[This article first
appeared on Tomdispatch.com, a weblog of the Nation Institute, which
offers a steady flow of alternate sources, news, and opinion from Tom
Engelhardt, long time editor in publishing and author of The End of
Victory Culture and The Last Days of Publishing.]