This past September, 2002, provided a natural occasion for publishing reflections on the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, or for examinations of the effects of that day. The fact that the name of al-Qaida appears far less in the press now than that of Saddam Hussein is only one of many things that need explaining. Apparently, the mainstream press, for the most part, doesn't see providing these kinds of explanations as one of their jobs. That's why I spent my birthday this year, just a few days after the September 11th anniversary, greedily devouring (mostly) September issues of what might be termed the "mainstream left" of the American press: The Nation, Harper's, and The New York Review of Books, with The New Yorker thrown in for good (or bad) measure. And while the first three periodicals named have all done an excellent job in probing the various aspects of this ongoing story, The Nation's anniversary issue of September 23, 2002, deserves special commendation. Taken together, these articles lay out fairly clearly the current administration's goals. The articles also provide a guide to how the last year has played out among various commentators. Both are important for what lies ahead.
Jonathon Schell's "The Path to Point B" starts with a simple question--How did we get from the horrific attack on September 11 of last year to preparing for war against Iraq?--and suggests an answer. This is important, because the administration has never clearly laid out its foreign policy, although a consistent policy can be surmised by piecing together the administration's actions and statements ever since the decision on Kyoto. According to Schell, the steps leading to the present situation go something like this:
- Step 1: Deciding to declare a "war on terrorism" rather than on a specific country or even group
- Step 2: Undertaking the overthrow of a foreign government (the Taliban regime in Afghanistan)
- Step 3: "Expand[ing] the definition of the war on terrorism to include stopping the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction"
This has all happened in a fairly diffused fashion, and so it has been easy to miss the logic connecting it all together. Even if it wasn't necessarily planned this way, it clearly leads to the possibility of attacking Iraq. Iraq is certainly known to have used chemical and biological weapons in the past, and to have pursued acquiring nuclear weapons (though reports differ, to say the least, on the current state of such weapons). The administration has established a clear precedent in effecting a "regime change" in Afghanistan. The weak link here is obviously step 1, because there is no demonstrated link between Iraq and al-Qaida. This is why Iraq's past loathsome behavior against its own citizens has been called into play.
Schell is good at recalling history. For example, he reminds us of the public disagreements between Powell and Wolfowitz on overthrowing the Taliban government, and the principle implied in that act. Schell also reminds us of longer-term history. Bush's fateful State of the Union speech, where he named the "axis of evil," announced an unprecedented shift in US foreign policy: nuclear non-proliferation, which had always been a diplomatic function, "has now become a military undertaking." As Schell writes, "in the 1940s there was no pre-emptive strike against the nuclear-weapons program of Stalin, a dictator who had overseen the murder of tens of millions of his own citizens." There are no doubt those in the administration who would argue that such reticence was harmful, and that a preemptive strike should have been launched. However, the point is that it is a significant and dramatic shift in US foreign policy, which has received little public debate.
The three steps above were pulled together, according to Schell, this past June, in Bush's commencement speech at West Point: "The days of American reliance on 'deterrence' and 'containment,' he said, were over. Now the United States must 'be ready for pre-emptive action.' He also said, 'America has, and intends to keep, military strengths beyond challenge, thereby making the destabilizing arms races of other eras pointless'."
The above language directly echoes that of the Defense Planning Guidance, a document that has just recently been receiving some serious attention. David Armstrong's "Dick Cheney's Song of America: Drafting a plan for global dominance" is the best sustained look at the long life of the DPG and its many changes. The DPG provides a blueprint for preemptive strikes and "regime change;" and, even though it was originally conceived at the very end of the Cold War, it is being enacted now as a response to the post-9/11 world.
One of the benefits of Armstrong's article is the way that it traces the history of the DPG and its origins in the administration of Bush I. Some of the roots of the conflict between Cheney/Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz, on the one hand, and Powell on the other can be found in this history. Many people are apparently so desperate for an old-style internationalist in the current administration that they are prepared to invest Powell with that role. It is surely an indication of the extremity of many in the administration that Powell can appear so moderate. Armstrong reminds us that Powell once articulated the desire for the US to be the "bully on the block." It also needs to be remembered that the practice, now enshrined, of massive bombardment and "surgical strikes" at the outset of a military campaign was called, during the Gulf War, the Powell Doctrine.
Next page: Preemptive nuclear strikes?
