International Action Center 39 West 14th Street, #206 New York, NY 10011 212-633-6646 fax: 212-633-2889 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Powell visit, air raids show Struggle in Bush gov't over Iraq Commentary By Brian Becker It is no accident that the first apparent foreign policy struggle taking place inside the Bush administration concerns the deepening crisis in the Middle East. While U.S. foreign policy has gone through numerous strategic and tactical shifts over the decades, one fundamental objective of U.S. policy has remained remarkably consistent. Since the closing days of World War II, all policy makers, presidents, and secretaries of state and defense have agreed that the U.S. government should exercise absolute domination over the Middle East-- especially the oil-rich Persian/Arabian Gulf region. Two-thirds of the world's known oil reserves rest in this region. It is a source of fabulous corporate profits. Oil constitutes the most vital strategic resource for military and industrial power. Meaning of Powell's tour This fundamental fact must be kept in mind when trying to understand the meaning of Secretary of State Gen. Colin Powell's highly publicized tour of several Middle East countries in late February. Powell has publicly said that the United States should modify or ease some of the economic sanctions on Iraq, so as to rally Syria, Jordan, Egypt and other Arab regimes to support a less severe form of economic sanctions. Powell's attempt to reorient U.S. policy on Iraq is under attack from inside the Bush administration. Powell is being presented as a "dove" in a struggle with Pentagon and Bush administration "hardliners." Never mind that this is the same former Chief of Staff who, during the Gulf War, went on national TV to announce that U.S. military strategy toward Iraq's army was: "First, we are going to cut it off. Then we are going to kill it." When asked by a shocked reporter at the conclusion of the war/massacre, "Is it true that 100,000 Iraqis were killed by the allied bombardment?" Powell blandly responded, "That is not a figure that interests me very much." What explains the shift in position from the State Department? Powell represents a section of the U.S. establishment that is deeply worried that growing anger against U.S./UN economic sanctions and Washington's backing of Israeli aggression will lead to isolation or even an anti-U.S. uprising in the region. The Arab people are increasingly angry about the U.S.-imposed sanctions that have killed more than 1.2 million civilians in Iraq. For their part, the U.S. allies in the region--or to be more accurate, the U.S. client governments in Egypt, Jordan and even Saudi Arabia--are worried that they could face popular revolts because of their close association with Washington's policy. Defiance of sanctions spreading Without an adjustment in U.S. policy, according to Powell's view, the sanctions will completely unravel because they will be more and more routinely ignored. Other major capitalist powers like France, Germany, Japan and Russia also want to scrap the sanctions for their own commercial and energy purposes. In recent months, scores of countries have defied the U.S. and allowed airplanes to begin flying to Baghdad. An international trade fair in Baghdad a few weeks ago drew representatives from scores of countries eager to resume business with Iraq. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was one who feared a worldwide backlash. Despite her hawkish orientation, Albright felt forced to announce last September that the U.S. would refrain from carrying out military attacks against Iraq. Instead of stopping the anti-sanctions momentum, though, neighboring countries immediately began to open their borders and initiate renewed trade with Iraq, completely bypassing the UN Sanctions Committee. Jordan, for example, recently announced it plans to create "a free trade zone" with Iraq. Different tactics, same objective Powell's trip to the Middle East was designed to create the impression that he could help the U.S. allies/clients in the region by calling for an easing of some sanctions. He also called for Israel to "lift the siege" of the Palestinian territories. This is language that is used by the Palestinian Authority. But it hardly represented a new policy of live-and-let-live toward Iraq. In his meetings with King Abdullah of Jordan, Powell insisted that the country drop its plans for a "free-trade zone," although poverty is soaring there as a result of reduced trade with its most important neighbor. Powell demanded that Syrian President Bashir Assad re-seal the Iraq/Syrian border and turn over any purported Iraqi oil revenues to the U.S.-controlled UN Sanctions Committee. According to the newspaper Arab Jerusalem, Powell offered to remove Syria from the U.S. "Terrorist Countries List." He offered to support Syria's bid to become a non- permanent member of the UN Security Council in exchange for placing an Iraq-Syria oil pipeline under UN control. At the same time that he offered these carrots, Powell demanded that Syria help stifle the resistance movement in Lebanon. Powell, like all the other major figures in the government, is committed to U.S. economic and military domination over the region. He wants to provide political help for the Arab regimes as a political tactic aimed at stabilizing the situation and deepening the long term struggle against Iraq. The Powell-run State Department still has the goal of overthrowing the government in Iraq. In an analysis issued on Feb. 26 by the al-Quds al- Arabi daily newspaper, published in London, Powell's tour of the region was described as an attempt to rebuild the anti-Iraq coalition that existed during the elder Bush's administration in 1990-1991. The aim, according to the paper, is to complete the task of installing a pro-U.S. government in Iraq--a country with 10 percent of the world's known oil reserves. The right vs. the ultra-right According to reports in the corporate-owned media, Powell's position has touched off "a fierce debate in the Bush administration on Iraq policy." Powell told the New York Times that he is being criticized by "hardliners" in the Bush administration. "The charges will come that it [support for easing some of the sanctions] is weakening," Powell told the Times in a front page story on Feb. 27. Who are these hardliners? Presumably they include Pentagon chief Rumsfeld as well as Vice President Dick Cheney, who held Rumsfeld's position during the 1991 Gulf War, and newly-nominated Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfkowitz. They favor an even more aggressive position. Wolfkowitz has advocated the creation of a contra-style army and the introduction of U.S. troops into oil-rich southern Iraq - the region the U.S. has declared an Iraqi "no-fly zone." On Feb. 16, the eve of Powell's trip, the Pentagon carried out massive, unprovoked air strikes on Baghdad. Iraq's capital city has 5 million inhabitants. While Powell was preparing to mollify Arab public opinion with new, more "humane, smart" sanctions, the Pentagon's secret air attacks ignited mass protests in Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt. Even the usually-pliant Gulf monarchies issued statements condemning the attack. While Pentagon officials told the U.S. media that they used "precision missiles" against Iraqi radar installations, the truth is that they used large numbers of huge cluster bombs. The use of these weapons constitutes a war crime. Cluster bombs are scattershot weapons consisting of hundreds of incendiary and anti-personnel bomblets designed to incinerate, maim and shred human beings. The Pentagon now admits that it dropped 28 cluster bombs in Iraq on Feb. 16. Twenty six of the bombs "missed their targets," according to Pentagon sources, as reported by former army intelligence analyst William Arkin. Each 14-foot-long cluster bomb weighed 1,000 pounds and rained down 145 bomblets on an area the size of a football field, with six bombs falling in every 1,000 square feet. Not quite a "precision" weapon. The sneak attack on Baghdad with cluster bombs was the Pentagon's way of saying: "We have 25,000 troops in the Gulf, we have terror weapons, we have the capacity to inflict limitless violence on those who defy us. You, the people of the Middle East, will succumb to our dictates or else." It's always good to remember that John F. Kennedy, a politician who was certainly not averse to using the military to implement U.S. foreign policy goals, characterized the Pentagon establishment's mentality like this: "The military is mad." That unholy trinity of the Pentagon, the military-industrial complex and Big Oil is so rabidly right wing that they have lost no time in branding as "weakness" any mild "peace-sounding" adjustment in U.S. Middle East tactics. The Pentagon is on a roll. But its arrogance and cruelty will backfire as it unwittingly provokes the revolutionary response that becomes more inevitable with each passing day. --30-- International Action Center 39 West 14th Street, Room 206 New York, NY 10011 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] web: http://www.iacenter.org CHECK OUT SITE http://www.mumia2000.org phone: 212 633-6646 fax: 212 633-2889 *To make a tax-deductible donation, go to http://www.peoplesrightsfund.org _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki Phone +358-40-7177941 Fax +358-9-7591081 http://www.kominf.pp.fi General class struggle news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Geopolitical news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________________________
