-Caveat Lector-
~~for educational purposes only~~
[Title 17 U.S.C. section 107]
The Empire Was:
Case & Method for Achieving a Peace Treaty
Between Saddam Hussein’s Iraq & these United States
by Alan Turin
The Empire Was.
We knew someday America’s empire would end.
The end is at hand.
An empire must be able to project power at a steep
discount relative to its possessions or outside
challengers. Once the steep discount for power
projection cost is gone, in time, [when not if]
challengers emerge, from within the realm, outside
or both.
The signs have been there for a while. Some mark
the fall of Saigon as the sign others the ouster from
Lebanon. C. Northcote Parkinson in his The Law
and the Profits used taxes as a measure. Once
States consume more than a third of national
income they began international decline.
For myself the twenty-two months from the Berlin
Wall’s collapse to the failed coup in the Soviet
Union marked the end. In that short time the U.S.
fought two wars: a small one with Panama and a
larger one with Iraq. Panama and Iraq were U.S.
client states that went renegade. Only against tiny
Panama did the U.S. win. Challenges from within
the realm began.
Since that watershed moment the U.S. has:
o Intervened in Somalia only to be forced out by
native guerilla action.
o Invaded Haiti [a military joke] to "restore"
democracy. Haitians today get political asylum as
"democracy" and its allied virtues are not firmly
held.
o Waged an air war in the Balkans and have stayed
to keep the peace. Serbia’s former leader, indicted
for war crimes, has effectively argued his case. He
may win.
o U.S. forces are "in harms way" in the Philippines
[literally a former colony].
o Near the Iraq border the U.S. is giving diplomatic
cover to the Russians who are suppressing their
own peripheral challengers.
o Red Cathay got the U.S. to identify a separatist,
dissident group as a "terrorist" organization.
o Afghan "President" [proconsul?] Karzai was
almost assassinated despite U.S. bodyguards. U.S.
bodyguards? Karzai can’t be certain of Afghans.
Can we? How secure is "Our Man in Kabul" if he
can’t trust Afghans?
Are China, Russia and the Philippines supporting
war against Iraq? No.
NATO has voted no. The U.N., of which the U.S.
is a charter member, permanent member of the
Security Council, can expect a veto by China,
France or Russia. Or they could all vote no.
Expending blood and treasure to achieve zero
diplomatic results is a sign of an empire in decline.
Steep decline.
Look back to October 1956. President Eisenhower
had twin foreign problems. Hungary revolted from
Soviet rule counting on NATO support.
England, France & Israel invaded Egypt to regain
the Suez Canal. Eisenhower felt betrayed by the
three, as they had assured him they would act in
concert with the U.S. The Soviets bitterly
denounced the Anglo-French-Israeli actions to take
diplomatic pressure off of them for Hungary.
Eisenhower ordered an oil embargo against the
three and had the Treasury sell their currencies. His
action forced them to pull back.
That was imperial action: at a trifling cost to the
U.S. Eisenhower got the three to heel. "An empire
must be able to project power at a steep discount
relative to its possessions or outside challengers."
Imagine the U.S. today ordering a sell-off of
foreign reserves to pressure allies to join, or at least
acquiesce, a war with Iraq. Add an embargo of
U.S. oil exports [U.S. oil exports?] also. It would
be a fiasco. We would face an oil embargo. Add in
a dollar sell-off to boot.
Double-dip recession? Try, bent tire rim in a
pothole, then into a ravine, panic.
Which is the point: the [American] Empire was.
Trouble: President Bush is in denial of U.S. power
capacity. Rejecting an aspect of one’s persona can
hurt the denier, his family, friends and even those
with whom he interacts.
Denial, in a leader of an empire, is deadly.
This isn’t to say that the U.S. couldn’t invade Iraq.
Recent war games proved the U.S., virtually
unassisted by allies, could beat Iraqi forces. Unless
the Iraqi’s fight as a retired U.S. Marine did at the
same war games thwarting the invasion: which
meant Iraq won the war. To say the Iraqi’s could
not fight that way is a species of denial.
The Case for a Peace Treaty Between Saddam
Hussein’s Iraq & these United States.
The general principle of U.S. Mideast policy is to
support a balance of power so that no one regime
controls the flow of oil. Second, to maintain
diplomatic relations with all parties so as to have
access and influence among them.
When Israel was founded this complicated the
policy as the U.S. chose to be a guarantor of an
Israeli state which was opposed by Arab states.
Remember Israel has had conventional wars with
Egypt, Jordan, Syria and today has a peace, albeit
a cold one, with them.
Israel’s main military activity has been anti-guerilla
actions. Most anti-Israeli guerilla’s come from
dispossessed Palestinians of 1948 and 1967. The
Saudi Peace Plan incorporates U.N. resolutions
that address those dispossessed Palestinians.
Questions of secure borders for Israel due to lack
of "strategic depth" assume that Israel will be at
war again with Jordan & Syria, an assumption that
few Israelis make today. Their challenge is guerilla
war.
Concerning a peace treaty with Iraq. Iraq has no
interest in attacking the U.S. Iraq has an interest in
keeping Islamic fundamentalism from spreading
from Iran. They have an interest in maintaining their
State’s grip over their populace. That is not a
uniquely Iraqi flaw: all States want to keep power.
The U.S. has an interest in obtaining oil, which Iraq
has for sale. The U.S. has an interest in precluding
future terrorist attacks.
Saddam’s regime’s nastiness is no impediment to
U.S. diplomacy. The U.S. defended the Khmer
Rouge merely to thwart Soviet machinations in
Southeast Asia after losing Vietnam.
Vietnam defeated America, killed seventeen-fold
more Americans than were lost last September and
in the First Iraq War combined. Vietnam & the
U.S. have diplomatic relations.
Israel killed more Americans than Iraq killed in the
First Iraq War. Israel continues to both spy and
receive subsidies from the U.S. Israel & the U.S.
have diplomatic relations.
More recently the People’s Republic of China
killed scores of their people in 1989. Just 50 years
ago U.S. and Chinese soldiers were at war in a
"police action." The PRC & the U.S. have
diplomatic relations.
Regarding last September’s attack: most of those
perpetrators were Saudi, not Iraqi. No evidence
persuasively, let alone conclusively, links Iraq to
that attack.
The evidence the White House has shown the
Congress, France, Russia, Germany, Japan, China,
Turkey, India, Pakistan, Japan, South Korea,
Canada, the Pope, Mexico, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia,
the Arab League, Spain, South Africa…their name
is legion…hasn’t convinced them that Iraq:
1. Had anything to do with last September’s
attack;
2. Has ABC [atomic, biological, chemical]
weapons, or delivery capability;
3. What rudimentary ABC facilities or weapons
have been released to terrorists.
As an assurance the Deputy Prime Minister Aziz
has accepted inspections to prove the above items.
Iraq is merely demanding that such inspectors not
be U.S. spies, a reasonable requirement. Their
acceptance was pulled off the table as Bush has
said inspections won’t trump an invasion. Aziz is
offering a comprehensive agreement to end
sanctions, which have killed 1.2 million innocents
in Iraq.
Despite a former Secretary of State’s "tough love"
statement that those deaths have been worthwhile,
she is alone among foreign ministers who have so
opined. Including the current Israeli foreign
minister.
The objective conditions exist to achieve a peace
treaty between Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and these
United States. Why this seems so impossible now
is based on subjective conditions, to wit, politics.
Thus,
Politics: The Art of the Possible.
George W. Bush and the war party’s influence are
what prevent peace.
President Bush has indulged in provocative
language that makes a negotiated peace difficult.
While I am no fan of Abraham Lincoln, he had a
phrase that my parents taught me. The advice
didn’t stick, but the phrase did, "Better to be silent
and thought a fool then to open your mouth and
remove all doubt." Unhappily Bush cannot unsay
his prior statements.
Whatever good impulses Bush may have in trying
for peace he faces the war party in both his
Cabinet, advisors and in the salons of the Beltway.
Therefore their influence, Bush & the war party,
need to be curtailed.
We need a peace movement. We have one now
that is small, but we haven’t had a shooting war
start with Iraq either. The last major peace
movement started in 1965 during the Vietnam War.
America was in Vietnam since at least 1961 so it
took four years to build. Yes, there were
opponents to American involvement in Vietnam
before 1965, but in effectiveness toward elections,
that didn’t happen until 1965. And it grew.
In Oregon 1,500 protesters surprised many with
their protests. Antiwar candidates, particularly
those of the Right [those in the right], need help.
What is to be done? Here are a few points:
First, Pray for peace.
Second, Write your Congressional representatives
Cong. Armey and Paul, and your opposed to a
war with Iraq. Then print your email and send it by
snail mail. Snail mail counts higher than email. It is
shocking how few letters these people get from
constituents. Remember the rule of elected
officials, "When I feel the heat, I see the light."
Third, when you join a peace group, make a point
with leading with prayer. The left has lost touch
with Americans for over a generation. We on the
Right [those in the right] will be dealing with a lot
of "the usual suspects." They are analytic enough
to know they don’t resonate with most Americans.
Being a rightwing conservative who wants the
Republic back and prays for the quick demise of
the Empire and leads meetings with prayer will
achieve a worthy end: Peace.
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