Marvin, > I guess we've reached the point where your guess is as good as mine, Julio. > I agree with much of what you say, but we still seem to have a different > perception of how necessary the occupation is to US economic and security > interests, and how determined the Bush administration is to maintain it. I > think the long occupation, on balance, is harming those interests, and we > sometimes forget that the Bushites never planned on one.
Our disagreement may be minor though. In these exchanges, my emphasis has been on the importance of Iraq to U.S. *imperialism*, not to U.S. *capitalism*. They are not disconnected, but neither are they identical or the former the inevitable manifestation of the latter. (I view imperialism as much more of an historical contingency in U.S. capitalist history than, say, those who apply Lenin's theses on imperialism to the U.S. literally.) To summarize my views: With regards to U.S. *imperialism*, the outcome of the Iraq occupation is decisive. The defeat will be ruinous. With regards to U.S. *capitalism*, the occupation is not only not necessary, but harmful, and -- in fact -- the defeat may turn out to be a blessing for U.S. capitalism in the long run. We'll see. As I say in my Swans' piece, that contradiction between the imperialist tendencies of the U.S. ruling class and the overall capitalist nature of this society, which expresses itself ideologically as the clash between the vision of a "decent, liberal America" (coupled with some version of "neo-liberalism" abroad) and the neo-con wet dreams of imperial unilateralism, is the burning conflict of U.S. society today. And we'll see that, even after the occupation of Iraq ends, this conflict is not going to go away. Superficial radicalism believes that engaging in this conflict is a choice *they* can make -- that U.S. workers (or some proxy revolutionary force) can and should bypass it. My point is that, for U.S. workers as a collective whole, avoiding this conflict is not an option. On the contrary, to unite, to conquer their political independence, to form as a class, U.S. workers need to engage in this conflict and sharpen it, because they need to dispute the leadership of the progressive side of the conflict. > They badly miscalculated, as Scowcroft and the other savants predicted. Now > all the political factions are floundering around for a graceful exit > strategy. I think both the Republicans and the Democratic leadership are > hoping the December elections in Iraq will split the Sunnis and isolate the > armed resistance, and that the insurgency will be contained long enough for > the US to withdraw the main body of its forces from the country. They may be > hoping against hope, but I don't think they will have the alternative of > pouring good money after bad, as you suggest. Raising US troop strength to > match the growing insurgency is simply not in the cards given the state of > American public opinion. Even Rumsfeld has floated the idea of a drawdown. > The pace of a withdrawal, not withdrawal itself, is what I think separates > the two parties. Just to clarify: It's not that I don't see the need for the Bushies to withdraw now and limit the losses. I think Paul Krugman made this case most clearly in his latest NY Times column. The real choice is between two kinds of defeat, etc. But, for those who look after the interest of U.S. capitalism *and* are not tied to the Bush administration, it is easy to say that Iraq is a sunk cost, spilled milk over which there's no point in crying. Sunk costs don't enter the cost-benefit calculus. But things look very different when it's *you* who spilled the milk. Just consider Cheney's speech at the AEI and the most recent declarations by Rumsfeld and Bush. They're burning vessels and bridges behind them. I picture Rumsfeld in 2001 explaining Bush the time-inconsistency problem in dynamic decision making. No kidding, economists have looked at the two sides of this type of behavior. I mean, Dan Kahneman won the 2002 Nobel in economics for showing (with Amos Tversky) that systematic "framing" biases (such as the so-called "aversion to sure loss") cloud the judgment of decision makers. But, as they show, these biases don't result from mere tricks our fickle minds may play on us. Much depends on our perception of what's at stake. Size matters. That's what I've tried to say -- something akin to what Marx referred to when he wrote that "the Anglican Church will more gracefully forgive an attack on 38 of its 39 articles of faith than on 1/39 of its income." Julio
