Month in Review #53
September 30, 2009

By Max Elbaum, War Times/Tiempo de Guerras

The ship of empire is adjusting its course. There is some welcome news. But on crucial battlefronts from Afghanistan to Honduras, whether there is substantive or only cosmetic change still hangs in the balance.

This month the Obama administration made its biggest policy change yet in previous imperial strategy. The White House announced that it was scrapping George Bush's planned missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic and instead deploying a much scaled-down version in southern Europe or Turkey. Bush's system had been promoted as defending Europe against Iran, but it was an open secret that Russia was the real target. The decision to abandon this descendent of Ronald Reagan's Star Wars fantasy is a blow against the still-numerous carry-overs from Washington's Cold War military posture. It opens a door to progress in nuclear disarmament.

Of course Obama didn't admit that his decision constituted a major imperial retreat. He instead argued that the scaled-down system would provide a "stronger" and "more effective" defense against the alleged Iranian threat. But no one was fooled. Anti-U.S. bases movements in Poland and the Czech Republic celebrated their victory while the far right in those countries grumbled about U.S. "betrayal. Russian leaders praised the decision as "brave" while Republicans ramped up their attacks on Obama as selling out to "America's enemies": "Scrapping the U.S. missile defense system does little more than empower Russia and Iran at the expense of our allies,” said Republican House leader John Boehner. "It shows a willful determination to continue ignoring the threat posed by some of the most dangerous regimes in the world, while taking one of the most important defenses against Iran off the table.”

Another adjustment gets underway October 1 when direct talks involving the U.S. and Iran begin. Robert Dreyfus writes in The Nation, "Even the latest flare-up over the secret Iranian enrichment facility doesn't change the basic fact: Washington and Tehran, after three decades without diplomatic relations, will be talking. It's a startling and important reversal of U.S. policy… abandoning the charged rhetoric of the Bush administration which looked aghast at the idea of negotiating with Iran."

Talking certainly is better than not talking. But what if anything will come of these negotiations remains up for grabs. It's a bad sign that they begin, not right after Obama's respectful words about Iran spoken in Cairo, but immediately following last week's cheap gamesmanship by the White House and its European allies regarding Iran's just-announced second nuclear enrichment facility. (Matters are also not helped by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denialism and repressive stance toward his country's democracy movement.) The opportunity for a "grand bargain" that would respect Iranian sovereignty and lay the groundwork for peace and normalization of U.S.-Iranian relations remains. (See the call by former National Security Council Staffers Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett for a "strategic realignment with Iran" in the Sept. 29 New York Times.)

But there is also the grave danger of failure, regression and a new period of heightened tension and, especially, of an Israeli attack on Iran.

Meanwhile the conflicts in Afghanistan, Honduras and Israel-Palestine are all at potential turning points. How much Washington's course will change - or not change - on each of those fronts is a matter of intense struggle right now. Every force with an interest in the outcome is weighing in, hopefully the peace movement not least. Mass demonstrations, civil disobedience, and other actions are planned for this next month. With every ounce of pressure needed to make a difference, it is time for another big push.

IRAN: WASHINGTON'S DANGEROUS GAME

Dreyfus' Nation column pinpoints the dangerous game Washington is playing in its approach to negotiations with Iran. Full text here.

As Dreyfus points out, it's a big advance from the Bush period that Robert Gates - Secretary of Defense under Bush held over by Obama - has all but taken the threat of a U.S. military attack "off the table":

"Gates did his part to lower the temperature by stating explicitly that the U.S. does not have a military option to deal with Iran's nuclear program: Gates said 'there is no military option that does anything more than buy time. The only way you end up not having a nuclear-capable Iran is for the Iranian government to decide that their security is diminished by having those weapons, as opposed to strengthened.'"

That's good as far as it goes. But huge problems remain with the strategy chosen by the administration in light of this fact. A U.S. approach that was based on the mutual respect that Obama references in his oratory would be straightforward: guarantee Iran that the U.S. will not pursue "regime change," normalize relations, and press for a nuclear free zone in the Middle East. Iran in turn would commit to fulfilling all its obligations as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), including allowing inspections of its nuclear facilities by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). There are overwhelming indications Tehran is ready to agree to such a "grand bargain" while - despite Western and Israeli propaganda - there is no hard evidence whatsoever that Iran's nuclear program is for anything but the peaceful uses it claims. See Juan Cole's recent postings for extensive discussion of this point.

But the administration's stance toward Iran is based on maximizing U.S. clout rather than any high-minded principles. The most glaring disconnect is Washington's nuclear double-standard. Israel has more than 100 nuclear weapons, Tel Aviv refuses to sign the NPT, and - though Iran has repeated its "never strike first" pledge many times - Israeli leaders regularly threaten to attack Iran. But to Washington (as well as the U.K. and France) all this is simply "the natural order of things" and has nothing to do with tension or injustice in the Middle East. Washington simply claims for itself the right to decide who can have nuclear weapons and who cannot. So for its peaceful nuclear program, NPT signer Iran faces bullying and threats of sanctions, while NPT-defier and nuclear-armed Israel gets kid glove rhetorical treatment and billions a year in U.S. aid.

Even this presidential posture is not enough for U.S. hawks. In a sign of just how thoroughly "we-are-ordained-to-rule-the-world" thinking pervades official U.S. politics, several Republican Senators and Neocon pundit Eliot Cohen loudly stated again that the goal of Iran policy should be "regime change" - and no establishment figure or mainstream media editorial even bats an eye. It's a stark reminder that the peace movement's tasks are multi-leveled: help develop a coalition broad enough to prevent any U.S. military attack on Iran and rein in the Israeli adventurers; expose the hypocrisy in the administration's approach to U.S.-Iran negotiations and resist the whole threaten-sanction-bully combination; and step-by-step convince ever-broader layers of the population that the entire "U.S. is Number One" mindset is an obstacle to a peaceful and more just world.     

AFGHANISTAN: "TURNING POINT IN THE ROAD"

Meanwhile U.S. policy in Afghanistan is at a potential turning point. U.S. Commander Stanley McChrystal's assessment of conditions there was leaked to the press and it paints a blunt picture. Reporters at the Washington Post who have seen McChrystal's review say it warns that unless more U.S. troops are injected into Afghanistan during the next year, Washington's war there will likely be lost. And this was no "neutral" leak. It was a volley in the battle that is now acknowledged to be raging within and between the military brass and the Obama administration. One faction remains committed to escalation and "victory" while another, increasingly joined by a layer of congressional Democrats, believes the war is hopeless and that the U.S. should scale back its presence to the use of drones and "special operations" against Al-Qaeda and other jihadists. Obama for the last few months has seemed bent on escalation (albeit with goals more limited than "victory"). But presidential statements in the wake of an Afghan election that spotlighted the utter corruption and illegitimacy of the U.S.-backed regime indicate he may be rethinking things.

It is thus an urgent moment for maximum pressure for U.S. withdrawal. Conditions are more favorable than before to make a difference: the majority of the U.S. public has turned against continuing the war, and even some conservatives have started saying it's time to get out. Columnist George Will was pilloried by the right for his heresy in that regard, and conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan has ventured to assess matters with a frankness that still evades most liberal war critics:

"McChrystal's role is to find a way to win: he's a soldier fighting a war. And yet this hardest of hard-nosed military men essentially concedes that this is a political problem at its heart. You cannot fight a counter-insurgency on behalf of a government that is as corrupt as Karzai's. And you cannot fight a counter-insurgency without vast numbers of troops to protect a population in an extremely remote and ungovernable region. And you cannot fight without tackling the real source of the terror - in Pakistan.

"It seems to me we are at another turning point in the road, and one of the few moments when American enmeshment in Afghanistan might be turned back. We have to weigh the chances of serious terror groups re-grouping and operating even more freely throughout Afghanistan and Pakistan against the risks of more money, more troops, more casualties and more blowback. Neither of these is a good option. That's the Bush legacy.

"But if McChrystal is right, he is strategizing Afghanistan as a semi-permanent protectorate for the U.S. This is empire in the 21st century sense: occupying failed states indefinitely to prevent even more chaos spinning out of them. And it has the embedded logic of all empires: if it doesn't keep expanding, it will collapse. The logic of McChrystal is that the U.S. should be occupying Pakistan as well. And Somalia. And anywhere al Qaeda might seek refuge."

HONDURAS: U.S. POLICY A DISGRACE

Manuel Zelaya's dramatic return to his country has galvanized Honduras' popular majority and, combined with continuing pressure from throughout Latin America, has put the coup regime on the defensive. Internal fissures within the regime seem to be opening up, as evidenced the coup-makers' flip-flops in the last three days. At first announcing a suspension of all civil liberties while sending troops to close down Radio Globo and the Cholusat Sur television station, on September 28 coup leader Roberto Micheletti backed down. He said he wanted to "ask the Honduran people for forgiveness" for the measures and said he would lift them and allow the dissident media outlets to reopen. Micheletti also said he would welcome an advance team from the Organization of American States into the country starting Friday, after expelling four members of a similar team Sunday,

The coup regime is barely hanging on, and without continuing wink-and-nod backing from Washington would undoubtedly collapse. But in the administration's most disgraceful statement regarding this crisis so far, Lew Amselem, the U.S. representative to the OAS, criticized Zelaya's return to Honduras as fiercely as he criticized the coup-makers repression. Amselem's posture was sharply criticized by a spokesperson for Brazilian President Lula da Silva, a key anchor of the Latin American front against the coup. It is another moment when the Obama administration's actions contradict the President's own statements regarding the restoration of Honduran democracy. But it is also a moment when the balance of forces within Honduras and the entire hemisphere is such that Washington and the coup-makers can be pushed back.

NETANYAHU CALLS OBAMA'S BLUFF

U.S. policy toward Israel and Palestine was always going to be the most difficult item to change. Even Obama's shift in tone regarding the conflict has been ferociously criticized by the powerful Israel Lobby and its many allies across the spectrum of U.S. politics, not to mention the Israeli leadership. All the more so Obama's demand that Israel totally freeze settlement expansion in Palestinian areas beyond Israel's 1967 borders.  Prime Minister Netanyahu's government stood firm against such a freeze and, as of the Sept. 22 Washington meeting between Obama, Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, seems to have prevailed. Obama no longer insisted on a settlement freeze as a step toward serious direct negotiations between the parties. He shifted to encouraging "both sides" to proceed to talks without delay.

With Israel extremely dependent on U.S. military, economic and diplomatic backing, this would seem a surprising outcome. But it's not. That backing only gives the U.S. leverage if a U.S. leader is prepared to threaten to reduce or stop it, and then muster the will and political strength at home to carry out the threat. Short of that U.S. presidential rhetoric may be able to cause the Israeli government a little bit of embarrassment, but there's no way it will alter the course of their ongoing colonial, expansionist project. Even when top-level U.S. policy-makers have concluded that Israeli expansionism is at a level that antagonizes the Arab and Muslim worlds - and all people of conscience - to such a degree that it hurts rather than advances Washington's global strategic interests.

At least some U.S. foreign policy heavyweights, including ones with a voice inside the Obama administration, have reached that last conclusion.  But the combination of their own anti-Palestinian prejudices, the momentum from a 40-year-long "special relationship" with Israel, and the grip of Israel-is-special sentiment in U.S. politics present huge obstacles to making it an actual operative politic. It will take a huge grassroots groundswell for a shift in U.S. policy - in conjunction with international pressure - to bring such a change about.

MAKE NOISE

Groundswells don't grow in linear fashion, they ebb and flow. Large-scale mass protests were a feature of resistance to the Iraq War, but now the peace movement (like all other movements and social forces) is in a period of transition; marches and civil disobedience actions cannot be expected to match the high points of 2003-2007. But they are a vital component of the urgent pressure we must bring to bear nonetheless. Important actions are planned in Washington DC October 5 and all across the country on October 17 and other dates. Go to www.unitedforpeace.org for details.

For the long-haul dimension of this period of digging in and ramping up, see War Weariness, Military Heft, and Peace Building, by H. Patricia Hynes posted on the War Times/Tiempo de Guerras homepage at: http://www.war-times.org

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