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Perpetual War ~ #10
By Alan F. Kay, PhD
© 2002, (fair use with attribution and copy to authors)
Oct. 9, 2002
President George W. Bush's Iraq policy has nearly succeeded in meeting every requirement that public-interest polling has proven will strengthen popular support for a military intervention. These requirements, summarized in five bullets in my June 14 column and based on 15 years of survey research, would bring, when fully in place, public support for military intervention into an astronomical range, 80-90 percent.
Top advisors, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, have made clear that there is no doubt in their minds that the first two requirements are fully met, namely Saddam Hussein, himself, is clearly guilty of the three most heinous crimes: (1) supporting international terrorism, (2) gross violation of the human rights of his own people, and, most particularly, (3) acquiring weapons of mass destruction: chemical, biological, and nuclear. Both Cheney and Rumsfeld assert that the United States must take whatever steps are necessary to disarm Iraq, including — and the sooner the better — military intervention.
Bush, himself, is playing the "good cop", holding off while making clear by his actions that military intervention will be used only after all non-military means to stop these rogue crimes have failed (the third requirement) and the United States gains the support of countries key to a successful intervention and other countries too (the fourth requirement). To this end, Bush has done two things:
(1) He has quietly offered tailored deals to key countries like Russia, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia (perhaps many others, but certainly not North Korea or Iran, the other two in the "axis of evil"). These deals may offer a share of low-cost Iraqi oil (the spoils of war) and various forms of protection, bordering on bribery. The United States may pay to make allies whole in foregone sales to Iraq and look the other way should these countries need to "take out" neighboring regimes that harbor alleged terrorists threatening their power base. In exchange, the United States asks only for modest support: overflight, refueling or small base rights, or token troop participation in the war, or looking ahead to the post-war world, for some not yet defined, non-military, but low-cost role to rebuild and protect the newly-installed Iraq regime. Since a large U.S. air strike will be the opening salvo of the war, the total cost will probably be enormous (think "rebuilding a bomb-leveled Baghdad"). Currently, countries are not worried about that. Each believes somehow others will pay those costs.
(2) Bush has asked for a UN resolution that would bring Saudi Arabia and many other countries into the U.S. camp and would strengthen the UN role in the world by gaining Iraqi compliance with a new resolution, backed up by the threat of force and calling for a new unfettered UN inspection team that would make up for some 16 UN resolutions ignored by Iraq. Bush's asking for UN and U.S. Congress authorizations, for allied support and for capability confirmation from the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, all raise the support of the American people for Bush's Iraq policy. But UN support remains vital to the public. A well-designed public interest poll by Steven Kull for the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland on Oct. 2, 2002, shows that 56 percent of the public opposes Congress giving authority to attack Iraq without UN approval.
Bush earlier handled the fifth requirement, the creation of a high-minded goal to be part of the purpose of the war. It is hard to imagine anything more high-minded than Bush's first avowed goal, the elimination of "terrorism with global reach", until later, when he outdid himself with the even greater goal of eliminating "evil in the world".
When I worked on many surveys over the years with Fred Steeper, pollster for both Bush Sr. and Bush2, and a man I highly regard, we called the five requirements the "People's Military Policy," and were impressed by how sensible those requirements seemed at the time.
In '91-'92, Democratic pollster Greenberg and Republican pollster Steeper worked with me testing the robustness of the people's "Military Policy", which all three of us viewed skeptically. For example, how would a clear majority of the public (at least 60 percent-plus) prioritize their apparent support for military interventions when some 20 or 30 dictators around the world meet their intervention requirements. Three prioritization ideas: random selection, worst first, and trip-wire, all received support in the range 58 percent to 68 percent. Today, in the eyes of the U.S. government, no country is guilty of more heinous crimes than Iraq (meets "worst first") and Saddam's refusal to clearly and fully abandon weapons of mass destruction has been the trip-wire for U.S. attention. I always regretted that we did not test "most likely to succeed first," but come to think of it, isn't most-likely-to-succeed a factor in why the United States invaded and succeeded in toppling the Taliban in Afghanistan? And is it not true that the success for regime change in Afghanistan is helping to justify intervening militarily in Iraq now?
Since that time, top U.S. leaders have learned all too well what they have to say to get large public support for a war and that knowledge has now been very carefully and effectively orchestrated with exquisite timing. It is all too clear why. Military intervention dominates the news. Mainstream media loves wars. Their life-or-death aspect gets the attention of the public ahead of the issues that are in peacetime dominant. Corporate greed, the collapse of the market, the sinking economy, the high cost of health care, the ignored environment, honest elections, rising national debt, support of allies, are currently in poor shape and getting worse. With the lack of further terrorist homeland attacks in the past year and without the September Cheney-Rumsfeld drum-beat for war, Republican election prospects for November 2002 would have been bleak and Bush's own prospect for 2004 dim.
The imminent war and the huge expense of homeland security offers another benefit for the Republicans, whose tax cuts go mostly to the rich who save, invest, and buy proportionately little of the production that stimulates the economy. Homeland security and military intervention, shaping up as the largest increase of government in U.S. history, will put money into the hands of hundreds of thousands of mostly low-wage job-seekers. Indeed that will stimulate the economy and make up for the tax-cut losses. Can you remember when only two years ago the Republican party stood for small government and cutting back the power of Washington? Remarkably, the media has not noticed that huge anomaly.
This approach seems so successful for the incumbents that they may be able to stay on top as long as they keep the U.S. facing perpetual war. After Iraq, there is Iran, North Korea, and if necessary, a lot of other dictators could be depicted as playing the Saddam Hussein villain role.
Well, now wait a minute. Isn't this all justified by the real threat of weapons of mass destruction being unleashed upon the United States? Possibly, but look at the facts that the mainstream media, particularly TV, ignores.
When the Ottoman-Turk Empire collapsed after WW I, the League of Nations in 1920 gave Britain a mandate to govern failed states, most of the Middle East, including Iraq. Ignorant of its oil potential, Britain was largely uninterested in its Iraq protectorate and worked for a few years to leave behind a friendly indigenous government. The choices made were not wise. Kurds in Iraq have never considered themselves Iraqis and worked to unsettle the central government. Saddam Hussein and the Arab majority of Iraq never considered the Kurds their "own people". Hussein had no compunction about killing masses of Kurds with mustard gas, seeing it as simply a part and parcel of war. So remember those mitigating factors when the mainstream media and top U.S. officials condemn Hussein for gross violation of human rights of his "own people."
In the brutal Iran/Iraq war, a stupid war for both parties, the United States sided with Iraq, providing tactical intelligence that Saddam later used against the Kurds. The United States supported Iraq for its cooperativeness and secular nature, compared to the religious hysteria of Iran that led to the seizure of 52 American hostages and the exile of U.S.-supported Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi.
From the creation of Kuwait on, Iraq has had a claim, not recognized by major powers, that Kuwait was a part of Iraq. When April Glaspie, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, responded to a query from Iraq about how the United States might react to an Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, she gave an approving or at least, ambiguous reply. Glaspie was called back to the United States and ordered to never say a word about her reply. The mainstream media with minor exceptions never mentions this fact.
The United States and the other states that had nuclear weapons when the Non-Proliferation Treaty was signed by 187 nations agreed to protect non-nuclear states and to reduce their nuclear arms in exchange for other states not acquiring nuclear weapons. The United States paid lip service to nuclear weapons reductions, but year after year ignores many opportunities for reductions. Now Pakistan and India have announced that they are nuclear weapons states. Why, if nukes are so valuable for other heads-of-state to stockpile, should Saddam Hussein forgo them and why is he any more likely to use them against the United States than these other countries?
There may be answers to these rhetorical questions, but they are not coming from Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld or Powell. Will the public catch on to the tricks that these very smooth, sharp and engaging politicians use to persuade us to begin to embrace perpetual warfare and, more important for them, secure no "regime changes" in forthcoming U.S. elections. So far, the public is with them at a not unexpected 68 percent support level.
Personally, I think Bush is making a big mistake. The risk is perpetual war: starting a cycle of preemptive strikes that likely will backfire and require yet more intervention by the U.S. military. Unfortunately, U.S. leaders, however, seem to be unwilling to voice any of the misgivings they may have. After Rep. Patricia Schroeder gave up on a run for president, she noted in disgust, "Members check their spines at the door when they enter Congress." The willingness by leaders to speak authentically and put at risk their careers for the good of all others has almost disappeared in Washington.
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