| Author | Message | | Alpha | | Posted: Sat Jul 24, 2004 5:27 am Post subject: Democracy and the neocons: a marriage of convenience |
| Democracy and the Washington Neocons - a marriage of convenience
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2004 19:15:48 -0400 From: "David Chiang"
<chiang.d@worldnet.att.net>
Democracy and the neocons: a marriage of convenience
By Jim Lobe Wednesday, July 21, 2004
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?article_ID=6453&categ_ID=5&edition_id=10
Of all the delusions that American neoconservatives perpetrated in
their drive
to take the US to war in Iraq, the most durable was the notion that
they were
committed to the spread of Wilsonian democracy. As someone who has
watched the
neocon movement over the past 30 years or so, I find this hard to
accept.
My skepticism is based on several factors, including the obvious
selectivity
of the neocons. After all, one has only to look at their support for
authoritarian regimes in Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Tunisia and Jordan - as
opposed
to their eagerness to invade Iraq in the name of bringing democratic
rule
there - to find some glaring inconsistencies. At the same time, it is
the
neocons who pushed hardest for US President George W. Bush to cease
dealing
with Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, though he was
elected by a
substantial majority of eligible voters in the West Bank and Gaza.
Indeed,
neocon hard-liners like former Pentagon official Richard Perle believe
Palestinians should be denied self-determination altogether.
Without doubt, neocons have long professed a devotion to democracy.
Indeed,
their main argument in favor of a US strategic alliance with Israel - a
central and persistent tenet of the neoconservative creed over the past
three
decades - has been the Jewish state's status as the lone democratic
outpost in
a region of seething and hate-filled Arab autocracies. The question,
however,
is whether democracy promotion, especially in the Arab world, ranks
anywhere
nearly as high in the neocons' policy priorities as their commitment to
Israeli security. And to the extent that they may perceive a potential
conflict between the two, which one are they inclined to choose as the
more important?
A brief look at the historical record may help provide an answer. While
the
neocon movement sprouted wings in the late 1960s and early 1970s, as
Israel
found itself increasingly isolated at the UN, neoconservatives first
tasted
real power under former President Ronald Reagan, who was especially
taken with
Jeane Kirkpatrick's attacks on Jimmy Carter's human rights policies.
According
to her, these were disastrously undermining "friendly authoritarian"
regimes
in Iran, Nicaragua, South America, and even apartheid South Africa -
all
governments enjoying friendly relations with Israel. Instead of
hectoring such
regimes on reform, she argued, Washington should have provided them
with
unstinting support as allies in the global struggle against Soviet
communism,
both because Moscow was the far greater evil, and because authoritarian
regimes could become "democracies," while "totalitarian" ones could
not.
Reagan applied these ideas. During his first term, Washington not only
renewed
military and other forms of support to "friendly authoritarians," but
also
began the Reagan Doctrine - the sponsorship of right-wing "freedom
fighters,"
such as jihadists in Afghanistan, tribal nationalists in Angola and
ex-National Guard figures in Nicaragua, who distinguished themselves
more by
fanaticism and brutality than by the democratic arts. At the same time,
neocons were ecstatic with Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon - not
because it
furthered the cause of democracy, but because it meant the expulsion of
the
PLO from Lebanon and a shift in the regional balance of power against
Soviet-backed Syria.
So, if neocons were not big democracy boosters during their period of
greatest
influence under Reagan, when did they discover their religion? Most
analysts
date their conversion to the last half of the 1980s, when the "people
power"
movement ousted Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines and when Chilean
strongman
Augusto Pinochet was defeated in a referendum to extend his rule. In
both
cases, prominent neoconservatives Paul Wolfowitz and Elliott Abrams
were
serving at the top of the State Department bureaus dealing with Asian
and
South American affairs. Neocon pundits were quick to embrace these
perceived
deviations from the "Kirkpatrick doctrine" as a necessary correction,
particularly in light of the winding down of the Cold War.
While Wolfowitz and Abrams sided with those who wanted to remove the
two
"friendly authoritarians," so did a significant number of Republican
lawmakers, some of them classic realists like Senator Richard Lugar,
who had
already broken with Reagan and the neocons over their support for South
Africa. In that respect, the neocons were as much fellow travelers as
they
were in the vanguard, as they like to claim.
The neocon record throughout the 1990s reinforced this conclusion.
Contrary to
myth, neocons, including Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary today
who is
widely considered the most Wilsonian on the neocon spectrum, did not
urge
former President George H. W. Bush to plant democracy in Baghdad during
the
1991 Gulf War. And although neocons did join with liberal hawks in
calling for
"humanitarian interventions" after the war, and subsequently in the
Balkans,
they remained well within what became the post-Cold War realist
consensus -
that elected, more or less democratic governments, so long as they were
not
hostile to the US, were to be preferred over "friendly authoritarians."
Thus, when the Algerian military abruptly canceled elections in
December 1991,
neither realists nor neocons objected, because the alternative was
thought
likely to bring to power an Islamist government potentially hostile to
the US,
and certainly to Israel. Indeed, in their book "An End to Evil"
published last
January, Richard Perle and David Frum cite Algeria as the reason why
they
support "democratization" in the Middle East, rather than "democracy"-
a
subtlety that would bring a smile even to the lips of ultimate realist
Henry Kissinger.
Similarly, when the neocons first began agitating for Saddam's removal
in
1995-96, their arguments were based entirely on classic realpolitik of
the
kind they used to defend Israel's invasion of Lebanon. Thus, a 1996
task force
advising Israeli candidate Benjamin Netanyahu, headed by Perle and that
also
included the Pentagon's current policy chief, Douglas Feith, as well as
David
Wurmser, a Middle East adviser to Vice-President Dick Cheney, argued
that
ousting Saddam was the key to transforming the balance of power in the
Middle
East decisively in Israel's favor, permitting it to "break" with Oslo
and
dictate terms to Syria and the Palestinians.
A follow-up paper by Wurmser called for the region to be reorganized
according
to "tribal/clan/familial alliances" that would create a "more stable
balance
of power system." In 1998, when the neocons and Ahmad Chalabi were
steamrolling the Iraq Liberation Act through the US Congress, the
legislation's supporters, like the neocon-dominated Project for the New
American Century (PNAC), focused on the military threat posed by a
rearmed
Saddam. Even in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks,
when
PNAC warned that the failure to oust Saddam would constitute a
"decisive
surrender" to international terrorism, the democracy question was
simply
nowhere on the agenda.
It was only after the Afghanistan campaign that the neocons finally
began to
articulate the argument, denounced by one realist strategist as
"neo-crazy,"
that anti-American terrorism was caused by oppressive Arab autocracies,
and
that by invading and occupying the most oppressive such regime, in
Iraq, the
US could create a pro-Western, democratic government in the strategic
heart of
the Arab world that would, in turn, provoke sweeping regional change.
On the face of it, the argument has real appeal, particularly for the
more
idealistic neocons, such as Wolfowitz. To the increasingly pro-Likud
neocon
mainstream, however, it must sound like a great way to rally public
opinion
behind a war to permanently shift the balance of power in the Middle
East.
Jim Lobe is the correspondent of Inter Press Service in Washington. | |  | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Sat Jul 24, 2004 11:21 am Post subject: Imperial Hubris |
| From: TOOL
Date: Sat, 24 Jul 2004 06:24:20 EDT
You should really read Imperial Hubris. Anonymous is excellent. He writes about America being guilty about Israel, for no good reason and at too high a cost.
He was also interviewed by Wolfe Blitzer yesterday about Osama Bin Laden (OBL) and Israel.
He blew the myths out of the water when Wolfie asked him about OBL only recently grabbing Israel as for being hated. He told Wolfie that OBL has been speaking on that issue since 1979.
He also said that reforming the CIA etc was ridiculous! | | | | foppe37 | | Posted: Sat Jul 24, 2004 12:37 pm Post subject: 1903 |
| For a few seconds the speaker paused, and the public, absolutely intoxicated by his splendid oratory, applauded frantically.
But soon Nordau asked for silence and continued:
"'Now this great progressive world power, England, has after the pogroms of Kishineff, in token of her sympathy with our poor people, offered through the Zionist Congress the autonomous colony of Uganda to the Jewish nation.
Of course, Uganda is in Africa, and Africa is not Zion and never will be Zion, to quote Herzl's own words.
But Herzl knows full well that nothing is so valuable to the cause of Zionism as amicable political relations with such a power as England is, and so much more valuable as England's main interest is concentrated in the Orient.
Nowhere else is precedent as powerful as in England, and so it is most important to accept a colony out of the hands of England and create thus a precedent in our favor.
Sooner or later the Oriental question will have to be solved, and the Oriental question means, naturally, also the question of Palestine.
England, who had addressed a formal, political note to the Zionist Congress -- the Zionist Congress which is pledged to the Basle program, England will have the deciding voice in the final solution of the Oriental question, and Herzl has considered it his duty to maintain valuable relations with this great and progressive power.
Herzl knows that we stand before a tremendous upheaval of the whole world.
Soon, perhaps, some kind of a world-congress will have to be called, and England, the great, free and powerful England, will then continue the work it has begun with its generous offer to the Sixth Congress.
And if you ask me now what has Israel to do in Uganda, then let me tell you as the answer the words of the statesmen of Sardinia, only applied to our case and given in our version; let me tell you the following words as if I were showing you the rungs of a ladder leading upward and upward:
Herzl, The Zionist Congress, the English Uganda proposition, the future world war, the peace conference where with the help of England a free and Jewish Palestine will be created.'
"Like a mighty thunder these last words came to us, and we all were trembling and awestruck as if we had seen a vision of old. And in my ears were sounding the words of our great brother Achad Haam, who said of Nordau's address at the First Congress:
"'I felt that one of the great old prophets was speaking to us, that his voice came down from the free hills of Judea, and our hearts were burning in us when we heard his words, filled with wonder, wisdom and vision.'"
The amazing thing is that this article by Litman Rosenthal should ever have been permitted to see print.
But it did not see print until the Balfour Declaration about Palestine, and it never would have seen print had not the Jews believed that one part of their program had been accomplished.
The Jew never betrays himself until he believes that what he seeks has been won, then he lets himself go.
It was only to Jews that the 1903 "program of the Ladder" -- the future world war -- the peace conference -- the Jewish program -- was communicated.
When the ascent of that ladder seemed to be complete, then came the public talk.
A similar illustration of this is to be found in the fall of the Czar. When that event transpired it was an occasion of great rejoicing in New York, and a Gentile of world-wide fame made a speech in which he lauded an American Jew of national reputation for having begun the downfall of the Czar by providing the money with which propaganda had been made among Russian prisoners in Japan during the Russo-Japanese war.
The story came out only after the success of the plot.
It is not at all out of keeping that the last men to see the last act of the plot carried out, the actual murder of Nicholas Romanovitch, his wife, his young daughters and his invalid boy, were "five Soviet deputies, the latter five all Jews."
What began with the assistance of an American financier, finished with Soviet deputies.
Did International Jews in 1903 foresee the war?
This Rosenthal confession is but one bit of evidence that they did.
And did they do nothing but foresee it?
It were well if the facts stopped at foresight and did not run on to provocation.
For the present the reader is invited to retain in his mind two points in this Rosenthal article: "Perhaps it will interest you to know that the right hand of Cavour, his friend and adviser, was his secretary, Hartum, a Jew."
This is the way the Jewish press speaks of its own.
If this paper, or a Chicago paper or a New York paper should go through the list of the secretaries of the men of power in the world today and make the note of their names -- "His secretary, a Jew," the Anti-Defamation Society would send letters of protest.
There is one rule for the Gentile and one for the Jew, in the Jewish mind.
Writing in the public prints about Hartum, he would be described as an "Italian."
Were the Jewish secretaries who abounded before the war, during the war and throughout the Peace Conference of less brilliance than Hartum?
Were there not Hartums in England, France, Germany, yes and in Russia too (in the United States there were many) who saw the "program of the Ladder"?
Did Max Nordau who saw it so clearly in 1903 forget it in 1914 and 1918?
We know this: the Jews in their Congress at Basle in 1903 foresaw "the future world war." How did they know it was to be a "world war"? | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Wed Aug 11, 2004 6:41 pm Post subject: Re: 1903 |
| Excellent post, Foppe...
| foppe37 wrote: | For a few seconds the speaker paused, and the public, absolutely intoxicated by his splendid oratory, applauded frantically.
But soon Nordau asked for silence and continued:
"'Now this great progressive world power, England, has after the pogroms of Kishineff, in token of her sympathy with our poor people, offered through the Zionist Congress the autonomous colony of Uganda to the Jewish nation.
Of course, Uganda is in Africa, and Africa is not Zion and never will be Zion, to quote Herzl's own words.
But Herzl knows full well that nothing is so valuable to the cause of Zionism as amicable political relations with such a power as England is, and so much more valuable as England's main interest is concentrated in the Orient.
Nowhere else is precedent as powerful as in England, and so it is most important to accept a colony out of the hands of England and create thus a precedent in our favor.
Sooner or later the Oriental question will have to be solved, and the Oriental question means, naturally, also the question of Palestine.
England, who had addressed a formal, political note to the Zionist Congress -- the Zionist Congress which is pledged to the Basle program, England will have the deciding voice in the final solution of the Oriental question, and Herzl has considered it his duty to maintain valuable relations with this great and progressive power.
Herzl knows that we stand before a tremendous upheaval of the whole world.
Soon, perhaps, some kind of a world-congress will have to be called, and England, the great, free and powerful England, will then continue the work it has begun with its generous offer to the Sixth Congress.
And if you ask me now what has Israel to do in Uganda, then let me tell you as the answer the words of the statesmen of Sardinia, only applied to our case and given in our version; let me tell you the following words as if I were showing you the rungs of a ladder leading upward and upward:
Herzl, The Zionist Congress, the English Uganda proposition, the future world war, the peace conference where with the help of England a free and Jewish Palestine will be created.'
"Like a mighty thunder these last words came to us, and we all were trembling and awestruck as if we had seen a vision of old. And in my ears were sounding the words of our great brother Achad Haam, who said of Nordau's address at the First Congress:
"'I felt that one of the great old prophets was speaking to us, that his voice came down from the free hills of Judea, and our hearts were burning in us when we heard his words, filled with wonder, wisdom and vision.'"
The amazing thing is that this article by Litman Rosenthal should ever have been permitted to see print.
But it did not see print until the Balfour Declaration about Palestine, and it never would have seen print had not the Jews believed that one part of their program had been accomplished.
The Jew never betrays himself until he believes that what he seeks has been won, then he lets himself go.
It was only to Jews that the 1903 "program of the Ladder" -- the future world war -- the peace conference -- the Jewish program -- was communicated.
When the ascent of that ladder seemed to be complete, then came the public talk.
A similar illustration of this is to be found in the fall of the Czar. When that event transpired it was an occasion of great rejoicing in New York, and a Gentile of world-wide fame made a speech in which he lauded an American Jew of national reputation for having begun the downfall of the Czar by providing the money with which propaganda had been made among Russian prisoners in Japan during the Russo-Japanese war.
The story came out only after the success of the plot.
It is not at all out of keeping that the last men to see the last act of the plot carried out, the actual murder of Nicholas Romanovitch, his wife, his young daughters and his invalid boy, were "five Soviet deputies, the latter five all Jews."
What began with the assistance of an American financier, finished with Soviet deputies.
Did International Jews in 1903 foresee the war?
This Rosenthal confession is but one bit of evidence that they did.
And did they do nothing but foresee it?
It were well if the facts stopped at foresight and did not run on to provocation.
For the present the reader is invited to retain in his mind two points in this Rosenthal article: "Perhaps it will interest you to know that the right hand of Cavour, his friend and adviser, was his secretary, Hartum, a Jew."
This is the way the Jewish press speaks of its own.
If this paper, or a Chicago paper or a New York paper should go through the list of the secretaries of the men of power in the world today and make the note of their names -- "His secretary, a Jew," the Anti-Defamation Society would send letters of protest.
There is one rule for the Gentile and one for the Jew, in the Jewish mind.
Writing in the public prints about Hartum, he would be described as an "Italian."
Were the Jewish secretaries who abounded before the war, during the war and throughout the Peace Conference of less brilliance than Hartum?
Were there not Hartums in England, France, Germany, yes and in Russia too (in the United States there were many) who saw the "program of the Ladder"?
Did Max Nordau who saw it so clearly in 1903 forget it in 1914 and 1918?
We know this: the Jews in their Congress at Basle in 1903 foresaw "the future world war." How did they know it was to be a "world war"? | | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Wed Aug 11, 2004 6:56 pm Post subject: Haaretz: NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BUSH AND KERRY |
| http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/463078.html
News Updates
Wed., August 11, 2004 Av 24, 5764
Israel Time: 02:01 (GMT+3)
Bush, nonetheless
By Amir Oren
A veteran professional Jew in one of the main organizations of American Jewry recently surveyed the balance of power between President George W. Bush and the Democratic candidate Sen. John Kerry.
"It will be a very close race all the way to the finish line," he predicted. "So close that on Election Night we'll go to sleep - if we can fall asleep - without knowing which of the two won. But at the end of the night we'll wake up again with Bush."
Three months less a week are left until Tuesday, November 2, and that view is shared by many experienced Washington hands - at least among those ready to make a prediction in the middle of the summer recess, which is characterized by public indifference to politics, and before the determined duel is really launched following the Republican convention at the end of the month.
Until now, the contenders have looked like shadow boxers in a training camp, practicing tactics, checking weak points, keeping the big blows for the fall. "In marketing terms," Bush's chief of staff, Andrew Card, is quoted as saying, "you don't introduce a new product in August" - though it was in the Iraqi context that he said it.
Kerry is not the polar opposite of the current president. The differences between them are measured in nuances, not in essences, and the struggle this time is more like Carter against Ford than Johnson against Goldwater, or Nixon against McGovern. It is possible to go as far back as 1940, to Franklin Delano Roosevelt against Wendell Wilkie, for a race between a sitting president in a time of world war, against a rival who presented an amazingly similar view that was in complete contradiction to his party's traditional isolationism.
Bush against Kerry is an internal final on the fields of Yale (Kerry was on the hockey team, with FBI director Robert Mueller; Bush, two years younger, made do with cheerleading.) Two of the aristocracy of money and connections are competing against each other, with the dispute over the details. On the Iraq issue, where Bush is more vulnerable - unless something goes wrong in the economy - Kerry's most bitter criticism dealt with the protection of the troops: why weren't they equipped with ceramic vests and more Hummer jeeps?
The real differences, rolled into the verbiage, are so infinitesimal, so similar to the internal debates in any administration, that it is not difficult to imagine Kerry as Bush's secretary of state, like William Cohen, a Republican, was Clinton's secretary of defense. In the same way, Colin Powell could be Kerry's secretary of state, the way he was chairman of the joint chiefs for both Bush Sr. and Clinton, leading the camp that had reservations about military intervention, against a combative Madeleine Albright. The main difference between those who are a little to the left of the center and those a little right of the center is in domestic policy, economics and social affairs, which is largely in the hands of others - the chairman of the federal reserve, the Supreme Court, the Congress.
Not since John Kennedy, and for decades before him, has a senator been elected president. Americans prefer their presidents with executive experience - a vice president or a governor - over a legislator whose strength was in his mouth and weaknesses are in his votes. Except for Bush Sr., Reagan's vice president, only governors have been elected since 1976, even when they faced incumbent presidents (Carter-Ford, Reagan-Carter, Clinton-Bush).
The formula "Nonetheless, Bush," after all the calculations and considerations, not only comes down to the anticipated result but also the recommended vote for people who care about Israel. From the selfish perspective of Israel, which is close to the general American perspective but not identical to it, Bush in his second term will be better than his challenger. The slow transition to a new administration will waste the precedent-setting momentum of the evacuation of the settlements, which anyway is in doubt because of the fragility of Sharon's position.
Appearing before activists from one of the black community organizations here two weeks ago, Bush proposed to the audience - which was made up almost entirely of supporters of Democratic candidates - to depart from their tradition and signal to the Democrats that they are not in their pockets. That's good advice for the Jews, as well, and it matches the whispering of the Jewish organization men and women, who are careful to avoid any blatant, divisive intervention in the campaign. As far as they are concerned, the best result for Israel and American Jewry will be Bush's re-election with a very slim majority, and a return of Democratic control of the two houses of Congress. That would achieve a balance, control and understanding in both parties, ahead of the next elections, that they should continue to court Israel's supporters. | | | | foppe37 | | Posted: Wed Aug 11, 2004 7:29 pm Post subject: preferences |
| << matches the whispering of the Jewish organization men and women, who are careful to avoid any blatant, divisive intervention in the campaign.
As far as they are concerned, the best result for Israel and American Jewry will be Bush's re-election with a very slim majority, and a return of Democratic control of the two houses of Congress.
That would achieve a balance, control and understanding in both parties, ahead of the next elections, that they should continue to court Israel's supporters.>>
It's fascinating that both Jews and El Quaida want Bush re- elected, for diametrically opposed reasons.
My bet is that El Quaida is cleverer than the Jews.
Time will tell, maybe with mushroom clouds, the Massada Final Solution. | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Wed Aug 11, 2004 7:42 pm Post subject: Re: preferences |
| | foppe37 wrote: | << matches the whispering of the Jewish organization men and women, who are careful to avoid any blatant, divisive intervention in the campaign.
As far as they are concerned, the best result for Israel and American Jewry will be Bush's re-election with a very slim majority, and a return of Democratic control of the two houses of Congress.
That would achieve a balance, control and understanding in both parties, ahead of the next elections, that they should continue to court Israel's supporters.>>
It's fascinating that both Jews and El Quaida want Bush re- elected, for diametrically opposed reasons.
My bet is that El Quaida is cleverer than the Jews.
Time will tell, maybe with mushroom clouds, the Massada Final Solution. |
Very concerning...
I suggest that Mr. Chapman read James Bamford's new book ('A Pretext for War') and Pat Buchanan's new book coming out this month on how the Zionist neocons took us to war in Iraq for the Likud in Israel (and Halliburton/Bechtel second). You can read about both books via the following URL:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2004/08/08/buchanan-s-new-book-how-neocons-have-hijacked-bush-regime.php
--- In iac-discussion@yahoogroups.com, joe webb <webfoote41@y...> wrote:
> -HI Sami , and All, this Guardian piece is strong on
> assertion yet weak on argument.
>
> The oil thesis I have personally discussed at length
> and will not repeat here except to remark the @100
> years worth of oil and gas in the ground right now,
> with more awaiting discovery.
>
> The Euro versus US dollar argument is complex and
> worthy of informed discussion in which I am only
> partially competent . Suffice to say that the US
> economy is about 25% of the world economy, is the most
> dynamic at present , with the highest growth rate
> outside of China and perhaps India, still 3rd world
> economies with very low GDP s. The US Dollar is
> gaining again against the Euro. The US dollar is
> still the 'gold standard' of world currencies, and,
> there is nothing to suggest that the Euro will replace
> it, although there IS argument for a "world currency",
> beyond the Euro and the US dollar. Yes, the US dollar
> is threatened by US debt, both public and private. So
> far, this seems not to bother buyers of US sovereign
> debt.
>
> The Guardian article is remarkable for its lack of
> substantive argument. It is mere assertion.
>
> It is also remarkable for its absent discussion of the
> other 'suspects', namely Israel, the neocons, etc.
> Any credible discussion of the 'real reasons' for the
> Iraq war, will discuss the relative merits of , yes,
> oil, imperialism, Israel, US and other oil-consuming
> countries and their interests, political Islam, etc.
>
> conclusion: a lousy article. thanks, Joe.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> - Sami AlBanna <salbanna@a...> wrote:
>
> >
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1270414,00.html
> >
> > Comment
> >
> > The real reasons Bush went to war
> >
> > WMD was the rationale for invading Iraq. But what
> > was really driving
> > the US were fears over oil and the future of the
> > dollar
> >
> > John Chapman
> > Wednesday July 28, 2004
> > The Guardian <http://www.guardian.co.uk>
> >
> > There were only two credible reasons for invading
> > Iraq: control over
> > oil and preservation of the dollar as the world's
> > reserve currency.
> > Yet the government has kept silent on these factors,
> > instead treating
> > us to the intriguing distractions of the Hutton and
> > Butler reports.
> > Butler's overall finding of a "group think" failure
> > was pure charity.
> > Absurdities like the 45-minute claim were adopted by
> > high-level
> > officials and ministers because those concerned
> > recognised the
> > substantial reason for war - oil. WMD provided only
> > the bureaucratic
> > argument: the real reason was that Iraq was swimming
> > in oil.
> > Some may still believe the eve-of-war contention by
> > Donald Rumsfeld
> > that "We won't take forces and go around the world
> > and try to take
> > other people's oil ... That's not how democracies
> > operate." Maybe
> > others will go along with Blair's post-war
> > contention: "There is no
> > way whatsoever, if oil were the issue, that it would
> > not have been
> > infinitely easier to cut a deal with Saddam."
> > But senior civil servants are not so naive. On the
> > eve of the Butler
> > report, I attended the 40th anniversary of the
> > Mandarins cricket club.
> > I was taken aside by a knighted civil servant to
> > discuss my contention
> > in a Guardian article earlier this year that Sir
> > Humphrey was no
> > longer independent. I had then attacked the deceits
> > in the WMD report,
> > and this impressive official and I discussed the
> > geopolitical issues
> > of Iraq and Saudi Arabia, and US unwillingness to
> > build nuclear power
> > stations and curb petrol consumption, rather than go
> > to war.
> > Saddam controlled a country at the centre of the
> > Gulf, a region with a
> > quarter of world oil production in 2003, and
> > containing more than 60%
> > of the world's known reserves. With 115bn barrels of
> > oil reserves, and
> > perhaps as much again in the 90% of the country not
> > yet explored, Iraq
> > has capacity second only to Saudi Arabia. The US, in
> > contrast, is the
> > world's largest net importer of oil. Last year the
> > US Department of
> > Energy forecast that imports will cover 70% of
> > domestic demand by
> > 2025.
> > By invading Iraq, Bush has taken over the Iraqi oil
> > fields, and
> > persuaded the UN to lift production limits imposed
> > after the Kuwait
> > war. Production may rise to 3m barrels a day by year
> > end, about double
> > 2002 levels. More oil should bring down Opec-led
> > prices, and if Iraqi
> > oil production rose to 6m barrels a day, Bush could
> > even attack the
> > Opec oil-pricing cartel.
> > Control over Iraqi oil should improve security of
> > supplies to the US,
> > and possibly the UK, with the development and
> > exploration contracts
> > between Saddam and China, France, India, Indonesia
> > and Russia being
> > set aside in favour of US and possibly British
> > companies. And a US
> > military presence in Iraq is an insurance policy
> > against any
> > extremists in Iran and Saudi Arabia.
> > Overseeing Iraqi oil supplies, and maybe soon
> > supplies from other Gulf
> > countries, would enable the US to use oil as power.
> > In 1990, the then
> > oil man, Dick Cheney, wrote that: "Whoever controls
> > the flow of
> > Persian Gulf oil has a stranglehold not only on our
> > economy but also
> > on the other countries of the world as well."
> > In the 70s, the US agreed with Saudi Arabia that
> > Opec oil should be
> > traded in dollars. American governments have since
> > been able to print
> > dollars to cover huge trading deficits, with the
> > further benefit of
> > those dollars being placed in the US money markets.
> > In return, the US
> > allowed the Opec countries to operate a production
> > and pricing cartel.
> >
> > Over the past 15 years, the overall US deficit with
> > the rest of the
> > world has risen to $2,700bn - an abuse of its
> > privileged currency
> > position. Although about 80% of foreign exchange and
> > half of world
> > trade is in dollars, the euro provides a realistic
> > alternative. Euro
> > countries also have a bigger share of world trade,
> > and of trade with
> > Opec countries, than the US.
> > In 1999, Iran mooted pricing its oil in euros, and
> > in late 2000 Saddam
> > made the switch for Iraqi oil. In early 2002 Bush
> > placed Iran and Iraq
> > in the axis of evil. If the other Opec countries had
> > followed Saddam's
> > move to euros, the consequences for Bush could have
> > been huge.
> > Worldwide switches out of the dollar, on top of the
> > already huge
> > deficit, would have led to a plummeting dollar, a
> > runaway from US
> > markets and dramatic upheavals in the US.
> > Bush had many reasons to invade Iraq, but why did
> > Blair join him? He
> > might have squared his conscience by looking at UK
> > oil prospects. In
> > 1968, when North Sea oil was in its infancy, as
> > private secretary to
> > the minister of power I wrote a report on oil
> > policy, advocating
> > changes like the setting up of a British national
> > oil company (as was
> > done). My proposals found little favour with the
> > BP/Shell-supporting
> > officials, but Richard Marsh, the then minister,
> > pressed them and the
> > petroleum division was expanded into an operations
> > division and a
> > planning division.
> > Sadly, when I was promoted out of private office the
> > free-trading
> > petroleum officials conspired to block my posting to
> > the planning
> > division, where I would surely have advocated a
> > prudent exploitation
> > of North Sea resources to reduce our dependence on
> > the likes of Iraq.
> > UK North Sea oil output peaked in 1999, and has
> > since fallen by
> > one-sixth. Exports now barely cover imports, and we
> > shall shortly be a
> > net oil importer. Supporting Bush might have been
> > justified on
> > geo-strategic grounds.
> > Oil and the dollar were the real reasons for the
> > attack on Iraq, with
> > WMD as the public reason now exposed as woefully
> > inadequate. Should we
> > now look at Bush and Blair as brilliant strategists
> > whose actions will
> > improve the security of our oil supplies, or as
> > international conmen?
> > Should we support them if they sweep into Iran and
> > perhaps Saudi
> > Arabia, or should there be a regime change in the UK
> > and US instead?
> > If the latter, we should follow that up by adopting
> > the pious aims of
> > UN oversight of world oil exploitation within a
> > world energy plan, and
> > the replacement of the dollar with a new reserve
> > currency based on a
> > basket of national currencies.
> > * John Chapman is a former assistant secretary in
> > the civil service,
> > in which he served from 1963-96
> > johnharoldchapman@h...
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