Neocons still love that Cold War mentality
When Robert Kagan…
The details of who did what to precipitate Russia’s war against Georgia are not very important. Do you recall the precise details of the Sudeten Crisis that led to Nazi Germany’s invasion of Czechoslovakia? Of course not
, because that morally ambiguous dispute is rightly remembered as a minor part of a much bigger drama.
The events of the past week will be remembered that way, too.
…and Bill Kristol…
When the “civilized world” expostulated with Russia about Georgia in 1924, the Soviet regime was still weak. In Germany, Hitler was in jail. Only 16 years later, Britain stood virtually alone against a Nazi-Soviet axis. Is it not true today, as it was in the 1920s and ’30s, that delay and irresolution on the part of the democracies simply invite future threats and graver dangers?
…rely on the same flawed historical parallel, you know the neocons are longing for the simplistic duality of the Cold War. The war between Georgia and Russia offers just such an opportunity.
But as is often the case, the neocon pitch deserves to be ignored.
Joe Klein gets this just right:
With Word War IV — Norman Podhoretz’s ridiculous oversell of the struggle against jihadi extremism — on a slow burn for the moment, Kagan et al are showing renewed interest in the golden oldies of enemies, Russia and China. This larval neo-crusade has influenced the campaign of John McCain, with his comic book proposal for a League of Democracies and his untenable proposal to kick the Russians out of the G8.
To be sure, Russia’s assault on Georgia is an outrage. We should use all the diplomatic leverage we have (not all that much, truthfully) to end this invasion, and — as Richard Holbrooke and Ronald Asmus argue in this more reasonable take — help Georgia to recover when it’s over. And, to be sure, neither Russia nor China are going to be our good buddies, as many of us hoped in the afterglow of the fall of communism. They will be a significant diplomat challenge.
But it is important, yet again, to call out the endless neoconservative search for new enemies, mini-Hitlers. It is the product of an abstract over-intellectualizing of the world, the classic defect of ideologues. It is, as we have seen the last eight years, a dangerous way to behave internationally. And it has severely damaged our moral authority in the world… I mean, after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, after Abu Ghraib, after our blithe rubbishing of the Geneva Accords, why should anyone listen to us when we criticize the Russians for their aggression in the Caucasus?
Good point.
Matt Yglesias, from his new stomping ground, added:
[O]f course Vladimir Putin really is a bad actor. And it should be said that as of today Russia seems to be going beyond anything that could be justified as a response to Georgia’s provocation in South Ossetia. But the habit that the Kristols of the world have of deploying this kind of rhetoric is infuriating. If Kristol really thinks we should go to war with Russia, he’s being crazy and irresponsible. If he doesn’t think that, then he has no business busting out these Munich analogies. Nowhere in his column does he propose a single concrete step with any meaningful chance of altering the situation — it’s all dedicated to mocking doves, but utterly lacking in viable alternatives.
Stevio
says:“Get a gun for your son right away sir, be the first one on your block don’t hesitate sir…”
I think Kristol is an ass hole. Putin too, but Putin has power. All Kristol has is an ass hole which he utilizes often to speak from.
neilt
says:Whoa. As a self-confessed history nerd and big time Russophile, I gotta say that even for me Kristol’s reference to 1924 is pretty obscure. The formation of the RSFSR? Well actually the ratification of the RSFSR (as Georgia “joined” during the Civil War)? Seems like a stretch. At best.
I doubt even 5% of the readership knows much about that reference, Methinks it is falling on deaf ears (which is good, because as always, he’s woefully wrong.)
Georgette Orwell
says:“They will be a significant diplomat challenge.” And diplomacy is the only sensible way to approach this, unless we *want* to blow up the world.
“But it is important, yet again, to call out the endless neoconservative search for new enemies, mini-Hitlers. It is the product of an abstract over-intellectualizing of the world, the classic defect of ideologues.”
I think it’s a product of testosterone poisoning and having bought into the macho wild West mentality (or lack thereof).
Aaron
says:It is patently ridiculous to compare this to Germany invading Czech. It isn’t really even comparable to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. I think, though, that it would be fair to hypothesize that Russia is making a small little play here to test the resolve of the US during our current period of uncertainty and probably weakened position internationally. To use a poker anaolgy, they might be trying to “bully us out of the pot” here. I wonder if there’s a chance of a slippery slope here? I know that type of thinking is damn near almost wrong, but if invading another sovereign nation is allowed here, where do we draw the line? I am NOT advocating or agitating for any military action in the near future here at all, just wondering if there might be the possibility that this is only an opening salvo
Former Dan
says:Hey Neocons, if the BIG BAD Iraq wasn’t the greatest threat to world peace it then why did you assholes waste all that military power on Iraq and not Russia?
This might be a good time to comb through the fat assed, sorry, well fed ranks of Neocons and find “volunteers” to fight the Russians in Georgia (the nation not the state.) Sort of a short bussed/lard assed version of the Lincoln Brigades for the 21st century.
jhm
says:Some (unverified) perspective from Russiablog
BuzzMon
says:Did Kristol really write “…Britain stood virtually alone against a Nazi-Soviet axis.”?
Maybe I missed something in history class, but what I was taught was that the Axis powers were Germany, Italy & Japan. Indeed, Germany invaded the Soviet Union/Russia, so how was Britain against the Soviets in WWII? I guess those summit meetings with Churchill, Stalin & FDR were….
Quality, these guys are all about getting it right.
/snark
Apps
says:Buzz at #7: Unfortunately, you did miss something in history class and Kristol has this particular fact right. Germany and the USSR had a nonaggression pact in 1940; Hitler broke it with a surprise invasion in 1941.
thorin-1
says:“They will be a significant diplomat challenge.” And diplomacy is the only sensible way to approach this, unless we *want* to blow up the world.
Don’t forget how many of these nuts are evangelicals who believe in the Rapture and the Second Coming. Some of them are actually looking forward to Armageddon. There are times when I think Bush’s entire foreign policy strategy is to hasten the day he gets taken up into heaven.
Audie
says:Uh, BuzzMon….. you did miss something in history class. The Soviets and the Nazis were allied at the beginning of WWII. They remained allies until Hitler invaded Russia in June, 1941….. And of course, the US didn’t enter the war until December, 1941. You might be interested to know that it was Hitler who declared war on the US. Things might have turned out differently if he had held off.
Bruno
says:Who was the American diplomat who said something along the lines: “About every 10 years or so, America needs to pick on a small country and throw it against the wall, to show that we mean business.”
I think that Russia is doing this now as well. It is showing to the world, that it is a military superpower, once again. It is showing not to mess with them. Of course, in the short run, they are able to use up all their old munitions, and practice bombing in a real theater.
What makes that so much different from what America has been doing for quite some time?
I do not condone Russia’s behavior, but it’s not as if America is able to take the high-ground here. European countries are pretty much the only ones who can speak with moral authority.
Wally
says:Wonder if President Bush saw this coming when he saw into Putin’s heart? Someone should ask him.
Republican 4 Family Values
says:NAZIS! NAZIS! BWRAAAWK!!
Quick, someone change my diaper!
FlameRaven
says:I mean, after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, after Abu Ghraib, after our blithe rubbishing of the Geneva Accords, why should anyone listen to us when we criticize the Russians for their aggression in the Caucasus?
Exactly what I said. By all means we should condemn Russia’s actions and do what we can to solve this conflict peacefully, but we really don’t have a whole lot of credibility at this point. Why should anyone listen to us condemning Russia for ignoring Georgia’s sovereignty, while we’re still busy ignoring the sovereignty of Iraq?
Tom Cleaver
says:The actual fact is that the Georgians are the “badder guys” in this contest. There is no “democratic government” in Georgia any more than there is in any other clan-based, tribal-based society.
(Emphases mine):
PLUCKY LITTLE GEORGIA?
By MARK ALMOND
Counterpunch
Weekend Edition
August 9 / 10, 2008
http://www.counterpunch.org/almond08092008.html
For many people the sight of Russian tanks streaming across a border in August has uncanny echoes of Prague 1968. That cold war reflex is natural enough, but after two decades of Russian retreat from those bastions it is misleading. Not every development in the former Soviet Union is a replay of Soviet history.
The clash between Russia and Georgia over South Ossetia, which escalated dramatically yesterday, in truth has more in common with the Falklands war of 1982 than it does with a cold war crisis. When the Argentine junta was basking in public approval for its bloodless recovery of Las Malvinas, Henry Kissinger anticipated Britain’s widely unexpected military response with the comment: “No great power retreats for ever.” Maybe today Russia has stopped the long retreat to Moscow which started under Gorbachev.
Back in the late 1980s, as the USSR waned, the red army withdrew from countries in eastern Europe which plainly resented its presence as the guarantor of unpopular communist regimes. That theme continued throughout the new republics of the deceased Soviet Union, and on into the premiership of Putin, under whom Russian forces were evacuated even from the country’s bases in Georgia.
To many Russians this vast geopolitical retreat from places which were part of Russia long before the dawn of communist rule brought no bonus in relations with the west. The more Russia drew in its horns, the more Washington and its allies denounced the Kremlin for its imperial ambitions.
Unlike in eastern Europe, for instance, today in breakaway states such as South Ossetia or Abkhazia, Russian troops are popular. Vladimir Putin’s picture is more widely displayed than that of the South Ossetian president, the former Soviet wrestling champion Eduard Kokoity. The Russians are seen as protectors against a repeat of ethnic cleansing by Georgians.
In 1992, the west backed Eduard Shevardnadze’s attempts to reassert Georgia’s control over these regions. The then Georgian president’s war was a disaster for his nation. It left 300,000 or more refugees “cleansed” by the rebel regions, but for Ossetians and Abkhazians the brutal plundering of the Georgian troops is the most indelible memory.
Georgians have nursed their humiliation ever since. Although Mikheil Saakashvili has done little for the refugees since he came to power early in 2004 – apart from move them out of their hostels in central Tbilisi to make way for property development – he has spent 70% of the Georgian budget on his military. At the start of the week he decided to flex his muscles.
Devoted to achieving Nato entry for Georgia, Saakashvili has sent troops to Iraq and Afghanistan – and so clearly felt he had American backing. The streets of the Georgian capital are plastered with posters of George W Bush alongside his Georgian protege. George W Bush avenue leads to Tbilisi airport. But he has ignored Kissinger’s dictum: “Great powers don’t commit suicide for their allies.” Perhaps his neoconservative allies in Washington have forgotten it, too. Let’s hope not.
Like Galtieri in 1982, Saakashvili faces a domestic economic crisis and public disillusionment. In the years since the so-called Rose revolution, the cronyism and poverty that characterised the Shevardnadze era have not gone away. Allegations of corruption and favouritism towards his mother’s clan, together with claims of election fraud, led to mass demonstrations against Saakashvili last November. His ruthless security forces – trained, equipped and subsidised by the west – thrashed the protesters. Lashing out at the Georgians’ common enemy in South Ossetia would certainly rally them around the president, at least in the short term.
Last September, President Saakashvili suddenly turned on his closest ally in the Rose revolution, defence minister Irakli Okruashvili. Each man accused his former blood brother of mafia links and profiting from contraband. Whatever the truth, the fact that the men seen by the west as the heroes of a post-Shevardnadze clean-up accused each other of vile crimes should warn us against picking a local hero in Caucasian politics.
Western geopolitical commentators stick to cold war simplicities about Russia bullying plucky little Georgia. However, anyone familiar with the Caucasus knows that the state bleating about its victim status at the hands of a bigger neighbour can be just as nasty to its smaller subjects. Small nationalisms are rarely sweet-natured.
Worse still, western backing for “equip and train” programmes in Russia’s backyard don’t contribute to peace and stability if bombastic local leaders such as Saakashvili see them as a guarantee of support even in a crisis provoked by his own actions. He seems to have thought that the valuable oil pipeline passing through his territory, together with the Nato advisers intermingled with his troops, would prevent Russia reacting militarily to an incursion into South Ossetia. That calculation has proved disastrously wrong.
The question now is whether the conflict can be contained, or whether the west will be drawn in, raising the stakes to desperate levels. To date the west has operated radically different approaches to secession in the Balkans, where pro-western microstates get embassies, and the Caucasus, where the Caucasian boundaries drawn up by Stalin, are deemed sacrosanct.
In the Balkans, the west promoted the disintegration of multiethnic Yugoslavia, climaxing with their recognition of Kosovo’s independence in February. If a mafia-dominated microstate like Montenegro can get western recognition, why shouldn’t flawed, pro-Russian, unrecognised states aspire to independence, too?
Given its extraordinary ethnic complexity, Georgia is a post-Soviet Union in miniature. If westerners readily conceded non-Russian republics’ right to secede from the USSR in 1991, what is the logic of insisting that non-Georgians must remain inside a microempire which happens to be pro-western?
Other people’s nationalisms are like other people’s love affairs, or, indeed, like dog fights. These are things wise people don’t get involved in. A war in the Caucasus is never a straightforward moral crusade – but then, how many wars are?
Mark Almond is a history lecturer at Oriel College, Oxford.
This article originally appeared in the Guardian.
BuzzMon
says:Apps & Audie – I’m well aware of the non-agression pact (not an alliance) that gave the Nazis & Soviets the opportunity to partition Poland.
But the wording of Kristol’s latest hack job does the same type of conflation of Germany/Axis/Soviets that the Neocons did with 9/11 & Iraq. The Soviets may have sat back while Hitler was annexing territories, but were the Soviets threatening Britain? No.
It’s sloppy (or calculated mis-directing) writing intended to link the two bad guys (the WWII Nazis & the Cold War Soviets) against the little good guy (our buddy, Britain).
I’m not backing down on anything that Kristol writes. He’s been wrong at every step of the way, ann you guys are defending him. He’s wrong, and you are wrong.
Tom Cleaver
says:Let’s also remember that McCain’s chief foreign policy advisor was a paid lobbyist for Georgia and still gets money from his old firm, which is coordinating all the pro-Georgia/anti-Russia propaganda the neocons are playing with.
Tom Cleaver
says:Listening to NPR’s “coverage” of the war in Georgia shows just how truly ignorant of the facts and the history even “informed Americans” can be.
Mick
says:But it is important, yet again, to call out the endless neoconservative search for new enemies, mini-Hitlers. It is the product of an abstract over-intellectualizing of the world, the classic defect of ideologues.”
I think it’s a product of testosterone poisoning and having bought into the macho wild West mentality (or lack thereof).
neocons / military leaders/ miltiary industrial lobbyists will promote an offensive strategy of world affairs simply because it’s their job. Cold war happens to be their speciality. They don’t know how to promote anything else really.
Rich
says:When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, and subsequently the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991, the neocons – pretty much the same cast of characters as today – in the Bush I administration, including Bush himself, looked like deer caught in the headlights. Our super-expensive ‘intelligence’ establishment saw none of it coming. The neocons, Kristal etal, have been trying to gin up a new enduring cold war ever since, and finally settled on the bogus “War on Terror!!!!!!” to keep us in a constant state of war, or war readiness, forever. The military-industrial-intelligence complex needs constant feeding.
Putin, who is at least ten times smarter than Bush, is not going to have NATO on his doorstep in Georgia. Any foreign policy analyst worthy of the name knows that. By encouraging Georgia into the Western sphere of influence almost anyone outside the American exceptionalist bubble would see such a move as a poke in the eye at Russia, which is what it is meant to be.
It has taken the unbelievably dangerous neocons almost 20 years to get back to their favorite whipping boy, Russia, but Russia, Iran, and China in an alliance is a recipe for major regional coflict. If Putin wants to put the humpty-dumpty of the Soviet Union back together again, and the neocons want to have it out with their favorite nemesis once and for all, then the whole world is really in deep shit.
The adults have to take the helm in November. No matter how much of a sellout Obama turns out to be, he won’t lead the charge into WW IV.
olo
says:… Bill Kristol… “…Britain stood virtually alone (in 1940) against a Nazi-Soviet axis.”
Is Krystal F’n Krazy ?
He ain’t just smokin’ stuff anymore, He’s mainlining the stoopid.
And I an using the long form of stupid for good reason. Will someone please telle that jerk that they were not pals.
tomj
says:This is from Bill Kristol, he just admitted that Iran isn’t nearly the threat that Germany or the Soviet Union were for the US! In fact, Iran appears to only be messianic.
Weren’t these guys just hitting Obama for suggesting that Iran wasn’t as big a threat as the Soviet Unon?
Always hopeful
says:My son, who is in the military, told me that Georgia/Ossetia has oil pipelines from the Capian basin to Turkish ports, which funnels oil to Western Europe. He says that Russia wants Georgia/Ossetia to link up with Russian pipelines so that Russia can control the flow and that is what this is ultimately about. If we get involved, it will be to protect Europe’s oil supply.
I heard this confirmed on NPR this morning – the part about the oil pipelines – and how they have not been damaged. They are owned by BP.
Are we doomed to a future of oil wars?
Glen
says:Kristol should point out that all of this is happening because we’ve got a f&*king idiot as President that has run our country into the ground. And to make it worse, the idiot is over kissing Chinese butt right now.
So now Russia and China can do what they want and there’s nothing we can do about it short of starting a nuclear war. Russia is going to grab some of those countries with oil back. China is going to buy Taiwan back with T-bills.
This is what happens when you let a bunch of idiots run the country that – until they f&*ked it up – ran the world.
Lance
says:Apps said: “Buzz at #7: Unfortunately, you did miss something in history class and Kristol has this particular fact right. Germany and the USSR had a nonaggression pact in 1940; Hitler broke it with a surprise invasion in 1941.”
As my Russian History Professor pointed out, Hilter just beat Stalin to the punch by about a week or two. Stalin was so upset his attack was preempted (not something you want to have happen, get your forward deployed airfoce destroyed on the ground) that he locked himself in his room and sulked for three days.
Hitler exchanged the propaganda value of having the Communists attack him for the advantages of striking first. You’ll note how it turned out in the end.
On topic, I find the Georgia situation Very scary, because I don’t see how the West is going to stop and reverse Putin.
I also find it amusingly hypocritical of Putin to complain about Kosovo and Chechniyan independence while promoting seperatist groups in Georgia, Moldovia, and Ukraine.
Racer X
says:Former Dan raises the right point in #5.
If we had told Kagan and Kristol to STFU in 2002-3, we’d be in a position to defend our real national interests.
STFU, you dumbass jerks. Because of you we’re stuck in a quagmire, and our military is totally whupped. We’ll be paying for YOUR screwup for decades, and you want us to listen to you now?
Just Shut. The. Fuck. Up.
Screamin' Demon
says:The Soviets and the Nazis were allied at the beginning of WWII. They remained allies until Hitler invaded Russia in June, 1941…..
With military help from the Soviet Union, the Nazis wouldn’t have had any trouble winning the Battle of Britain. Guess Hitler was pissed because Stalin didn’t hold up his end.
Nazi-Soviet axis. Uh-huh. A worthless pact Hitler knew he’d break before he signed it.
Texas Aggie
says:Yesterday I read an analysis of the situation in Georgia. It seems that the US has been training and supplying the Georgian army for some time and trying to get it into the US pocket. The reason seems to be that they have an oil or gas pipeline from Central Asia that bypasses Russia, and the US wants to keep that pipeline under US influence. Also, NATO has been pushing to get Georgia into its organization. In other words, Russia has been antagonized on purpose in numerous ways.
The people in South Ossetia are by and large Russian citizens with Russian passports. North Ossetia is actually part of the Russian confederation. When Georgia declared its independence, which they had every right to do, South Ossetia and Abkhazia (sp?) decided they wanted to stay with Russia, which they had every right to do. Since then there has been a low level war, but Georgian troops have pretty much stayed at home because Russian “peace keepers” were in South Ossetia. Now Georgia decided to invade, sent their army in and got their butts kicked. I doubt very much that the Georgian government decided to do this on their own. Rather I suspect that the US is using them as patsies in order to stir up trouble. One of the Russian demands to cease their activity is that the Georgian army go back home, which it appears that they’ve done. The other demand involved the aforementioned pipeline, and I don’t recall off hand the specifics, but it had to do with the US not having control over it.
Texas Aggie
says:Yesterday I read an analysis of the situation in Georgia. It seems that the US has been training and supplying the Georgian army for some time and trying to get it into the US pocket. The reason seems to be that they have an oil or gas pipeline from Central Asia that bypasses Russia, and the US wants to keep that pipeline under US influence. Also, NATO has been pushing to get Georgia into its organization. In other words, Russia has been antagonized on purpose in numerous ways.
The people in South Ossetia are by and large Russian citizens with Russian passports. North Ossetia is actually part of the Russian confederation. When Georgia declared its independence, which they had every right to do, South Ossetia and Abkhazia (sp?) decided they wanted to stay with Russia, which they had every right to do. Since then there has been a low level war, but Georgian troops have pretty much stayed at home because Russian “peace keepers” were in South Ossetia. Now Georgia decided to invade, sent their army in and got their butts kicked. I doubt very much that the Georgian government decided to do this on their own. Rather I suspect that the US is using them as patsies in order to stir up trouble. One of the Russian demands to cease their activity is that the Georgian army go back home, which it appears that they’ve done. The other demand involved the aforementioned pipeline, and I don’t recall off hand the specifics, but it had to do with the US not having control over it.
Texas Aggie
says:I forgot to mention in my previous post that the reason Kagan blithely disregards the reasons for the recent military activity in Georgia and South Ossetia is that it was initiated by the machinations of the neocon cabal of which Kagan is a dues paying member. It would not look good for them if it ever became obvious who was responsible for Georgia invading in the first place.
T-Rex
says:If Kristol weren’t so totally and famously impervious to irony, it would be a real hoot to see him attacking Russia for invading a sovereign country without a legitimate casus belli. Even a staunch Republican friend of mine noticed that Bush had no business doing that.
Lance
says:Texas Aggie wrote: “When Georgia declared its independence, which they had every right to do, South Ossetia and Abkhazia (sp?) decided they wanted to stay with Russia, which they had every right to do.”
So if the population between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande declared themselves to be part of Mexico, you’d have no problem with that?
Messing with internationally recognized borders is really a Bad Idea. Read up about the Nazis using “self-determination” as a rationale for invading the Sudentenland sometime.
Tom Cleaver
says:If you want to hear something truly sad, go to npr.org and listen to Daniel Schorr as he repeats everything Kagan and Kristol say about the “war.”
Further proof of how even “intelligent Americans” know absolutely nothng about this and are vulnerable to the neocon bullshit. NPR’s reporting from the scene shows a bunch of idiots who think they’re working for Ed Murrow in 1940 London.
Tom Cleaver
says:Listening to NPR All Things Considered, and they interview Robert Kagan, identifying him only as “an historian who studies great power politics” and he gets to spout off everything he said earlier, without any question by them. No presentation of any differing view, either.
So muc for NPR as any sort of “independent news.”
ET
says:They need to go to a 12-step program to get over the Cold War addiction. They won’t because it makes them feel so good and they are comfortable, even if they are clueless.
Rennie
says:If you put this article in a mirror, it all makes sense:
The details of who did what to precipitate America’s war against Iraq are not very important. Do you recall the precise details of the Tonkin Incident that led to America’s escalation and bombing of Hanoi? Of course not, because that morally ambiguous dispute is rightly remembered as a minor part of a much bigger drama.
The events of the war in Iraq will be remembered that way, too. This war did not begin because of a miscalculation by Iraqi President Sadam Hussein. It is a war that Washington had been attempting to provoke for some time. The head of the family that once called the collapse of the Soviet Union the start of “a new world order” saw his son establish a virtual czarist rule in America who was trying to impose his country to a dominant role in Eurasia and the world. Armed with wealth from a mighty dollar and a vast military; holding a near-monopoly over the energy supply from the Middle East; with hundreds of thousands of soldiers, thousands of nuclear warheads and the world’s first-largest military budget, George W. Bush believed that this was the time to make his move.
Iraq’s unhappy fate was that it borders an established geopolitical fault line that runs along the richest oil reserves in the Middle East. From Pakistan and Syria in the north through Iran and Iraq to Kuweit and Saudi Arabia, a geopolitical power struggle had emerged between a dominant and established America on one side and its former ally on the other.
Bush’s aggression against Iraq should not be traced only to its regional aspirations or his pique at Hussein’s tyrannical rule. It was primarily a response to the “energy revolution” which gained traction in Washington’s circles long before the average consumer had been aware of it. What official Washington celebrated as a flowering of democracy, was a in effect a geopolitical and ideological encirclement of the Middle East.
Ever since, Bush has been determined to stop and, if possible, reverse the trend of Iraqi independence. He seeks not only to prevent Iraq or Iran from self determination but also to bring them under American control. Beyond that, he seeks to carve out a zone of influence within the Middle East, with a lesser security status for countries along Israel’s strategic flanks. That is the primary motive behind Washington’s opposition to Iran’s nuclear programs in Natanz.
His war against Iraq was part of this grand strategy. Bush cares no more about a few hundred of thousands Iraqi’s than he does about Iranians. Claims of pan-democratic sympathy are pretexts designed to fan America’s great-power nationalism at home and to expand America’s power abroad.
Unfortunately, such tactics always seem to work. While American bombers attacked Iraqi ports and bases, neo-conservatives, including very senior officials in the Bush administration, blamed the West for pushing the Middle East too soft on too many issues.
It is true that many Americans were humiliated by the attacks of 9/11, and this had persuaded many to blame Iraq. The mood was reminiscent of Sarajevo before World War I, when Germany felt compelled to plummet the West in a seemingly never ending war, unilaterally.
Now, as then, these feelings are understandable. Now, as then, however, we are being manipulated to justify autocracy at home and to convince ourselves that war — or to use the once-respectable term, pre-emptive war — is the best policy.
But the reality is that on most of these issues it is America, not Russia or Iran, that is doing the pushing. It was America that raised a challenge in Iraq, a place where it had no discernible interests beyond the expressed “energy revolution”. It was America that decided to turn a minor kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers, which could not possibly be perceived as an act of war, into a major geopolitical confrontation in Lebanon. And it is America that has precipitated a war against Iran by encouraging Iranian rebels to raise the pressure on Teheran and make demands that no Iranian leader could accept. If Bush had not fallen into Bin Laden’s trap this time, nothing else would have eventually sparked the conflict.
Diplomats in Europe believe Bush made a mistake by sending troops to Iraq in 2003. But his truly monumental mistake was to be president of a great, once democratic and adamantly pro-Western America at the heart of Western Civilisation lending an ear to the crazies in the basement.
Historians will come to view 2003 as a turning point no less significant than 1789, when the French populace stormed the Bastille. America’s attack on Iraq’s territory marked the official return of history, indeed to an almost 19th-century style of great-power competition, complete with virulent nationalism, battles for resources, struggles over spheres of influence and territory, and even — though it shocks our 21st-century sensibilities — the use of military power to obtain geopolitical objectives.
Adam Mumcu
says:We had enough of these neocons. A superpower and some European countries are being manipulated by these aggressive Jewish American or Canadian or English elites. USA is a constituonal country based on free elections if the issues of War and Peace are manipulated so easily, by external lobbies, we are in a mud of lies and wars created by the need of other governments.
I didn’t have time to read “The Israeli Lobby” book, written by two respected Chicago University conservative! professors but it seems it is a must now to understand how a small country like Israel and their powerful, rich lobby can infiltrate effect the power and decisions of superpower is terribly dangerous.
There are some stains on the Iraqi war. If it continues at other regions it is time to take action.
Unfortunately the best Jewish American minds like Prof. Norman Finkelstein whose parent during holocaust suffered and other progressive Jews were attacked by this lobby or AIPAC or Neocons or the best term Neo Nazis who loves war to gain upper hand, and serve another country.