[Reader-list] What We Do Now : A Peace Agenda

[Harsh Kapoor]

The Nation
April 3, 2003

What We Do Now
A Peace Agenda

by David Cortright

Over the past six months, we've witnessed the emergence of a global 
antiwar movement so large it has seemed almost possible that US war 
plans could be stopped. But now that the war has begun, even without 
UN sanction, the antiwar movement is at a crossroads. Following is a 
forum in which David Cortright leads off a discussion on what the 
peace movement's goals should be now and in the longer term; his 
essay is followed by three responses--from Phyllis Bennis and John 
Cavanagh, Bill Fletcher Jr. and Medea Benjamin. --The Editors


As the Bush Administration continues its illegal and unjust military 
invasion of Iraq, we must steel ourselves for the difficult days that 
lie ahead. We must also recognize that our work for peace has only 
just begun.

We should not retreat from our core criticisms of Bush's war or be 
intimidated into silence. This war was and is completely unnecessary. 
Iraq was being disarmed through peaceful diplomatic means. It made 
numerous concessions to UN demands and was in the process of 
destroying missiles and disclosing its weapons activities when the 
United States attacked. Unprovoked war against another country 
without the approval of the Security Council violates the UN Charter 
and is illegal under US and international law. Such a war can never 
be just.

The outbreak of war makes our work more important and necessary than 
ever. It creates enormous new challenges, but it also offers new 
opportunities. We must organize a broadly based campaign to address 
the causes and consequences of this war and to prevent such misguided 
adventures in the future.

We can start by recognizing the tremendous accomplishments of the 
past few months. We have created the largest, most broadly based 
peace movement in history--a movement that has engaged millions of 
people here and around the globe. Never before have US churches, from 
the Conference of Catholic Bishops to the National Council of 
Churches, spoken so resolutely against war. Never before have so many 
US trade unions supported the antiwar movement. In practically every 
sector of society--business executives, women's groups, 
environmentalists, artists, musicians, African-Americans, Latinos--a 
strong antiwar voice has emerged. Antiwar rallies and vigils have 
occurred in thousands of communities, and many cities have passed 
antiwar declarations.

The fact that this effort could not prevent war reflects not the 
weaknesses of our movement but the failures of American democracy and 
the entrenched power of US militarism. The Bush Administration has 
shown utter contempt for public opinion at home and abroad. It 
manipulated legitimate public concerns about terrorism to assert a 
false connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda and refused to tell the 
American people or Congress how much the invasion and occupation 
would cost until after the war was already under way.

Our short-term objectives will depend on how the war unfolds, whether 
it is a short, "successful" military campaign or becomes a drawn-out 
war of attrition with constant sniper or guerrilla attacks. We hope 
there will be few casualties, both for Iraqis and Americans, but we 
know that a quick victory will bolster the very policies we abhor. We 
urge our government to do everything possible to avoid unnecessary 
death and destruction. Our short-term political agenda should include 
the following demands and issues:

§ Protect the innocent. The United States should provide massive 
humanitarian assistance and economic aid for the Iraqi people and 
other vulnerable populations in the region. We should support the 
reconstruction and development of Iraq. This assistance should be 
administered by civilian agencies, not the Pentagon. We should also 
demand, or if necessary provide, an accurate accounting of the 
civilian dead.

§ Support our men and women in the armed forces. We regret that their 
Commander in Chief has sent them on an ill-advised and unnecessary 
mission, but we respect and thank them for their service. We urge 
special support for the families of service members and reservists 
who have been sent to the Persian Gulf. We call for greater efforts 
to address the medical problems that will result from service in the 
gulf. More than 167,000 veterans are currently on disability as a 
result of their service in the first Gulf War. We condemn the cuts in 
veterans' benefits approved by the Republican-controlled Congress and 
call for increased availability of medical care and other benefits 
for veterans.

§ Bring home the troops. We urge the withdrawal of American military 
forces from Iraq as soon as possible. We oppose the creation of any 
long-term or permanent US military bases in Iraq.

§ No war or military threats against Iran. We oppose any attempt to 
coerce or threaten Iran with military attack. It is no secret that 
extremists in Washington and Israel favor a military strike against 
Iran as the next phase in the "war on terror." This would be a 
further catastrophe for the cause of peace and must be vigorously 
resisted.

§ No war for oil. We oppose any US effort to seize control of Iraqi 
oil or to demand a percentage of Iraqi oil revenues. Ownership of 
Iraqi oil should remain with the Iraqi people. Iraq was the first 
Arab nation to nationalize its petroleum resources, and it must be 
allowed to retain control over this wealth to rebuild its economy and 
society.

§ Peace in the Middle East. The United States should give active 
support to a genuine peace process between Israel and the 
Palestinians. We should pressure both sides to accept a peace 
settlement that ends the violence and creates two sovereign and 
viable states.

§ Support for regional disarmament. The Gulf War cease-fire 
resolution of 1991 specified that the disarmament of Iraq was to be 
the first step toward the creation in the Middle East of a "zone free 
from weapons of mass destruction." The elimination of weapons of mass 
destruction in Iraq should thus lead to their elimination throughout 
the region.

Our response to war and military occupation in Iraq must also include 
a longer-term vision of an alternative US security policy. The Bush 
Administration claims that the deadly nexus of terrorism and weapons 
of mass destruction requires a radical new foreign policy of military 
pre-emption and the unilateral assertion of American technological 
power. This is the policy being implemented in Iraq. We must offer an 
alternative vision, one that takes seriously the terrorism and 
proliferation threat but that provides a safer, less costly and 
ultimately more successful strategy for countering these dangers.

The outlines of our alternative strategy are visible in the policy 
proposals we have suggested in the current debate over Iraq. We 
support the disarmament of Iraq, North Korea and other nations 
regarded by the international community as potential proliferators. 
We favor vigorous UN weapons inspections to verify disarmament. We 
call on our government to work diplomatically through the UN Security 
Council. We endorse targeted sanctions (restrictions on the finances 
and travel of designated elites, and arms embargoes) and other means 
of containing recalcitrant states. We endorse lifting sanctions and 
providing incentives as means of inducing compliance. We support the 
international campaign against terrorism and urge greater cooperative 
efforts to prosecute and cut off the funding of those responsible for 
the September 11 attacks.

At the same time, we recognize that disarmament ultimately must be 
universal. The disarmament of Iraq must be tied to regional 
disarmament, which in turn must be linked to global disarmament. The 
double standard of the United States and other nuclear states, in 
which we propose to keep these deadliest of weapons indefinitely 
while denying them to the rest of the world, cannot endure. The 
Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty of 1968 was based on a bargain--the 
nuclear powers' agreeing to pursue disarmament in exchange for the 
rest of the world's renouncing the nuclear option. The longer the 
United States and its nuclear partners refuse their obligation to 
disarm, the greater the likelihood that the nonproliferation regime 
will collapse. The only true security against nuclear dangers is an 
enforceable ban on all nuclear weapons. Chemical and biological 
weapons are already banned. The far greater danger of nuclear weapons 
also must be subject to universal prohibition.

A global prohibition against all weapons of mass destruction is the 
best protection against the danger of terrorists' acquiring and using 
them. In effect, the disarmament obligations being imposed on Iraq 
must be applied to the entire world. All nuclear, chemical and 
biological weapons and long-range missiles should be banned 
everywhere, by all nations. This is the path to a safer and more 
secure future.

Of course, a ban on weapons of mass destruction would be meaningless 
without robust means of verifying and enforcing such prohibitions. A 
world of disarmament will require much stronger mechanisms of 
monitoring and enforcement than now exist. The policies we have 
supported for the peaceful disarmament of Iraq--rigorous inspections, 
targeted sanctions and multilateral coercive diplomacy--can and 
should be applied universally to rid the world of weapons of mass 
destruction. The UN weapons-inspection capability should be increased 
a hundredfold and deployed throughout the world to monitor and verify 
the universal ban on weapons of mass destruction. Nations that refuse 
to comply with verified disarmament requirements should be subjected 
to targeted sanctions and coercive diplomatic pressures from the UN 
and other regional security organizations. Nations that cooperate 
with disarmament mandates should receive inducements in the form of 
economic assistance, trade and technology preferences, and security 
assurances. These policy tools, combined with a serious commitment to 
sustainable economic development for developing nations, are viable 
means for helping to assure international compliance with a global 
disarmament mandate.

This is not a pacifist vision that eschews all uses of military 
force. The threat of force is sometimes a necessary component of 
coercive diplomacy. In some circumstances the actual use of 
force--ideally in a targeted and narrow fashion, with authorization 
from the UN Security Council or regional security bodies--may be 
necessary. In contrast with the policy of the Bush Administration, 
however, the proposed approach would allow the threat or use of force 
only as a last resort, when all other peaceful diplomatic means have 
been exhausted, and only with the explicit authorization of the 
Security Council or regional security organizations. In no 
circumstance would the United States or any other nation have the 
right to mount a military invasion to overthrow another government 
for the ostensible purpose of achieving disarmament. Rather, the 
United States would respect the Charter of the UN and would strive to 
achieve disarmament and settle the differences among nations through 
peaceful diplomatic means.

Our immediate challenge in implementing these short- and long-term 
objectives is to change the political direction and leadership of the 
United States. In the upcoming political debates we must devote our 
energies to building support for our alternative foreign-policy 
vision and creating a mass political constituency that can hold 
candidates accountable to this vision. Our chances of preventing 
future military disasters depend in the short run on removing the 
Bush Administration from office and electing a new political 
leadership dedicated to international cooperation and peace. This is 
a formidable political challenge. It will be extremely difficult to 
accomplish by November 2004. We must begin to organize for this 
challenge now, however, and we must remain committed to this 
objective into the future, planning now for the additional election 
cycles that will probably be necessary to realize our goals. We must 
also recognize the enormity of the challenge we face in diminishing 
the unelected power of the national security establishment, which 
functions as a shadow government regardless of who is in office. 
These great challenges will be met only by a sustained, massive 
citizens' movement dedicated to the long-term challenge of 
fundamentally reshaping America's role in the world. The work begins 
now, as the military invasion of Iraq continues. We have no time to 
mourn. A lifetime of organizing and education lies ahead.