[Reader-list] US needs to take war momentum on to Syria and Iran

[Rana Dasgupta]

http://www.motherjones.com/news/warwatch/2003/14/we_345_04.html#one

On to Damascus?
For months, even as Washington's hawks prepared for their long-sought war in
Iraq, neoconservatives inside and outside the White House were eagerly
speculating about which country would be next on the administration's list.
Now, while US and British troops make their painstaking way across Iraq and
toward an urban battle military leaders want desperately to avoid, war party
pundits are eagerly speculating once more.

But this time, they are only writing about two countries: Syria and Iran.
This week, in a speech to the America Israel Public Affairs Committee, the
country's pre-eminent pro-Israel lobby group, Secretary of State Colin
Powell declared that Washington wanted to see "more responsible behavior"
from Damascus. And he didn't stop there. Denouncing the Syrian government's
harsh criticism of the US-led invasion of Iraq, Powell declared that Syria
now "faces a critical choice." It was strong language reminiscent of the
nuanced threats leveled at Iraq last year, and it was greeted by hearty
applause from the AIPAC crowd.

But is the Bush administration, in a war that few still believe will be
quick or simple, actually considering turning its military attention toward
Damascus? Neoconservatives dearly hope so.

Just last year, most neocon pundits were bravely predicting that Iraqi
forces would crumble at the first whiff of gunpowder, and that a swift
victory over Saddam Hussein's despised regime would force other Arab
governments to rapidly get in line or risk facing a similar onslaught. Their
quick, clean war hasn't materialized, but the war party pundits are still
pushing to keep the regime change express rolling. Like many of his hawkish
colleagues, New York Daily News columnist Zev Chafets declares confidently
that the war "won't end in Iraq." That's because, as far as Chafets is
concerned, this isn't a war against Iraq or Saddam Hussein -- it's the first
step in a global war against "armed Arab and Islamic fascism."


"When Saddam goes, American forces will be sandwiched between two enemies.
To the east, Iran, a charter member of the Axis of Evil. To the west, Syria,
a new volunteer. Both will have to be defeated before this war is over.
...

Syria is an inviting target for the U.S. Taking down the Assad government
would rid the Middle East of an aggressive, anti-American fascist regime and
also end Syria's occupation of Lebanon. That, in turn, would enable American
forces to go after Hezbollah camps in the Bekaa Valley, just as they went
after Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Not only would that weaken international
terrorism, but the U.S. hasn't forgotten that it was Hezbollah that murdered
241 American Marines in Beirut in 1983."

Just hopeful thinking on Chafets' part? If so, he's not alone. New
Hampshire's Manchester Union-Leader, which boasts one of the country's most
conservative editorial pages, similarly urges Washington to keep the war
going.


"America's failure to deal with organizers, sponsors and enablers of
terrorism -- including Arafat, Syria, Iran and Iraq (and Afghanistan until
the crushing of the Taliban) -- has cost thousands of lives and allowed the
unchecked breeding of radical anti-Western hatred.
In light of clear evidence that terrorist organizations and some governments
that harbor them are sending materiel and warriors to kill American troops,
America can no longer pretend that these groups and governments are not in a
state of active aggression against our interests and our people. Will this
administration do as all previous ones and look the other way? Or will it
deal with the situation as resolutely as it has dealt with the Taliban and
Saddam Hussein?"

The Union-Leader doesn't bother to expound on the "clear evidence," but some
Bush administration officials have been making similar accusations in recent
days, and there is little doubt that many would enthusiastically welcome
such a policy shift. For instance, as The Guardian notes, such a scenario
could well be considered a dream-come-true for Deputy Secretary of Defense
Paul Wolfowitz and other über-hawks. But the venerable British broadsheet
has a warning: "These American delusions are dangerous."


"Widening regional destabilisation was one of the reasons why so many people
and nations opposed this foolish war. By issuing such provocative threats,
even if they are essentially pre-emptive, the US behaves recklessly. The
Iraqi regime must be delighted. It is already doing its level best to
portray the conflict as one between the entire Arab 'nation' and the US,
between Islam and the west, between the righteous and the 'Zionists'. Its
call for Arab volunteers appears to be having some success. Its resort to
suicide bombings, or 'martyrdom operations', creates an entirely deliberate,
emotive association with the Palestinian intifada.
...

This steady radicalisation of Muslim opinion, this broadening polarisation
and alienation of the Arab and western spheres is exactly what Tony Blair
and others in Europe strove to prevent when the US 'war on terror' was
launched after September 11. Pro-western, so-called moderate Arab regimes
also greatly fear what may yet ensue, not least Saudi Arabia. Egypt's
president, Hosni Mubarak, glumly predicts the war will produce '100 Bin
Ladens'. He may well be right. The US could not find a clear link between
Iraq and al-Qaida. Now by its own woeful blunderings, it is creating one."

As if to drive home the reckless nature of the hawkish dreaming, Britain's
Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, declared that his government would have
"nothing whatever" to do with military action against either Syria or Iran.
As The Times of London reports, Prime Minister Tony Blair's government has
been carefully working to improve relations with both countries, and isn't
about to jettison that diplomatic effort simply because Washington's most
vocal hawks are clamoring for a wider war.

Meanwhile, Syrian officials and Arab commentators have responded with
predictable vigor, arguing that Damascus is simply expressing "the
international consensus which has said no to aggression against Iraq." And,
as Arab News reports, Syrian officials are taking pains to call attention to
the venue for Powell's speech.


"Noting that Powell was speaking to the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee (AIPAC), [Syria] said he was clearly "affirming that all the
actions of the US administration in the region serve Israeli interests and
plans and satisfy Ariel Sharon," the Israeli prime minister. "The officials
of this administration are thereby obtaining good conduct certificates from
Israel and its supporters in the United States."
The editors of the Daily Star of Lebanon, surveying the region's
Arabic-language press, declare that most commentators "see the outpouring of
bellicose rhetoric from Washington as a shot across Syria's bows," largely
because Damascus has emerged as the Arab world's most vocal critic of the
US-led war in Iraq. But others worry that Syria is "being granted belated
membership of America's 'axis of evil' and set up as its next prospective
target after Iraq." The war expansion US hawks so deeply want to see, the
Arab editors assert, would only serve "to further the administration's
strategy for global dominance and the agenda and territorial designs of its
right-wing allies in Israel."

The anti-Israeli rhetoric might be expected, particularly from Syria. But,
in this case, Powell's choice of the AIPAC dinner is not the only
connection. The evidence administration officials have cited in suggesting
that Syria might be aiding Iraq seems to have come exclusively from Israeli
sources. Most recently, an Israeli intelligence officer declared that his
government suspects Saddam Hussein might have hidden chemical and biological
weapons in Syria, along with long-range surface-to-surface missiles.


Values in Wartime
Straw's comments about Syria mark the first time since the war began that
the British government has placed itself in direct opposition to its
transatlantic allies. While there have been plenty of indications that the
two governments disagree sharply over some aspects of the war -- and the
reconstruction of Iraq following a war -- all have been papered over.

But the paper seems to be getting a little worn. British commanders in Iraq
are reportedly frustrated by the overly aggressive approach adopted by some
American officers. Even British hawks are taking up the refrain. And while
their comments seems in part motivated by simple national pride, their
criticisms are impossible to dismiss. Among the most convincing is Patrick
Bishop of The Telegraph. While no dove, Bishop worries that American forces
have become so convinced by their leadership's martial rhetoric that "anyone
who is not in a uniform that they instantly recognise is seen as a threat."

"Many, probably most, Iraqis are willing to be persuaded that the Americans
are in their country as liberators, not invaders. To do that, American
soldiers have to not only curb their trigger-happy ways, but also come out
from behind their Ray-Bans. They must start to recognise when it is time to
forget the rule book and think of local sensibilities. They should learn to
do simple things like waving at the children and saying hello in Arabic to
their elders. In short, they must work harder to show that they belong to
the human race."
While Bishop worries that the Americans' shoot-first approach is undermining
the effort to win hearts and minds, Jonathan Freedland is concerned more by
the ideals the war is undermining. Among other things, Freedland, writing in
the British Guardian, is convinced that the war is threatening the very
values that define America. While many outside the US seem to believe that
this war is "all too American," Freedland argues that such thinking does an
injustice to the US and its history.


"It assumes that the Bush administration represents all America, at all
times, when in fact the opposite is true. For this administration, and this
war, are not typical of the US. On the contrary, on almost every measure,
they are exceptions to the American rule.
The US was, after all, a country founded in a rebellion against imperialism.
Born in a war against a hated colonial oppressor, in the form of George III,
it still sees itself as the instinctive friend of all who struggle to kick
out a foreign occupier - and the last nation on earth to play the role of
outside ruler.

For most of the last century, the US steered well clear of the institutions
of formal empire (the Philipines was a lamentable exception). Responsibility
was thrust upon it after 1945 in Germany and Japan. But as a matter of
deliberate intent, America sought neither viceroys ruling over faraway lands
nor a world map coloured with the stars and stripes. Influence, yes; puppets
and proxies, yes. But formal imperial rule, never.

Until now. George Bush has cast off the restraint which held back America's
42 previous presidents - including his father. Now he is seeking, as an
unashamed objective, to get into the empire business."

Thankfully, such arguments are not limited to the pages of British
newspapers. Robert Scheer raises the very same historical red flag in his
Los Angeles Times column, reminding us that America's revered
revolutionaries were 'irregular' troops despised by the British for their
flouting of accepted rules of warfare. But Scheer also warns that recent US
history is one "of covert actions, political assassinations, special ops,
anti-democratic coups and dirty tricks that are, even today, being used in
Iraq." Sadly, to the extent that administration officials seem to believe
that the ends of their policy "are so noble that even clearly illegal means,
such as a preemptive invasion, are justified," this is a very American war,
Scheer opines.


Pentagon Planning and Peace
With field commanders predicting a far longer and uglier war than many
Washington hawks had promised, the Pentagon's civilian leaders are suddenly
taking transparent pains to distance themselves from the much-criticized war
plan. Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld, for instance, is now telling reporters
he cannot "take credit" for the plan, explaining that it was really all
thought up by the military men.

Apparently, at the Pentagon, the buck doesn't quite get to the top. War
Watch can't help but wonder if we'll hear Rumsfeld declining "credit" for
another plan in the weeks and months after the war. Because the very men who
planned the war -- led by Rumsfeld -- are fighting desperately to
consolidate their control over running the peace.

Jim Lobe, writing in Asia Times, reports that top Pentagon civilians,
especially Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Douglas Feith, are trying
to make sure that the State Department has little or no involvement in
putting together the reconstruction team. Feith, Lobe reports "has supported
Israel's Likud Party in the past and is said to consider some candidates to
be too pro-Arab." And Rumsfeld is demanding that his choice to run the
Pentagon's office of reconstruction and assistance, retired General Jay
Garner, be given authority over all relief and aid work. And while Feith,
Rumsfeld, and other Pentagon officials are fighting to keep the State
Department on the margins, they're fighting even harder to keep the UN out
of the picture entirely.


"In testimony late last week, Feith insisted that as long as the situation
on the ground is insecure, the military has to remain in control. "If things
go well, we will be able to hand things over to the Iraqis so there would be
no need for UN participation," he said."
But is the Pentagon -- even a Pentagon shown to be run by effective and
insightful planners -- really the best choice for managing the
reconstruction of a ravaged nation? Robert Wright doesn't think so. And,
like plenty of others, Wright isn't too convinced by the planning of this
particular Pentagon , which has allowed ideologically-motivated wishful
thinking to take the place of judicious planning. Which does not bode well
for the Pentagon's handling of such an ideologically-charged job as
nation-building.


"[S]ome of the plan's most influential advocates -- Deputy Secretary of
Defense Paul Wolfowitz and former Pentagon adviser Richard Perle -- are
among those who most consistently understated the difficulty of war. Perle
was egregious: 'Support for Saddam, including within his military
organization, will collapse at the first whiff of gunpowder.' Given the
failure of this first step in Perle's master plan to unfold as guaranteed,
I'm not feeling too good about the subsequent steps -- the part where Iraq's
authoritarian neighbors yield to benign democracy through some magical
process that has never been officially spelled out."