Interview with Aijaz Ahmad
Interviewed by Prasanth R.

Newsclick speaks to Professor Aijaz Ahmad on the implications of the meeting between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, as well as the path ahead for the key players in the region.  

Courtesy: Newsclick.in

The post And the Real Winners of the Singaore Summit are North and South Korea appeared first on SabrangIndia.

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The president giveth and he taketh away.

Donald Trump is a stern and wrathful leader. He thinks nothing of raining down fire and fury upon the enemies of his “chosen people.” Indeed, he even flirts with ending the world if he doesn’t receive due respect and the requisite number of burnt offerings. But he can also reward his followers, and those who curry his favor, with positions of power and untold riches.

This month, Trump will appear as both of these avatars. By meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Trump promises to wave his hand and create peace where before there was nothing but strife and dissension. At the same time, Trump the Destroyer has pledged to take the United States out of the Iran nuclear deal and bring the world that much closer to apocalypse.

It’s a peculiarly hypocritical position to take, but strangely consistent for a two-faced leader.

The deal with Iran closed off all possibility of the country going nuclear for a decade or more. A rich country, Iran could create quite a nuclear arsenal if it so wanted. Iran has abided by the terms of the current Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and yet Trump has called the deal “horrible.” Indeed, the president believes that he can “fix” the JCPOA. That’s quite a delusion.

Meanwhile, nuclear North Korea has indicated that it would get rid of its weapons only in exchange for a peace treaty to formally end the Korean War and a pledge from the United States not to attack.

A pledge from the United States? From the Trump administration?

In light of Trump’s attitude toward previous U.S. pledges to Iran and the presence of John Bolton as the new national security advisor, any promises from Washington are worth less than the 140 characters they’re tweeted in. It’s hard to imagine North Korea falling for such a canard.

So, to recap, Donald Trump will attempt this month to persuade a country to give up the nuclear weapons that serve as the deterrence of last resort while giving a green light to a non-nuclear country to restart its program. Trump believes that he can simultaneously capture a Nobel Peace Prize for his approach to North Korea and take a giant leap toward war with Iran by deep-sixing the nuclear agreement. That’s about as plausible as a duplicitous, managerially inept, barnyard bully of a sexual harasser becoming president of the United… Oh, never mind.

Scott Fitzgerald once wrote that “the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” I used to believe that was true. And then along came Trump and his two-faced approach to Iran and North Korea.

War and Peace
The Roman god Janus had two faces. One looked to the past, while the other gazed upon the future. Janus was the deity of transitions, which also meant that he was responsible for war and peace. Plutarch writes that Janus
 

has a temple at Rome with double doors, which they call the gates of war; for the temple always stands open in time of war, but is closed when peace has come. The latter was a difficult matter, and it rarely happened, since the realm was always engaged in some war, as its increasing size brought it into collision with the barbarous nations which encompassed it round about. 

Peace is indeed a difficult matter, particularly when it comes to the United States. As former president Jimmy Carter recently told The New York Times: “I don’t think that we adhere to a just approach to war, where we are supposed to make armed conflict a last resort and limit our damage to other people to a minimum. I think our country is known around the world as perhaps the most warlike major country there is.” The temple doors in the imperial capital — also known as the Pentagon — are, alas, always open.

Donald Trump was certainly Janus-faced during the 2016 presidential campaign, denouncing the wars of the past while, at the same time, hurling rhetorical lightening bolts at a variety of enemies: the Islamic State, Iran, North Korea, China, Mexico. His occasional sallies against U.S. adventurism overseas won him plaudits from a few befuddled anti-imperialists and criticism from some disappointed neo-cons. As president, however, Trump has hewed to a more traditional security policy of large military budgets, stepped-up drone warfare, and full-spectrum dominance.

North Korea is the curious exception to Trump’s general rule of belligerence. It’s not that he didn’t initially subscribe to the same approach as his predecessors when he took office. He upped sanctions against Pyongyang, tried to persuade China to twist the arm of its erstwhile ally, and used intemperate language to describe North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Then, like the rooster who believes that his crowing has caused the sun to rise, Trump took full credit for North Korea’s turnabout at the beginning of 2018. In fact, when he offered to participate in the 2018 Winter Olympics, Kim Jong Un was responding not to U.S. actions so much as his own domestic situation (progress in his nuclear program, political consolidation of power) and the overtures coming from South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who’d taken office in 2017.

I’m not sure which is more depressing: Trump’s self-delusion or the delusion of those who believe that they can influence Trump. Take, for instance, the anti-interventionist Rand Paul (R-KY), who agreed to support Mike Pompeo as secretary of state after Trump made some vague noises about ending the war in Afghanistan. (Actually, Trump has delegated tremendous powers to the Pentagon to prosecute the war in Afghanistan).

Paul is just the latest in a series of “Trump whisperers” who believe that they can make the president roll over and play dead. That includes all those who believe

that Trump should win a Nobel Prize for his efforts — which so far have consisted of a single, impulsive decision to meet Kim Jong Un — in the misguided belief that such a prize will buy Trump’s everlasting support for Korean reunification.

The only thing that Trump supports without qualification is Trump. Those who believe in appeasing the false god occupying the Oval Office in this way should pay more attention to what’s going on with Iran.

Listening to Unreason
The list of those who have tried to persuade Donald Trump of the value of the deal to close off Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon is a long one. At the top of the list was Rex Tillerson, the now dearly departed secretary of state. Then there was the letter from 52 leading national security professionals, including former NSA and CIA head Michael Hayden and former Republican chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Richard Lugar.

More recently, French President Emmanuel Macron came to Washington to see whether his legendary charisma could have an effect on Trump. It was part of an ill-advised European appeasement strategy to coax Trump into “fixing” the deal in a way that Russia, China, and Iran might find palatable. Earlier, Tillerson had pressured France, Germany, and the UK to set up “working groups” to identify “concerns” in the existing treaty and how Iran might address them. Macron, on his visit to Washington, broached the possibility of a “new treaty,” a departure from the European script that left some of his colleagues back home scratching their heads.

But then, two days ago, the UK released a statement that Prime Minister Teresa May, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and Macron are committed to “working closely” with the U.S. on “those issues that a new deal might cover.”

Dream on, Europeans. Haven’t you learned anything from Munich, 1938?

Much more congenial to Trump’s way of non-thinking is Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been pounding the drums for war with Iran for the better part of his political tenure as Israeli prime minister. This week, Netanyahu took to the airwaves to unveil the revelation that Iran indeed tried to build a nuclear weapons program. Well, that’s headline news…circa 2007. Maybe Netanyahu will host a follow-up program with all the evidence of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. He can call his program “Last Decade Tonight with Benjamin Netanyahu.”

The timing of Netanyahu’s “revelations” was critical, however. The French and Germans had their turn, and now Israel was following up with the knockout punch that Trump wants to use to get rid of the nuclear deal once and for all.
When will people realize that appeasing Trump is a very bad idea? Jeez, just look at all the administration officials who have been burned to a crisp flying so close to the sun. At the very least, such a flight pattern does bizarre things to one’s moral compass.

The Coming Confrontation
The best outcome from the Korea discussions is Trump deciding to let the Koreans work out their problems by themselves. North Korea is far away, and it’s hard to find anyone in the Pentagon who likes the odds of a regime-change military strategy. Maybe the vengeful Trump, after a modestly successful meeting with Kim Jong Un, will forget about North Korea when it’s no longer in his field of vision.

The same can’t be said about Iran. Netanyahu is chafing at the bit to escalate Israeli attacks on Iran, which so far have been confined to Iranian forces in Syria. Pompeo and the new National Security Advisor John Bolton are big fans of regime change in Iran. Trump seems to believe that the only way of fixing the Iran nuclear deal is by “fixing” Iran itself.

“I’m really good at war,” Trump the Destroyer said in 2015. “I love war in a certain way. But only when we win.”

In fact, a war with Iran would be catastrophic. And it probably wouldn’t be confined to Iran itself. Russia and China could come to their ally’s aid. Saudi Arabia would side with Israel and the United States. At minimum, the conflict would set the Middle East ablaze. But it could easily spread from there.

Frankly, compared to the prospect of world war, a much better outcome of the collapse of the Iran nuclear deal would be if Iran quickly acquired nuclear weapons. Then it could deter an Israeli and U.S. attack. And then, as with North Korea, Donald Trump might realize the importance of striking a denuclearization treaty with a nuclear Iran.

Does that sound absurd? Of course it’s absurd.

Welcome to the impossible world of America’s two-faced president.
 

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The meeting between North Korea’s Kim Jong-un and South Korea’s Moon Jae-in is certainly one of the most dramatic and momentous events in the recent history of East Asia. Beyond the symbolism of cross-border handshakes and tree planting (not to mention a controversially decorated mango mousse that briefly ticked off Japan), the joint declaration that a peace treaty will be agreed this year and that the two countries share a goal of denuclearisation marks the most important development in inter-Korean relations since the Armistice that ended the Korean War in 1953.

The first real opportunity for this dialogue seemed to come when South Korea hosted the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang in February this year. But in practice, it’s unlikely that a conveniently located sporting event was the only catalyst for such a dramatic shift in North Korean foreign policy.

Among analysts of Korean affairs, a few theories are circulating. Some think that the Kim government made its overtures because it genuinely fears that economic sanctions could become an existential threat; others surmise that the regime’s programme of weapons testing has now provided it with sufficient reassurance that it could deter a serious attack. A third theory suggests that Donald Trump’s unpredictable approach to international relations gave the north a sense of urgency.

But whatever the precise stimulus or concatenation of circumstances, the north has turned out to be rather more diplomatically sophisticated than many observers thought. When Pyongyang first reached out to Seoulabout the possibility of a meeting via its emissaries to the Winter Olympics, it was unclear how such a historic summit could be organised in such a short space of time. Such events ordinarily take months of planning and negotiation over the finest of details, yet the two sides gave themselves just a matter of weeks in which to arrange it.

Kim Jong-un’s visit to Beijing – his first overseas trip as North Korea’s leader – proved to be pivotal. Kim left reassured of his most important ally’s support, and he eased Beijing’s growing fear of being sidelined in the process. This summit also provided the first example of Kim’s previously unappreciated diplomatic skills as he played the role of junior partner perfectly with Xi Jinping.
Still, for all the outpouring of emotion on all sides, a dose of realism is in order.

The long game

Despite the declaration of Kim and Moon that the complete denuclearisation of the peninsula is the goal, it’s not yet clear whether two sides take that phrase to mean the same thing. Whether or not Pyongyang is willing to accept a reduction in its capability of any level is unclear, but even if it engaged to the fullest extent in a denuclearisation deal, its weapons programme is ultimately irreversible: North Korea now knows how to produce these weapons, and it will still know how even if the ones it has are destroyed.

Another notable declaration at the summit was the two leaders’ undertaking to “actively pursue” meetings either with the US or with the US and China. This nods to an uncomfortable truth: any discussion about inter-Korean relations can never be purely bilateral. As historic as this summit was, the issues at the core of Korea’s division cannot be resolved without the direct involvement of the US and China.

China will not tolerate being marginalised by the US, and will do all it can to ensure that the next step is a four-way dialogue. Similarly, North Korea will need the support of its most significant economic partner if it is to rebuild its economy. Ultimately, China’s interests are best served by peaceful coexistence between the two Koreas rather than reunification, which would deprive it of a buffer state between its border and that of a US military ally. It is likely that Xi will continue to support Kim and provide assistance in economic development rather than encourage a formal dissolution of the border with the south.

Similarly, regardless of the wishes of those south of the border, concrete progress with the north cannot be achieved without the US’s contribution. As things stand, the south needs Washington’s security guarantees, and the north’s various priorities all revolve around safeguarding itself against hypothetical US military action.

So, as momentous as the Kim-Moon meeting was, the two men alone do not hold the key to their countries’ futures. But despite this stark geopolitical reality, it would be wrong not to acknowledge the magnitude of this tremendous step forward. That the two Koreas are talking again is progress in itself – and that it seems likely they will keep talking and building trust is the very best anyone could have hoped for from this unprecedented meeting.

This article was first published on theconversation.com.
 

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The nuclear stand-off between Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the US continues, with the US sending its aircraft carrier strike force Carl Vinson and USS Michigan, an Ohio class nuclear submarine, off the Korean peninsula. Trump has held out the threat that if China does not intervene, the US will “solve the problem” of a nuclear DPRK “by itself”. The Korean peninsula and nearby countries including Japan, are now in imminent danger of another US military misadventure that can spin rapidly out of control, leading even to a nuclear exchange.

While the world now admits that the Bush administration lied about the Iraq WMD's, no serious questioning has ever been done on Bush's claims that DPRK violated the 1994 Agreement. DPRK is held responsible for breaking of the 1994 Agreed Framework though it is the US that walked out of it. If we read the mainstream western media, DPRK leaders are “unstable”, “volatile”, “irrational” and the root of the problem of a nuclear DPRK today. 

Neither has any serious consideration been paid to why DPRK has built a nuclear deterrence, dismissing its need for security as irrational. The world has forgotten that the US brutally bombed and napalmed DPRK during the 1950-53 Korean War, leading to the loss of 20% to 30% of its population. During the McArthur Congressional hearings, Gen. O'Donnell testified , “…I would say that the entire, almost the entire Korean Peninsula is just a terrible mess. Everything is destroyed. There is nothing standing worthy of the name…” (Vol. 4, p. 3075). While the world might have forgotten this carnage, for the Korean people, this memory remains still fresh.

The US has also never forgiven the DPRK and the Peoples Republic of China for the defeat that they inflicted on the US in Korea. At periodic intervals, the US ratchets up war hysteria over DPRK and conducts aggressive war games near its borders in the demilitarised zone around the 38th parallel. In violation of the 1953 Armistice, it introduced nuclear weapons in 1957 in Korea. The US also maintains a nuclear arsenal with sea and submarine forces, and has held nuclear weapons in Okinawa under secret agreements with Japan, though Japan has a constitutional bar against nuclear weapons on its soil. There are currently around 50,000 U.S. troops stationed in 23 military bases in Japan, and around 28,000 in 15 military bases in South Korea.

DPRK also looked at what has happened in the world after the fall of Soviet Union. The US and NATO forces bombed and invaded Serbia, Iraq and Libya. Would it have done so if they had nuclear weapons?

The DPRK started a nuclear and a missile program in the 1980's, and by early 1990's, was in position to create fissile material from its 5-MW reactor in Yongbyon. It felt that a nuclear capability would provide a bargaining counter with the US for longterm peace in the peninsula, and avoid costly conventional military build-up that it might otherwise need.

In early 90's, the US intelligence agencies claimed that DPRK had a stock of plutonium from the Yongbyon reactor and its plutonium reprocessing plant. Estimates varied from a few grams to a few kgs of fissile grade plutonium, sufficient for one or two bombs. DPRK had also started plans for two Light Water Reactors of 50-MW and 200-MW capacity for producing electricity. This were to be commissioned by early 2000. Once all these facilities were in place, DPRK would have had the capability of producing up to 20-25 bombs a year, and therefore a credible nuclear arsenal.

Simultaneously, it was also developing missile capability, by upgrading the Soviet era missiles in its stock, and creating the next generation of missiles.

The 1994 Framework Agreement was negotiated between the US and DPRK in this context. Its key features was dismantling the existing Yongbyon reactor, stopping the construction and eventual dismantling of the 50-MW and 200-MW reactors, and put all its spent fuel from which fissile plutonium could be extracted under IAEA safeguards. In lieu of this, the US agreed to provide two 1000-MW Light Water Reactors and supply fuel oil for producing electricity till these two reactors were built.

Unlike what we read in the western media, DPRK did carry out its part of the bargain. It dismantled its reactors and put its spent fuel rods under IAEA safeguards. Joel Wit, a former State Department official and very much a part of the 1994 Agreement, writes (Foreign Policy: April 27, 2016 ), “Pyongyang’s development of a plutonium production program, ongoing since the 1960s at a cost of tens, maybe hundreds, of billions of dollars… became a pile of unsalvageable junk.”

What the mainstream media neglects to mention is that the US never held up its side of the bargain. By 2002, instead of the two 1,000 MW reactors being finished as agreed, only some civil works had started. The fuel oil shipments, supposed to continue as long as the reactors were being built, saw only sporadic supplies.

The Bush administration, when it come to office in 2002, had identified DPRK as a part of the axis of evil, along with Iraq and Libya, and wanted to blow up the 1994 Agreement. The AQ Khan link to DPRK and its importing centrifuges from Pakistan for a uranium enrichment program was the excuse. As John Bolton, the US Ambassador to the UN puts it, “It was the hammer I had been looking for to shatter the Agreed Framework. ” The US walked out of its commitment of the 1994 Agreement, laid down conditions that DPRK had to “surrender your nuclear and missile program or else.” DPRK chose “or else”.

Did DPRK conduct a clandestine uranium enrichment program forbidden under the 1994 Agreement? While the US argued that any uranium enrichment program was against the “spirit” of the agreement, they never addressed the question under what clause was producing Low Enriched Uranium (LEU) fuel barred in the 1994 Agreement.

Did DPRK have a legitimate reason to start a uranium enrichment program? Much of the discussions that apply to DPRK is also common to the Iran issue. The Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) allows for peaceful use of nuclear energy including a fuel cycle. If DPRK did not want to be dependent on the US for nuclear fuel, it would need an indigenous fuel program. Therefore, uranium enrichment for fuel was a legitimate need of its civilian nuclear energy program. Of course, the same centrifuges can also produce Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) required for a weapons program. That is why it is a dual use technology.

The US had the option of accepting, as it has now done for Iran, that DPRK has the right to a nuclear fuel cycle. It had also the option to negotiate capping of DPRK's missile program, give guarantees against aggression, and stop the highly provocative military exercises it carries out each year. Instead, it walked out of a functioning Framework Agreement, which had effectively dismantled DPRK's plutonium program. DPRK then walked out of NPT, took back the 8,000 kg spent fuel roads it had handed over to IAEA, and within a few years conducted nuclear tests. Its missiles can now reach Japan and the US military bases in Okinawa and Guam, and in another 3-4 years, even reach the US mainland.

The US under Trump believes that more sabre rattling – this time with aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines – will cow DPRK down and make them surrender. The US and Bush Junior's policy of browbeating DPRK did not work in 2002. Why would the US and Trump's threats be more credible today after DPRK has built a nuclear arsenal?

Or does Trump believe what Bolton wrote recently: the only way to end North Korea's nuclear program is to “end North Korea ”. Something that Senator Lindsay Graham is also advocating. Take out North Korea in a preemptive strike even if it means “sacrificing” South Korea and Japan, and damage to China. Do China, South Korea and Japan have an opinion regarding such a suggestion? Is this what Trump is contemplating when he says that the US “will solve the problem by itself”?

Courtesy: Newsclick.in

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The consequences could be catastrophic in Iraq and around the world. The United States may reap a whirlwind of terrorist retaliation – and step up the possibility of nuclear Armageddon.

Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and company are committed to an "imperial ambition," as G. John Ikenberry wrote in the September/October issue of Foreign Affairs – "a unipolar world in which the United States has no peer competitor" and in which "no state or coalition could ever challenge it as global leader, protector and enforcer."

That ambition surely includes much expanded control over Persian Gulf resources and military bases to impose a preferred form of order in the region.

Even before the administration began beating the war drums against Iraq, there were plenty of warnings that US adventurism would lead to proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, as well as terror, for deterrence or revenge.

Right now, Washington is teaching the world a dangerous lesson: If you want to defend yourself from us, you had better mimic North Korea and pose a credible threat. Otherwise we will demolish you.

There is good reason to believe that the war with Iraq is intended, in part, to demonstrate what lies ahead when the empire decides to strike a blow — though "war" is hardly the proper term, given the gross mismatch of forces.

A flood of propaganda warns that if we do not stop Saddam Hussein today he will destroy us tomorrow.

Last October, when Congress granted the president the authority to go to war, it was "to defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq."

But no country in Iraq’s neighbourhood seems overly concerned about Saddam, much as they may hate the murderous tyrant.

Perhaps that is because the neighbours know that Iraq’s people are at the edge of survival. Iraq has become one of the weakest states in the region. As a report from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences points out, Iraq’s economy and military expenditures are ‘a fraction of some of its neighbours’.

Indeed, in recent years, countries nearby have sought to reintegrate Iraq into the region, including Iran and Kuwait, both invaded by Iraq.

Saddam benefited from US support through the war with Iran and beyond, up to the day of the invasion of Kuwait. Those responsible are largely back at the helm in Washington today.

President Ronald Reagan and the previous Bush administration provided aid to Saddam, along with the means to develop weapons of mass destruction, back when he was far more dangerous than he is now, and had already committed his worst crimes, like murdering thousands of Kurds with poison gas.

An end to Saddam’s rule would lift a horrible burden from the people of Iraq. There is good reason to believe that he would suffer the fate of Nicolae Ceausescu and other vicious tyrants if Iraqi society were not devastated by harsh sanctions that force the population to rely on Saddam for survival while strengthening him and his clique.

Saddam remains a terrible threat to those within his reach. Today, his reach does not extend beyond his own domains, though it is likely that US aggression could inspire a new generation of terrorists bent on revenge, and might induce Iraq to carry out terrorist actions suspected to be already in place.

Right now Saddam has every reason to keep under tight control any chemical and biological weapons that Iraq may have. He wouldn’t provide such weapons to the Osama bin Ladens of the world, who represent a terrible threat to Saddam himself.

And administration hawks understand that, except as a last resort if attacked, Iraq is highly unlikely to use any weapons of mass destruction that it has — and risk instant incineration.

Under attack, however, Iraqi society would collapse, including the controls over the weapons of mass destruction. These could be "privatised," as international security specialist Daniel Benjamin warns, and offered to the huge "market for unconventional weapons, where they will have no trouble finding buyers." That really is "a nightmare scenario," he says.

As for the fate of the people of Iraq in war, no one can predict with any confidence: not the CIA, not Rumsfeld, not those who claim to be experts on Iraq, no one.

But international relief agencies are preparing for the worst.

Studies by respected medical organisations estimate that the death toll could rise to the hundreds of thousands. Confidential UN documents warn that a war could trigger a "humanitarian emergency of exceptional scale" — including the possibility that 30 per cent of Iraqi children could die from malnutrition.

Today the administration doesn’t seem to be heeding the international relief agency warnings about an attack’s horrendous aftermath.

The potential disasters are among the many reasons why decent human beings do not contemplate the threat or use of violence, whether in personal life or international affairs, unless reasons have been offered that have overwhelming force. And surely nothing remotely like that justification has come forward.

(Courtesy International Tribune; March 17, 2003)(Noam Chomsky is a political activist, professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and author of the bestseller "9-11." He wrote this article for the New York Times Syndicate).

Archived from Communalism Combat, March 2003 Year 9  No. 85, Cover Story 13

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March 13, 2003

How have we got to this point, where two western governments take us into an illegal and immoral war against a stricken nation with whom we have no quarrel and who offer us no threat: an act of aggression opposed by almost everybody and whose charade is transparent?

How can they attack, in our name, a country already crushed by more than 12 years of an embargo aimed mostly at the civilian population, of whom 42 per cent are children — a medieval siege that has taken the lives of at least half a million children and is described as genocidal by the former United Nations humanitarian co-ordinator for Iraq?

How can those claiming to be "liberals" disguise their embarrassment, and shame, while justifying their support for George Bush’s proposed launch of 800 missiles in two days as a "liberation"? How can they ignore two United Nations studies which reveal that some 5,00,000 people will be at risk? Do they not hear their own echo in the words of the American general who said famously of a Vietnamese town he had just levelled: "We had to destroy it in order to save it?"

"Few of us," Arthur Miller once wrote, "can easily surrender our belief that society must somehow make sense. The thought that the State has lost its mind and is punishing so many innocent people is intolerable. And so the evidence has to be internally denied."

These days, Miller’s astuteness applies to a minority of warmongers and apologists. Since 11 September 2001, the consciousness of the majority has soared. The word "imperialism" has been rescued from agitprop and returned to common usage. America’s and Britain’s planned theft of the Iraqi oilfields, following historical precedent, is well understood. The false choices of the cold war are redundant, and people are once again stirring in their millions. More and more of them now glimpse American power, as Mark Twain wrote, "with its banner of the Prince of Peace in one hand and its loot-basket and its butcher-knife in the other."

What is heartening is the apparent demise of "anti-Americanism" as a respectable means of stifling recognition and analysis of American Imperialism. Intellectual loyalty oaths, similar to those rife during the Third Reich, when the abusive "anti-German" was enough to silence dissent, no longer work. In America itself, there are too many anti-Americans filling the streets now: those whom Martha Gellhorn called "that life-saving minority who judge their government in moral terms, who are the people with a wakeful conscience and can be counted upon"

Perhaps for the first time since the late 1940s, Americanism as an ideology is being identified in the same terms as any rapacious power structure; and we can thank Bush and Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice for that, even though their acts of international violence have yet to exceed those of the "liberal" Bill Clinton.

"My guess," wrote Norman Mailer recently, "is that, like it or not, or want it or not, we are going to go to war because that is the only solution Bush and his people can see. The dire prospect that opens, therefore, is that America is going to become a mega-banana republic where the army will have more and more importance in our lives. And, before it is all over, democracy, noble and delicate as it is, may give way . . . Indeed, democracy is the special condition that we will be called upon to defend in the coming years. That will be enormously difficult because the combination of the corporation, the military and the complete investiture of the flag with mass spectator sports has set up a pre-fascist atmosphere in America already."

In the military plutocracy that is the American state, with its un-elected president, venal Supreme Court, silent Congress, gutted Bill of Rights and compliant media, Mailer’s "pre-fascist atmosphere" makes common sense. The dissident American writer William Rivers Pitt pursues this further. "Critics of the Bush administration," he wrote, "like to bandy about the word ‘fascist’ when speaking of George. The image that word conjures is of Nazi storm troopers marching in unison towards Hitler’s Final Solution. This does not at all fit. It is better, in this matter, to view the Bush administration through the eyes of Benito Mussolini. Dubbed ‘the father of fascism’, Mussolini defined the word in a far more pertinent fashion. ‘Fascism,’ he said, ‘should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power.’"

Bush himself offered an understanding of this on 26 February when he addressed the annual dinner of the American Enterprise Institute. He paid tribute to "some of the finest minds of our nation [who] are at work on some of the greatest challenges to our nation. You do such good work that my administration has borrowed 20 such minds. I want to thank them for their service."

The "20 such minds" are crypto-fascists who fit the definition of William Pitt Rivers. The institute is America’s biggest, most important and wealthiest "think-tank". A typical member is John Bolton, under-secretary for arms control, the Bush official most responsible for dismantling the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, arguably the most important arms control agreement of the late 20th century. The institute’s strongest ties are with extreme Zionism and the regime of Ariel Sharon. Last month, Bolton was in Tel Aviv to hear Sharon’s view on which country in the region should be next after Iraq. For the expansionists running Israel, the prize is not so much the conquest of Iraq but Iran. A significant proportion of the Israeli air force is already based in Turkey with Iran in its sights, waiting for an American attack.

Richard Perle is the institute’s star. Perle is chairman of the powerful Defence Policy Board at the Pentagon, the author of the insane policies of "total war" and "creative destruction". The latter is designed to subjugate finally the Middle East, beginning with the $90bn invasion of Iraq.

Perle helped to set up another crypto-fascist group, the Project for the New American Century. Other founders include vice-president Cheney, the defence secretary Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz. The institute’s "mission report", Rebuilding America’s Defences: strategy, forces and resources for a new century, is an unabashed blueprint for world conquest. Before Bush came to power, it recommended an increase in arms spending by $48bn so that America "can fight and win multiple, simultaneous major theatre wars". This has come true. It said that nuclear war-fighting should be given the priority it deserved. This has come true. It said that Iraq should be a primary target. And so it is. And it dismissed the issue of Saddam Hussein’s "weapons of mass destruction" as a convenient excuse, which it is.

Written by Wolfowitz, this guide to world domination puts the onus on the Pentagon to establish a "new order" in the Middle East under unchallenged US authority. A "liberated" Iraq, the centrepiece of the new order, will be divided and ruled, probably by three American generals; and after a horrific onslaught, known as Shock and Awe.

Vladimir Slipchenko, one of the world’s leading military analysts, says the testing of new weapons is a "main purpose" of the attack on Iraq. "Nobody is saying anything about it," he said last month. "In May 2001, in his first presidential address, Bush spoke about the need for preparation for future wars. He emphasised that the armed forces needed to be completely high-tech, capable of conducting hostilities by the no-contact method. After a series of live experiments — in Iraq in 1991, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan — many corporations achieved huge profits. Now the bottom line is $50-60bn a year."

He says that, apart from new types of cluster bombs and cruise missiles, the Americans will use their untested pulse bomb, known also as a microwave bomb. Each discharges two megawatts of radiation which instantly puts out of action all communications, computers, radios, even hearing aids and heart pacemakers. "Imagine, your heart explodes!" he said.

In the future, this Pax Americana will be policed with nuclear, biological and chemical weapons used "pre-emptively", even in conflicts that do not directly engage US interests. In August, the Bush administration will convene a secret meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, to discuss the construction of a new generation of nuclear weapons, including "mini nukes", "bunker busters" and neutron bombs. Generals, government officials and nuclear scientists will also discuss the appropriate propaganda to convince the American public that the new weapons are necessary.

Such is Mailer’s pre-fascist state. If appeasement has any meaning today, it has little to do with a regional dictator and everything to do with the demonstrably dangerous men in Washington. It is vitally important that we understand their goals and the degree of their ruthlessness. One example: General Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani dictator, was last year deliberately allowed by Washington to come within an ace of starting a nuclear war with India — and to continue supplying North Korea with nuclear technology — because he agreed to hand over Al Qaeda operatives. The other day, John Howard, the Australian prime minister and Washington mouthpiece, praised Musharraf, the man who almost blew up west Asia, for his "personal courage and outstanding leadership".

In 1946, justice Robert Jackson, chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials, said: "The very essence of the Nuremberg charter is that individuals have international duties which transcend national obligations of obedience imposed by the State."

With an attack on Iraq almost a certainty, the millions who filled London and other capitals on the weekend of 15–16 February, and the millions who cheered them on, now have these transcendent duties. The Bush gang, and Tony Blair, cannot be allowed to hold the rest of us captive to their obsessions and war plans. Speculation on Blair’s political future is trivia; he and the robotic Jack Straw and Geoff Hoon must be stopped now, for the reasons long argued in these pages and on hundreds of platforms.

And, incidentally, no one should be distracted by the latest opportunistic antics of Clare Short, whose routine hints of "rebellion", followed by her predictable inaction, have helped to give Blair the time he wants to subvert the UN.

There is only one form of opposition now: it is civil disobedience leading to what the police call civil unrest. The latter is feared by undemocratic governments of all stripes.

The revolt has already begun. In January, Scottish train drivers refused to move munitions. In Italy, people have been blocking dozens of trains carrying American weapons and personnel, and dockers have refused to load arms shipments. US military bases have been blockaded in Germany, and thousands have demonstrated at Shannon which, despite Ireland’s neutrality, is being used by the US military to refuel its planes en route to Iraq.

"We have become a threat, but can we deliver?" asked Jessica Azulay and Brian Dominick of the American resistance movement. "Policy-makers are debating right now whether or not they have to heed our dissent. Now we must make it clear to them that there will be political and economic consequences if they decide to ignore us."

My own view is that if the protest movement sees itself as a world power, as an expression of true internationalism, then success need not be a dream. That depends on how far people are prepared to go. The young female employee of the Gloucestershire-based top-secret Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), who was charged this month with leaking information about America’s dirty tricks operation on members of the Security Council, shows us the courage required.

In the meantime, the new Mussolinis are on their balconies, with their virtuoso rants and impassioned insincerity. Reduced to wagging their fingers in a futile attempt to silence us, they see millions of us for the first time, knowing and fearing that we cannot be silenced. 
(http://www.zmag.org/)

Archived from Communalism Combat, March 2003 Year 9  No. 85, Cover Story 14

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