The
Resort to Force
By Noam Chomsky
As Colin Powell
explained the National Security Strategy (NSS) of September 2002 to a hostile
audience at the World Economic Forum, Washington has a "sovereign right to
use force to defend ourselves" from nations that possess WMD and cooperate
with terrorists, the official pretexts for invading Iraq. The collapse of the
pretexts is well known, but there has been insufficient attention to its most
important consequence: the NSS was effectively revised to lower the bars to
aggression. The need to establish ties to terror was quietly dropped. More
significant, Bush and colleagues declared the right to resort to force even if
a country does not have WMD or even programs to develop them. It is sufficient
that it have the "intent and ability" to do so. Just about every
country has the ability, and intent is in the eye of the beholder. The official
doctrine, then, is that anyone is subject to overwhelming attack. Colin Powell carried the revision even a step further. The
president was right to attack Iraq because Saddam not
only had "intent and capability" but had "actually used such
horrible weapons against his enemies in Iran and against his own people" -
with continuing support from Powell and his
associates, he failed to add, following the usual convention. Condoleezza Rice gave a similar version. With such
reasoning as this, who is exempt from attack? Small wonder that, as one Reuters
report put it, "if Iraqis ever see Saddam
Hussein in the dock, they want his former American allies shackled beside
him."
In the desperate flailing to contrive
justifications as one pretext after another collapsed, the obvious reason for
the invasion was conspicuously evaded by the administration and commentators:
to establish the first secure military bases in a client state right at the
heart of the world's major energy resources, understood since World War II to
be a "stupendous source of strategic power" and expected to become
even more important in the future. There should have been little surprise at
revelations that the administration intended to attack Iraq before 9-11, and
downgraded the "war on terror" in favor of this objective. In
internal discussion, evasion is unnecessary. Long before they took office, the
private club of reactionary statists had recognized
that "the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf
transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam
Hussein." With all the vacillations of policy since the current incumbents
first took office in 1981, one guiding principle remains stable: the Iraqi
people must not rule Iraq.
The 2002 National Security Strategy, and
its implementation in Iraq, are widely regarded as a watershed in international
affairs. "The new approach is revolutionary," Henry Kissinger wrote, approving of the doctrine but with
tactical reservations and a crucial qualification: it cannot be "a
universal principle available to every nation." The right of aggression is
to be reserved for the US and perhaps its chosen clients. We must reject the
most elementary of moral truisms, the principle of universality - a stand
usually concealed in professions of virtuous intent and tortured legalisms.
Arthur Schlesinger
agreed that the doctrine and implementation were "revolutionary," but
from a quite different standpoint. As the first bombs fell on Baghdad, he
recalled FDR's words following the bombing of Pearl
Harbor, "a date which will live in infamy." Now it is Americans who
live in infamy, he wrote, as their government adopts the policies of imperial
Japan. He added that George Bush had converted a "global wave of
sympathy" for the US into a "global wave of hatred of American
arrogance and militarism." A year later, "discontent with America and
its policies had intensified rather than diminished." Even in Britain
support for the war had declined by a third.
As predicted, the war increased the threat
of terror. Middle East expert Fawaz Gerges found it "simply unbelievable how the war has
revived the appeal of a global jihadi Islam that was
in real decline after 9-11." Recruitment for the Al Qaeda
networks increased, while Iraq itself became a "terrorist haven" for
the first time. Suicide attacks for the year 2003 reached the highest level in
modern times; Iraq suffered its first since the thirteenth century. Substantial
specialist opinion concluded that the war also led to the proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction.
As the anniversary of the invasion
approached, New York's Grand Central Station was patrolled by police with
submachine guns, a reaction to the March 11 Madrid train bombings that killed
200 people in Europe's worst terrorist crime. A few days later, the Spanish
electorate voted out the government that had gone to war despite overwhelming
popular opposition. Spaniards were condemned for appeasing terrorism by voting
for withdrawing troops from Iraq in the absence of UN authorization - that is,
for taking a stand rather like that of 70 percent of Americans, who called for
the UN to take the leading role in Iraq.
Bush assured Americans that "The
world is safer today because, in Iraq, our coalition ended a regime that
cultivated ties to terror while it built weapons of mass destruction." The
president's handlers know that every word is false, but they also know that
lies can become Truth, if repeated insistently enough.
There is broad agreement among specialists
on how to reduce the threat of terror - keeping here to the subcategory that is
doctrinally acceptable, their terror against us - and also on how to incite
terrorist atrocities, which may become truly horrendous. The consensus is well
articulated by Jason Burke in his study of the Al Qaeda
phenomenon, the most detailed and informed investigation of this loose array of
radical Islamists for whom bin Laden is hardly more
than a symbol (a more dangerous one after he is killed, perhaps, becoming a
martyr who inspires others to join his cause). The role of Washington's current
incumbents, in their Reaganite phase, in creating the
radical Islamist networks is well known. Less
familiar is their tolerance of Pakistan's slide toward radical Islamist extremism and its development of nuclear weapons.
As Burke reviews, Clinton's 1998 bombings
of Sudan and Afghanistan created bin Laden as a symbol, forged close relations
between him and the Taliban, and led to a sharp
increase in support, recruitment, and financing for Al Qaeda,
which until then was virtually unknown. The next major contribution to the
growth of Al Qaeda and the prominence of bin Laden was
Bush's bombing of Afghanistan following September 11, undertaken without
credible pretext as later quietly conceded. As a result, bin Laden's message "spread among tens of millions of
people, particularly the young and angry, around the world," Burke writes,
reviewing the increase in global terror and the creation of "a whole new
cadre of terrorists" enlisted in what they see as a "cosmic struggle
between good and evil," a vision shared by bin Laden and Bush. As noted,
the invasion of Iraq had the same effect.
Citing many examples, Burke concludes that
"Every use of force is another small victory for bin Laden," who
"is winning," whether he lives or dies. Burke's
assessment is widely shared by many analysts, including former heads of Israeli
military intelligence and the General Security Services.
There is also a broad consensus on what
the proper reaction to terrorism should be. It is two-pronged: directed at the
terrorists themselves and at the reservoir of potential support. The
appropriate response to terrorist crimes is police work, which has been
successful worldwide. More important is the broad constituency the terrorists -
who see themselves as a vanguard - seek to mobilize, including many who hate
and fear them but nevertheless see them as fighting for a just cause. We can
help the vanguard mobilize this reservoir of support by violence, or can
address the "myriad grievances," many legitimate, that are "the
root causes of modern Islamic militancy." That can significantly reduce
the threat of terror, and should be undertaken independently of this goal.
Violence can succeed, as Americans know
well from the conquest of the national territory. But at terrible cost. It can
also provoke violence in response, and often does. Inciting terror is not the
only illustration. Others are even more hazardous.
In February 2004, Russia carried out its
largest military exercises in two decades, prominently exhibiting advanced WMD.
Russian generals and Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov announced that they were responding to Washington's
plans "to make nuclear weapons an instrument of solving military
tasks," including its development of new low-yield nuclear weapons,
"an extremely dangerous tendency that is undermining global and regional
stability,... lowering the threshold for actual use." Strategic analyst
Bruce Blair writes that Russia is well aware that the new "bunker
busters" are designed to target the "high-level nuclear command
bunkers" that control its nuclear arsenal. Ivanov
and Russian generals report that in response to US escalation they are
deploying "the most advanced state-of-the-art missile in the world,"
perhaps next to impossible to destroy, something that "would be very
alarming to the Pentagon," says former Assistant Defense Secretary Phil Coyle. US analysts suspect that Russia may also be
duplicating US development of a hypersonic cruise vehicle that can re-enter the
atmosphere from space and launch devastating attacks without warning, part of
US plans to reduce reliance on overseas bases or negotiated access to air
routes.
US analysts estimate that Russian military
expenditures have tripled during the Bush-Putin
years, in large measure a predicted reaction to the Bush administration's
militancy and aggressiveness. Putin and Ivanov cited the Bush doctrine of "preemptive
strike" - the "revolutionary" new doctrine of the National
Security Strategy - but also "added a key detail, saying that military
force can be used if there is an attempt to limit Russia's access to regions that
are essential to its survival," thus adapting for Russia the Clinton
doctrine that the US is entitled to resort to "unilateral use of military
power" to ensure "uninhibited access to key markets, energy supplies,
and strategic resources." The world "is a much more insecure
place" now that Russia has decided to follow the US lead, said Fiona Hill
of the Brookings Institution, adding that other
countries presumably "will follow suit."
In the past, Russian automated response
systems have come within a few minutes of launching a nuclear strike, barely
aborted by human intervention. By now the systems have deteriorated. US
systems, which are much more reliable, are nevertheless extremely hazardous.
They allow three minutes for human judgment after computers warn of a missile
attack, as they frequently do. The Pentagon has also found serious flaws in its
computer security systems that might allow terrorist hackers to seize control
and simulate a launch - "an accident waiting to happen," Bruce Blair
writes. The dangers are being consciously escalated by the threat and use of
violence.
Concern is not eased by the recent
discovery that US presidents have been "systematically misinformed"
about the effects of nuclear war. The level of destruction has been
"severely underestimated" because of lack of systematic oversight of
the "insulated bureaucracies" that provide analyses of "limited
and 'winnable' nuclear war"; the resulting "institutional myopia can
be catastrophic," far more so than the manipulation of intelligence on
Iraq.
The Bush administration slated the initial
deployment of a missile defense system for summer 2004, a move criticized as
"completely political," employing untested technology at great
expense. A more appropriate criticism is that the system might seem workable;
in the logic of nuclear war, what counts is perception. Both US planners and
potential targets regard missile defense as a first-strike weapon, intended to
provide more freedom for aggression, including nuclear attack. And they know
how the US responded to Russia's deployment of a very limited ABM system in
1968: by targeting the system with nuclear weapons to ensure that it would be
instantly overwhelmed. Analysts warn that current US plans will also provoke a
Chinese reaction. History and the logic of deterrence "remind us that
missile defense systems are potent drivers of offensive nuclear planning,"
and the Bush initiative will again raise the threat to Americans and to the
world.
China's reaction may set off a ripple
effect through India, Pakistan, and beyond. In West Asia, Washington is
increasing the threat posed by Israel's nuclear weapons and other WMD by
providing Israel with more than one hundred of its most advanced jet bombers,
accompanied by prominent announcements that the bombers can reach Iran and
return and are an advanced version of the US planes Israel used to destroy an
Iraqi reactor in 1981. The Israeli press adds that the US is providing the
Israeli air force with "'special' weaponry." There can be little
doubt that Iranian and other intelligence services are watching closely and
perhaps giving a worst-case analysis: that these may be nuclear weapons. The
leaks and dispatch of the aircraft may be intended to rattle the Iranian
leadership, perhaps to provoke some action that can be used as a pretext for an
attack.
Immediately after the National Security
Strategy was announced in September 2002, the US moved to terminate
negotiations on an enforceable bioweapons treaty and
to block international efforts to ban biowarfare and
the militarization of space. A year later, at the UN
General Assembly, the US voted alone against implementation of the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and alone with its new ally India against steps
toward the elimination of nuclear weapons. The US voted alone against
"observance of environmental norms" in disarmament and arms control
agreements and alone with Israel and Micronesia against steps to prevent
nuclear proliferation in the Middle East - the pretext for invading Iraq. A
resolution to prevent militarization of space passed
174 to 0, with four abstentions: US, Israel, Micronesia, and the Marshall
Islands. As discussed earlier, a negative US vote or abstention amounts to a
double veto: the resolution is blocked and is eliminated from reporting and
history.
Bush planners know as well as others that
the resort to force increases the threat of terror, and that their militaristic
and aggressive posture and actions provoke reactions that increase the risk of
catastrophe. They do not desire these outcomes, but assign them low priority in
comparison to the international and domestic agendas they make little attempt
to conceal.
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Noam Chomsky is a Professor of Linguistics and Philosophy at
MIT. In addition to Hegemony or Survival, America's Quest for Global Dominance
(The American Empire Project, Metropolitan Books), he is the author of numerous
books on linguistics and on U.S. foreign policy.