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Edited on Mon Sep-01-03 11:20 AM by GrandmaBear
Note: This is not GrandmaBear speaking; this is Jack Rabbit.
Friedman has consistantly taken what might be thought of as the cold war liberal appoach to Iraq. This is similar to those Democrats who supported US efforts in Vietnam in the sixties and early seventies. In the political arena, this is the position taken by Senator Lieberman today; during the Vietnam War, the analogous position was taken by Senator Henry Jackson (D-Washington). In one of his columns, Friedman called his critique of the administration position neoliberal, a term that shall be adopted here partly for convinience and partly because the promotion of the neoliberal free trade agenda by pundits like Friedman and centrist politicians like Lieberman further justify its use.
The fundamental points of the neoliberal position is twofold: First, that the US was right to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam; second, that the Bush administration is bungling the postwar reconstruction of Iraq.
Ahead of the war, Friedman wrote a several of op/ed pieces in which he argued -- fallaciously, in my view -- that while going to war in Iraq in order to sieze that country's resources for our own purposes was a bad reason to invade, overthrowing Saddam and bringing democracy to Iraq were good reasons. Therefore, Friedman concluded, the invasion would be justified.
As I pointed out at the time Friedman was making this case, American foreign policy is the responsibility of George W. Bush, not Tom Friedman; that whatever good reasons Friedman could find for invading Iraq were irrelevant, since Bush was set on invading Iraq for all the wrong ones that Friedman himself identified as wrong. Furthermore, Friedman's right reasons for invading Iraq were not as good as he made them sound. This is because: democracy cannot be imposed on a society from without; that it was ludicrous to expect the Bush adminstration, which undermines democracy in America, to seriously promote it overseas; and because Friedman's idea of democracy is the neoliberal idea in which power is in the hands not of the people at large but in those of marketplace elites and conseqently is not democracy at all. Moreover, this free market pseudo-democracy is as much a universal failure today as was Soviet-style Communism twenty years ago.
What we see in Friedman's current pieces in the New York Times and in Senator Lieberman's campaign speeches is the same argument in a post-invasion context. They work better than the junta's arguments. However, that's not saying very much. The Busies, even if they don't come right out and say it, are modling the occupation of Iraq after Britain's two hundred-year-long occupation of India. However the Bushies wish to frame it, colonial occupation is not democracy and even assumes wrongly that the native population is either incapable of self-government or rightly that if the colony were self-governing the popular government would act against the interests of the colonialists.
The neoliberal critique of the invasion and occupation of Iraq recognizes that the administration's approach is at best clueless and at worst dishonest. However, the critique is in its own way just as dishonest and clueless.
It is dishonest because it regards the Bush lies ahead of the war as irrelevant. The administration is embarrassed to admit that there were no weapons of mass destruction ready for use, as claimed before the war. Administration spokesmen attempt to divert attention away from this by morphing weapons systems that might have been an immediate threat into weapons programs that might or might not have materialized into a threat years from now. Unfortunately, that is neither how the Bush administration and its allies justified their plans ahead of the war nor a justification for war in any case. The neoliberals give the administration a pass on its lies because they regard Saddam's brutal tyranny as sufficient reason to invade Iraq. However, this also is no clear justication for war. No matter how any American or British war hawk of any stripe spins it, prior to the invasion Saddam was a paper tiger. He presented no real threat to his weakest neighbor, let alone to the United States or any of its coalition partners. If Saddam had really been a threat to regional stability -- as Milosevic's had been -- then his tyranny could have been used as auxiliary reasons to invade and topple his regime. To use Saddam's tyranny alone as an argument for invasion also suggests that it would be just as wise to invade Zimbabwe, Burma, China and, ironically, the United States -- all countries ruled by tyrants who systematically abridge human rights.
As desirable as it is to topple tyrants, wars must be fought as a last resort when there is no other was of alleviating a genuine threat. There is no such thing as a war of choice (to use Friedman's term for the invasion of Iraq) that can be justified. To fight such wars of choice would have practical consequences. Such a policy would tax even present US military capacity beyond the breaking point. As it is, the occupation of Iraq has placed considerable stress on US military capabilites. With half of all the army's combat brigades stationed in Iraq, many inside and outside the administration say more troops are needed.
The neoliberal critique of the also asserts that the Bush administration is bungling the postwar reconstruction of Iraq. While the Bush administration has set up a colonial model for Iraq's occupation, neoliberals like Friedman and Lieberman believe a model built on the post-World War II occupation Germany and Japan would be more suitable. Of course, this is what the junta wants Americans to believe the occupation really is. That it is something else is addressed by the fact that Iraq's oil fields and oil ministry building were secured and the rest of the country allowed to rot. Hospitals and museums were looted, delivery of electricity to homes and businesses are sporatic, crime on the streets is open and rampant. The Iraqi people need basic services. The US is failing its responsibility as a occupying power.
The neoliberals believe that if the adminstration's rheteric about the benefits of US occupation were matched by its deeds, the occupation of Iraq would be shorter and easier. Iraqi resistence to the occupation would dissipate if the Iraqis see that Americans really do mean well.
This argument falls short. The neoliberals' goals for Iraqi civil society aren't really that much different from those of the Bush administration. The neoliberals and the Bushies are both determined to impose a globalized free market economy on Iraq. This won't make Iraq a twenty-first century Germany, but Argentina by the Tigris. The country will borrow heavily from foreign banks for development projects, which will be managed by multinational companies like Halliburton and Bechtel and sell its natural resources to foreign interests like Cheveron and Exxon in order to repay the debt. Foreign products will come in and undersell the native competition. Of course, there will be elections. Voters will choose from candidates selected and approved by the marketplace elites who pay their campaign expenses. It should surprise no one when the politicians who emerge from this system prepesent the interests of the elites rather than the popular will. While the neoliberals call this democracy because voters elect the leaders, it is really nothing of the sort since the elites really determine the choice presented to the voters.
The solution to the Iraqi quagmire that has resulted from the invasion would start by just being honest about having been deceptive: Let's admit that the war is colonial piracy. In order to correct this, let's cancel the contracts that were awarded without bid to the Bush junta's cronies. Then let's let the UN assume administrative responsibility for Iraq. A truly benevolent post-invasion administration would seek out civic leaders who will organize basic services like delivery of water and power and police protection, not schmooze the colonialists. The result might not be a government that represents US interests or caters to US will. However, an Iraqi government isn't supposed to represent US interests or cater to the US will. It is supposed to represent the Iraqi people and cater to their will.
That is the only way out.
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