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Bush Doctrinaires: Analysts Point to Strong Signs America's War Machine Will Continue to Roll
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Bush Doctrinaires:
Analysts Point to Strong Signs America's War Machine Will Continue to Roll
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by Linda Diebel
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Thank God for Helen Thomas. She sits hunched over in the front row at White House press briefings and, as the slick boys and girls of the press corps respectfully clear their throats and try to catch Ari's eye, she goes in for the kill.She's 82 years old, already. What does she have to fear from White House flaks and media spin-doctors?And so, on Thursday, the legendary Ms. Thomas, formerly with UPI and now with Hearst, raised her head, squeezed one eye shut, took lethal aim and fired."Is the president contemplating any other regime changes in the Middle East," she asked Bush spokesperson Ari Fleischer. "I mean ... there seems to be something in the air that he may not stop with Iraq."Bull's-eye!It's more than something in the air in the administration of President George W. Bush. Even as fighting continues in Iraq, even amidst signs of chaos for the civilian population, there are warnings Operation Iraqi Freedom is about more than freedom for Iraq.It's about reshaping the Middle East, say analysts and policy-makers alike (although they attribute different motives and results), and applying America's new foreign policy doctrine to the world."Duly armed, the United States can act to secure its safety and to advance the cause of liberty — in Baghdad and beyond," write Lawrence Kaplan and William Kristol in their best-selling The War Over Iraq, the Bush policy bible. It's subtitled: "Saddam's Tyranny And America's Mission."The war against Iraq bears witness to the unfolding of this new policy — the Bush doctrine that evolved over a decade and was set in stone last September as the National Security Strategy of the United States.
Its architects are powerful players in the Bush administration. Master planner is Paul Wolfowitz, deputy defense secretary. Then, among many others, there's Vice-President Dick Cheney; Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld; defense adviser Richard Perle; and Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's chief-of-staff and national security adviser.These are the fabled hawks of the Bush White House, the so-called "neo-cons" who, after 9/11, according to lore, hoisted neophyte student George Dubya firmly into their tribe.The three principal elements of the Bush doctrine, as we see in Operation Iraqi Freedom, are pre-emptive strike, regime change and the supremacy of U.S. leadership in the world, backed by military might and guided by "moral authority."There are no qualms about going it alone, or almost, without the United Nations."It's not totally new because Americans have always felt they can defend themselves anywhere," says Stephen Clarkson, Canadian author and visiting scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington.
"What's new is the attitude, the close-mindedness, of the Bush group. This place is completely closed. They know the truth. It comes from God. They're right and everybody else is wrong."Bush casts issues in terms of moral right and wrong. His is an Old Testament White House, of vengeance sayeth the Lord against the foes of America.Freedom, said Bush on Friday, eyes cast heavenward, "is a gift from the Almighty God."Toronto international criminal lawyer David Jacobs views the Bush doctrine as a "terrifying doctrine of empire ... wholly unlawful.""The United States' almost religious fervor to control the planet is dangerous," says Toronto international criminal lawyer David Jacobs. But there are "many countries and peoples around the world who do not like the system and practices of the American government, and do not think the U.S. option holds advantages over their own. The rest of the planet does not believe the U.S. has the moral or legal authority to impose its views."It does appear to have the military might.There are more than 300,000 coalition troops on the ground in Iraq. And there are signs, despite denials, the Bush administration is already looking elsewhere in the region, starting with Syria and Iran.Former CIA chief James Woolsey says we're poised on the brink of World War IV. He's a Bush hawk, touted to take over the information directorate in the provisional government in Iraq."This Fourth World War, I think, will last considerably longer than either the First or Second World Wars did for us," Woolsey told a UCLA conference last week, referring to the Cold War as World War III."Hopefully," he added, "not the full four decades of the Cold War."That's not what Fleischer told Thomas when she asked about upcoming regime changes in the Middle East."Iraq is unique. Iraq presented a whole set of threats to the world that were unique," he replied, with condescension. "But every region in the world presents a unique set of challenges or difficulties for the United States, and for partners in peace, and each is dealt with separately.""So," asked Thomas, "the answer is, no?"Not likely, according to military analyst John Stanton, formerly with the conservative American Enterprise Institute think-tank."Nobody worth their salt in international relations believes this is just about Iraq."You've got to be dispassionate about it. It's about a vision, whether you like it or not, about taking care of festering problems. `Let's go in and clean house in Iran, in Syria and in other countries who harbor terrorists.'"The hawks "believe there is no way the Middle East can be stabilized unless you deal with all those countries in the region. "This is not some conspiracy. They've been very open about their views; it's all out there. The reality is that they see things through a narrow prism. In order for things to be right, they say, `We've got to set things right in the Holy Land.'"He says all the region's countries should be very nervous.Bush doctrine advocate Perle told the Foreign Policy Institute in 2001: "We could deliver a short message, a two-word message: `You're next, You're next unless you stop the practice of supporting terrorism.''Wolfowtiz has been asked about pro-Israeli views. "There is a widespread view in the Arab world (that the Iraqi war) is for U.S. strategic interests to help Israel," the pan-Arab station, Al Arabiya, asked him last week.
"People know you by name, they know (others) and they point out that you have a strong interest in a hegemonic Israel, if you will," said the interviewer.Responded Wolfowitz: "The Arab-Israeli issue is a painful running sore for everybody ... I have believed for a long time that peace is the only solution there ... two states living side by side in peace."Opinion polls show Americans are ready to reshape the Middle East.
A survey last week by the Los Angeles Times shows public opinion increasingly in favor of a broader U.S. military role in the Middle East,
It shows 50 per cent would support an attack on Iran if that country continues to develop nuclear weapons, and 42 per cent favor moving U.S. troops over from Iraq and invading Syria.
Seven out of 10 Americans, according to the poll, think the U.S. has the "moral authority" to attack Iraq and 60 per cent say the world is being made a better place by the U.S. military.And that's before Bush and his Pentagon spinners have even really honed in on a campaign to ready the public for war against Syria or Iran. To date, we've just had a taste of what looks like a serious campaign to come.But it is heating up."I think we're going to be obliged to fight a regional war whether we want to or not," Michael Ledeen, former U.S. national security official, recently told The American Prospect policy magazine."It may turn out to be a war to remake the world."The administration has stepped up verbal attacks on Syria and Iran. In fact, Stanton thinks the escalation of war at the Iraqi-Syrian border mirrors the escalation of the Vietnam War into Laos and Cambodia.
Rumsfeld has accused Syria of harboring Saddam Hussein henchmen and of hiding Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Bush repeated the allegations Friday.
Damascus calls these charges "fabrications."In Rome last week, John Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control and another Bush doctrine originator, urged Syria and North Korea to "draw the appropriate lessons from Iraq."Rumsfeld attacked Iran for allowing the presence of "hundreds" of armed Shiite Muslim fighters, warning the entrance into Iraq of military forces from Iran "will be taken as a potential threat to coalition forces"And, on Thursday, Wolfowitz told the Senate armed services committee that Syria is "behaving badly.""In recent days, the Syrians have been shipping killers into Iraq to try to kill Americans," he said. "We don't welcome that ... so it is a problem. I think it is important that Iraq's neighbors not meddle with Iraq.
"If they continue, then we need to think about what our policy is with respect to a country that harbors terrorists or harbors war criminals."He was referring to the anti-Israel groups, Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement), Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah, as well as Palestinian groups.Asked by West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd if he is advocating war, Wolfowitz said: "Taking action against Syria ... would be a decision for the president and the Congress."
Bush doctrine policy on countries harboring terrorists is already clear: It is unacceptable.
Views that evolved in the 1990s came together in a document by the Project for a New American Century think-tank and signed by Rumsfeld and other future Bush administration hawks two years before Bush took office."The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security," it says. "While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein."It also notes: "Iran may well prove as large a threat to U.S. interests as Iraq has."
The heart of the Bush doctrine surfaced in a 1992 defense-planning guide written by Wolfowitz, then working under defense secretary Cheney. It was leaked to the New York Times.
"This was all gamed and played out by folks from the think-tanks for years," says military analyst Stanton, explaining that they waited out the presidency of William Clinton, biding their time.The Bush doctrine says the U.S. "must dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military buildup in hopes of surpassing or equaling the power of the United States."As Kaplan and Kristol make clear: "It defends American supremacy on moral grounds."This gung-ho militaristic approach to the world holds particular dangers for Canada, warns lawyer Jacobs."The ambiguity of the Canadian government's position has been quite worrisome," he says, noting his concerns about Ottawa's tentative steps to get involved in post-war Iraq without, at least so far, United Nations support for reconstruction."We have to have serious regard for Canadian sovereignty" in this new Bush doctrine world, he says."It's grotesquely immoral to agree to go with the U.S. on life-or-death issues just because they can hurt us economically. We might as well give up now."For the moment, the United States is still not finished bringing democracy to Iraq.Since the indomitable Helen Thomas began this piece with her question for the Bush administration, it seems fitting that she close it with another query on the war."How do you bomb people back to democracy?" she asked Fleischer in the opening days of the Pentagon's Shock and Awe campaign against the Iraqi regime.That time, she got no answer.
Copyright 1996-2003. Toronto Star Newspapers Limited
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