The Progressive Response
Volume 7, Number 12
April 25, 2003
The Progressive Response (PR) is produced weekly by the Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC, online at www.irc-online.org) as part of its Foreign Policy in Focus (FPIF) project. FPIF, a "Think Tank Without Walls," is an international network of analysts and activists dedicated to "making the U.S. a more responsible global leader and partner by advancing citizen movements and agendas." FPIF is joint project of the Interhemispheric Resource Center and the Institute for Policy Studies. We encourage responses to the opinions expressed in the PR and may print them in the "Letters and Comments" section. For more information on FPIF and joining our network, please consider visiting the FPIF website at http://www.fpif.org/, or email <feedback@fpif.org> to share your thoughts with us.
John Gershman, editor of Progressive Response, is a senior analyst with the Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC) (online at www.irc-online.org). He can be contacted at <john@irc-online.org>.
Editor: John Gershman (IRC)
Table of Contents
I. Updates and Out-Takes
BRINGING THE WAR HOME: NEOCONS ATTACK THE STATE DEPARTMENT
By Jim Lobe
IRAQIS TELL BUSH ADMINISTRATION: "THANKS. GOODBYE. DON'T FORGET THE LIGHTS."
By Col. Dan Smith (Ret.)
II. Outside the U.S.
THE CUBAN SHOWDOWN
By Laura Carlsen
WHO WILL GOVERN IRAQ?
By Mark Sedra
III. Letters and Comments
I. Updates and Out-takes
BRINGING THE WAR HOME: NEOCONS ATTACK THE STATE DEPARTMENT
By Jim Lobe
(Editor's Note: Excerpted from a new global affairs commentary available in full online at http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2003/0304gingrich.html.)
As U.S. forces consolidate the occupation in Iraq the neoconservatives are bringing the war home again, re-opening the front in Washington with an artillery barrage against the State Department.
The opening salvo was delivered on April 22 by the former Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives (1995-98) and member of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, Newt Gingrich, at the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI). Gingrich, who is close to Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld, aimed the full fury of his rhetorical fire on a building located about two kilometers to the southwest, the State Department, which he accused of actively subverting President George W. Bush's agenda in Iraq and beyond.
"The last seven months have involved six months of diplomatic failure and one month of military success," Gingrich charged, adding, "Now the State Department is back at work pursuing policies that will clearly throw away all the fruits of hard-won victory." While he insisted he was not faulting Secretary of State Colin Powell, whom he depicted as a prisoner of the Department and its Near East bureau, he called for a thoroughgoing transformation of the diplomatic service. "Without bold dramatic change at the State Department," Gingrich warned, "the United States will soon find itself on the defensive everywhere except militarily. In the long run that is a very dangerous position for the world's leading democracy."
It was a stunning attack from someone so closely identified with Rumsfeld and the neoconservative hawks around him. Charles Kupchan, a foreign policy expert at Georgetown University, said Gingrich, as a member of the Policy Board, probably even cleared his remarks with top officials. "I've never seen a wholesale attack on America's entire diplomatic establishment like this," Kupchan said. "This is fundamentally about ideology and the efforts of the neoconservatives to institutionalize their victories over the moderate and liberal internationalists." He went on to note that, "Calls for State Department reform are really a veiled way of trying to make permanent changes that would leave a certain ideological strain that could be called 'neo-imperial' in control not just of the Pentagon but of other parts of the government as well."
It also illustrates the degree to which relations between the State Department and the Pentagon hawks have moved to open warfare as both sides jostle for control of policy in Iraq and the broader Middle East.
The State Department itself issued a low-key response to the Gingrich attack, insisting that it was loyally and effectively carrying out Bush's policy, including the Road Map for Israeli-Palestinian peace. Murphy, however, dismissed as "nonsense" many of the factual assertions made by Gingrich about the diplomacy leading up to the war. "Gingrich and company should look at themselves in the mirror," Kupchan said. "If you ask who is it who has set most of the world against the United States, it's not the Department; it's the Pentagon and the neocons."
(Jim Lobe <jlobe@starpower.net> is a political analyst with Foreign Policy in Focus (online at www.fpif.org). He also writes regularly for Inter Press Service.)
IRAQIS TELL BUSH ADMINISTRATION: "THANKS. GOODBYE. DON'T FORGET THE LIGHTS."
By Col. Dan Smith (Ret.)
(Editor's Note: Excerpted from a new global affairs commentary available in full at http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2003/0304lights.html.)
"Democracy," Winston Churchill declared, "is the very worst form of government in the world--except for all the other forms." By that he meant it is a frustrating, time-intensive, messy affair, with bickering a central element in the process. So when some country attempts to export and guide the creation of democracy in another country, it undertakes an almost impossible task. And if it is not careful, the task itself can, literally as well as figuratively, lead to the demise of the very form of governance it attempts to foster.
This is where Iraq stands today. After much hesitation, Iraqis in general now are convinced that Saddam Hussein, even if alive, will never return to power. For his would-be successors, there is a massive and potentially lucrative vacuum of power that someone--or a combination of someones--will have to fill. And of course, as in Afghanistan, in addition to the U.S. and Britain, regional countries are keenly interested in who takes (or is elected to) power and what the political system will entail.
Retired U.S. general Jay Garner has just entered Baghdad, where he will set up the U.S.-led post-Saddam reconstruction and rehabilitation headquarters that is to advise and guide the Iraqis in developing civil society, reestablishing a "clean" police and judicial system, preparing a constitution, and holding elections. Separately, the Pentagon is reportedly rearranging troop dispositions and preparing to bring in a "stabilization force" consisting of elements from the Germany-based 1st Armored Division and the U.S.-based 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment. They will join the 4th Infantry (Mechanized) Division and 2nd Light Armored Cavalry Regiment already deploying to Iraq.
But the preponderance of the new troops are tank and armored infantry units, the wrong kind of forces when one is trying to make person-to-person contacts with a population. Light infantry using less-armored vehicles and military police units are better in this scenario, because they are less intimidating and convey the message of "liberation" rather than of "new conqueror."
As the U.S. goes about cleaning out the Ba'ath party hierarchy, it faces two other problems. Among the civilian population, the number of casualties (particularly among children) from unexploded cluster munitions is beginning to mount. During the war, the Pentagon concealed the employment of cluster munitions under the more general rubric, "precision guided munitions." Only now, as reports are collated from outlying villages, is the extent of cluster bomb usage emerging. But like depleted uranium, the military says it is not in the business of cleaning up unexploded cluster bombs or other munitions.
The second problem is the continued inability to provide the extensive humanitarian relief and restoration of basic government services--water, electricity, public transport, telephones, schools, sewage treatment, law and order, and a functioning judiciary--repeatedly promised Baghdad's 5 million people. Convoys of food aid from Jordan in the north and Kuwait in the south have reached the two largest cities, but the economy is in dire straits with no real timetable for getting it--and the country--moving again.
While Iraqis want U.S. help, they do not want U.S. influence, particularly in the formation of their democracy and its supporting civil structure. Most are grateful to be free of Saddam Hussein and his regime, but they are equally adamant that liberation does not bestow special privilege on the liberators. These conflicting sentiments are mirrored in the anti-U.S. demonstrations that have occurred in many Iraqi cities.
In short, their message to the Bush administration is: "Thank you. Goodbye. And please don't forget to turn on the lights."
(Dan Smith <dan@fcnl.org> is a military affairs analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus (online at www.fpif.org) and a retired U.S. army colonel and senior fellow on Military Affairs at the Friends Committee on National Legislation.)
II. Outside the U.S.
THE CUBAN SHOWDOWN
By Laura Carlsen
(Editor's Note: With continued wrangling in the UN, analyst Laura Carlsen offers a cautionary tale about using human rights only in the service of politically motivated vendettas. The excerpt of the piece below appears in full at http://www.americaspolicy.org/columns/amprog/2003/0304cuba.html and appears here courtesy of the Interhemispheric Resource Center's Americas program.)
Latin American nations faced another delicate show of loyalties and principles in the United Nations this week, with the vote to call for Cuba to accept a United Nations Human Rights commission. Sponsored by Uruguay, Peru, and Costa Rica, the resolution passed by a vote of 24-20, with nine abstentions. The diplomatic tug-of-war that preceded the vote, and its repercussions, reveal a continent of nations struggling to realign their precepts of foreign relations in dangerous and unprecedented conditions.
The political context for the vote could not have been more highly charged. In the past month, the Cuban government instituted a crackdown on dissidents that led to the imprisonment of 75 opposition members, many journalists, some with terms of over 20 years. On April 11, the government executed three men accused of hijacking a boat and taking passengers hostage on April 2. The summary trials and executions of the hijackers caused indignation throughout Latin America. The Interamerican Human Rights Commission of the OAS formally condemned the executions on April 16.
Increased urgency to call attention to the human rights situation in Cuba was offset in part by the perceived threat of U.S. aggression in the wake of the Iraq invasion, and anger at the impunity granted it in the UN. Many decry what they view as a double standard in the politically motivated use of UN human rights instruments by the United States. Argentine president Eduardo Duhalde, who had expressed support for the resolution, decided to abstain, citing U.S. "hypocrisy" and stating "We consider (the resolution) very untimely taking into account this unilateral war that violates human rights." Brazil also abstained.
While the Argentine vote was heavily influenced by the international situation, Mexico--traditionally Cuba's staunchest ally in the hemisphere--faced a vote packed with political nuances. Last year, on April 19th, Mexico voted in favor of a nearly identical resolution calling for a human rights investigation in Cuba. The vote marked the first time since the Cuban revolution that Mexico had voted against the island. The diplomatic turn-around immediately raised the ire of the Mexican left and added to the deterioration of Mexico-Cuba relations orchestrated by then-Secretary of Foreign Relations, Jorge Castañeda. This time, the Fox administration faced heavy pressure not to vote against Cuba in the context of U.S. intervention. After the executions, the human rights violations seemed to create more justification for a "yes" vote on the measure that could also possibly alleviate tensions with the U.S. stemming from Mexico's anti-war position.
It's no secret that the Latin American contingent of neocons, led by Otto Reich, has been champing at the bit to haul Cuba into the Pax Americana. In just the past few months two airplanes have been hijacked to the U.S. with little reaction from that country. The climate of hostility against Cuba has thickened. Jeb Bush further inflamed fears (or hopes) with his statement that after Iraq it was time to clean up the neighborhood. Government infiltrators testifying in the case against the dissidents report direct ties to James Cason of the U.S. Interests Office on the island.
These are dangerous times. The threat to civil liberties of applying repressive wartime restrictions outside of war is great, as is also shown in the United States where successive versions of the Patriot Act chip away at hard-won rights. The perils of violating human rights for national defense--or implicitly condoning violations based on an abstract defense of sovereignty--are undeniable, just as standing idle when faced with increased foreign intervention has its costs. In fact, history has shown time and time again that a nation inclined to the former, often falls easy prey to the latter.
(Laura Carlsen <laura@irc-online.org> is a Mexico-based associate of the Americas Program of the Interhemispheric Resource Center (online at www.irc-online.org) .)
WHO WILL GOVERN IRAQ?
By Mark Sedra
(Editor's Note: Excerpted from a new AFPIF policy report available in full at http://www.fpif.org/papers/iraqgov2003.html.)
With Baghdad having fallen and the territorial consolidation of Iraq near at hand, discussion of the postwar period has intensified dramatically. The debate has provoked splits at various levels, within the United Nations, within the vaunted "coalition of the willing," and even within the U.S. government. The acrimony that has surrounded this debate shows that even with victory in the war assured, wining the peace will be a more arduous task. How Iraq is governed and rebuilt in the first two years following the war's conclusion may determine whether, in the rhetoric of the Bush administration, it is transformed into a beacon of democracy for the Arab world or, as many Middle East experts and observers fear, it sparks a wave of violent and destabilizing unrest in the region. In light of the monumental significance of this enterprise, it is important to examine the potential models for postwar governance in Iraq and to assess their effectiveness and impact. An examination of public statements issued by policymakers who will shape the postwar dispensation, along with an analysis of previous cases of post-conflict state building--such as post-World War II Germany and Japan, the Balkans in the 1990s, and, most recently, Afghanistan--provides a basis upon which to construct models of governance for Iraq. The model ultimately implemented will vary significantly from the theoretical constructs presented in this paper. However, the purpose of this analysis is not to predict the shape and structure of the postwar administration; it is intended to elucidate the demands and dangers of the postwar environment as a guide to state building.
Although Condoleezza Rice has proclaimed that the U.S. "will leave Iraq completely in the hands of Iraqis as soon as possible," actions on the ground seem to contradict such rhetoric. The consequences of the neoconservative, unilateralist approach, if it is implemented, will be multifaceted and far-reaching. Winning the peace with such a strategy will be long and costly, maybe impossible. It will ignite unrest in Iraq and arouse the anti-American passions of the entire Muslim world, creating a fertile ground for terrorism. The long-term reverberations unleashed by such a policy will leave no nation in the region, and perhaps the world, untouched.
In spite of the failings of the Afghan model, as illustrated by the sharp deterioration of security in Afghanistan since the beginning of 2003, the UN provides the most effective mechanism to infuse the postwar order with a semblance of legitimacy and thus minimize the potential for a violent backlash from the population. It is understandable that the U.S.-led coalition, having borne the costs and risks of prosecuting the Iraq war, will want to have a central role in forging the postwar dispensation. Establishing a multilateral framework does not prevent the U.S. from exerting such influence. In Afghanistan, the U.S. has wielded more influence than any other party over the fledgling Afghan government, which is viewed in many quarters as a client of Washington.
The UN is best prepared to confront the massive humanitarian and political challenges that lie ahead for Iraq. This does not obviate the need for U.S. involvement; quite the contrary, U.S. engagement, on a political, economic, and military level, is vital for the success of this enterprise. Reconstructing Iraq will be a long and costly effort that would be difficult for any country, even a superpower, to accomplish alone. America's interests will not be served by transforming Iraq into a protectorate; this would only create instability in Iraq and exacerbate tensions along broader regional fault lines. If, as the Bush administration asserts, the primary goal of U.S. policy in postwar Iraq is to create a democratic system, then ceding authority over the reconstruction process to the UN would be the most effective approach to take. The televised conventional war may be over, but the question of whether hostilities will continue depends on the actions taken by the U.S. in the weeks and months ahead.
(Mark Sedra <sedra@bicc.de> is a research associate at the Bonn International Center for Conversion (BICC) and writes regularly for Foreign Policy in Focus (online at www.fpif.org).)
III. Letters and Comments
Re: India's Middle Path on War in Iraq
I find the arguments given by Ninan Koshy completely untenable and unreasonable. It is time we understood the realities of the geopolitical environment. The Muslim world has never supported us, rather they have been hapless and mute witnesses to attacks on us when they are not actively supporting such attacks. China, Southeast Asia, and the majority of nations have adopted the middle path as pragmatic policy options. No doubt the Iraqi people have our sympathy and concern for their well being but I saw no protests or demonstrations against the mass killings by Saddam Hussein. As long as contracts and trade flourished arm chair critics were willing to accept Saddam.
- Arun Sahgal <arunsahgal@hotmail.com>
Re: General Comments
Why don't you simply acknowledge that you are a communist/socialist organization? From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs, right? You may think that you are clever in disguising your objectives with elaborate oratory, but rest assured, knowledgeable Americans can see through your veil of "progressive activism". Of course, we're not your core constituency, are we? You prey on the ill-informed and weak, like a pack of hyenas. You will fail, as your comrades have in the past.
Too many millions have suffered and died at the hands of the likes of you to allow socialism to re-emerge as a valid socio-political alternative.
We are watching you. As for your question, "May we publicize your comments?" I dare you.
- Charles Taylor <cgbanker@hotmail.com>
Re: General Comments
I want to assure you that many in Australia are disturbed by our having gone to war against Iraq also.
There is going to be a considerable impact on people's sense of reality as things continue to go wrong. It will not be easy to get back to positive and open perspectives within our society or dealing with our region. I wish you success in the U.S.
- Dennis Argall <dennis@aplaceof.info> (former Australian Ambassador to China and formerly Minister, Australian Embassy Washington, DC)
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