All around the world people ask: What is the real motive for the Bush administration's threatened war with Iraq? Is it to curb weapons of mass destruction? Is it more personal, an act of vengeance by a son against the man who attempted to assassinate his father? Is it to defend Israel? Is it to reinvent the Middle East as a more democratic region, as many of the Bush administration's leading voices insist? Or is it, as some suspect, so that the US can get its hands on Iraqi oil?
The Bush administration has offered a range of justifications for its plans, although with a fairly consistent emphasis on weapons of mass destruction. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz talks about making Iraq the "first Arab democracy." Many in the Bush administration argue that aggressive policies toward Iraq can ultimately bring down autocratic governments in the Middle East the same way that the Reagan administration supposedly brought down the "evil" Soviet empire.
Outside of the US, almost nobody buys these arguments. Most believe that oil ranks at the top of the US's list of motives. Short of the US national security archives suddenly falling open, we are unlikely to find a definitive account of the President's innermost thoughts. Moreover, different US officials certainly have different priorities. President George W. Bush may focus on weapons of mass destruction; Wolfowitz may target democracy. Others may have their eyes firmly on the prize of Iraqi oil.
A more fruitful question than an inquiry into America's motives is how the US will act once war comes. Here we don't have to rely on second-guessing individuals. We can examine the US' behavior in recent history.
Looking at the historical record, it is difficult to believe that the US will give the Middle East a democratic makeover. Today's Middle East is a construction of the US and Europe. Its despots and monarchs owe their positions to the machinations of the West. Even if the US goes off to war waving the banner of democracy, the results are likely to be less glorious. In the end, this will likely be a war for Iraqi oil.
Throughout the 20th century, Arab self-determination, democracy, and economic reform took a back seat to oil. When the British inveigled Arab chieftains to fight on behalf of the British empire in World War I, the Arabs were not rewarded with sovereignty at the Great War's end, but with ongoing British and French suzerainty.
Whenever real democracy in the Middle East threatened American control over oil reserves, democracy was jettisoned. Consider the CIA-backed coup against Iranian prime minister Mussadegh. In 1951, Mussadegh nationalized Iran's oil industry, prompting a British boycott the next year and then US-backed intervention (which toppled and jailed the popular prime minister) in 1953.
A similarly instructive case is the West's support for a military crackdown in Algeria after democratic elections in early 1992 threatened to bring the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) to power. When the FIS seemed headed to victory, Algeria's army stepped in to prevent continuation of the vote. Western governments, led by France but with US backing, gave moral and financial support to Algeria's generals.
American behavior in former Soviet Central Asia is equally vivid. Many in the Bush administration point to its work in this region as a showcase for how they will reshape the Middle East. Yet democracy has absolutely nothing to do with US policy in Central Asia, where US oil companies and diplomats trip over each other promoting deals in despotic Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
A good window on postwar US policy in Iraq can be found in key documents written by and for the Bush administration before Sept. 11, when the analysis of the Middle East was much less infected by today's fears. Probably the most interesting document is a study entitled "Strategic Energy Policy Challenges of the 21st Century," produced by the James Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University in Texas and the Council on Foreign Relations.
The study makes clear two points. First, Iraq is vital to oil flows from the Middle East, as it sits on the second largest reserves in the world. The report agonizes over the fact that for economic security reasons the US needs Iraqi oil, but that for military security reasons the US can't allow Saddam to develop the oil. The implication seems clear: the US needs a new Iraqi regime for its energy security. Democracy is not mentioned anywhere in the study.
This document also provides an interesting glimpse into the preoccupations of officials like Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Both men entered national leadership under president Gerald Ford in 1974, during the Arab oil embargo, which unleashed huge economic shocks that doomed Ford's presidency. The "Strategic Energy Policy Challenges" study puts enormous weight on the threats of a similar disruption today. The 1970s embargo was evidently a defining moment in the strategic thinking of Cheney and Rumsfeld.
The Bush administration may believe that it is going to war to fight for democracy in the Middle East, but US support for real democracy stands to be an early victim. Sadly, a war fought for oil will be one that further destabilizes international politics and society and undermines the true security of the US and the world.
Jeffrey D. Sachs is professor of economics and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. Copyright: Project Syndicate
After Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) met Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Beijing, most headlines referred to her as the leader of the opposition in Taiwan. Is she really, though? Being the chairwoman of the KMT does not automatically translate into being the leader of the opposition in the sense that most foreign readers would understand it. “Leader of the opposition” is a very British term. It applies to the Westminster system of parliamentary democracy, and to some extent, to other democracies. If you look at the UK right now, Conservative Party head Kemi Badenoch is
From the Iran war and nuclear weapons to tariffs and artificial intelligence, the agenda for this week’s Beijing summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is packed. Xi would almost certainly bring up Taiwan, if only to demonstrate his inflexibility on the matter. However, no one needs to meet with Xi face-to-face to understand his stance. A visit to the National Museum of China in Beijing — in particular, the “Road to Rejuvenation” exhibition, which chronicles the rise and rule of the Chinese Communist Party — might be even more revealing. Xi took the members
A Pale View of Hills, a movie released last year, follows the story of a Japanese woman from Nagasaki who moved to Britain in the 1950s with her British husband and daughter from a previous marriage. The daughter was born at a time when memories of the US atomic bombing of Nagasaki during World War II and anxiety over the effects of nuclear radiation still haunted the community. It is a reflection on the legacy of the local and national trauma of the bombing that ended the period of Japanese militarism. A central theme of the movie is the need, at
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on Friday used their legislative majority to push their version of a special defense budget bill to fund the purchase of US military equipment, with the combined spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.78 billion). The bill, which fell short of the Executive Yuan’s NT$1.25 trillion request, was passed by a 59-0 margin with 48 abstentions in the 113-seat legislature. KMT Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文), who reportedly met with TPP Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) for a private meeting before holding a joint post-vote news conference, was said to have mobilized her
RSS