Commentary

The Dilemma of the New American Empire

U.S. President George W. Bush declared the New American Empire in September 2002 in what has become known as the "Bush Doctrine". However, less than six months later that empire is already facing a life-and-death crisis. Having failed to convince either the world or the American people of the need to go to war with Iraq, and with 200,000 troops already in or headed to the Persian Gulf region, the Bush administration has to decide whether to go to war or cut its losses and go home. Either course of action is fraught with dangers.

It is conceivable that the Bush administration could simply declare Iraq disarmed, claim victory for itself and bring its armed forces home. That would be the cheapest and safest course of action in the short term. However, it is also the most unlikely scenario for a number of reasons. The cabal of advisors (referred to by a high-ranking UN official as "sinister men") surrounding Bush are arrogant, ignorant and ruthless. They are also universally despised and any claims that they make about "victory", short of occupying Baghdad, will be greeted by hoots of derision around the world. The New American Empire will be seen as a paper tiger and will enter the record books as the shortest empire in history.

In addition, there are serious economic reasons forcing the Americans to go to war. Their economy is in the grips of an overproduction crisis of historic proportions. This means that there is a serious oversupply of capital with nowhere to invest. The experience of the Second World War and the subsequent Marshall Plan tells the Bush administration that the destruction and rebuilding of Iraq (and possibly several other countries) will solve all of their economic woes and put the United States back on top of the heap as an economic, as well as military, superpower. The fact that the world has changed fundamentally since 1945 is either lost on them or they are so desperate that they are willing to risk everything on one roll of the dice. Most observers think that this war will not bail the American economy out of its doldrums and could very easily push it over the edge, especially if it lasts longer than the few weeks that the Bush camp is predicting. However, if they fail to go to war it is almost a certainty that the U.S. economy will sink into depression, possibly before the year is out.

Another option is to allow the weapons inspectors to do their job, while the U.S. attempts to "persuade" the Security Council to endorse military action. While this option is favoured by Britain's Tony Blair, who faces serious risks of being removed as Prime Minister of Britain if he participates in a military adventure which is not authorized by the UN, it is also not likely to succeed. The anti-war stance of the French, Germans and Russians appears to be hardening and, if Turkey is any indication, buying the support of the Security Council could cost the Americans more than the actual war.

Furthermore, even if the French grudgingly permit a U.S.-British resolution to pass the Security Council and the U.S. gets its UN approval, it is quite clear that the U.S. will not be able to offload most of the costs of this war onto its allies, as it did in 1991. The Americans are acutely aware of this fact and are not very keen to invest too much effort into the UN route, especially if it means delaying an attack for another month or two. There is a general consensus that the U.S. military does not want to fight a summer war, as the Iraqi heat will cause problems for both their soldiers and their equipment, and their losses are apt to be higher. The Bush administration wants the war to be concluded before May and suspects that the French are attempting to use the UN process to run them out of time. They would then be faced with the prospect of fighting a summer war, maintaining 200,000 troops in the Middle East until sometime next fall or bringing their troops home, only to begin another buildup of forces within six months.

The final option for the Bush administration is to go to war on schedule, before the middle of March, without UN authorization, and hope for a very quick victory. If they can pull off a victory within a few weeks without suffering major losses and without killing too many Iraqi civilians, the Bush administration figures that the anti-war movement will collapse, as it did following the "victory" in Afghanistan, and the Democrats will be tripping over themselves to claim that they supported the war all along.

However, that scenario is also highly unlikely. In fact, the Pentagon plan for quick victory entails the massive bombing of Baghdad, with the creation of a "Hiroshima effect" to demoralize the Iraqi people and the Iraqi army. Such a bombing campaign is virtually guaranteed to kill tens or hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians within the first few days, which, in turn, is virtually guaranteed to result in an explosion of anger around the world, and especially in the Arab and Muslim world. There is also a distinct danger to the Americans that, far from shocking the Iraqi people into submission, their barbaric bombing campaign may galvanize Iraqis into action against their invaders. That would result in the long and bloody war that the Bush administration is desperate to avoid, and could very well spell the end of the New American Empire.

Essentially, the options facing Bush are a peace which tarnishes the image of empire and does nothing to solve America's economic woes, and a war which risks everything, but, if everything works out perfectly, could bring at least some temporary economic relief. If they remain true to form, the "sinister men" surrounding Bush will opt for the dangerous war rather than the dangerous peace. While they may succeed in their aims, the odds against their doing so are very long indeed.