dr.woooo writes:

"Intervention in the Vacuum"

By Chris Baden

Ever since the events of 1989-91, there has existed a historical vacuum. This vacuum has been filled by (depending on your world view) distinct descriptions such as End of History, Empire, Globalization. I am not so concerned over the correct definition of the current power structure, but I am concerned with how these power relations have shaped the current crisis in Iraq and what follows from there.

With the liquidation of a competing social system (Communism and its varieties throughout the Arab world and Africa) the construction of a new global entity has been progressing rapidly. Also, with the end of the "threat" manifested by this competition comes the end of one logic of intervention. The threat of Communism was the rubric which the U.S. and its allies utilized to engage in interventions (either covert or direct) against national liberation movements and/or indigenous struggles domestic or abroad. Now with the "end" of this threat the logic of intervention faces a problem. How do you keep the state of crisis in continuum? The logic proposed post-1991 seemed to be one of "humanitarian intervention".

This is not a particularly new schema. The humanitarian intervention was used by the European colonial powers to subdue "barbarians" who could not rule themselves. This same logic has been used in the interventions of Yugoslavia, Somalia, etc. In the Yugoslav conflict it was proclaimed that "violations of human rights" by the Serbs justified a cruel intervention by N.A.T.O. in order to re-colonize directly the former republics of Yugoslavia and speedily integrate them into the matrix of the world capitalist system.

With N.A.T.O. intervention, a form of direct colonial rule was imposed under the guise of the United Nations. A colonial administrator was chosen to dictate the peace terms of neoliberal privatization (making Yugoslavia the poorest country in Europe) and the "self-determination" of mono-ethnic statelets that arecompletely reliant on Western suzerainty in order to survive. This colonial administrator will choose who will be elected to office, what can be allowed on broadcast TV and radio, and the like.

A similar pattern may be followed in the case of Iraq. It has been announced that in a post-Saddam Iraq there will be an American civilian administrator who will 'supervise' the rebuilding of the Iraqi infrastructure. We can only assume that this benevolent civilian dictator will begin the processes utilized in Yugoslavia par excellence. However, since this current intervention in Iraq has triggered a worldwide response against it, the United States and other coalition partners will be required to do a rebuilding ala the Marshall Plan. Then once this civilian administrator relenquishes his powers, a civilian Iraqi will assume the Presidency.

The debate that has proliferated in numerous circles has been the following: does the current intervention fit into the categories of "humanitarian intervention" and "peaceful development" or is it a new logic? This new logic does not have a definitive classification but I would describe it as "unilateralistic intervention". This intervention would be persued by one hegemonic power to accomplish its intended interventionist goals despite its appearance of undemocratic practice with regards to the other partners in the new order. This seems to defy the logic of Hardt & Negri who assert that "Empire establishes no territorial center of power and does not rely on fixed boundaries or barriers. It is a decentered and deterritorializing apparatus of rule that progressively incorporates the entire global realm within its open, expanding frontiers. Empire manages hybrid identities, flexible hierarchies, and plural exchanges through modulating networks of command. The distinct national colors of the imperialist map of the world have merged and blended in the imperial global rainbow" (Hardt & Negri, XII-XIII).

Or does it?

One concept that Hardt & Negri use is the logic of the "bellum iustum" or Just War. Empire will at times utilize these just wars on the frontiers against the "barbarians" (Iraq, North Korea) in order to modulate its own global project. It is necessary that these "rogue nations" be incorporated into the global decentered project so an alternative source of development be closed off. Much like the Roman Empire on the defensive in the Fourth and Fifth Centuries, Empire itself feels threatened by the Other in the form of the "rogue states" and "terrorism". The current conflict between the United States and the European powers is one of definition of human rights, security threats, and so forth. Since Iraq has no recent human rights atrocities to speak of or know about, it makes it very hard to intervene directly into affairs. However, the United States has recycled the Cold War logic of "weapons of mass destruction" in order to justify this current intervention. This deviates from the said interventionary program in that it does not use human rights or universal values as its main rallying cry.

So what you have instead is a combination of the two. The "human rights arguments" have been used in the case of the atrocities against the Kurds (notwithstanding American involvement and duplicity in the crime) and "weapons of mass destruction" in the supposed proliferation of chemical weapons that Iraq allegedly maintains. These two logics have been combined to recolonize Iraq and North Korea into the global order. In the case of North Korea, the famine created by the disasterous policy of self-reliance and its stated goals of nuclear armament (perhaps justified) fit correctly into the supposedly new interventionist policy.

This matter is, of course open to debate. How we can harness the power of the multitude to combat the power of Empire is another question to be debated. The rumblings of resistance on the part of the multitude have been seen in the massive anti-war protests all over the world. This contest and who will win remains to be seen.

Negri, Antonio and Hardt, Michael. Empire. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2000."