hydrarchist writes "Here is Part II. Go back to Part I

The third Gulf War (2003) and the New World Order of Bush Jnr.

The immediate fundamental problem facing the oil industry in the 1980s and
1990s was that the world's capacity to produce oil was growing faster than the
world's consumption of oil. Whereas the 1970s had been an era of oil shortage
the following decades were to be an era of an oil glut. But by the mid-1990s the
more strategic thinkers of the bourgeoisie, particularly those within the oil
industry, were becoming concerned that in the not too distant future the world
could once again find itself facing an acute oil shortage and find itself
increasingly dependent on anti-western governments in the Gulf.

Firstly, by the 1990s it was becoming clear that the rate of discovery of new
potential oil fields was falling rapidly. Chronically low oil prices meant that
there was little incentive to find new sources of oil. Also most of the most
likely areas for the discovery of oil had already been searched. Secondly, and
perhaps more importantly, the non-OPEC fields that had come on tap after the
'oil price shocks' of the 1970s, most notably those in the North Sea and Alaska,
were reaching the end of their peak of production and were about to enter a
period of decline. As a consequence, with continued economic growth increasing
the demand for oil it was predicted that the West would become increasingly
dependent on oil from the middle east and could face an oil crisis as soon as
the year 2010.[7]

These fears that the current oil glut would give way to an oil shortage in
perhaps little more than a decade had a decided influence on the evolution of US
foreign policy towards the Gulf states and brought about a two-pronged approach.
Firstly, it became clear that the policy of containment towards both Iraq and
Iran would have to be brought to a conclusion in the medium term by bringing
them back into the fold of the 'international (bourgeois) community'. Secondly,
it was hoped that this policy of rehabilitation of these oil rich 'rogue Gulf
states' could be complemented by developing the oil fields in Africa and the
former USSR and by developing alternatives to oil such as natural gas and the
'hydrogen economy'.

However, there were major problems facing such a response to the future
threat of a new oil crisis. Although all the main capitalist powers had an
interest in maintaining a secure and reliable source of oil and, as a
consequence, had fully supported the policy of containment of both Iraq and
Iran, there was a distinct division of interests concerning how such containment
should be brought to an end, particularly as regards Iraq. For the high-cost oil
producers, the UK and the US, it had been important to keep as much Iraqi oil
off the world market as possible in the short term in order to shore up the oil
price. Not only had the US and the UK led the war on Iraq in the first place but
had also been the prime advocates of maintaining punitive sanctions in the
decade after the Second Gulf War of 1991. However, the mainly oil-consuming
nations, such France and Germany, were far less concerned with falling oil
prices in the short term. Indeed, much to the chagrin of the Americans, the
French and Germans, joined also by the Russians, increasingly began to exploit
the resolute adherence of British and American firms to maintaining sanctions on
Iraq to steal a march on their competitors by doing back door deals with the
Iraqi regime in the hope of gaining privileged access to the development of
Iraqi oil in the future when sanctions were lifted.

By 1998, after seven years of UN inspections, it was becoming clear that Iraq
had been disarmed of its so-called 'weapons of mass destruction'. Facing the end
of its sole justification of sanctions that kept Iraqi oil off the world market,
the US, on the pretext of a dispute concerning the numbers of inspectors allowed
into the so-called Presidential Palaces, ordered the withdrawal of all UN
weapons inspectors and launched a four day bombing campaign of Iraq. Then,
backed by its faithful ally Britain, the US repeatedly blocked any attempt to
allow the return of the UN weapon inspectors. There then emerged a stalemate
over Iraq. By stalling the return of weapons inspectors the US and Britain were
able to prevent the lifting of sanctions against Iraq and prevent the French,
Germans and Russians gaining a head start in the race for Iraqi oil. But at the
same time attempts to shore up sanctions against Iraq, which were becoming
increasingly ignored, only served to lock out British and American firms.

The main hope for reducing reliance on the Gulf states was the development of
the vast oil and natural gas fields surrounding the Caspian Sea. But most of
these fields belonged to the former USSR. This meant that not only did they fall
under the sphere of influence of the Russian state but also only existing ways
of piping the oil to the west lay through Russia. Following the privatisation of
the Russian oil and gas industries under Yeltsin the ownership had become
concentrated into the hands of a few very power 'oligarchs'. With the
strengthening of the Russian state with Putin, it became clear that the both the
oligarchs and the Russian state would insist on driving a hard bargain with West
for the extraction of oil and gas from central Asia.

Of course, it was feasible to pipe oil and gas from Caspian Sea via routes
that did not go through Russia. Geographically Iran was the obvious way of
piping Caspian oil out but this was not on, for obvious political reasons. The
other alternatives were: through the Caucuses and then via Turkey or the
Balkans, or through Afghanistan. However, all these routes involved very long
pipelines running through potentially unstable countries and involved high
development costs. As a consequence, such plans were to remain largely
speculative, being used mainly as a bargaining chip to extract concessions from
the Russians.

However, even if the Western oil companies were able to gain access to
Caspian oil and gas on reasonable terms from the Russians the problem remained
that the costs of developing these relatively untapped fields would be very high
and eventually operating costs would be far higher than those of the Gulf
states. As a consequence, there were considerable doubts as to whether Caspian
oil fields could replace Saudi Arabia, or the other Gulf states, as the 'swing
producer' that could regulate the price of oil by increasing or decreasing its
scale of production.

For the neo-conservative critics of the multilateral foreign policies of the
Clinton era, the two-pronged strategy of dealing with the problem of a future
oil shortage and America's increasing reliance on the Gulf states had become
bogged down. At best they would require time to work but for the
neo-conservatives time was running out. Pointing to the instability of Saudi
Arabia the neo-conservatives warned that the US may well wake up to find that
all the states on the Gulf would have become anti-American and, with the onset
of an oil shortage, these states would be able to hold the US, and indeed the
entire West, to ransom!

For the neo-conservatives it was necessary to cut through all the diplomatic
niceties of multilateralism and directly intervene in the Middle East in order
to reshape it in America's interests while it was still possible to do so. For
the neo-conservatives the fall of the USSR had opened up the possibility for the
US to restructure the Middle East and the Gulf states with the Second Gulf War
of 1991 but Bush Snr had lost his nerve and had bottled out. As such Iraq was
unfinished business.

An invasion of Iraq would not only allow the US to
appropriate the second largest proven oil reserves in the world, it would also
show in no uncertain terms that the USA was willing and able to impose a 'regime
change' anywhere in the world. American troops could be withdrawn from Saudi
Arabia but, with bases in Iraq, America could intervene in when ever necessary.

At the same time, America would be in a better position to put pressure on
Iran. Iran is the great prize for the neo-conservative project. Not only has it
been a great thorn in the side of US foreign policy since the since the
overthrow of the Shah, it also has undeveloped oil reserves almost equal to
those of Iraq. Iran is also well placed geographically. Not only does it command
the Persian Gulf but also borders the Caspian Sea. Iran is perfectly placed to
provide an outlet for the vast oil and natural gas fields of central Asia that
would otherwise have to pass through Russia.

Towards war

During their years in the political wilderness the neo-conservatives could
only despair at the continued complacency and inertia of US foreign. As the
neo-conservatives admitted, it was felt that only a event on the scale of
Japan's attack on Pearl Harbour in 1942 would be sufficient to mobilise the
American bourgeoisie around the neo-conservative agenda. As we have already
noted, although the neo-conservatives were able to capture key positions in Bush
Jnr's new administration, and although they had the backing of influential
interests both in the military-industrial complex and oil industry, the
neo-conservatives remained a minor voice in the formation of US foreign policy.
Faced with what they saw as the 'liberal pessimism' of the state department, and
an overcautious and conservative military high command on one-side, and the
head-in-the sand isolationist tendencies within the Republican Party on the
other, it seemed in the first few months of Bush Jnr's Presidency that the
neo-conservatives would remain as prisoners within the Bush administration and
the political establishment.

However, the events of September 11th 2001 came to the rescue. In the midst
of the hysteria that was whipped up following the attack on the Twin Towers the
analogy with Pearl Harbour was firmly established. The USA was at war with an
enemy all the more fearsome by the fact of it being amorphous and invisible.
Petty particular interests had now to put to one side, so that the nation,
indeed all the 'free world', could unite in the 'War on Terrorism'.[8] With the
US bourgeoisie, and indeed much of the population, shocked out of their
complacency, the Bush administration was able to seize the political initiative
by adopting the neo-conservative agenda.

Within days of September 11th the more eager neo-conservatives were already
pressing for a war on Iraq. However, it was soon accepted that an immediate
attack on Afghanistan would be a useful detour and prelude to the remaking of
the middle east with a war on Iraq. After all a war against Afghanistan could be
far more easily sold to American public opinion than an immediate war on Iraq.
There was not a shred evidence that linked the secularist Iraqi regime with Al
Qaida, indeed it was well recognised that Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein were
bitter enemies. In contrast, Afghanistan was sheltering the very master-mind of
the attack on the Twin Towers.

In addition an invasion of a 'failed state' such as Afghanistan, which lacked
even the semblance of a conventional army, could be launched in a matter of
weeks, thereby maintaining the political momentum of the 'War on Terrorism'. In
contrast, an invasion of Iraq could take months to prepare, allowing plenty of
time for the effect of hyperbole surrounding September 11th to dissipate. For
the neo-conservatives an invasion of Afghanistan would also have the advantage
of allowing the US to gain both a toe-hold in Central Asia and to secure the
eastern flank of Iran.

The easy victory in Afghanistan appeared to vindicate the neo-conservatives.
Despite the dire warnings from the liberal faint-hearts that the US would follow
both Britain and Russia in becoming mired in a prolonged guerrilla war in the
mountains of Afghanistan, the invasion succeeded with few American casualties.
Although thousands of Afghans died and millions were forced to flee their homes,
the swift end to the war meant that humanitarian disaster of mass starvation
over the winter, predicted by the UN and many NGO's and charities, failed to
occur.

With America triumphant at the end of the war, Bush confirmed his
administrations commitment to the neo-conservative agenda with his 'axis of
evil' speech in January 2002. By the late Spring it was clear that the Bush
administration had made the decision that US should invade Iraq. The only
questions that remained amongst the competing factions within the Bush
administration were how the war on Iraq should be fought and how it should be
sold.

Over the Summer reports emerged concerning the various military plans for the
invasion of Iraq as a compromise was hammered out between the neo-conservatives
and the military high command of the American armed forces. Although they had
been obliged to accept that war against Iraq was government policy, the American
generals were concerned to squash the high risk plans of Rumsfeld's protégées
and whizz kids for a rapid precision attack, using elite and special forces,
that would aim to decapitate the Iraqi regime and paralyse its armed forces.
They insisted on the use of overwhelming force using substantial ground forces
backed massive air support that would take months to assemble. However, while
they succeeded in scuppering the more radical military plans put forward by the
neo-conservatives, the American generals were obliged to make substantial
revisions to established military doctrines.

On the diplomatic front the question was what should be the pretext of war
and under what banner should it be fought. For the neo-conservatives the war on
Iraq should be presented as simply the extension of the 'War on Terrorism'. The
USA should cut through all the encumbrances of multilateralism and lead a
coalition of the willing to overthrow the Iraqi regime.[9] For the opponents of
the neo-conservatives in the Bush administration, who recognised the propaganda
difficulties in linking Iraq with Al Qaida and who feared the consequences of
such reckless action that might well destabilise the Middle East and cause a
serious split amongst the great powers, the pretext for war should be the long
standing issue of Iraq's alleged possession of 'weapons of mass destruction'.
This pretext would inevitably reactivate the UN process of weapons inspections
and draw the US into a multilateralist approach by involving the other great
powers through the UN. In this way any negative consequences of an invasion of
Iraq could be minimised.

With the generals insisting on a major build up of forces that could take
months, the arguments for at least giving diplomacy a chance were able to gain
ground. With a war pencilled in for Winter there was more than six months to
bring the great powers on board for a UN sanctioned operation. However, perhaps
the decisive consideration that tipped the balance against the neo-conservatives
favoured option for unilateral action and for going down the UN route was the
approach of the mid-term congressional elections.

There is perhaps little doubt that there was large swathes of the American
bourgeoisie, together with much of the foreign policy establishment, that were
concerned with Bush Jnr's adoption of the neo-conservative agenda. However, the
obvious vehicle for their opposition to the governments new foreign policy was
the Democratic Party. But, after September 11th, the Democrats were afraid to
put their heads above the parapet for fear of being accused of being
unpatriotic. Instead they maintained an uncritical bipartisan approach on
foreign policy and, from an early date, had decided to fight the mid-term
elections on the 'perilous state of the economy'.

Given the collapse of the Dot.com boom and rapidly rising unemployment the
Republican's best bet was to try and keep the debate on foreign policy and the
threat of 'international terrorism'. Yet if they succeeded in making foreign
policy the central issue of the campaign they risked the Democrats taking up a
position of 'loyal opposition' by accepting the aims but criticising the way the
Bush administration was going about achieving them. By adopting the UN route,
under the pretext of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, the Republican's could
capture the centre ground and prevent the Democrats from accusing the Bush
administration of being reckless and putting the USA out on a limb in the
'international community'. In addition it allowed Bush to present himself as a
World Statesmen, as CNN showed almost nightly footage of the President meeting
the world's leaders over matters of war and peace.

However, the adoption of the UN route the US had to bring the other great
powers on board, particularly those that had veto powers on the Security
Council. Of course, the US had a willing ally in Tony Blair.

In the build up to the war on Iraq Tony Blair was aptly caricatured as Bush's
poodle. However, in aligning himself so closely with the US, Tony Blair was only
taking a long standing feature of British foreign policy to its logical
conclusion. Ever since the end of the Second World War Britain has sought to act
as the junior partner to the US and as its bridge to Europe. With respect to the
Middle East, ever since the Suez debacle in 1956 Britain has not attempted to
develop a policy that was at variance with that of the USA. But this commitment
and faith in the 'special relationship' with the USA has not been the result of
some failings of successive British governments but an expression of common and
convergent interest between British and American capital.

Like the US, Britain is not only a major consumer of oil it is also one of
the main producers of oil outside OPEC. It is the domicile of two of the oil
majors, BP and Shell, that have global interests in the production of oil and
have maintained close contacts with both Conservative and Labour Governments.
Also, like America, Britain is a major arms producer. Over 10% of Britain's
remaining manufacturing output is defence related and the military continues to
gobble up half of Britain's research and development funding.

However, more generally, the major restructuring of British capitalism, which
began under Thatcher, has left Britain crucially dependent on the earnings of
the City of London and the financial sector. With the decline of her
manufacturing, Britain has found a unique niche for itself with the emergence of
global financial capital as a conduit channelling money-capital from across the
world into the US financial system. However, British capital's ability to cream
off surplus-value from the huge capital flows that pass through London depends
crucially on the continuation of the tendency for the free movement of capital
and the implementation of neo-liberal economic policies across the world. It
also depends, as Tony Blair is no doubt painfully aware, on the continuation the
multilateral system of rule based global governance that is necessary to manage,
defend and indeed extend this world economic system based around global finance
capital.

Therefore the prime imperative British foreign policy, particularly in the
last decade, has been to uphold the New World Order of multilateral world
governance and to support America insofar as it is the only power capable of
maintaining this New World Order. This has given rise to a close adherence to
the doctrines of Cosmopolitan Liberalism and 'Liberal humanitarian imperialism'
that have become the hall-marks of new Labour's foreign policy, leading Blair to
fight five 'humanitarian wars' in less than six years in office!

Bush Jnr's election on a decidedly isolationist platform posed a serious
threat to British foreign policy. Blair decided early on to make a special
effort to develop a strong relation with the Bush administration in an effort to
bolster its more cautious and multilateralist factions perhaps most clearly
represented by Colin Powell. This policy proved so successful that Blairites
were able to boast during the run up to the war that the British government was
a distinct voice within the policy making process of the Bush administration.

However, by the Summer of 2002 being on the inside of the policy making
process of the American government meant, at least tacitly, accepting the
inevitability of war. Colin Powell may have been far less hawkish than the
super-hawks like Rumsfeld but he was nevertheless still a hawk. Further, if his
advice of taking the UN route was to be listened to, Blair had to put his
political reputation on the line and bring on board the other main players in
the United Nations. As a consequence, Blair became Bush's travelling salesman
selling the prospects of war on Iraq across the capitals of Europe and the
middle east.

The main obstacles facing Blair's efforts to secure a UN resolution giving
authorisation for a war on Iraq were France and Russia, who, as permanent
members of the Security Council, could veto any such resolution. The American
policy of forcing a regime change in Iraq threatened to reduce to zero France's
efforts to steal a march on the American's in gaining access to Iraqi oil.
However, the French government was reluctant to directly oppose the US on this
issue. Instead they hoped that through prolonged negotiations over the UN
resolution and the shape and remit of the subsequent weapons inspections to mire
the Americans in endless process of diplomacy. With sufficient procrastination
the window of opportunity for launching an attack on Iraq would be passed and it
could be hope that the Americans' enthusiasm for war might begin to wane.
Failing this, negotiations over the UN resolution could be used as a means to
extract compensation for any losses they might incur following an American led
invasion of Iraq and the establishment of a pro-American Iraqi government.

Russia was in a far weaker position than France, being dependent to a large
degree on American good-will to finance its huge debts, particularly with the
IMF. However, it also had much more to lose than France. With its largely
decrepit and uncompetitive industry, oil and gas are amongst Russia's few
commodities that rest of the world is eager to buy. As we have seen, so long as
Iran and Iraq remained as 'rogue states', the vast but undeveloped oil and gas
fields of Central Asia were an attractive alternative to the continued reliance
on a potentially unstable Saudi Arabia. In order to hedge against the
possibility of Iraq and Iran being re-admitted to the 'international
(bourgeoisie) community', Russia had developed close contacts with the current
regimes and had followed France in making back-door deals that would aid their
future access to their oil fields. However, a US invasion of Iraq, particularly
if followed by the overthrow of regime in Iran, threatened to seriously
undermine Russia's bargaining position with the western oil companies over the
access, extraction and development of the oil and gas fields in Central Asia. It
also threatened to undo the deals done with the current Iraqi and Iranian
governments. As a consequence, Russia hid behind France's position towards the
UN resolution.

Following the mid-term Congressional elections the hawks position was
strengthened. It soon became clear that any further procrastination on the part
of the French would only serve to further strengthen the arguments of the
neo-conservatives for the US to give up the UN route and lead a coalition of the
willing. Hence, weeks of protracted negotiations were brought to a close by
France making crucial concessions. Firstly, France all but accepted that a
'serious breach' of what was to become Resolution 1441 would be sufficient cause
for the US to lead a military invasion of Iraq without the authorisation of a
second resolution. Secondly, France conceded that strict provisions would be
included in the resolution. The weapons inspections would be given a strict
dead-line to make its first report. The Iraqi regime was to make a final and
complete declaration concerning its possession of 'weapons of mass destruction'
so that any proscribed weapons, or weapons production capacity, found after the
declaration would count as a 'serious breach' of the resolution. Furthermore,
the Iraqi government was under an obligation to fully co-operate with the UN
weapons inspectors.

However, while France concede that a 'serious breach' of Resolution 1441
would warrant military action, France secured crucial concessions in return
concerning how it was to be decided that such a 'serious breach' had occurred.
Firstly, France was able to secure that the UN weapons inspections would be
based on the rules, procedures and personnel already established by the UN.
Secondly, France was able to ensure that the weapons inspectors should be led by
Hans Blix, whose previous record with the International Atomic Energy Authority
had led many in the US administration to regard him as a soft touch for the
Iraqis. Thirdly, France secured America's agreement that the weapons inspectors
should report back directly to the Security Council. This implied that any
decision to go to war had to be taken in consultation within the UN. If the US
insisted on going to war it would have to present its case openly to whole
world.

At this point, France could still hope, if not to dissipate the drive to war,
still sell its veto for a slice of the spoils of war, particularly if the US was
unable to come up with a convincing breach of Resolution 1441. Indeed, as late
as January Chirac was still preparing to send French troops to fight in the
American led coalition against Iraq.

However, once the military build up in the Middle East began to gather
momentum after Christmas, the neo-conservatives could count on the support of
the Army high command to argue that diplomacy should be subordinated to military
imperatives. Once the huge logistical exercise in transporting 150,000 troops to
the Gulf, together with all their supplies and equipment, had been completed
there was to be little time for delay. The military high command did not want to
deal with the problems of both morale and logistics of maintaining such a large
military force poised on the borders of Iraq waiting for action while diplomats
and weapons inspectors wrangled over the meaning of certain words and evidence.
But more importantly the US military were anxious to invade before the onset of
the Iraq Summer. The war had to be begun before the end of March.

Although the neo-conservatives had been obliged to play along with the
diplomacy of the UN they were able to insist that once the troops were ready the
war must begin, and that there would be no material concessions to the Europeans
over the spoils of war.

Faced with the intransigence of the US on the one side, and the unprecedented
world-wide opposition to war on the other, European leaders had little to lose
and much to gain politically, both amongst their own electorate and in the Arab
world, by opposing the march to war. In January Germany took up its turn as a
non-permanent member of the Security Council. With both Britain's and the USA's
pathetic attempts to find evidence of Iraq's 'weapons of mass destruction', and
bolstered by Germany's presence on the Security Council, both France and Russia
moved towards open opposition to American war plans. By the time the coalition
troops were ready there was not even a majority on UN Security Council prepared
to support a 'Second Resolution' sanctioning war.

Although the neo-conservatives within the Bush administration had been
obliged to swallow the UN route to war it had in the end made little difference.
The first item on their agenda - the invasion of Iraq - had been achieved. For
the multilateralist in the Bush administration it could be claimed that the war
had been sanctioned by Resolution 1441 and the New World Order had remained
intact. For the European powers opposed to war had at least shown they were no
poodles of US imperialism and had improved their standing both at home and in
the Arab world. The main loser, apart of course for the thousands who were going
to be killed and maimed in the war, was Tony Blair.

Blair had staked his political reputation, both at home and abroad, on
securing a Second a UN resolution. For Blair a second resolution would cement
the unity of the 'international (bourgeois) community' behind American
leadership and convince the Bush administration of the efficacy of staying
within multilateralism of the New World Order. At home, the prospect of a Second
Resolution provided a rallying point against the mass popular opposition to the
war.

Blair's eventual complete failure to obtain a Second Resolution, despite
being given more time by the delays in the military build up, meant Blair's
entire policy had backfired. The rifts in the 'international (bourgeois)
community' were exposed and exacerbated. In his desperation to outflank the
Germans and French, Blair was obliged to open up divisions between what Rumsfeld
was to describe the New and Old Europe. And at home Blair had to lie and
dissemble in the face an unprecedented revolt within his own Party.

The
war and its aftermath

As with the war in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq ended with the apparent
vindication of the neo-conservatives' unilateralist policies.

The military critics of the war against Iraq had warned of the dangers of the
coalition forces being dragged into a long conflict that would mean fighting
during the heat of the Iraqi Summer. They had warned of the untested mettle of
the Saddam Hussein's elite forces - the Republican Guard and the Special
Republican Guard - and they had warned that the coalition's technological
supremacy would count for little if it came to capturing Baghdad street by
street. For the war's humanitarian critics, it was feared that the war would be
like that of 1991: tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians would be killed and many
more would be forced to flee their homes. The infrastructure of Iraq would be
further destroyed creating the conditions for another 'humanitarian disaster'.
For the war's geo-political critics, the war on Iraq would inflame the 'Arab
world', which would threaten the stability of the Middle East.

However, despite a few wobbles, exaggerated out of all proportion by the
'embedded media', the war went more or less according to plan. The war was over
in less than three weeks. Uncertain of the loyalty of much of his elite forces
Saddam Hussein had been obliged to deploy them outside Baghdad where they had
been little more than sitting ducks for the American air force. While the
resistance to the American advances in to Baghdad soon crumbled. The targeted
and precision attacks of the coalition forces minimised both civilian casualties
and damage to Iraq's infrastructure.[10] There was neither a mass exodus of
refugees nor was there a humanitarian disaster on the scale of 1991.

While there were major demonstrations through out the Middle East and Middle
Eastern governments were obliged to tread very warily in giving any support to
the US war effort, no government came close to being overthrown. Indeed, to the
extent that the it allowed Arab governments to take up an anti-American posture
and divert attention away from their own social problems, it could be argued
that the war aided in the maintaining the stability of the Middle East region.

However, while the war went according to plan the same can not be said for
the 'peace' that followed. Perhaps in order to minimise dissensions both within
the Bush administration and between America and its allies, the main focus of
planning for the invasion of Iraq concentrated on the one set of objectives
around which all could agree - the need to ensure a swift and decisive victory
with the minimum of coalition causalities. Far less effort appears to have been
spent by war-mongers in Washington in drawing up a plan for post-war Iraq.
Indeed, what planning there was seems to have been based more on wishful
thinking and propaganda than any serious analysis.[11]

Of course, it was no doubt argued within the counsels for war that a swift
and decisive victory, which minimised the destruction of Iraq's infrastructure
and avoided a 'humanitarian disaster', would greatly ease task of stabilising
Iraq. Once it was stabilised it was assumed that the enormous potential wealth
of Iraq would be sufficient to entice American capital into the reconstruction
of Iraq in the 'free market' mould. There would therefore be little call for the
American state to pay up-front for the costs of reconstruction.

For the naive ideologues amongst the neoconservatives, the overthrow of
Saddam Hussein would lead to a democratic bourgeois revolution. With their
'natural' aspirations towards 'freedom, democracy and the American way'
repressed for decades under the despotism of the Ba'athist regime, the Iraqi
people were expected to welcome American troops as liberators, and to embrace
the American educated Iraqi exiles that accompanied them as the prophets of a
'new free Iraq'. A new 'free enterprise Iraq' could then be constructed that
would stand as a model for the rest of the middle east. The democratic
revolution in Iraq could then serve as the start of a sequence of democratic
revolutions that would transform the region in America's image.

The 'old-hands' and 'realists' amongst the neoconservatives and within the
Bush administration as a whole were less hopeful of a democratic revolution. For
them the fall of Saddam Hussein was more likely to lead to the disintegration of
Iraq. However, they hoped to be able to 'decapitate' the regime without
destroying the state apparatus. By maintaining the former state apparatus, minus
its upper echelons, it would be possible to sustain a strong and unified Iraq
that would now be pro-American and provide a bases to further isolate Iran.[12]

The different policy conclusions that could be drawn from these two
alternative scenarios for the immediate post-war period were potentially in
conflict. For example, should the occupying forces intervene against the 'Iraqi
people' in order to shore up the state apparatus? Or should they stand back and
let the 'Iraqi people' take their revenge? However, such conflicts never arose
since neither scenario arose!

For the coalition forces to be welcomed as liberators would have required
mass collective amnesia on the part of the Iraqi population. They would have had
to forget the British occupation of the 1920s, the support of Saddam Hussein by
successive US governments, the hundreds of thousands killed in the second Gulf
war of 1991, the subsequent decade long punitive sanctions imposed by Britain
and America and the casualties inflicted in the recent war. Indeed, the middle
classes, who would have been most likely to have supported any democratic
revolution, were the very classes that had lost most due to war and the economic
sanctions of the last twelve years and look like continuing to lose as the last
vestiges of the modernisation regime are destroyed.

However, the 'realists' hopes of utilising the state apparatus in the
immediate aftermath of the war was dashed with its almost complete
disintegration following the flight of Saddam Hussein and his entourage.

The problems of the immediate post-war period of social and economic
stabilisation, which were glossed over in the pre-war planning, have now emerged
to haunt the Bush administration. At the time of writing the occupying powers
have dismally failed to restore Iraq's economy even to its rather dilapidated
pre-war condition. Whereas the old regime had been able to restore at least
intermittent electricity and water supplies to most of Iraq in less than three
months in the far worse circumstances that had followed the second gulf war of
1991, the coalition has abysmally failed to do so. With mounting resentment
turning into active opposition the coalition forces face the dilemma of taking a
hard-line responses to impose 'law and order' at the risk of inflaming the
situation or else sitting back and letting things take their course. Yet if
order and security is not imposed soon it seems unlikely that American capital
will be enticed to invest in the reconstruction of Iraq.

At the end of the war it had been confidently announced that the
stabilisation of Iraq would take only a matter of weeks. A new governing council
could then appointed that would have the authority to sanction the selling off
of Iraq and allow American capital to begin the 'reconstruction' of Iraq. This
would then be ratified with an election within little more than a year. However,
this timetable is now in tatters and the occupation of Iraq is descending in a
shambles.

Unless the situation in Iraq can be turned around soon, the neoconservative
project faces being run into the sands of Iraq. If the cost of the occupation
continue to mount at the present rate (presently estimated at over a $1 billion
a week swelling an already ballooning US government budget deficit) and if the
body count of American soldiers continues to rise, it will not be long before
calls to bring troops home will become irresistible - particularly in the run up
to the Presidential elections next year.

The Bush Jnr administration faces the nightmare prospects of being forced in
an humiliating withdrawal, which would expose the US as little more than a paper
tiger and lead to the dismemberment of Iraq between Turkey and Iran. This would
create the very opposite outcome to what the neo-conservatives had wanted. As a
consequence, the Bush administration has been forced to go back to the UN to ask
for help in the costs of occupying Iraq. But this will mean allowing France,
Germany and Russia to get their 'snouts into trough' - amounting to a relapse
into the restrictions of multilateralism.

Time would seem to be running out for the neoconservatives. If they are to
maintain their political momentum they will have to speed up the progress of
their project. However, given the unravelling fiasco in Iraq, any attempt to
escape their predicament faces formidable obstacles.

Where next?

One of the obvious next steps for the neoconservatives to take in order to
maintain their political momentum would be to pursue regime change in Iran -
which as we have argued is the next vital piece in the jigsaw of the Middle
East.[13] As soon as the invasion of Iraq was over the Bush administration began
stepping up the pressure on Iran over its alleged development of nuclear
weapons. Both Iran's nuclear weapons programme and its sponsorship of various
'terrorist' organisations could provide perfect pretexts for the US to go to war
with Iran and would probably stand up to much closer scrutiny than the pretexts
used to attack Iraq.

However, an invasion of Iran presents serious problems for the Bush
administration. Firstly, it would be more difficult than Iraq to build a
coalition of the willing for an invasion of Iran. For one, Tony Blair would find
it far more difficult to deliver British support for such a project. After Iraq
Blair has exhausted his credibility in such affairs. Furthermore, in contrast to
Iraq, Britain's policy has been far more closer to that of the rest of Europe
with regard to Iran. In the hope of gaining a head start over the US once Iran
has been reintegrated into the 'international (bourgeois) community' Britain,
like the other major European powers, has consistently advocated a policy of
'constructive engagement', placing its hopes in the reformist policies of
Khatami. This has allowed British capital to develop economic interests in Iran
unhindered by sanctions.

Secondly, a war against Iran would be far more risky. It is true that the US
would have supremacy both at sea and in the air. It would have the options to
invade Iran from the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan and from Iraq. It is also true
that the huge debts and worsening economic situation resulting from the First
Gulf war of 1981-88 has meant the Iranian armed forces remain badly equipped and
under resourced, and the fervour that led to thousands of young soldiers to make
suicidal charges against Iraqi machine gunners is likely to have dissipated.
However, in contrast with Iraq, an invasion of Iran would not be simply
finishing off a job already half done. The Iranian armed forces remain
undefeated and could well inflict heavy casualties on an American invasion
force. Furthermore, once Iran was invaded the USA would then face the prospect
of having to occupy indefinitely not only Iraq but also the much larger Iran.
Being drawn into a prolonged low intensity conflict in Iraq, Afghanistan and
Iran would certainly be a nightmare for the US.

Another option for the neo-conservatives would be to try to promote the
overthrow of the Iranian theocracy. There is certainly growing discontent within
Iran at the authoritarianism of the regime and growing discontent at the failure
of the reforms promised by Khatami. The Bush administration has already begun to
encourage anti-regime protests. However, open American support for the
opposition in Iran only serves to discredit it, particularly if at the same time
the Americans threaten to use force. Indeed, it seems unlikely that an uprising
against the regime will come soon enough to rescue the neoconservatives in the
Bush administration.

The third option would be to use the pretext of Iran's sponsorship of
'terrorism' or its nuclear weapons programme to impose punitive sanctions that
might eventually destabilise the regime. However, the imposition of punitive
sanctions, comparable with those imposed on Iraq, would not only take time to
work but would require the support of UN and the other great powers. The US
would be obliged to adopt a more multilateralist approach.

It would seem then, that at least in the short to medium term, US foreign
policy is likely to be drawn back towards multilateralism. The New World Order
of Bush Snr will have to been modified but will be reconstituted. But what of
the longer term? This depends on the world economic situation.

Conclusion

Economic situation of US in the world

For many amongst the anti-war movement it would seem that the US government
has been taken over by a neo-conservative cabal that has turned the USA into a
rogue state that is intent in ripping up 'international law' and wreaking havoc
across the world. However, as we have argued the neo-conservative project is
already in danger of running out of steam. As the US economy teeters on the edge
of 'deflation', which has only so far been averted by the large scale tax cuts
and by cutting interest rates perilously close to zero, the sheer expense of an
aggressive unilateral foreign policy is going to appear increasingly
unaffordable. The pressure to rein in the aspirations of the neo-conservatives
can only grow.

This would seem to lend support to those who have suggested that the adoption
of neo-conservative foreign policy is a last desperate attempt by America to use
its military power to offset its long term economic decline. However, although
the US economy has suffered since the collapse of the dot.com boom and faces an
uncertain future it has perhaps fared better than its main rivals. Japan remains
mired in more than a decade of economic stagnation, while Europe is slipping
into recession. None of its great economic rivals would seem to be in any
position to put up a serious challenge to the USA's economic dominance in the
short term to medium term.

It is perhaps not so much the relative economic decline of the US that is the
problem, but the crisis in the current phase of American-led world accumulation
of capital. During the American-led phase of capital accumulation that followed
the Second World War, which led to the long-post war boom of the 1950s and
1960s, the US had exported industrial capital to the rest of the western world.
American production, and production techniques such as Fordism, was replicated
across the western world creating new industries and transforming old ones so as
to expand the avenues for the production of value and surplus-value. As a
result, capital accumulation in the US served as the locomotive for capital
accumulation across the industrial world.

In contrast, the current phase of American-led world accumulation has been
far more predatory. Taking advantage of the results of state-led capital
accumulation, particularly in certain parts of the periphery, American
moneyed-capital has simply bought up existing sources of the production of value
and rationalised them to squeeze out more surplus-value. At the same time the
emergence of global finance capital has meant that the higher profitability of
US controlled capital has become a powerful magnet for money-capital looking for
investment opportunities. As a result surplus-value produced in Japan and Europe
is invested in the US, or by US controlled financial capitals. As a consequence,
the rate of capital accumulation in Japan and Europe has declined. Hence, the
accumulation of American capital has been at the expense of the accumulation of
capital in the rest of the world, and increasingly so in Europe and Japan.

However, up until recently the potential tensions and conflicts that have
emerged due to the predatory nature of the current phase of American-led world
accumulation have been containable within the institutions of global governance.
This is true of both the relation between the US and the rest of the more
advanced economies and between 'developed North' and the 'undeveloped
South'.

For much of the 1990s the ruling classes of the 'emerging market economies'
were well rewarded for abandoning any aspirations towards independent national
accumulation and instead acting as mere agents for international capital.
Although for large sections of the population in these 'emerging market
economies' the adoption of neo-liberal policies led to increased job insecurity,
cuts in public provision of health, education and welfare, and sharp falls in
real wages; for the ruling classes, and for many of their middle class allies,
the influx of foreign capital, which such policies attracted, provided ample
opportunities to make substantial material gains. For the ruling classes of the
rest of the 'developing world' the aim was to get in on the act by positioning
themselves to be the next country to be recognised by global capital as an
'emerging market economy'.

As a result, most of the ruling classes of the periphery fully embraced the
neo-liberal 'Washington Consensus' and were anxious to be integrated into the
'international (bourgeois) community'. They queued up to join the World Trade
Organisation and uncritically accepted the one-sided agenda of 'free trade'
dictated by the US and Europe.

However, the pickings to be had from the carcass of failed national
accumulation was strictly limited. Once its industries had been 'rationalised'
and its public utilities privatised the profits that could be made out of an
'emerging market economy' began to dry up. Even in East Asia, where there had
been substantial investment in productive capital, the advantages of having a
cheap and compliant labour force was soon undercut by the next wave of newly
'emerging market economies' and by an increasingly oversupplied world market for
manufactured commodities.

As a result of past inflows of international capital the 'emerging market
economies' faced a remorselessly growing outflow of profits, interest and debt
repayments to the US and its confederates in the West, which could only be
covered by an increasingly speculative and short term inflows of money-capital,
which was now pursuing diminishing returns. In 1997 the crunch came with
financial crisis of East Asia, which soon spread across the world's 'emerging
market economies'. The ruling classes of these economies now found themselves
castigated for corruption and cronyism by their brethren in the West and faced
with the task of imposing severe austerity measures in the face of growing
social discontent while the Western bankers and speculators were bailed out of
their difficulties by the IMF.

As a result, the ruling classes of the periphery have become far more
circumspect about the advantages of neo-liberalism and free trade preached by
the US and Europe. A growing division has emerged within the 'international
(bourgeois) community' between the 'rich North' and the 'poor South', which, has
markedly slowed down the attempts to advance 'free trade and neo-liberalism
through the multilateral institutions such as the WTO. Following the breakdown
of the Seattle meeting of the WTO, the US was been obliged to shift towards
advancing its agenda for 'free trade' and liberalisation through bilateral
agreements in attempt to divide and rule an increasingly recalcitrant bourgeosie
in the peripheries.

These bilateral agreements were presented as 'paving the way' for more
comprehensive multilateral agreements to be negotiated in future WTO meetings.
However, following the recent collapse of the Cancun meeting of the WTO these
bilateral agreements are likely to become more of an alternative than a
complement to multilateralism of US trade policy.

However, perhaps more importantly than this 'North-South' divide is the
relation between the US and Europe. As we have pointed out, the free movement of
capital has meant that large sections of the European bourgeoisie have been able
to buy into the success of American capital. At the same time the strong dollar
since the mid-1990s has allowed European exporters to share in the expansion of
the American economy. As a result there has been a strong commitment on the part
of the European bourgeoisie to maintaining the regime of American-led global
accumulation. Indeed, the need to compete with America has provided a powerful
argument for many within the European bourgeoisie for the adoption of
neo-liberal policies and for attacking the entrenched positions of the European
working class.

However, the end of the dot.com boom has led to a sharp slow down in the US
economy. Although expansionary fiscal and monetary policies have allowed the US
to avoid an economic slump, the American economy is presently teetering on verge
of a prolonged period of economic stagnation. The slow down in the US economy,
together with a weakening dollar, has already lead to stagnation in many of the
major European economies. It is possible that the destruction of capital in the
recent slow down of the US economy may be sufficient to allow it a further brief
economic surge. However, if the US enters a period of economic stagnation then
fate of much of Europe is likely to be worse. As competition for stagnant or
even shrinking world markets intensifies, calls for protectionism will mount on
both sides of the Atlantic, placing great strains on the world economic order.
Indeed it could be well be that just as America's aggressively unilateralist
military interventionism is running into an impasse, the multilateral system of
'globalised economy' could begin to break up if the US fails to escape being
dragged down into chronic deflation.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Despite the opening up the US economy since the Second World War, the
continued insularity of the American population, and indeed large parts of the
bourgeoisie, has a firm economic foundation. The USA is a huge continental-wide
economy, which, with Central and South America, has a well established
hinterland that has ample reserves of raw materials and cheap labour. While the
scale of production of many manufacturing industries has outgrown the confines
of the European size nation state, only the largest industrial capitals produce
and sell on a truly global scale. The horizons of most American industries are
amply circumscribed by the New World of the Americas - which consitutes by far
the largest market in the world.

US exports of goods account for only 8% of its GDP (OECD Survey 2000). The
USA's main trading partners are Canada and Mexico. Trade with these two
countries combined is greater than that with the entire European Union. Indeed,
more than 95% of 'goods and services' produced in the USA are sold within the
Americas.

Moreover, whereas the total value of international trade in the entire world
was $6.5 trillion in the year 2000 (OECD Monthly Statititics of International
Trade, June 2003) the US GDP stood at $9.8 trillion (OECD Survey of USA 2003).
In other words the US domestic market is nearly one and half times bigger than
the world market represented by international trade! Hence, for large swathes of
the American bourgeosie, the US market, for all intents and purposes, is the
world market.

However, a fully fledged isolationist foreign policy would seem an unviable
option. Firstly, so long as the US enjoys economic supremacy any retreat from an
active foreign policy, which is necessary to maintain the drive towards 'free
trade' and ensures America's dominance of the world's finacial system, would be
deterimenal to the interests of US bourgeosie as a whole. Furthermore, those
with most to gain from an inteventionalist foreign policy - the finiancial
instituions of Wall Street, the major multinationals, the oil majors and the
military-industrial complex, are the most powerful and influential sections of
the American bourgoisie. As consequence, an active inteventionist foreign policy
has traditionally been the orthodoxy of the policy making establishment and has
been adopted sooner or later by most mainstream politicians. However,
isolationism has been been a central issue uniting various anti-establishment
and populist political campaigns rooted in particularistic interests. As an
amalgam of often contradictory interests the isolationist tendency is often
incoherent and diffuse. It has been led by maverick politicains of both the
Right - e.g. Ross Perot and Buchanan - and the Left - e.g. Nevertheless, there
is a widespread isolationist sentiment in the American Congress that in the
right circumstances can be moblised to constrain foreign policy and is a
political force that can not be ignored.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, much to alarm of some commentators,
isolationist sentiments began to penetrate the foreign policy establishment.
Even the editors of the main house journals of the foreign policy establishment
began to argue for a gradual disengaement from world affairs in the face of the
perceived decline of the US economic power. (see The Imperative of American
Leadership: A Challengeto Neo-Isolationism by J. Muravchik, AEI Press.
1996).

[2] Indeed, as we have seen in the run up to the war in Iraq, the
American generals have proved far more reluctant to invade Iraq than the
civilian military strategists that surround Rumsfeld.

[3] This doctrine of using
overwhelming force in order to minimise US casulties has been named after its
principal advocate, Colin Powell, who is now secretary of state in the Bush
administration.

[4] It has often been argued that April Glaspie's remarks to Saddam Hussein
gave the green light to Iraq's annexation of Kuwait. As such they were part of a
well prepared trap that gave the US an excuse for war. However, we do not accept
such a 'conspiracy theory'. It seems that the decision to annex Kuwait was taken
at the last minute. Even the Iraq generals expected military action to take take
the form of minor border incursions until just hours before the invasion. What
April Glaspie seems to have given the green light to was a minor border
incursion not a wholesale annexation of Kuwait, with all the destablising effect
that could have had on the balance of power in the middle east.

[5] see Ten Days That Shook Iraq by Wildcat (London) and texts at www.geocities.com/nowar_buttheclasswar.

[6] In the long term it is China that it is seen as the main potential rival
to US hegemony. Combining the advantages of the command economy with those of
the 'free market', the past decade has seen rapid export-led economic growth
based on low labour costs, which is transforming China into the new 'workshop'
of the world.

[7] Of course, predictions for the depletion of oil and other natural raw
materials are notoriously unreliable. They depend on a number of assumptions
concerning the rate of economic growth and the consequent demand for oil as well
as the investment decisions of the oil companies. The prediction of an oil
crisis in 2010 is a worst case senario that was based on the assumption that the
'New Economy' had abolished recessions. Other more realistic predictions put the
oil crunch in 2020s. However, it must also be remembered that it can take up to
a decade to develop a new oil field so that it can supply the world market, and
up to two or three decades before such new fields reach peak production levels.
Thus, both the oil companeis and governments have to take such predictions
seriously.

[8] Of course, September 11th came in the wake of the collapse of the dot.com
boom. An amorphous external threat was a timely distraction for Bush Jnr and the
Republican Party machine in the face of growing economic problems at home.

[9] Of course, under both Bush Snr and Clinton America's commitment to
multilateralism was never absolute. The US had always reserved the right to to
take action on in its own interest. As Madeline Albright has put it, the
principle was 'multilateralism if possible; unilateralism if necessary'. For
example, the war in Kossovo was carried out under the auspices of NATO and was
only retrospectively sanctioned by the UN Security Council.

[10] Of course several thousand civilians and unknown numbers of Iraqi
soldiers were killed in the war but far less than some had predicted.

[11] Of course, it was concerns for the problems that might arise after the
overthrow of Saddam Hussein that had led to Bush Snr to cut short the war in
1991. The neo-conservatives were no doubt concerned that such fears should get
in the way of finishing the job in Iraq this time.

[12] Indeed, in the run up to the war there were renewed attempts by the
Americans to encourage a coup from within Ba'athist Party in order to oust
Saddam Hussein. During the war itself there were several well publised efforts
to kill leading members of the Iraq regime. But all these efforts to
'decapitate' the regime so as to leave the state apparatus in tact failed.

[13] Of course the alternative move would be a confrontation with North Korea,
which can be seen as part of the neoconservatives long term plan to pre-empt the
rise of China as a long term rival to the USA.