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How
We Got Into This Imperial Pickle: A PNAC Primer
May
27, 2003
By Bernard Weiner, The
Crisis Papers
 Recently,
I was the guest on a radio talk-show hosted by a thoroughly
decent far-right Republician. I got verbally battered, but
returned fire and, I think, held my own. Toward the end of
the hour, I mentioned that the National Security Strategy
- promulgated by the Bush Administration in September 2002
- now included attacking possible future competitors first,
assuming regional hegemony by force of arms, controlling energy
resources around the globe, maintaining a permanent-war strategy,
etc.
"I'm not making up this stuff," I said. "It's
all talked about openly by the neoconservatives of the Project
for the New American Century - who now are in charge of America's
military and foreign policy - and published as official U.S.
doctrine in the National Security Strategy of the United States
of America."
The talk-show host seemed to gulp, and then replied: "If
you really can demonstrate all that, you probably can deny
George Bush a second term in 2004."
Two things became apparent in that exchange: 1) Even a well-educated,
intelligent radio commentator was unaware of some of this
information; and, 2) Once presented with it, this conservative
icon understood immediately the implications of what would
happen if the American voting public found out about these
policies.
So, a large part of our job in the run-up to 2004 is to get
this information out to those able to hear it and understand
the implications of an imperial foreign/military policy on
our economy, on our young people in uniform, on our moral
sense of ourselves as a nation, on our constitutional freedoms,
on our constitutional freedoms, and on our treaty obligations
- which is to say, our
respect for the rule of law.
Nearly 40% of Bush's support is fairly solid, but there is
a block of about 20% in between that 40% and the 40% who can
be counted upon to vote for a reasonable Democratic candidate
- and that 20% is where the election will be decided. We need
to reach a goodly number of those moderate (and even some
traditionally conservative) Republicans and independents with
the facts inherent in the dangerous, reckless, and expensive
policies carried out by the Bush Administration.
When these voters become aware of how various, decades-old,
popular programs are being rolled back or eliminated (because
there's no money available for them, because that money is
being used to fight more and more wars, and because income
to the federal coffers is being siphoned-off in costly tax-cuts
to the wealthiest sectors of society), that 20% may be a bit
more open to hearing what we have to say.
When it's your kids' schools being short-changed, and your
state's and city's services to citizens being chopped, your
bridges and parks and roadways and libraries and public hospitals
being neglected, your IRAs and pensions losing their value,
and your job not being as secure as in years past - in short,
when you can see the connection between Bush&Co.'s expensive
military policies and your thinner wallet and reduced social
amenities, true voter-education becomes possible. It's still
the economy, stupid.
Origins of the Crisis
Most of us Americans saw the end of the Cold War as a harbinger
of a more peaceful globe, and we relaxed knowing that the
communist world was no longer a threat to the U.S. The Soviet
Union, our partner in MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) and
Cold War rivalry around the globe, was no more. This meant
a partial vacuum in international affairs. Nature abhors a
vacuum.
The only major vacuum-filler still standing after the Cold
War was the United States. One could continue traditional
diplomacy on behalf of American ends - the kind of polite,
well-disguised defense of U.S. interests (largely corporate)
and imperial ambition carried out under Bush #1, Reagan, Clinton,
et al. - knowing that we'd mostly get our way eventually given
our status as the
globe's only Superpower. Or one could try to speed up the
process and accomplish those same ends overtly - with an attitude
of arrogance and in-your-face bullying - within maybe one
or two Republican administrations.
Some of the ideological roots of today's Bush Administration
power-wielders could be traced back to political philosophers
Leo Strauss and Albert Wohlstetter or to GOP rightist Barry
Goldwater and his rabid anti-communist followers in the early-1960s.
But, for simplicity's sake let's stick closer to our own time.
In the early-1990s, there was a group of ideologues and power-politicians
on the fringe of the Republican Party's far-right. The members
of this group in 1997 would found The
Project for the New American Century (PNAC); their aim
was to prepare for the day when the Republicans
regained control of the White House - and, it was hoped, the
other two branches of government as well - so that their vision
of how the U.S. should move in the world would be in place
and ready to go, straight off-the-shelf into official policy.
This PNAC group was led by such heavy hitters as Donald Rumsfeld,
Dick Cheney, James Woolsey, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle,
Bill Kristol, James Bolton, Zalmay M. Khalilzad, William Bennett,
Dan Quayle, Jeb Bush, most of whom were movers-and-shakers
in previous Administrations, then in power-exile, as it were,
while Clinton was in the White House. But even given their
reputations and clout, the views of this group were regarded
as too extreme to be taken seriously by the mainstream conservatives
that controlled the Republican Party.
Setting Up PNAC
To prepare the ground for the PNAC-like ideas that were circulating
in the HardRight, various wealthy individuals and corporations
helped set up far-right think-tanks, and bought up various
media outlets - newspapers, magazines, TV networks, radio
talk shows, cable channels, etc. - in support of that day
when all the political tumblers would click into place and
the PNAC cabal and their supporters could assume control.
This happened with the Supreme Court's selection of George
W. Bush in 2000. The "outsiders" from PNAC were
now powerful "insiders," placed in important positions
from which they could exert maximum pressure on U.S. policy:
Cheney is Vice President, Rumsfeld is Defense Secretary, Wolfowitz
is Deputy Defense Secretary, I. Lewis Libby is Cheney's Chief
of Staff, Elliot Abrams is in charge of Middle East policy
at the National Security Council, Dov Zakheim is comptroller
for the Defense Department, John Bolton is Undersecretary
of State, Richard Perle is chair of the Defense Policy advisory
board at the Pentagon, former CIA director James Woolsey is
on that panel as well, etc. etc. (PNAC's chairman, Bill Kristol,
is the editor of Rupert Murdoch's The Weekly Standard.)
In short, PNAC had a lock on military policy-creation in the
Bush Administration.
But, in order to unleash their foreign/military campaigns
without taking all sorts of flak from the traditional wing
of the conservative GOP - which was more isolationist, more
opposed to expanding the role of the federal government, more
opposed to military adventurism abroad - they needed a context
that would permit them free rein. The events of 9/11 rode
to their rescue. (In one of their major reports, written in
2000, they noted
that "the process of transformation, even if it brings
revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some
catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a new Pearl Harbor.")
After those terrorist attacks, the Bush Administration used
the fear generated in the general populace as their cover
for enacting all sorts of draconian measures domestically
(the Patriot Act, drafted earlier, was rushed through Congress
in the days following 9/11; few members even read it), and
as their rationalization for launching military campaigns
abroad. (Don't get me wrong. The Islamic fanatics that use
terror as their political weapon are real and deadly and need
to be stopped. The question is: How to do that in ways that
enhance rather than detract from America's long-term national
interests?)
The Domestic Ramifications
Even today, the Bush manipulators, led by Karl Rove, continue
to utilize fear and hyped-up patriotism and a permanent war
on terrorism as the basis for their policy agenda, the top
item of which, at this juncture, consists of getting Bush
elected in 2004. This, in order to continue to fulfill their
primary objectives, not the least of which domestically is
to roll back and, where possible, decimate and eliminate social
programs that the far-right has hated since the New Deal/Great
Society days.
By and large, these programs are popular with Americans,
so Bush&Co. can't attack them frontally - but if all the
monies are tied up in wars, defense, tax cuts, etc., they
can go to the American public and, in effect, say: "We'd
love to continue to fund Head Start and education and environmental
protection and drugs for the elderly through Medicare, but
you see there's simply no extra money left over after we go
after the bad guys. It's not our fault."
So far, that stealth strategy has worked. The Bush&Co.
hope is that the public won't catch on to their real agenda
- to seek wealth and power at the expense of average citizens
- until after a 2004 victory, and maybe not even then. Just
keep blaming the terrorists, the French, the Dixie Chicks,
peaceniks, fried potatoes, whatever.
One doesn't have to speculate what the PNAC guys might think,
since they're quite open and proud of their theories and strategies.
Indeed, they've left a long, public record that lays out quite
openly what they're up to. As I say, it was all laid out years
ago, but nobody took such extreme talk seriously; now that
they're in power, actually making the policy they only dreamed
about a decade or so ago - with all sorts of scarifying consequences
for America and the rest of the world - we need to educate
ourselves quickly as to how the PNACers work and what their
future plans might be.
The PNAC Paper Trail
Here is a shorthand summary of PNAC strategies that have
become U.S. policy. Some of these you may have heard about
before, but I've expanded and updated as much as possible.
1. In 1992, then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney had a strategy
report drafted for the Department of Defense, written by Paul
Wolfowitz, then Under-Secretary of Defense for Policy. In
it, the U.S. government was urged, as the world's sole remaining
Superpower, to move aggressively and militarily around the
globe. The report called for pre-emptive attacks and ad hoc
coalitions, but said that the U.S. should be ready to act
alone when "collective action cannot be orchestrated."
The central strategy was to "establish and protect a
new order" that accounts "sufficiently for the interests
of the advanced industrial nations to discourage them from
challenging our leadership," while at the same time maintaining
a military dominance capable of "deterring potential
competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global
role." Wolfowitz outlined plans for military intervention
in Iraq as an action necessary to assure "access to vital
raw material, primarily Persian Gulf oil" and to prevent
the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and threats
from terrorism.
Somehow, this report leaked to the press; the negative response
was immediate. Senator Robert Byrd led the Democratic charge,
calling the recommended and disappointing....The basic thrust
of the document seems to be this: We love being the sole remaining
superpower in the world and we want so much to remain that
way that we are willing to put at risk the basic health of
our economy and well-being of our people to do so." Clearly,
the objective political forces hadn't yet coalesced in the
U.S. that could support this policy free of major resistance,
and so President Bush the Elder publicly repudiated the paper
and sent it back to the drawing boards. (For the essence of
the draft text, see Barton Gellman's "Keeping
the U.S. First; Pentagon Would Preclude a Rival Superpower"
in the Washington Post.
2. Various HardRight intellectuals outside the government
were spelling out the new PNAC policy in books and influential
journals. Zalmay M. Khalilzad (formerly associated with big
oil companies, currently U.S. Special Envoy to Afghanistan
& Iraq ) wrote an important volume in 1995, "From
Containment to Global Leadership: America & the World
After the Cold War," the import of which was identifying
a way for the U.S. to move aggressively in the world and thus
to exercise effective control over the planet's natural resources.
A year later, in 1996, neo-conservative leaders Bill Kristol
and Robert Kagan, in their Foreign Affairs article "Towards
a Neo-Reaganite Foreign Policy," came right out and said
the goal for the U.S. had to be nothing less than "benevolent
global hegemony," a euphemism for total U.S. domination,
but "benevolently" exercised, of course.
3. In 1998, PNAC unsuccessfully lobbied President Clinton
to attack Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein from power. The January
letter
from PNAC urged America to initiate that war even if the
U.S. could not muster full support from the Security Council
at the United Nations. Sound familiar? (President Clinton
replied that he was focusing on dealing with al-Qaida terrorist
cells.)
4. In September of 2000, PNAC, sensing a GOP victory in the
upcoming presidential election, issued its white paper on
"Rebuilding
America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for the
New Century." The PNAC report was quite frank about
why the U.S. would want to move toward imperialist militarism,
a Pax Americana, because with the Soviet Union out of the
picture, now is the time most "conducive to American
interests and ideals...The challenge of this coming century
is to preserve and enhance this 'American peace'." And
how to preserve and enhance the Pax Americana? The answer
is to "fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous
major-theater wars."
In serving as world "constable," the PNAC report
went on, no other countervailing forces will be permitted
to get in the way. Such actions "demand American political
leadership rather than that of the United Nations," for
example. No country will be permitted to get close to parity
with the U.S. when it comes to weaponry or influence; therefore,
more U.S. military bases will be
established in the various regions of the globe. (A post-Saddam
Iraq may well serve as one of those advance military bases.)
Currently, it is estimated that the U.S. now has nearly 150
military bases and deployments in different countries around
the world, with the most recent major increase being in the
Caspian Sea/Afghanistan/Middle East areas.
5. George W. Bush moved into the White House in January of
2001. Shortly thereafter, a report by the Administration-friendly
Council on Foreign Relations was prepared, "Strategic
Energy Policy Challenges for the 21st Century," that
advocated a more aggressive U.S. posture in the world and
called for a "reassessment of the role of energy in American
foreign policy," with access to oil repeatedly cited
as a "security imperative." (It's possible that
inside Cheney's energy-policy papers - which he refuses to
release to Congress or the American people - are references
to foreign-policy plans for how to gain military control of
oilfields abroad.)
6. Mere hours after the 9/11 terrorist mass-murders, PNACer
Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld ordered his aides to begin planning
for an attack on Iraq, even though his intelligence officials
told him it was an al-Qaida operation and there was no connection
between Iraq and the attacks. "Go massive," the
aides' notes quote
him as saying. "Sweep it all up. Things related and
not." Rumsfeld leaned heavily on the FBI and CIA to find
any shred of evidence linking the Iraq government to 9/11,
but they weren't able to. So he set up his own fact-finding
group in the Pentagon that would provide him with whatever
shaky connections it could find or surmise.
7. Feeling confident that all plans were on track for moving
aggressively in the world, the Bush Administration in September
of 2002 published its "National
Security Strategy of the United States of America."
The official policy of the U.S. government, as proudly proclaimed
in this major document, is virtually identical to the policy
proposals in the various white papers of the Project for the
New American Century and others like it over the past decade.
Chief among them are: a) the policy of "pre-emptive"
war - i.e., whenever the U.S. thinks a country may be amassing
too much power and/or could provide "benevolent hegemony"
region, it can be attacked, without provocation. (A later
corollary would rethink the country's atomic policy: nuclear
weapons would no longer be considered defensive, but could
be used offensively in support of political/economic ends;
so-called "mini-nukes" could be employed in these
regional wars.) b) international treaties and opinion will
be ignored whenever they are not seen to serve U.S. imperial
goals. c) The new policies "will require bases and stations
within and beyond Western Europe and Northeast Asia."
In short, the Bush Administration seems to see the U.S.,
admiringly, as a New Rome, an empire with its foreign legions
(and threat of "shock&awe" attacks, including
with nuclear weapons) keeping the outlying colonies, and potential
competitors, in line. Those who aren't fully in accord with
these goals better get out of the way; "you're either
with us or against us."
The PNAC Future
Everyone loves a winner, and American citizens are no different.
It makes a lot of people feel good that we "won"
the battle for Iraq, but in doing so we paid too high a price
at that, and may well have risked losing the larger war in
the Arab/Muslim region: the U.S. now lacks moral stature and
standing in much of the world, it is revealed as a liar for
all to see (no WMDs in Iraq, no connection to 9/11, no quick
handing-over the interim reins of government to the Iraqis
as initially promised), it destroyed a good share of the United
Nation's effectiveness and prestige that may come in handy
later, it needlessly alienated our traditional allies, it
infuriated key elements of the Muslim world, it provided political
and emotional ammunition for anti-U.S. terrorists, etc.
Already, we're talking about $80 to $100 billion from the
U.S. treasury for reconstruction in Iraq. And the PNACers
are gearing up for their next war: let's see, should we move
first on Iran or on Syria, or maybe do Syria-lite first in
Lebanon?
One can believe that maybe PNAC sincerely believes its rhetoric
- that instituting U.S.-style free-markets and democratically-elected
governments in Iraq and the other authoritarian-run countries
of the Islamic Middle East will be American interests as well
- but even if that is true, it's clear that these incompetents
are not operating in the world of Middle Eastern realities.
These are armchair theoreticians - most of whom made sure
not to serve in the military in Vietnam - who truly believed,
for example, that the Iraqis would welcome the invading U.S.
forces with bouquets of flowers and kisses when they "liberated"
their country from the horribleness of Saddam Hussein's reign.
The Iraqis, by and large, were happy to be freed of Saddam's
terror, but, as it stands now, the U.S. military forces are
more likely to be engulfed in a political/religious quagmire
for years there, as so many of the majority Shia population
just want the occupying soldiers to leave.
And yet PNAC theorists continue to believe that remaking
the political structure of the Middle East - by force if necessary,
although they hope the example of what the U.S. did to Iraq
will make war unnecessary - will be fairly easy.
These are men of big ideas, but who don't really think. They
certainly don't think through what takes place in the real
world, when the genies of war and religious righteousness
are let out of the bottle. For example, as New York Times
columnist Tom Friedman recently put it, the U.S. had no Plan
B for Iraq. They did great with Plan A, the war, but when
the Saddam government collapsed, and with it law and order,
and much of the population remained sullen and resentful towards
the U.S., they had no prepared way of dealing with it. An
embarrassing three weeks went by, with no progress, finally
leading the Bush Administration to force out its initial administrators
and to put in another team to have a go at it.
No, friends, the PNAC boys are dangerous ideologues playing
with matches, and the U.S. is going to get burned even more
in years to come, unless their hold on power is broken. The
only way to accomplish this, given the present circumstances,
is to defeat their boss at the polls in 2004, thus breaking
the HardRight momentum that has done, and is doing, such great
damage to our reputation abroad and to our country internally,
especially to our Constitution and
economy.
We don't need an emperor, we don't need huge tax cuts for
the wealthy when the economy is tanking, we don't need more
"pre-emptive" wars, we don't need more shredding
of constitutional due process. Instead, we need leaders with
big ideas who are capable of creative thinking. We need peace
and justice in the Middle East (to help alter the chemistry
of the soil in which terrorism grows), we need jobs and economic
growth at home, and we need authentic and effective "homeland
security" consistent with our civil liberties.
In short, we need a new Administration, which means that
we need to get to serious work to make all this change happen.
Organize! Organize! Organize!
Bernard Weiner, Ph.D., has taught government & international
relations at various universities, and was a writer/editor
with the San Francisco Chronicle for nearly 20 years. He now
co-edits the progressive website The
Crisis Papers.
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