BY NORM DIXON
US President George Bush's January 29 State of the Union speech, and his proposed US$396 billion 2002-2003 war budget, sent shudders through peoples and governments throughout the world — including Washington's imperialist allies in Europe and its collaborators in the Third World.
Bush's speech, with its simplistic content and Christian fundamentalist allusions, had one unmistakable message: the US will go to war anywhere on the face of the Earth to maintain and strengthen its domination of the world, and it will do so regardless of the views and interests of friends and foes alike.
(If the parallels weren't so frightening, the fact that Bush's speech was delivered on the 38th anniversary of the premiere of Stanley Kubrick's black comedy Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb would be funny.)
A fundamental purpose of the speech was to officially delink the next stage of Washington's "war on terrorism" from the specific events of September 11. It is significant that Bush did not directly mention Osama bin Laden or al Qaeda in his speech.
The three countries Bush singled out to top Washington's hit-list — Iraq, Iran and North Korea — have no proven links with al Qaeda, bin Laden or the September 11 attacks. Three of the four organisations Bush cited as part of the "terrorist underworld" — Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah — have no connection with al Qaeda; their "crime" is that they oppose Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine.
In less than six months, Bush's "war on terrorism" has morphed seamlessly from action against the alleged perpetrators and backers of the September 11 mass murders into a war against any Third World state or political movement that Washington considers too independent, too defiant or is a hurdle to the goal of US global hegemony (referred to as the "new American Century" by US ruling-class think tanks and journals close to the Bush administration's leading lights).
The central aim of the speech was to scare the living daylights out of the American people so as to win popular acceptance for the widening of Washington's war drive — and the colossal price tag it will entail.
"Tens of thousands ... of dangerous killers, schooled in the methods of murder, often supported by outlaw regimes, are now spread throughout the world like ticking time bombs, set to go off without warning", Bush asserted.
(Bush conveniently used a figure for the number of terrorists that includes only those trained after 1996. Yet, between 1980 and 1992, up to 100,000 religious fanatics were taught terrorist tactics by bin Laden, Pakistan's secret service, the CIA and the British SAS. They were mainly armed by the CIA and funded by the US and Saudi Arabia. But, because these cut-throats were fighting the left-wing government of Afghanistan at the time, Washington proclaimed them "freedom fighters". This did not stop CIA-trained veterans from forming the core of what is today bin Laden's al Qaeda network.)
Bush also claimed that US forces in Afghanistan had "found diagrams of American nuclear power plants and public water facilities, detailed instructions for making chemical weapons, surveillance maps of American cities and thorough descriptions of landmarks in America and throughout the world".
In words that could have been cut-and-pasted from the scripts of 1940s war-time propaganda films or from 1950s sci-fi or Cold War spy pulp fiction, Bush conjured up a ludicrous "axis of evil" — Iraq, Iran and North Korea — which is supposedly developing "weapons of mass destruction" for use against the US and its allies. The evil three may also be plotting to turn such weapons over to nefarious terrorist "sleeper cells", which Washington claims are present in more than 40 countries.
The president of the country with the largest stockpile of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons (and the only country to have used nuclear weapons in war) signaled that the US would take pre-emptive military action against "the world's most dangerous regimes", rather than follow diplomatic niceties, such as the presentation of proof for its charges.
"We will be deliberate, yet time is not on our side. I will not wait on events while dangers gather. I will not stand by as peril draws closer and closer", Bush announced.
He bluntly stated that the US would unilaterally launch military action against "terrorists" inside any country, if it felt the need: "But some governments will be timid in the face of terror. And make no mistake about it, if they do not act, America will."
He claimed that there are "terror training camps" in at least "a dozen countries" and a "terrorist underworld" that "operates in remote jungles and deserts, and hides in the centres of large cities".
"These enemies view the entire world as a battlefields and we must pursue them wherever they are. So long as training camps operate, so long as nations harbour terrorists, freedom is at risk, and America and our allies must not, and will not, allow it."
Bush reminded the world that US vengeance has no geographic limits. "Our armed forces [in Afghanistan] have delivered a message now clear to every enemy of the United States: even 7000 miles away, across oceans and continents, on mountain tops and in caves, you will not escape the justice of this nation", he warned.
War budget
Bush's speech-writer had to invent the "axis of evil" because, if the US ruling class is to convince the American people that billions more have to be spent on "defence", a much more significant enemy is needed than a loose network of all-but-defeated religious terrorists.
For a while, Washington can convince the US people that bin Laden and his al Qaeda network has tentacles that reach into every nook-and-cranny of the world. This offers a useful excuse to fund, arm and train repressive Third World regimes — as in Colombia and Uzbekistan — or justify direct US military intervention, as in the Philippines. It can also justify massive spending to militarise US society in the name of "homeland defence". But the US rulers still need enemies that have state power in order to justify the massive boost in conventional weaponry that is being proposed.
The Bush gang is seeking to boost military spending by US$48 billion, or 13.5%, to US$379.3 billion in 2002-2003. This includes a US$10 billion fund that will allow the president to launch military operations without needing authorisation from Congress.
Adding non-Pentagon military spending worth US$16.8 billion, mostly by the energy department for the US nuclear weapons program, and total military spending will be $396.1 billion. A further US$38 billion is to be spent on "homeland defence" — mainly for the plethora of US police agencies.
Washington has projected that the war budget will steadily increase to more that US$451 billion by 2007, a 30% increase.
Iraq and Iran
Bush's speech signaled that the debate within the US government over whether to target Iraq next seems to have been settled in favour of the "hawks".
Immediately after September 11, a faction of the US government — the "hawks" led by deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz and backed by defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld — began pushing for Washington to seize the opportunity presented by September 11 and deal a death blow to Saddam Hussein's regime.
Iran's inclusion in Bush's hit list surprised many commentators. Iran condemned the September 11 attacks, has been opposed to the Taliban since 1996 (when Washington was playing footsie with it), backed the opposition Northern Alliance and its cooperation with the US during the war in Afghanistan was described as "constructive" by US Secretary of State Colin Powell. Furthermore, Iran used its influence over various Afghan factions to ensure the smooth installation of the pro-US Afghan government of Hamid Karzai.
Until Bush's speech, the US State Department favoured cultivating the wing of the Iranian regime that is in favour of closer political and economic ties with the US and the West (dubbed "moderates" by the press).
However, the rise of the "Wolfowitz cabal" has meant that Washington's long-term policy based on the "dual containment" of Iraq and Iran is to be reasserted with increased vigour. The US is determined to prevent the emergence of a power that can challenge US hegemony in the strategic oil-rich Persian Gulf area.
A key plank of the hawks' imperial platform is unconditional military and political support for Israel, Washington's key strategic partner in the Middle East. Israel has long viewed Iran as its greatest security threat. Iran is accused by Israel of arming and funding Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Palestine, and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
In recent months, the US has unambiguously sided with Israel's all-out war on the Palestinian people and Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority. The US has added Iran to its list of potential targets — and now ranks Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah alongside al Qaeda — because it remains an opponent the imperialist state of Israel and its brutal treatment of the Palestinians.
Lastly, the US rulers, and their ally Pakistan, also fear that Iran's political and economic influence in western Afghanistan, where most Afghans share a common religion or language with the majority of Iranians, may undermine US domination of the country.
Bush's reference to North Korea seems to be a deliberate attempt to scuttle the process that has led to the easing of tensions between Seoul and Pyongyang. Should this process continue, Washington's justification for stationing 37,000 US troops in 96 facilities in South Korea would evaporate. It is also an open secret that US forces have nuclear weapons in South Korea.
Naming North Korea as part of the "axis of evil" also deflects charges that Washington has a vendetta against the Muslim world.
Allies object
While Bush's speech alarmed those countries placed on his hit list, it was also rejected by some of Washington's closest allies in the "war on terrorism".
South Korean President Kim Dae Jung gently defied Bush by restated Seoul's commitment to its "sunshine" policy of increasing contacts with North Korea.
In the Philippines, justice secretary Hernando Perez objected to Bush's threat of unilateral military intervention: "One president of a friendly country does not threaten another friendly country."
Russian defence minister Sergei Ivanov on February 3 stated that Moscow was not prepared to extend the "war on terrorism" to Iraq and "many European states stick to the same approach". "I don't have any data that governments of these three nations support terrorism", he said. Chinese vice-foreign minister Wang Yi said that the US should not "arbitrarily" expand its war.
German defence minister Rudolf Scharping said any action against Iraq would need a UN mandate and that it would be a "mistake" to attack Iraq. He added that he did not agree with designating Iran, Iraq and North Korea as an "axis of evil".
On February 4, Germany's deputy foreign minister declared that there is "no indication, no proof that Iraq is involved in the terrorism we have been talking about for the last few months... This terror argument cannot be used to legitimise old enmities".
Even Britain, Washington's most loyal European ally, distanced itself from Bush's imaginary "axis of evil". Foreign secretary Jack Straw angered US officials when he said on February 1 that Bush's speech was driven by the aim of winning votes for the Republican Party in the mid-November Congressional elections. Straw has also said that Britain will maintain its policy of engagement with Iran's "moderates".
Spanish foreign minister Josep Pique, whose country currently holds the presidency of the European Union, stated on January 30 that the EU "will act independently of President Bush's stance ... The EU will work as usual with Iran". Spain's ambassador to Iran, Leopoldo Stampa, added that "the Europeans do not share the United States' suspicions" about Iran's development of weapons of mass destruction.
World domination
European leaders' disquiet stems from their recognition that Bush's speech was a formal announcement that Washington is again unashamedly seeking world domination. As the February 1 New York Times editorial noted: "The application of power and intimidation has returned to the forefront of American foreign policy. That was the unmistakable message delivered by George W. Bush in his State of the Union address... Not since America's humiliating withdrawal from Vietnam more than a quarter-century ago has US foreign policy relied so heavily in non-nuclear military force, or the threat of it, to defend American interests around the world."
Since the end of World War II, the US ruling class has pursued as its overarching strategic goal the maintenance of an overwhelming military, economic and political dominance and the prevention of the emergence of other great powers that could challenge that position.
The 1992 draft of the Pentagon's Defense Planning Guidance (prepared by Wolfowitz) stated bluntly that the US must "discourage ... advanced industrial nations from challenging our leadership or ... even aspiring to a larger regional or global role ... [To achieve this, the US] must retain the preeminent responsibility for addressing ... those wrongs which threaten not only our interests, but those of our allies or friends, or which seriously unsettle international relations."
The massive build-up of US military might in Europe, Asia and the Middle East after 1945 was not simply directed at containing the Soviet Union, crushing Third World revolutions and controlling natural resources such as oil — as vital to US interests as they were.
It was also aimed at enmeshing its potential capitalist rivals — Britain, France, Germany and Japan — within US-dominated military alliances designed to prevent them developing independent armed forces.
It is no accident that proposed US military spending in 2002-2003 will be more than the combined military budgets of the next closest 15 countries, including all NATO members. The US$48 billion increase for 2002-2003 by itself is larger than any other country's entire military budget, except Russia's which is about US$50 billion a year.
From Green Left Weekly, February 13, 2002.
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