By Ismael Hossein-zadeh, Drake University (Iowa)
http://www.cbpa.drake.edu/hossein-zadeh
There is strong evidence that as the
Bush administration is mulling over plans to bomb Iran,
the simmering conflict between the high-ranking military professionals and the
militaristic civilian leaders is bursting into open. The conflict, festering
ever since the invasion of Iraq, has now been heightened over the
administration's policy of an aerial military strike against Iran. While
civilian militarists, headed by Vice President Cheney and Secretary of Defense
Rumsfeld, are said to have drawn plans to bomb Iran, senior
commanders are openly questioning the wisdom of such plans. [1]
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The administration's recent
statements that it is now willing to negotiate with Iran might
appear as a change or modification of its plans to launch a military strike
against that country. But a closer reading of those statements indicates
otherwise: such pronouncements are premised on the condition that, as President
Bush recently put it, "the Iranian regime fully and verifiably suspends its
uranium enrichment." In light of the fact that suspension of uranium enrichment,
which is nothing beyond Iran's legitimate rights under the
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), is supposed to be the main point of negotiation,
Iran is asked, in effect, "to concede
the main point of the negotiations before they started." [2]
Military professionals question the
administration's plans of a bombing campaign against Iran on a number
of grounds. For one thing, they doubt that, beyond a lot of death and
destruction, the projected bombing raids can accomplish much, i.e., destroy
Iran's nuclear program. For another,
they caution that the bombing campaign could be very costly in terms of
military, economic, and geopolitical interests of the United States in
the region and beyond. More importantly, however, the professionals' opposition
to the administration's bombing plans stems from the fact that, points out the
renowned investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, "American and European
intelligence agencies have not found specific evidence of clandestine [nuclear]
activities or hidden facilities" in Iran. Hersh further writes, "A former
senior intelligence official told me that people in the Pentagon were asking,
'What's the evidence? We've got a million tentacles out there, overt and covert,
and these guys'—the Iranians—'have been working on this for eighteen years, and
we have nothing? We're coming up with jack shit.'" [3]
So far, the jingoistic civilian
leaders do not seem to have been swayed by the expert advice of their military
experts. And the discord over Iran policy continues.
Some observers have attributed the
conflict to Rumsfeld's uneasy relationship with the military hierarchy, arguing
that his cavalier attitude and unwillingness to accept responsibility are the
main reasons for the ongoing friction between the military and civilian
leadership. While there are clear elements of truth to this explanation, it
leaves out some more fundamental reasons for the discord. There is a deeper and
more general historical pattern—often shaped by the economics of war—to the
recurring disagreements between the military and militaristic civilian leaders
over issues of war and peace. Let me elaborate on this point.
Evidence shows that business or
economic beneficiaries of war, who do not have to face direct combat and death,
tend to be more jingoistic than professional military personnel who will have to
face the horrors of warfare. Furthermore, military professionals tend to care
more about the outcome of a war and "military honor" than civilian leaders who
often represent some powerful economic interests that benefit from the business
of war. Calling such business and/or ideologically-driven war mongers "civilian
militarists," military historian Alfred Vagts points to a number of historical
instances of how civilian militarists' eagerness to use military force for their
nefarious interests often led "to an intensification of the horrors of warfare."
For example, he points out how in World War II "civilians not only anticipated
war more eagerly than the professionals, but played a principal part in making
combat . . . more terrible than was the current military wont or habit." [4]
The 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq serves as
another blatant example of civilian militarists' instigation of war in pursuit
of economic and geopolitical gains. A number of belatedly surfaced documents
reveal that not only were the civilian militarists, representing powerful
business and geopolitical interests, behind the invasion of Iraq, but that they
also advocated a prolonged occupation of that country in order to avail their
legal and economic "experts" the time needed to overhaul that country's economy
according to a restructuring plan that they had drawn up long before the
invasion. One such document, titled "Moving the Iraqi Economy from Recovery to
Growth," was obtained from the State Department by the well-known investigative
reporter Greg Palast. The document, also called the "Economy Plan," was part of
a largely secret program called "The Iraq Strategy."
Here is how Palast describes the
plan: "The Economy Plan goes boldly where no invasion plan has gone
before: the complete rewrite, it says, of a conquered state's 'policies,
laws and regulations.' Here's what you'll find in the Plan: a highly
detailed program . . . for imposing a new regime of low taxes on big business,
and quick sales of Iraq's banks and bridges—in fact, 'ALL state enterprises'—to
foreign operators. . . . Beginning on page 73, the secret drafters emphasized
that Iraq would have to 'privatize' (i.e.,
sell off) its 'oil and supporting industries.'" [5]
After a detailed account and
analysis of the plan, Palast concludes, "If the Economy Plan reads like a
Christmas wish-list drafted by U.S. corporate lobbyists, that's
because it was. From slashing taxes to wiping away Iraq's tariffs (taxes on imports of
U.S. and other foreign goods), the
package carries the unmistakable fingerprints of the small, soft hands of Grover
Norquist."
Grover Norquist, once registered as
a lobbyist for Microsoft and American Express, is one of many corporate
lobbyists who helped shape the Economy Plan for the "new" Iraq. In an
interview with Palast, Norquist boasted of moving freely at the Treasury,
Defense and State Departments, and in the White House, "shaping the
post-conquest economic plans…."
The Economy Plan's "Annex D" laid
out "a strict 360-day schedule for the free-market makeover of
Iraq." But General Jay Garner, the
initially-designated ruler of Iraq, had promised Iraqis they would
have free and fair elections as soon as Saddam was toppled, preferably within 90
days. In the face of this conflict, civilian militarists of the Bush
administration overruled General Garner: elections were postponed—as usual, on
grounds that the local population and/or conditions were not yet ripe for
elections. The real reason for the postponement, however, was that, as Palast
points out, "It was simply inconceivable that any popularly elected government
would let America write its laws and auction
off the nation's crown jewel, its petroleum industry."
When Palast asked lobbyist Norquist
about the postponement of the elections, he responded matter of factly: "The
right to trade, property rights, these things are not to be determined by some
democratic election." The troops would simply have to wait longer.
General Garner's resistance to the
plan to postpone the elections was a major factor for his sudden replacement
with Paul Bremmer who, having served as managing director of Kissinger
Associates, better understood the corporate culture. Soon after assuming power
in Saddam Hussein's old palace, Bremmer cancelled Garner's scheduled meeting of
Iraq's tribal leaders that was called
to plan national elections. Instead, he appointed the entire "government"
himself. National elections, Bremmer pronounced, would have to wait until
2005. "The delay would, incidentally, provide," Palast notes, "time needed
to lock in the laws, regulations and irreversible sales of assets in accordance
with the Economy Plan. . . . Altogether, the leader of the Coalition Provisional
Authority issued exactly 100 orders that remade Iraq in the
image of the Economy Plan."
Palast's report is by no means an
isolated or exceptional story. It is part of a historical pattern of how or why
civilian militarists, often representing powerful interests of the beneficiaries
of war, tend to be more belligerent than the professional military. The report
also shows that, contrary to popular perceptions, the jingoistic neoconservative
forces in and around the Bush administration are not simply a bunch of
starry-eyed ideologues bent on "spreading U.S. values."
More importantly, they represent influential economic and geopolitical interests
that are camouflaged behind the façade of the neoconservatives' rhetoric and
their alleged ideals of democracy.
There is clear evidence that the
leading neoconservative figures have been long-time political activists who have
worked through a network of war-mongering think tanks that are set up to serve
either as the armaments lobby or the Israeli lobby or both. These
corporate-backed militaristic think tanks include Project for the New American
Century, the American Enterprise Institute, Center for Security Policy, Middle
East Media Research Institute, Middle East Forum, Washington Institute for Near
East Policy, Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, and National
Institute for Public Policy. Major components of the Bush administration's
foreign policy, including the war on Iraq, have been designed largely at
the drawing boards of these think thanks, often in collaboration, directly or
indirectly, with the Pentagon and the arms lobby. [6]
Even a cursory look at the records
of these militaristic think tanks—their membership, their financial sources,
their institutional structures, and the like—shows that they are set up to
essentially serve as institutional fronts to camouflage the dubious relationship
between the Pentagon, its major contractors, and the Israeli lobby, on the one
hand, and the war-mongering neoconservative politicians, on the other. More
critically, this unsavory relationship also shows that powerful interests that
benefit from war are also essentially the same powers that can—and indeed
do—make war. Additionally, it explains why civilian militarists are so eager to
foment war and international tensions.
By the same token, the incestuous
relationship between war beneficiaries and war makers goes some way to explain
the increasing tensions between the military and civilian militarists in and
around the Bush administration, especially in the context of the
administration's plans to bomb Iran. When contemplating war plans,
military commanders make some critically important decisions that seem to be of
no or very little significance to civilian leaders. Not only the military will
have to face direct combat, death, and destruction, but perhaps more
importantly, the commanders will have to think very carefully about the outcome
of the war and the chances of victory, that is, the of honor and pride of the
military.
By contrast, the primary concern and
the measure of success for civilian militarists lie in
the mere act or continuation of war, as this would ensure increased military
spending and higher dividends for military industries and war-induced
businesses. In other words, the standard of success for corporate beneficiaries
of war, which operate from behind the façade of neoconservative forces in and
around the Bush administration, is based more on business profitability than on
the conventional military success on the battle field. This is a clear
indication of the fact that, for example, while from a military point of view
the war on Iraq has been a fiasco, from the
standpoint of the powerful beneficiaries of the Pentagon budget it has been a
boon and a huge success. This explains, perhaps more than anything ales, the
ongoing tensions between the military and militaristic civilian leaders, or
chicken hawks.
About the author: Ismael Hossein-zadeh is a professor
of Economics at Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa. This article draws heavily on his newly
released book, The Political
Economy of U.S. Militarism .
_________________________________________
References:
1. Seymour M. Hersh, "The military's
problem with the President's Iran policy," The New Yorker (July
10, 2006): http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060710fa_fact
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Alfred Vagts, A History of
Militarism: Civilian and Military (London: Hollis & Carter, 1959), P.
463.
5. Greg Palast, "Adventure
Capitalism," TomPaine.com (October 26, 2004): http://www.tompaine.com/articles/adventure_capitalism.php
6. William Hartung and Michelle
Ciarrocca, "The Military-Industrial-Think Tank Complex," International Monitor
(January-February 2003): http://multinationalmonitor.org/mm2003/03jan-feb/jan-feb03corp2.html#name
