That is my assessement of why the U.S. has embarked on a Long War as a solution to its problems, economic and political.After WWII this country was the only one left unscathed among all the powers;its plants and infrastructure remained intact while that of most of Europe and Japan were totally destroyed.Under those conditions, there was no one left to challenge our supremacy and smiles were the order of the day.
Initially, the threat to our supremacy was perceived to come from the Soviet Union.That was essentially a military threat.The threat from germany and Japan were not military and even the economic threats were so far into the future, no one paid any attention.
In this situation, it was possible to think that so long as the Soviet threat was “contained” ( in George Kennan’s memorable phrase),our supremacy could go on literally forever.That sort of reassurance allowed our auto industry to be the world leader what with jet fin styling, bumper to bumper chrome, super highways,drive-in movies and promise of back seat sex for all.The world had a long way to go and American hubris knew no bounds.
The first shock to this hubris came with the launch of the Sputnik but even that was handled with ease as Neil Armstrong became the first man to set foot on the moon.Instead our bubble has been burst in the mundane world of everyday products like autos,appliances,electronics and other goods in which the world has found holes and is busy filling them to the dismay of our corporations.As one corporation after another finds itself losing market share,profitability and technological expertise, the effort needed to assert any kind of market supremacy becomes prohibitive.The exodus to foreign lands by itself will not stem this hemorrhage.
The world has learned how to profit from ideas and countries like India and China and Korea are breeding a population well versed in entrepreneurship and technology.They now see better opportunities to build businesses in their homeland and their governments are eager to see them come and invest their very considerable talents.This will pose a long term threat to the very standard of living that made the U.S. the envy of the world.
I think it is the realization that we cannot win this race against countries like India and China that is at the root of the wars initiated by Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld. The world has long past the time when everyone was impressed with American economic and technological achievements.Now those kinds of achievements are increasingly coming from India, China, Korea and Japan.The plight of our auto and steel industry is a warning sign of what is yet to come.
When all is said and done, we are very good at war making and invested a great deal of time, capital and intellectual energy into that enterprise.Given our history of coveting other people’s resources, it was natural that we will wade into the war against Iraq which sits on top of one of the world’s largest known oil resource.Oil gives us a way to assert supremacy over others that any legitimate commerce would not simply because other countries have gotten better at them.It helps to have men at the helm like Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld who think what is yours is mine and what is mine is mine too.
At the same time, Iran has lived with the real threat of an Israeli attack, possibly with nuclear weapons, about which the “international community” has remained silent. Recently, one of Israel’s leading military historians, Martin van Creveld, wrote: “Obviously, we don’t want Iran to have nuclear weapons and I don’t know if they’re developing them, but if they’re not developing them, they’re crazy.”
It is hardly surprising that the Tehran regime has drawn the “lesson” of how North Korea, which has nuclear weapons, has successfully seen off the American predator without firing a shot. During the cold war, British “nuclear deterrent” strategists argued the same justification for arming the nation with nuclear weapons; the Russians were coming, they said. As we are aware from declassified files, this was fiction, unlike the prospect of an American attack on Iran, which is very real and probably imminent.
Blair knows this. He also knows the real reasons for an attack and the part Britain is likely to play. Next month, Iran is scheduled to shift its petrodollars into a euro-based bourse. The effect on the value of the dollar will be significant, if not, in the long term, disastrous. At present the dollar is, on paper, a worthless currency bearing the burden of a national debt exceeding $8trn and a trade deficit of more than $600bn. The cost of the Iraq adventure alone, according to the Nobel Prizewinning economist Joseph Stiglitz, could be $2trn. America’s military empire, with its wars and 700-plus bases and limitless intrigues, is funded by creditors in Asia, principally China.
That oil is traded in dollars is critical in maintaining the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. What the Bush regime fears is not Iran’s nuclear ambitions but the effect of the world’s fourth-biggest oil producer and trader breaking the dollar monopoly. Will the world’s central banks then begin to shift their reserve holdings and, in effect, dump the dollar? Saddam Hussein was threatening to do the same when he was attacked.
While the Pentagon has no plans to occupy all of Iran, it has in its sights a strip of land that runs along the border with Iraq. This is Khuzestan, home to 90 per cent of Iran’s oil. “The first step taken by an invading force,” reported Beirut’s Daily Star, “would be to occupy Iran’s oil-rich Khuzestan Province, securing the sensitive Straits of Hormuz and cutting off the Iranian military’s oil supply.” On 28 January the Iranian government said that it had evidence of British undercover attacks in Khuzestan, including bombings, over the past year. Will the newly emboldened Labor MPs pursue this? Will they ask what the British army based in nearby Basra – notably the SAS – will do if or when Bush begins bombing Iran? With control of the oil of Khuzestan and Iraq and, by proxy, Saudi Arabia, the US will have what Richard Nixon called “the greatest prize of all.”
Crossposted at my blog.
Absolutely.John Pilger tells it like it is.I would like to differ on only one point.Beset as it is by the Imperialists, Iran has still said that it needs nuclear capabilities for power generation and not for weaponry.The IAEA agrees with this assessment.
A new wrinkle in this madness comes from Brazil which has announced its intention to build a uranium enrichment plant without provoking a peep from the powers that be.Double standards any one?
And it would seem reasonable to me that Iran develop its nuclear abilities for power generation, as that frees up more petroleum for export – certainly a potential win-win for the Iranian economy.
Seems to me there was a time when the US elites wanted to strengthen, enrich and free their population as a way toward progress; but in the new global “service economy”, they would rather have a select few managers/consumers to broker the information and management of industry, rather than having industry in any one place. It’s the new colonialism where the american middle class would just become another colony, with Atlanta barely distinguishable from JoBurg in 20 years.