How We Got Into This Imperial Pickle: A PNAC Primer

[Guest guest]

http://www.crisispapers.org/Editorials/PNAC-Primer.htm

 

How We Got Into This Imperial Pickle:

A PNAC Primer

 

Bernard Weiner

Co-Editor, The Crisis Papers

 

May 26, 2003

 

 

Recently, I was the guest on a radio talk-show

hosted by a thoroughly decent far-right Republican. 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 neo-conservatives 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, 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.

 

The 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 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. " )

 

The Bush Administration used those acts of

terrorism -- and 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.

 

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 long-established 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

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. (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?)

 

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 set down on the

record 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 documents

and 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

Pentagon strategy " myopic, shallow 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 the

" 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: 1) 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 some sort of competition in the " 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.) 2) international treaties and opinion

will be ignored whenever they are not seen to serve

U.S. imperial goals. 3) 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. "

 

Summary & 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, 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), destruction of a good

share of the United Nation's effectiveness and

prestige, needlessly alienating our traditional

allies, infuriating key elements of the Muslim world,

providing 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 post-war

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 good both

for the citizens of that region and for 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!

 

Copyright 2003 by Bernard Weiner