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Recent
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May
3, 2003
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May
5, 2003
The Two-Line Struggle at the Top
Phase Two: Syria and Iran
by GARY LEUPP
During the 1920s and 30s, there was division within
the Japanese elite. On the one hand there were the diplomats
in the Foreign Ministry, typically Western-educated, cultured
men; and the leaders of the zaibatsu (financial cliques
like Mitsui and Sumitomo) who feared boycotts of Japanese products
in China. They tended to oppose imperialist war. On the other
hand, there were hotheads in the Japanese Army, influenced by
fascist ideology, hell-bent on establishing Japanese domination
over China and Southeast Asia (creating what they came to call
the "Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere"). The
latter won out decisively with the Manchurian Incident in 1931.
For some time now, here in the USA, it's
been apparent that there's a power struggle, perhaps what you
can call a "two-line struggle" between Colin Powell's
State Department and Donald Rumsfeld's Defense Department. (Former
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has referred to this as
the "split personality" of the Bush Administration.)
The former seems dominated by professional diplomats who find
it in U.S. interest to maintain friendly ties with the world
in general. The latter is dominated by the neocons, whose project
for a New American Century includes (among other ambitious goals)
plans for regime change in Iraq, Syria and Iran, change plans
that the world tends to oppose and fear since they mean U.S.
hegemony throughout Southwest Asia. The former receives some
neocon input (notably in the form of John Bolton, Under Secretary
of State for Arms Control and International Security, whose appointment
Powell is said to have opposed), but like the Japanese Foreign
Ministry before the Manchurian Incident, it generally takes a
cautious approach to war. Powell, whose career includes some
unpleasant incidents and so does not attract my own admiration,
is nevertheless a professional committed to the fundamental task
he has been assigned (pursue diplomacy), and he is probably committed
to opposing aspects of the neocons' program which seem to require
for popular support exploitation of anti-Arab racism.
(I refer specifically to the cynical
expectation of the neocons that the U.S. public's response to
9/11 and widespread, irrational assignment of blame for that
event on a vague "raghead" category, would allow them
to conflate bin Laden with Saddam Hussein on meager evidence,
and insure popular support for the war on Iraq. And also, their
supposition that they can take the war into Syria and Iran with
popular support, knowing that a certain component of the population
will just be happy to see further humiliation of Arabs and other
Muslims without really thinking about the reasons or repercussions.
The neocons know they can't justify their project to the public
on the basis of conventional logic; or rather, should they do
so, it would have to be on the basis of Machiavelli's logic---or
what some political scientists call "realism"---which
would require admission that disinformation [lying] is a useful
tool in the project's execution. Instead they rely on the public's
fear of Arabs, all Arabs anywhere, as potential terrorists planning
further Sept. 11s.)
In recent days the split between the
factions has been evidenced by quarreling over the leadership
of occupied Iraq, with Powell favoring L. Paul Bremmer III as
paramount civilian administrator (in deference to the apparent
Iraqi hostility to a military governor) and Rumsfeld and the
Pentagon wanting Gen. Jay M. Garner (ret.) to head the new regime.
It has also been conspicuous with regard to policy towards Syria
and Iran (as well as North Korea). Newt Gingrich, former House
Speaker, Rumsfeld intimate, and member of the Defense Policy
Board until recently chaired by chief neocon ideologue Richard
Perle, in a speech to the neocon-dominated American Enterprise
Institute, denounced Powell's diplomacy (among other things,
oddly blaming Powell for the fact that 95% of the Turkish
population opposed the U.S. attack on Iraq) and calling the Secretary
of State's decision to visit Syria and talk with its president,
Bashar Assad, "ludicrous." This suggests (to me, anyway)
that the neocons really want to attack, rather than talk with,
Syria. It's in their script, and Powell at least to some extent
disagrees with that script.
But the reporting on the "tough
and at times blunt" encounter between Powell and Assad (Washington
Post, May 4) suggests the issues the neocons have and will
continue to raise as they muster support for the Syria invasion.
In no particular order:
1. Syria's possession of chemical and
biological weapons. (Note: quite a number of nations, including
the second largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid, Egypt, possess
such weapons. To make this grounds of war with Syria would strike
many in the world as ludicrous. However, if an invasion of Syria
resulted in the occupying army's discovery of such weapons, they
could be represented as transported Iraqi weapons of mass
destruction (whether they are or not). And some among the neocon's
domestic support base would be happy and satisfied with that
discovery, and feel safer in consequence.)
2. Syria's "sponsorship" of
Lebanon's Hezbollah (viewed by most in Lebanon as a large, mainstream
political party), the Palestinian group Hamas, the Islamic Jihad,
and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General
Command, all officially regarded by the State Department as "terrorist."
Assad told Powell that these groups' offices in Damascus are
media outlets, whereas the State Department believes they are
command headquarters for operations against Israel. (Maybe they're
both.) Assad reportedly agreed to a Powell proposal "to
curtail the ability of the organizations' leaders to appear on
television" (which does not seem to me to enhance freedom
of speech or of the press in Syria, not that I want to get picky).
3. Syria allegedly allowed personnel
and equipment to flow into Iraq during the invasion.. While there
surely was nothing illegal in this, from the standpoint of international
law, especially given that the Anglo-American attack itself lacked
international support, it "deeply angered" US officials
according to the Post. Just as that lack of international
support, and the opposition of France, Germany, Belgium, Turkey
etc. deeply disappointed and angered them. (Note: Syria and Iraq
have not been close friends. They have longbeen ruled by rival
factions of the secular Baath Party. Syria supported Iran in
the Iran-Iraq war. If Syria afforded Iraq some support during
the invasion, it may reflect pan-Arab sentiments emanating from
the Syrian street as much as Assad's own calculations.)
4. Some fleeing Iraqi officials may have
made their way into Iraq "to escape capture," which
is understandable. (What would you do?) Rumsfeld has said there's
"no question" that senior Iraqi officials are now in
Syria. Syria is being pressured to turn over such officials,
and may be wondering by what right the US is exerting such pressure,
having illegally invading neighboring Iraq in the first place.
5. Child custody disputes between Syrians
and their American spouses. Probably not a casus belli.
But a grounds for depicting these Arabs as violators of Americans'
human rights.
I assume that the neocons' real intention
is to invade Syria, in large part to eliminate the threat to
Israel of the above-listed organizations. But any shred of evidence
that they might threaten Americans will also be amplified as
they prepare the case. And the weapons of mass destruction issue
will be highlighted, although it does raise the question of why
Egypt (on the U.S. payroll, $ 2 billion per annum specifically)
can have them but not Syria. (Syria's been calling for the elimination
of all WMD in the region, which include most notably Israel's
undeclared nukes that Washington never wants to talk about.)
And I assume the State Department will continue to advocate diplomacy,
and that until someone resigns the line struggle will continue.
Following Bush's awkwardly interesting statement "First
things first. We're here in Iraq now and the thing about Syria
is that we expect cooperation," Lawrence Eagleburger, Secretary
of State under the president's father, said he felt that should
Bush invade Syria, he ought to be impeached. "You can't
get away with that sort of thing in a democracy," he said.
I'd hope not. Anyway it's clear the power structure is deeply
divided on this issue.
Meanwhile, tempers flare about how to
deal with Iran. (The neocons steering the Pentagon seem apt to
represent all Shiite resistance as Iran-induced; the old "outside
agitators" device.) The Pentagon arranged a ceasefire agreement
with the (quite secular) Iranian organization Mujahadeen Khalq,
based in Iraq, on April 15. But according to the Boston Globe
(May 4) unnamed "State Department officials said the truce
is another example of the Pentagon making decisions that undermine
State policy." The Mujahadeen Khalq is an interesting organization.
Its ideology is sometimes called "Islamic Marxism"
and it was one of the groups that brought down the Shah of Iran
in 1979. Later, it fell afoul of the mullahs and hundreds of
its cadre were killed. Saddam Hussein allowed them a presence
in Iraq and made use of them in his war against Iran in the eighties.
They occupy the curious status of being on the State Department's
list of terrorist organizations but also enjoying a good measure
of support from the U.S. Congress. Many legislators have petitioned
the State Department to remove them from the list.
It looks as though the neocons want to
use, however counterintuitive this might seem, this putatively
terrorist organization to abet their aim of expanding the Terror
War into Iran, and that the State Department (whose functions
have been so rudely superceded of late by Defense) finds this
irritating. Said the above-quoted State Department official,
"We believe in dialogue with Iran. But there are others
in the administration who believe that fighting Iran by proxy
is better." A very telling statement. There is division
at the top, and so far, as in Japan in the 1930s, the most bellicose
have won the most battles, which is scary.
Gary Leupp
is an an associate professor, Department of History, Tufts University
and coordinator, Asian Studies Program.
He can be reached at: gleupp@tufts.edu
Yesterday's
Features
Saul Landau
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Neve
Gordon
US: No Right to Know About the Disappeared
John
Chuckman
Tom Friedman's Life as a Pet Hamster
Bradley
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Harvey
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John
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