Siren songs of war are all about us

Unlike most of my friends and former College of the Atlantic colleagues, I did not believe that George W. Bush would attack Iraq. The president’s post-Sept. 11 popularity seemed deep and widespread. The United States was already tied down in efforts to find Osama Bin Laden. Saddam was being easily tamed by diplomatic sanctions. The United States did covet his oil, but a tamed and pragmatic Saddam could provide the oil.

In addition, too cheap oil might benefit U.S. consumers, but a decline in world oil price would hardly help the multinational oil firms. In power, Saddam could still serve as a convenient rhetorical whipping boy and all-purpose explanation for Middle Eastern discontent. The president could also enhance his domestic and international image by promising to seek peaceful solutions. Bellicose talk of “keeping all our options open” would warm the hearts of the hard-liners. So when the shock and awe of the Iraq invasion came, I was startled.

The siren songs of war are once again all about us. I will not offer any confident prediction about war, but there are reasons to be alarmed. Framing a new mortal threat – Iran and Syria – may strike the Bush administration as the best way to distract from bogged down initiatives elsewhere and to re-ignite psychic energies and commitments that have been desperately challenged in recent months.

Condoleezza Rice recently remarked: “The world will not stand by if Iran continues on the path to a nuclear weapons capability.” Adding urgency to her message, Donald Rumsfeld commented: “The Iranian regime is today the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. The world does not want, and must work together to prevent, a nuclear Iran.”

Once again, Bush administration officials are nominating a new and frightening source of violence and center of global terrorism. Iran’s president is virulently anti-Semitic and potentially dangerous. Iran also may be developing nuclear weaponry.

Unfortunately, there is no lack of dangerous leaders or racist ideologies in the Middle East or elsewhere. Saudi Arabia is home to some of the world’s most strident anti-Semitism and a source of many plots against Israel. Pakistan would also be a more logical target for scrutiny and for sanctions. Its leading nuclear bomb designer has long been implicated in the sale of nuclear secrets to other nations.

Having frequently disdained world opinion, the Bush administration now purports to speak for the world. Most recently, in language reminiscent of the Cold War, Rice charged that disturbances around the world over the cartoon caricatures of the prophet Mohammed were being intentionally orchestrated by Iran and Syria.

Much of the talk about Iranian nuclear enrichment programs is a diversion from two more immediate and serious sources both of international tensions and of lethal means of expressing those tensions. The continuing war in Iraq, the failure to advance an even-handed peace agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and refusal to negotiate with Iran in any meaningful way have strengthened hard line Islamic leaders in Iran and throughout the region.

The United States’ strike on Iraq coupled with Israel’s vast and long recognized nuclear weapons stockpile have increased the incentive and opportunities for many nations to acquire nuclear weaponry.

So-called rogue states or freelance terrorist organizations hardly need Iran for their weaponry. Many estimates put actual development of Iranian weaponry at least five years away whereas thousands of nuclear bombs are available in poorly guarded facilities in the former Soviet Union right now. The focus on Iran as the archetype and origin of danger in the world allows the Bush administration to portray its technology, its allies, its values, and its foreign policy as innocent victims of a singularly evil force.

In addition, if the administration can stigmatize Syria and Iran as the origin of riots in other Western nations, it can portray modern western industrial democracies as fully open and above reproach. Yet as University of Michigan Professor Juan Cole points out, the evidence that either state has been involved in encouraging these demonstrations is nonexistent. Syria especially has secular leaders with no interest in stirring fundamentalist impulses.

Sunni religious leaders with no connection to Iran seem to have been behind the recent burning of Denmark’s embassy in Beirut. In Western Europe, immigration and asylum laws, unemployment, and other forms of cultural discrimination have been long standing sources of grievance.

Whether this rhetoric is prologue to war I don’t know. Perhaps this time the Bush administration will decide that adopting Iran and Syria as rhetorical targets is enough. Nonetheless, such rhetoric, especially when unchallenged, too easily spills over into war.

Maine citizens should ask our congressional delegation to remind the president that: 1. only Congress can declare war; 2. no solid and credible case for war has been made; 3. the dangers of any pre-emptive strike far exceed any possible pay off; 4. further executive pre-emptions of congressional prerogative are unacceptable.

John Buell is a political economist who lives in Southwest Harbor. Readers wishing to contact him may e-mail messages to jbuell@acadia.net.