Friday, August 19, 2005
Getting Out of Iraq
An Exit Strategy for Iraq Now
By Tom Hayden
The Los Angeles Times
18 August
President Bush has so far fended off Cindy Sheehan, a grieving mother demanding to know the "noble purpose" of her son's death in Iraq. However, Bush has been forced to address the existence of the antiwar constituency for perhaps the first time, if only to distort and discredit its message of "troops out now." It is the right moment for the peace movement to turn its slogan into a strategy.
The rallying cry of "out now" expresses the belief that the Iraq war is not worth another minute in lost lives, lost honour, lost taxes, lost allies. But its very simplicity makes the demand easy to ignore or dismiss.
Meanwhile, the administration focuses on the appearance of progress in Iraq (thus its desperate interest in an Iraqi constitution, any constitution). It may well order a token withdrawal of troops to pacify peace sentiment through the 2006 congressional elections. Then, as with Vietnam in 1969, the war is likely to continue.
Those who have been proved right in opposing this war deserve a hearing alongside the military and national security "experts" who have dominated commentary since the March 2003 invasion. It is time to explain "out now" and for peace advocates to propose exit strategies of their own. Otherwise, both political parties will be stuck with the mind-set that an exit is possible only after "stability," meaning a military victory years from now (if ever).
Peace movement advocates have lobbied successfully for members of Congress to hold Capitol Hill forums in mid-September to explore exit strategies. Here is a starting point that is being discussed in peace circles. It is based on deciding now to get out of Iraq and outlining how to do it. The basis of the plan is a shift from a military model to a conflict-resolution model, then to a peace process that ends in a negotiated political settlement alongside a US withdrawal. The main themes are these:
First, as confidence-building measures, Washington should declare that it has no interest in permanent military bases or the control of Iraqi oil. It must immediately announce goals for ending the occupation and bringing all our troops home - in months, not years, beginning with an initial gesture by the end of this year.
Second, the US should request that the United Nations, or a body blessed by the UN, monitor the process of military disengagement and de-escalation, and take the lead in organizing a peaceful reconstruction effort.
Third, the president should appoint a peace envoy, independent of the occupation authorities, to begin an entirely different mission in Iraq. The envoy should encourage and cooperate in peace talks with Iraqi groups opposed to the occupation, including insurgents, to explore a political settlement.
Already 82 members of the Iraqi National Assembly have signed a public letter calling for "the departure of the occupation." A former minister in the Iraqi interim government, Aiham Alsammarae, is talking with 11 insurgent groups about a transition to politics. Even the militant Shiites led by Muqtada Sadr have shown interest in the political process by collecting a million signatures for American withdrawal. Surveys earlier this year showed that 69% of Iraqi Shiites and more than 75% of Sunnis favoured a near-term US withdrawal.
Neither the Bush administration nor the news media have shown interest in these voices, perhaps because they undercut the argument that we are fighting to save Iraqis from each other. By most accounts, the US military presence has attracted and enlarged the hard-core jihadist forces. The course we are on also contributes to incipient civil war because of subsidies and training for Shiite and Kurdish forces against the estranged Sunnis. It was not enough to invite a handful of Sunnis into the constitutional talks.
Any settlement proposal must guarantee a troop withdrawal and new efforts at reconstruction. A successful peace process will guarantee representation for the Iraqi opposition in a final governing arrangement. It will encourage power-sharing arrangements in economic and energy development as well as governance. The handing over of the Iraqi economy to private and mostly US interests will by definition end with the occupation.
These are plausible steps toward conflict resolution. Perhaps Cindy Sheehan's moral stance will awaken courage among politicians who openly or privately deplore the fabricated origins of the war but cannot bring themselves to be honest about the war itself.
By Tom Hayden
The Los Angeles Times
18 August
President Bush has so far fended off Cindy Sheehan, a grieving mother demanding to know the "noble purpose" of her son's death in Iraq. However, Bush has been forced to address the existence of the antiwar constituency for perhaps the first time, if only to distort and discredit its message of "troops out now." It is the right moment for the peace movement to turn its slogan into a strategy.
The rallying cry of "out now" expresses the belief that the Iraq war is not worth another minute in lost lives, lost honour, lost taxes, lost allies. But its very simplicity makes the demand easy to ignore or dismiss.
Meanwhile, the administration focuses on the appearance of progress in Iraq (thus its desperate interest in an Iraqi constitution, any constitution). It may well order a token withdrawal of troops to pacify peace sentiment through the 2006 congressional elections. Then, as with Vietnam in 1969, the war is likely to continue.
Those who have been proved right in opposing this war deserve a hearing alongside the military and national security "experts" who have dominated commentary since the March 2003 invasion. It is time to explain "out now" and for peace advocates to propose exit strategies of their own. Otherwise, both political parties will be stuck with the mind-set that an exit is possible only after "stability," meaning a military victory years from now (if ever).
Peace movement advocates have lobbied successfully for members of Congress to hold Capitol Hill forums in mid-September to explore exit strategies. Here is a starting point that is being discussed in peace circles. It is based on deciding now to get out of Iraq and outlining how to do it. The basis of the plan is a shift from a military model to a conflict-resolution model, then to a peace process that ends in a negotiated political settlement alongside a US withdrawal. The main themes are these:
First, as confidence-building measures, Washington should declare that it has no interest in permanent military bases or the control of Iraqi oil. It must immediately announce goals for ending the occupation and bringing all our troops home - in months, not years, beginning with an initial gesture by the end of this year.
Second, the US should request that the United Nations, or a body blessed by the UN, monitor the process of military disengagement and de-escalation, and take the lead in organizing a peaceful reconstruction effort.
Third, the president should appoint a peace envoy, independent of the occupation authorities, to begin an entirely different mission in Iraq. The envoy should encourage and cooperate in peace talks with Iraqi groups opposed to the occupation, including insurgents, to explore a political settlement.
Already 82 members of the Iraqi National Assembly have signed a public letter calling for "the departure of the occupation." A former minister in the Iraqi interim government, Aiham Alsammarae, is talking with 11 insurgent groups about a transition to politics. Even the militant Shiites led by Muqtada Sadr have shown interest in the political process by collecting a million signatures for American withdrawal. Surveys earlier this year showed that 69% of Iraqi Shiites and more than 75% of Sunnis favoured a near-term US withdrawal.
Neither the Bush administration nor the news media have shown interest in these voices, perhaps because they undercut the argument that we are fighting to save Iraqis from each other. By most accounts, the US military presence has attracted and enlarged the hard-core jihadist forces. The course we are on also contributes to incipient civil war because of subsidies and training for Shiite and Kurdish forces against the estranged Sunnis. It was not enough to invite a handful of Sunnis into the constitutional talks.
Any settlement proposal must guarantee a troop withdrawal and new efforts at reconstruction. A successful peace process will guarantee representation for the Iraqi opposition in a final governing arrangement. It will encourage power-sharing arrangements in economic and energy development as well as governance. The handing over of the Iraqi economy to private and mostly US interests will by definition end with the occupation.
These are plausible steps toward conflict resolution. Perhaps Cindy Sheehan's moral stance will awaken courage among politicians who openly or privately deplore the fabricated origins of the war but cannot bring themselves to be honest about the war itself.
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Bully Bolton at the UN
Bush Sends John Bolton to the United Nations
By Phyllis Bennis
Institute For Policy Studies
15 August
A Small Consolation Prize
President George W. Bush, relying on an emergency constitutional provision designed for a mid-1700s era when congress met for only a few months each year and it took six months to get from anywhere to anywhere, used the Senate's summer recess to appoint UN-basher John Bolton to be the new US ambassador to the global organization. The recess appointment means no Senate confirmation is required.
Bolton's appointment sends to the UN a US representative who has stated that "there is no United Nations. When the United States leads, the United Nations will follow. When it suits our interest to do so, we will do so. When it does not suit our interests we will not." He said that one could lop off the top ten floors of UN headquarters and no one would know the difference. (He made both remarks in a 1994 debate with myself and others.) And, he wrote in the Wall Street Journal that the US has no legal obligation to abide by treaties it has signed and ratified.
This means the new US ambassador comes to the United Nations unequivocally committed to the Bush administration's long-standing policy of unilateralism: Violating international law and undermining the independence, relevance and importance of the UN.
It looks like a grim day for those who fight to reclaim the United Nations as part of the global opposition to the US drive towards war and empire. The real dangers of Bush policy at the UN are, unfortunately, already well underway. Those include placing a State Department official in a new position of Undersecretary General for Management, with a mandate to "streamline" the secretary-general's own staff. Ostensibly to prevent alleged corruption, the real effect will be to place US eyes and ears, and crucially, accountability to Washington, at the center of the United Nations. The Bush administration has also succeeded in winning UN support for establishing a so-called "democracy fund," aimed at privileging those developing countries willing to accept US-dominated political arrangements.
Bolton's appointment represents the victory of the rabid over the realists, but there is little question that he represents - albeit in an exaggerated form - the Bush administration's anti-UN views. Those who argued that Bolton should be opposed because he didn't represent US policy were simply engaging in wishful thinking.
But the appointment does include some consolation prizes.
Bolton arrives at the UN incalculably weakened by the refusal of the US Senate, after five months of hearings, to confirm his nomination.
The well-publicized refusal of Condoleezza Rice to make Bolton her deputy indicates he is not top dog in her State Department. The public airing of his bullying tactics and, more importantly, his eagerness to ignore actual intelligence information in favor of asserting fanciful claims of Iraqi nuclear programs or Cuban bio-weapons, mean few in UN headquarters or among the global diplomatic corps are likely to take Bolton's "persuasions" seriously.
The result will be a serious setback to the Bush administration's capacity to coerce the United Nations into its all-too-common role as a tool of US foreign policy. And that is all to the good. While the pre-Iraq War rhetoric of UN "irrelevance" has cooled, there is no doubt that Bush's unilateralist trajectory remains in place. Bush's tactical goal may have shifted from UN collapse to UN capture, but the strategic effort remains unchanged - to undermine the UN's role as partner of global civil society and those governments willing to stand up to the US drive towards unilateralism and militarism.
With John Bolton at the helm that goal will be much harder to achieve.
As a result, for international social movements, and governments determined to maintain their independence, this may turn out to be a great opportunity instead -- a crucial moment to advance our campaign to reclaim the United Nations as part of our global mobilization for peace and against war and empire.
By Phyllis Bennis
Institute For Policy Studies
15 August
A Small Consolation Prize
President George W. Bush, relying on an emergency constitutional provision designed for a mid-1700s era when congress met for only a few months each year and it took six months to get from anywhere to anywhere, used the Senate's summer recess to appoint UN-basher John Bolton to be the new US ambassador to the global organization. The recess appointment means no Senate confirmation is required.
Bolton's appointment sends to the UN a US representative who has stated that "there is no United Nations. When the United States leads, the United Nations will follow. When it suits our interest to do so, we will do so. When it does not suit our interests we will not." He said that one could lop off the top ten floors of UN headquarters and no one would know the difference. (He made both remarks in a 1994 debate with myself and others.) And, he wrote in the Wall Street Journal that the US has no legal obligation to abide by treaties it has signed and ratified.
This means the new US ambassador comes to the United Nations unequivocally committed to the Bush administration's long-standing policy of unilateralism: Violating international law and undermining the independence, relevance and importance of the UN.
It looks like a grim day for those who fight to reclaim the United Nations as part of the global opposition to the US drive towards war and empire. The real dangers of Bush policy at the UN are, unfortunately, already well underway. Those include placing a State Department official in a new position of Undersecretary General for Management, with a mandate to "streamline" the secretary-general's own staff. Ostensibly to prevent alleged corruption, the real effect will be to place US eyes and ears, and crucially, accountability to Washington, at the center of the United Nations. The Bush administration has also succeeded in winning UN support for establishing a so-called "democracy fund," aimed at privileging those developing countries willing to accept US-dominated political arrangements.
Bolton's appointment represents the victory of the rabid over the realists, but there is little question that he represents - albeit in an exaggerated form - the Bush administration's anti-UN views. Those who argued that Bolton should be opposed because he didn't represent US policy were simply engaging in wishful thinking.
But the appointment does include some consolation prizes.
Bolton arrives at the UN incalculably weakened by the refusal of the US Senate, after five months of hearings, to confirm his nomination.
The well-publicized refusal of Condoleezza Rice to make Bolton her deputy indicates he is not top dog in her State Department. The public airing of his bullying tactics and, more importantly, his eagerness to ignore actual intelligence information in favor of asserting fanciful claims of Iraqi nuclear programs or Cuban bio-weapons, mean few in UN headquarters or among the global diplomatic corps are likely to take Bolton's "persuasions" seriously.
The result will be a serious setback to the Bush administration's capacity to coerce the United Nations into its all-too-common role as a tool of US foreign policy. And that is all to the good. While the pre-Iraq War rhetoric of UN "irrelevance" has cooled, there is no doubt that Bush's unilateralist trajectory remains in place. Bush's tactical goal may have shifted from UN collapse to UN capture, but the strategic effort remains unchanged - to undermine the UN's role as partner of global civil society and those governments willing to stand up to the US drive towards unilateralism and militarism.
With John Bolton at the helm that goal will be much harder to achieve.
As a result, for international social movements, and governments determined to maintain their independence, this may turn out to be a great opportunity instead -- a crucial moment to advance our campaign to reclaim the United Nations as part of our global mobilization for peace and against war and empire.
