By Peter Boyle
Why did the Bush administration reject every opportunity for a negotiated settlement of the Gulf War? In the space two weeks, it turned down Iran's offer to mediate; a February 15 offer by Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait; two subsequent plans for immediate and unconditional Iraqi withdrawal negotiated by the Soviet Union.
The world's self-appointed sheriff instead presented Iraq with a 24-hour ultimatum to accept total surrender and collective punishment or face a land war which the Pentagon promised would be "more violent than any war in history". Even as the ground war was launched, the US secretary of defense admitted that February 24 had been the target date for the invasion — international peace efforts had not delayed the conflict by even a day.
Bush's excuse is that Saddam Hussein cannot be left in a position to strike again. This crude and inconsistent propaganda is aimed at those fooled by the demonisation of Saddam Hussein.
Iraq's economy and much of its army, boast Bush's own generals, is now in tatters. Iraq is going to be too busy trying to keep its civilian population from dying of disease and starvation to trouble its neighbours.
When rejecting Iraq's February 15 offer to withdraw, Bush said he had "no argument with the people of Iraq". Yet Bush wants to continue the war against Iraqi civilians by continuing the embargo after a withdrawal and by bleeding Iraq for years through reparations.
Real objectives
For anyone who bought Bush's rhetoric about a "just war" to "liberate Kuwait", his determination to spill even more blood after Iraq's agreement to withdraw may be a puzzle. But to the antiwar movement, Bush's belligerent behaviour comes as no surprise. It warned that Bush's real objectives went far beyond getting Iraqi forces out of Kuwait.
Over the last few months, Bush, his defense secretary Dick Cheney, secretary of state James Baker and General "Storm-in" Norman Schwarzkopf have said their objectives include destroying Iraq's military and economic power, eliminating Saddam Hussein, humiliating Iraq, getting rid of the "Vietnam syndrome" and building a new world order/new American century. Washington's worst fear was that a "premature" peace would prevent the realisation of these objectives.
At various points, Bush played down this barely hidden agenda and
claimed that getting Iraq out of Kuwait, in accordance with UN resolutions, was the sole objective of the war. But now, having got away with the most intensive bombing campaign since World War II and the slaughter of thousands of Iraqis, Washington is no longer worried about maintaining the same degree of international backing it considered necessary before.
Stephen Morris, a US strategic analyst sympathetic to the Bush administration, says that the US now needs only the full support of its "core allies" to finish the war: Britain, Saudi Arabia and Israel. The Saudi royal family can't say no because its very survival now totally depends on continuing US military support. The British and Israeli governments always agreed with the US objectives.
Now the Bush administration says that its full agenda is encompassed in that conveniently broad phrase in Security Council Resolution 678: "to restore international peace and security". There is a new level of arrogance coming from Washington. The Pentagon has even leaked news of contingency plans for military occupation of Kuwait and at least parts of Iraq.
Intimidating Arab masses
Restoring the al Sabah dynasty remains an important part of Bush's objectives because this will restore secure control of the region's oil reserves by the oil companies. But Bush's broader aims cannot be satisfied by an Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait because of the political consequences of the war against Iraq.
The resurgence of anti-imperialist sentiment in the region, caused by US intervention, has now to be offset by demoralising the Arab masses through a humiliating and overwhelming defeat of Iraq. To win this war, Bush needs to inflict a defeat not just on Saddam Hussein but on the majority of the people of the Middle East.
Nothing Bush does will convince the Arab people that the US is their friend. But Bush hopes to convince them, and the rest of the Third World, that any challenge to the existing world political order will be smashed ruthlessly.
This objective is closely related to that of eliminating the Vietnam syndrome — that reluctance of a large section of the US public to accept the Pentagon's right to wage wars all around the globe. It is too early for Bush to conclude that this task has been accomplished, despite the high support he appears to be receiving in recent opinion polls. The Vietnam syndrome cannot be pronounced dead until he has tested the US public's ability to wear a significant flow of body bags home — and still accept the war.
US public opinion on the war has been carefully guided
through tight media control (a lesson learned from the Vietnam War and tested in the Grenada and Panama invasions), the scrupulous sanitisation of the war and a systematically whipped up euphoria of easy, high-tech success.
Meanwhile the US rulers are making a cold calculation: how much more blood should they spill to kill the Vietnam syndrome? If they go too far, the antiwar movement might grow rapidly, but if they stop too soon perhaps the syndrome might return to haunt them in a future foreign war — one where the US may not have the same overwhelming military, economic and political advantage.
Going for broke
In the days leading up to January 16, some in US ruling circles worried openly about the stakes being wagered in launching war in the Middle East. Surely, there was another, safer way to get the oil reserves in Kuwait out of Iraqi hands. Perhaps the Bush administration was setting a trap for itself. But Bush weighed the risks and took the plunge.
The crisis in the Soviet Union, the instability of Arab regimes and Saddam Hussein's horrendous human rights record tempted exploitation. The deteriorating US economy and growing international pressure for a settlement of the Palestinian problem weighed in favour of a quick military "solution".
An early negotiated solution of the Iraqi-Kuwaiti conflict was quickly blocked (the PLO and several Arab governments believe that Iraqi withdrawal could have been negotiated in August) through a combination of pressure on the Saudis and bribery of the Egyptian regime.
From August to January, the US and its allies prepared for war while carrying out a farcical pretence of negotiation. There was really nothing to negotiate, said Bush even while he was "going that extra mile for peace". White House officials admitted, unofficially, that an Iraqi withdrawal would be their "nightmare scenario".
When the Pentagon was ready, the war began. We were told to fear the prospect of Iraq's using chemical weapons while the US actually used fuel-air bombs (which have the impact of a small atomic bomb), giant "daisy-cutter" bombs (the "daisies" are humans) and napalm. The worst fears of environmentalists were realised as oilfields burned and a giant slick coated the Gulf.
Yet six weeks and thousands of lives later, Bush still vetoes a negotiated solution. For most of the world, war is a nightmare; for Bush, the nightmare is peace.