The War on Iraq Is a Runaway Train

Ladies and Gentlemen: We are screwed.

The government of the United States, behaving much like a runaway train, is screaming down the tracks toward a strike on Iraq that will take out Saddam and install a more favorable regime, complete with all the ramifications, mind-boggling and unknown, that act will provoke.

This shocking truth has dawned on us over the past weeks. What is more unbelievable to millions of Americans is that there seems to be little we can do about it, at least at this stage. Bush is lining up congressional approval for his plan, with the full support of the Democratic leadership. Most feel there will soon be a favorable U.N. Security Council resolution, as the administration wheels and deals with the Russians to bring them into the fold. After that, there will only be a couple of months of preparation before bombing begins.

Many activists and concerned citizens are dashing to and fro searching for a response to the potential madness, a message or a strategy that might derail the Bush Locomotive. But the challenge is formidable, so dramatically have the dynamics of American politics changed since 9/11.

How did we arrive so quickly at this potentially apocalyptic moment in history? It took a unique confluence of events, topped by a whole new way of thinking in America by those in power.

The Bush approach is a radical reversal of the basic tenets of U.S. foreign policy that have been in place since World War II. "For the first time since the dawn of the Cold War, a new grand strategy is taking shape in Washington," says Georgetown University professor G. John Ikenberry. In his article "America's Imperial Ambition" published in the current edition of Foreign Affairs, he argues that the Bush administration's foreign policy since Sept. 11 is driven by the desire for global dominance rather than the threat of terrorism.

The fact is that an attack on Iraq seems irrational in light of the known facts, out of proportion to other existing threats, and a dangerous adventure risking continuing conflict throughout the region for years to come, appears irrelevant to the Bush administration. The Bush approach may be mistaken, irrational, self-defeating and illegal by basic international standards, but none of that matters -- no one is listening. The longstanding paradigm of debate and multilateralism that many of us trusted was the American way has been tossed aside like an old shoe.

It matters not that Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11. In fact, the Iraqi leader has done little over the past 11 years, since U.S. policies have devastated the country and reduced its military capacity, and inspections have destroyed large amounts of nerve gas. At this point, argues Stephen Zunes, Iraq is not a threat to its neighbors, nor are they in favor of an invasion.

There are a hundred good reasons not to invade Iraq. But they appear irrelevant, trumped by the all-powerful legacy of 9/11 and the frame of the war against terrorism. In a world where anything can, and has happened, trying to argue that Saddam doesn't pose a danger to the U.S. is fruitless, because nobody really knows -- for sure.

Without 9/11, none of this would have been possible. Nor would it have been feasible without the aggressive, brilliant post-9/11 framing of the global war against terrorism. Had this been a commercial ad campaign, it would have been considered an unparalleled marketing achievement, worth many millions of dollars with enormous potential to build on for the future.

The terrorist attacks enabled the Bushies to realize a long-cherished vision, first articulated by Paul Wolfowitz and I. Lewis Libby, now Deputy Defense Secretary and Cheney's chief of staff and national security adviser, respectively. According to foreign policy journalist Jim Lobe, their position argued that the core assumption guiding U.S. foreign policy in the 21st century should be the need to establish permanent U.S. dominance over virtually all of Eurasia. It envisioned a world in which U.S. military intervention would become "a constant fixture" of the geo-political landscape.