Confessions of a Reluctant Warmonger
Socialist Outlook newspaper1990sPaul ClarkeTranscribed or corrected by hand from the printed page.
TOWARDS the end of the Gulf war, NEAL ASCHERSON, well-known left wing commentator for the Independent on Sunday, wrote a column ('Confessions of a Reluctant Warmonger') defending the US attack. PAUL CLARKE, a member of the Socialist Outlook editorial board, wrote to him accusing him of backing a barbaric imperialist war. The following correspondence ensued.
Ascherson: "Like all choices about wars, it was between evils:"
Dear Mr Clarke
Let me explain my position to you. Like all choices about wars, it was between evils:
1. The evil of war itself, and the slaughter to which it led.
2. The evil, for the people of Iraq and for the populations surrounding Iraq – including the Iranians, the Palestinians and the Israelis, among others – of leaving the Saddam Hussein regime triumphant and with its aggressive power intact after the occupation of Kuwait.
I thought the second evil was the greater one. The argument against using force against the Iraqi occupation could rest on one or all of several points:
1. That no great harm to the region or the world would have resulted from leaving Saddam in possession. Objection: the regional balance would have been upset so violently that further war would have been inevitable sooner rather than later. Such further war would probably have extended to other Arab countries the treatment Saddam awarded to the Kuwaitis and his own people. It would have ended in another conflict with Iran or Israel (a nuclear power devoid of scruples about using such weapons).
2. That war is always and absolutely wrong. I respect this view but would make exceptions to it. The Cubans, for example, did a necessary job for Angola.
3. That sanctions would have worked, given time. It would be comforting to believe that. However, Iraq has been under an arms embargo since 1985. I have always backed sanctions against South Africa, but they have not been effective because Western corporations and governments have dodged them. The same has been blatantly true about Iraq.
4. That to support the war meant supporting American imperialism. Yes, it did. Supporting the Red Army's struggle in 1941-5 meant supporting Stalinist imperialism, but the effect of Soviet victory was judged worth its price by many non- and anti-communists (though fewer now, I agree). This is the choice between evils, again. In this case, my own hunch is that Bush's New World Order is mostly flannel; the period when the Americans dominated the world is coming to an end with the end of the Cold War.
5. That disproportionate force was used. This is not an argument against the use of force itself, but it is true. The fighting should have stopped when Saddam accepted the Soviet compromise and agreed to withdraw. If the truth about the killing is ever told, we will find out that most – perhaps 80 per cent – of the casualties happened during the 'hundred hours' of the ground war.
6. That because the Americans did nothing about Timor, Pinochet's Chile (which they largely created), Tibet, etc, they must be opposed on the rare occasion when they do take action against an aggressive dictatorship. I do not understand this argument, except that it underlines that the Americans have a perceived national interest in fighting Saddam, and none in fighting Indonesia over Timor etc. Did anyone think otherwise?
7. This is 'an American war for oil'. As everyone has said, if Kuwait had exported oranges, America would have left it to stew. Yet it is not just about oil - even in American perceptions. The war was also meant in Washington to restore the kind of stability to the region which American leaders want for many reasons.
I can't guarantee that the outcome of the war will be more peace and justice (though I have a strong feeling that the feudal oil sheikdoms have been dealt a mortal blow by it). But you have to demonstrate to me that the world would have acquired more peace and justice if Saddam had not been threatened by a military response. Can you?
Yours sincerely
Neal Ascherson
March 4, 1991
Clarke: "US militarism has been strengthened"
Dear Mr. Ascherson,
I am not a pacifist, so my objections to your position are not about being always and absolutely against war. My objection is precisely on the point with which you challenge me: the balance of good and evil, of peace and justice – in the Middle East and worldwide – of this war and its aftermath.
Let me start by saying that the one point you really concede – that the force used by the United States was disproportionate to the objective of 'liberating' Kuwait – seems to me a bigger point than you admit. Yes, the level of violence used against Iraqi conscripts fleeing the battle (and surely to Iraqi civilians as well?) was disproportionate to your objectives and the formal objectives of the US. But was it really disproportionate to the real objectives of the United States – to utterly destroy Iraq as a regional power, to crush Saddam's army as a regional threat?
Israel
On this point I think there is a non sequitur in your argument. All the dangers which you cite of leaving Saddam in power, for example a possible future war with Israel, would have existed if he had not invaded Kuwait. So was it right to go to war against Iraq even if the Kuwaiti invasion had not taken place? Because if you follow the logic of those like Fred Halliday (I don't mean to imply you agree with all his arguments) that 'if it comes to a choice between fascism and imperialism, I choose imperialism' – then of course the invasion of Kuwait has nothing to do with it. It is enough that the US has, in your words, 'taken action against an aggressive dictatorship' to decide which side you are on.
The violence and destruction visited on the people and army of Iraq was exactly in line with the kind of 'Pax Americana' Bush wanted to impose on the Gulf, and the worldwide demonstration of US power he wanted to give. This is the nub of the matter. I never thought this was just a war about oil (although strong Iraqi leverage over the Gulf sheikdoms and Saudi Arabia could have caused the US problems on that front).
Rather the war was a straight continuation of the US policy initiated by Reagan and Weinberger, to use US military might and the political clout it gives to bolster its declining world dominance – especially against its major economic rivals, Japan and a German-led Europe. I think the policies of the '80s, especially Star Wars and the siting of Pershing and Cruise missiles in Europe were intimately connected with this objective. Military and political leadership of the West through NATO has been the vital cornerstone of US post-war power.
US victory
In this militarist project the Gulf war was a big, if temporary, victory for the US. The West was bounced into support for a US-led war, with a positive spin-off for US power and influence in the short term. And what will the consequences of that be? You must concede that, at the very least, it will encourage the United States to continue its use of militarism, especially against the 'third world'. The consequences of that will be profoundly reactionary.
I am not an apologist for the Castro regime in Cuba, but I am sure that what the US would put in its place would be very reactionary. Yet the Gulf war has made this more likely. Castro is now certainly in the US gunsights. I suspect also that the ARENA government in El Salvador sleep more soundly as a result of the US war, knowing that it was now easier for the US to intervene directly against the FMLN if that becomes necessary.
Let me put it another way. Why shouldn't the logic of the US confronting a dictatorship apply to their invasion of Panama? There was a rotten, corrupt regime, which routinely violated human rights, if ever there was one. But so far as I know, all left wing opinion in Latin America, and a very broad swathe of liberal opinion too, was against that invasion. Because informed political opinion on that continent has very good reason to know what a stepping up of US militarism in the region means.
Balance
This brings me straight back to the question you asked me – can I substantiate that the balance of peace and justice coming out of the Gulf war will be worse and not better. That can only mean 'who does this war strengthen and what will they do with this new strength ?' Clearly the decline of US economic power cannot be overcome in the Arabian desert. But the US can, and will, try to replace the Cold War (intimately tied to its leadership of the West) with a Western confrontation against the 'South' and especially the Islamic world.
The gun turrets of a newly-defined NATO can be swiveled from the east, southwards. I do not think we can regard this prospect with equanimity. The terrible consequences of US militarism – US imperialism – have been visited in the last two decades on the people of Nicaragua, of Vietnam, of Grenada, of Cambodia – you know the list as well as I do. Why should it be any different in the future? It is even a fiction to believe that empty waffle about a new Middle East peace process doing anything whatever for the Palestinians. Especially as the war has only strengthened the hand of Israel, and Arab governments whose concern for the Palestinians is ritual rather than real.
No. The arrogant militarism of the United States has been strengthened. It will use that strength for wholly reactionary purposes. That is my balance sheet.
What now are the prospects? Yes, the bi-polar world of the Cold War is gone, to be replaced most likely by a triangular struggle between the US, Germany and Japan. That is the new world order, not Bush's fantasy. I think we agree on that.
But if 'Americanism' is remorselessly going under, it will not do so without a fight. And it has terrifying resources at its disposal.
Meek
It struck me during the war how meekly Japan and Germany fell into line behind the US. Neither felt strong enough to dissent; neither is strong enough for, or yet aspires to, leadership of the West. But when you have strong capitalist powers in bitter rivalry with each other, it has led, in the past at least, always to military competition. This will, I think, be the direct consequence of the decline of the global power of the USSR and the decline of American hegemony.
For the moment perhaps Germany will be obsessed with reunification and eastern Europe. But in the medium term the danger of a resurgence of Japanese and German militarism must be very strong. That is my second conclusion. The Gulf war has made a revival of global militarism more likely.
If I am only half right about the kind of world which is emerging, then political resistance to the many terrible things that could happen is better prepared by left wing and democratic public opinion keeping its hands clean of any support for what the partisans of imperialist militarism have in store for us.
Yours sincerely
Paul Clarke
March 23, 1991
Ascherson: "collaboration between imperialisms may be our dark future"
Dear Paul Clarke,
Thank you for your letter. It was closely argued, and I think that events since you wrote are making some of your points stronger.
It is, I admit, the 'liberal' centre of the debate which is disintegrating. The fate of the Kurds and of the Shia rebellion strengthen those who say that Bush did not go far or hard enough, who always argued that the coalitions armies should go to Baghdad or – at least – that even the 100 hours ground war did not properly achieve the objective of destroying Saddam's military machine. The same fates also, on the other wing, help the arguments which you would more easily accept: that any 'limited' war to throw Iraq out of Kuwait was bound to flood over into uncontrollable, unintended and appalling human consequences. That was one of the reasons for opposing any war in the first place.
It is now difficult for me to go on using a sort of utilitarian calculus to justify throwing Saddam out of Kuwait by force. The balance of pain has swung the other way. The war is, in effect, still going on and has led to more suffering in the short term than if no attempt had been made to liberate the Kuwaitis. I say: in the short term. My feeling that Saddam, unchallenged, would have used his military power again remains, and I don't accept your assumption that Saddam was as likely to attack Israel before his occupation of Kuwait as after it. But that sort of gain:loss calculation is unprovable.
I have not used the 'inevitability' line. Hobsbawm rather took it, in Marxism Today, saying in effect that there was no way to avoid the Gulf war – that America was bound to use force against such a provocation to her interests – but at the same time utterly deploring the war and prophesying that all its consequences would leave matters worse than before. It's not that I disagree with Eric Hobsbawm. It's rather that I feel it was an evasion. My sense was, and at an instinct level still is, that any invasion of a small country by a larger and crueller one should be resisted, and that it's no good hoping to be choosy about one's allies in the resistance.
Perhaps the moral for me, is that it's safer to stay by instincts than argue by balances of suffering when it comes to war. By the way, what would your approach to the Kurds be now? You can of course decline to have an approach. But should they be assisted? Or is George Bush right for all the wrong reasons? We may all wish that another power, not only the Americans, were in another position to save them physically in their own country. But the wish remains empty.
We agree broadly over the New World Disorder, and the growing weakness of America. About the new helplessness of Cuba and Latin America in general, there's no doubt. Yet I cannot see the Gulf expedition as the beginning of a new Pax Americana; it looks to me like the end of something. Neither am I easy with your assumption that the traditional context, rivalry between imperialisms leads to militarism and war, still survives. It's a question of to what extent it was ever true. The left has looked too little into collaboration between imperialisms, and that may be our dark future.
Yours sincerely
Neal Ascherson
April 2, 1991
Clarke: "the poor and the oppressed have to rely on themsleves"
Dear Neal Ascherson,
A final thought. Did you ever see the film 'FIST' – a not very good Sylvester Stallone piece loosely based on the life of Jimmy Hoffa?
As a rising rank and file Teamsters union leader in the 1930s, the Stallone character runs up against the bosses' goon squads, a very realistic scenario for the 1930s. How to defeat them? In desperation he makes a pact with the local Mafia. In return for their muscle, he agrees to impose Mob-owned fruit machines on all Teamster-supplied premises – and he gets a rake off.
The strike is won – but at a price. First, the Mob has the union leader in their pocket. Before he knows it, he's part of the Mob. And finally he's assassinated by them.
Gut instincts may say the only practical thing is not to be too choosy about your allies to fight oppression. But 'victories' won with the help of gangsters turn out to be something different to what you expected. It's their victory, not ours.
My instincts are different to yours. Mine say that the people who brought us Vietnam, Cambodia, and the rest are never going to take military action to defend peace, freedom and justice. And this is something which the Kurds today are learning the hard way.
This may be a harsh conclusion. It means that the poor and the oppressed cannot rely on any 'power' to achieve justice, they have to rely on themselves. If that is impossibly utopian and unrealistic, then the hope for a world not dominated by imperialism is as well. It means the end of all progressive hopes since the Enlightenment and a descent into barbarism. I don't comfort myself by thinking that a socialist world is inevitable. But since it depends on human consciousness and action, then it is possible. And has to be fought for.
Yours sincerely,
Paul Clarke
April 15, 1991