November 13, 2008
Don't Let Barack Obama Break Your Heart
TomDispatch
On the day that Americans turned out in near record numbers to vote, a record wasset halfway around the world. In Afghanistan, a US Air Force strike wiped out about 40people in a wedding party. This represented at least the sixth wedding party eradicatedby American air power in Afghanistan and Iraq since December 2001.American planes have, in fact, taken out two brides in the last seven months. And don'ttry to bury your dead or mark their deaths ceremonially either, because funerals havebeen hit as well. Mind you, those planes, which have conducted 31% more air strikes inAfghanistan in support of US troops this year, and the missile-armed unmanned aerialvehicles (UAVs) now making almost daily strikes across the border in Pakistan, remainpart of George W. Bush's Air Force, but only until January 21, 2009. Then, they – and allthe brides and grooms of Afghanistan and in the Pakistani borderlands who care to havesomething more than the smallest of private weddings – officially become the propertyof President Barack Obama.That's a sobering thought. He is, in fact, inheriting from the Bush administration awidening war in the region, as well as an exceedingly tenuous situation in devastated,still thoroughly factionalized, sectarian, and increasingly Iranian-influenced Iraq. There,the US is, in actuality, increasingly friendless and ever less powerful. The last allies fromthe infamous "coalition of the willing" are now rushing for the door. The South Koreans,Hungarians, and Bulgarians – I'll bet you didn't even know the latter two had a fewtroops left in Iraq – are going home this year; the rump British force in the south willprobably be out by next summer.The Iraqis are beginning to truly go their own way (or, more accurately, ways); and yet,in January, when Barack Obama enters office, there will still be more American troopsin Iraq than there were in April 2003 when Baghdad fell. Winning an election with anantiwar label, Obama has promised – kinda – to end the American war there and bringthe troops – sorta, mostly – home. But even after his planned 16-month withdrawal ofUS "combat brigades," which may not be welcomed by his commanders in the field,including former Iraq commander, now Centcom Commander David Petraeus, there arestill plenty of combative non-combat forces, which will be labeled "residual" and leftbehind to fight "al-Qaeda." Then, there are all those "advisors" still there to train Iraqiforces, the guards for the giant bases the Bush administration built in the country, themany thousands of armed private security contractors from companies like Blackwater,and of course, the 1,000 "diplomats" who are to staff the newly opened US embassy inBaghdad's Green Zone, possibly the largest embassy on the planet. Hmmmm.And while the new president turns to domestic matters, it's quite possible thatsignificant parts of his foreign policy could be left to the oversight of Vice President JoeBiden who, in case anyone has forgotten, proposed a plan for Iraq back in 2007 so filledwith imperial hubris that it still startles. In a Caesarian moment, he recommended thatthe US – not Iraqis – functionally divide the country into three parts. Although hepreferred to call it a "federal system," it was, for all intents and purposes, a de factopartition plan.If Iraq remains a sorry tale of American destruction and dysfunction without, as yet, adiscernible end in sight, Afghanistan may prove Iraq squared. And there, candidateObama expressed no desire to wind the war down and withdraw American troops. Quitethe opposite, during the election campaign he plunked hard for escalation, somethingour NATO allies are sure not to be too enthusiastic about. According to the Obama plan,many more American troops (if available, itself an open question) are to be poured intothe country in what would essentially be a massive "surge strategy" by yet anotheroccupant of the Oval Office. Assumedly, the new Afghan policy would be aided andabetted by those CIA-run UAVs directed toward Pakistan to hunt down Osama binLaden and pals, while undoubtedly further destabilizing a shaky ally.When it comes to rising civilian casualties from US air strikes in their countries, bothAfghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari have alreadyused their congratulatory phone calls to President-elect Obama to plead for an end tothe attacks, which produce both a profusion of dead bodies and a profusion of live,vengeful enemies. Both have done the same with the Bush administration, Karzai to thepoint of tears.The US military argues that the use of air power is necessary in the face of a spreading,ever more dangerous, Taliban insurgency largely because there are too few boots on theground. ("If we got more boots on the ground, we would not have to rely as much onairstrikes" was the way Army Brig. Gen. Michael Tucker, deputy commander of NATOforces in Afghanistan, put it.) But rest assured, as the boots multiply on increasinglyhostile ground, the military will discover it needs more, not less, air power to back moretroops in more trouble.So, after January 20th, expect Obama to take possession of George Bush's disastrousAfghan War; and unless he is far more skilled than Alexander the Great, British empirebuilders, and the Russians, his war, too, will continue to rage without ever becoming araging success.Finally, President-elect Obama accepted the overall framework of a "Global War onTerror" during his presidential campaign. This "war" lies at the heart of the Bushadministration's fantasy world of war that has set all-too-real expanses of the planetaflame. Its dangers were further highlighted this week by the New York Times, whichrevealed that secret orders in the spring of 2004 gave the US military "new authority toattack the Qaeda terrorist network anywhere in the world, and a more sweepingmandate to conduct operations in countries not at war with the United States."At least twelve such attacks have been carried out since then by Special Operationsforces on Pakistan, Somalia, most recently Syria, and other unnamed countries. Signedby Donald Rumsfeld, signed off on by President Bush, built-upon recently by Secretaryof Defense Robert Gates, these secret orders enshrine the Pentagon's right to ignoreinternational boundaries, or the sovereignty of nations, in an endless global "war" ofchoice against small, scattered bands of terrorists.As reporter Jim Lobe pointed out recently, a "series of interlocking grand bargains" inwhat the neoconservatives used to call "the Greater Middle East" or the "arc ofinstability" might be available to an Obama administration capable of genuinely newthinking. These, he wrote, would be "backed by the relevant regional players as well asmajor global powers – aimed at pacifying Afghanistan; integrating Iran into a newregional security structure; promoting reconciliation in Iraq; and launching a credibleprocess to negotiate a comprehensive peace between Israel and the Arab world."If, however, Obama accepts a War on Terror framework, as he already seems to have, aswell as those "residual" forces in Iraq, while pumping up the war in Afghanistan, he mayquickly find himself playing by Rumsfeld rules, whether or not he revokes those specificorders. In fact, left alone in Washington, backed by the normal national security types,he may soon find himself locked into all sorts of unpalatable situations, as oncehappened to another Democratic president, Lyndon Baines Johnson, who opted toescalate an inherited war when what he most wanted to do was focus on domesticpolicy.Previews for a Political Zombie MovieDomestically, it's clear enough that we are about to leave the age of Bush – in toneand policy – but what that leave-taking will consist of is still an open question. This isespecially so given a cratering economy and the pot-holed road ahead. It is a momentwhen Obama has, not surprisingly, begun to emphasize continuity and reassurancealongside his campaign theme of "change we can believe in."All you had to do was look at that array of Clinton-era economic types and CEOs behindObama at his first news conference to think: been there, done that. The full photo of hiseconomic team that day offered a striking profile of pre-Bush era Washington and theWashington Consensus, and so a hint of the Democratic world the new president willwalk into on January 20, 2009.How about former Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin and Larry Summers, those kingsof 1990s globalization, or even the towering former Fed chief from the first Bush era,Paul Volcker? Didn't that have the look of previews for a political zombie movie, a line-up of the undead? As head of the New America Foundation Steve Clemons has beenwriting recently, the economic team looks suspiciously as if it were preparing for a"Clinton 3.0" moment.You could scan that gathering and not see a genuine rogue thinker in sight; no off-the-reservation figures who might represent a breath of fresh air and fresh thinking (otherthan, being hopeful, the president-elect himself). Clemons offers an interesting list ofjust some obvious names left off stage: "Paul Krugman, Joseph Stiglitz, Jeffrey Sachs,James Galbraith, Leo Hindery, Clyde Prestowitz, Charlene Barshefsky, C. Fred Bergsten,Adam Posen, Robert Kuttner, Robert Samuelson, Alan Murray, William Bonvillian,Doug & Heidi Rediker, Bernard Schwartz, Tom Gallagher, Sheila Bair, SherleSchwenninger, and Kevin Phillips."Mobilizing a largely Clintonista brain trust may look reassuring to some – an in-gathering of all the Washington wisdom available before Hurricane Bush/Cheney hittown, but unfortunately, we don't happen to be entering a Clinton 3.0 moment. What'sglobalizing now is American disaster, which threatens to level a vulnerable world.In a sense, though, domestic policy may, relatively speaking, represent the good news ofthe coming Obama era. We know, for instance, that those preparing the way for the newpresident's arrival are thinking hard about how to roll back the worst of Bush cronyism,enrich-yourself-at-the-public-troughism, general lawlessness, and unconstitutionality.As a start, according to Ceci Connolly and R. Jeffrey Smith of the Washington Post,Obama advisers have already been compiling "a list of about 200 Bush administrationactions and executive orders that could be swiftly undone to reverse White Housepolicies on climate change, stem cell research, reproductive rights and other issues,"including oil drilling in pristine wild lands. In addition, Obama's people are evidently atwork on ways to close Guantanamo and try some of its prisoners in US courts.However, if continuity domestically means rollback to the Clinton era, continuity in theforeign policy sphere – Guantanamo aside – may be a somewhat different matter. Wewon't know the full cast of characters to come until the president-elect makes thenecessary announcements or has a national security press conference with a similarlineup behind him. But it's certainly rumored that Robert Gates, a symbol of continuityfrom both Bush eras, might be kept on as secretary of defense, or a Republican senatorlike Richard Lugar of Indiana or, more interestingly, retiring Nebraska Senator ChuckHagel might be appointed to the post. Of course, many Clintonistas are sure to be in thislineup, too.In addition, among the essential cast of characters will be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs,Michael Mullen, and Centcom Commander David Petraeus, both late Bush appointees,both seemingly flexible military men, both interested in a military-plus approach to theAfghan and Iraq wars. Petraeus, for instance, reportedly recently asked for, and wasdenied, permission to meet with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.All these figures will represent a turn away from the particular madness of the earlyBush years abroad, one that actually began in the final years of his second term. Butsuch a national security lineup is unlikely to include fresh thinkers, who might trulyreimagine an imperial world, or anyone who might genuinely buck the power of thePentagon. What Obama looks to have are custodians and bureaucrats of empire, farmore cautious, far more sane, and certainly far more grown-up than the first-term Bushappointees, but not a cast of characters fit for reshaping American policy in a new worldof disorder and unraveling economies, not a crew ready to break new ground and cedemuch old ground on this still American-garrisoned planet of ours.Breathless in WashingtonLet's assume the best: that Barack Obama truly means to bring some form of thepeople's will, as he imagines it, to Washington after eight years of unconstitutional"commander-in-chief" governance. That – take my word for it – he can't do without thepeople themselves expressing that will.Of course, even in the Bush era, Americans didn't simply cede the public commons.They turned out, for instance, in staggering numbers to protest the President's invasionof Iraq before it ever happened, and again more recently to work tirelessly to electObama president. But – so it seems to me – when immediate goals are eitherdisappointingly not achieved, or achieved relatively quickly, most Americans tend topack their bags and head for home, as so many did in despair after the invasion waslaunched in 2003, as so many reportedly are doing again, in a far more celebratorymood, now that Obama is elected.But hard as his election may have been, that was surely the easy part. He is now about toenter the hornet's nest. Entrenched interests. Entrenched ideas. Entrenched ideology.Entrenched profits. Entrenched lobbyists. Entrenched bureaucrats. Entrenched thinktanks. An entrenched Pentagon and allied military-industrial complex, both bloatedbeyond imagining and virtually untouchable, along with a labyrinthine intelligencesystem of more than 18 agencies, departments, and offices.Washington remains an imperial capital. How in the world will Barack Obama trulybegin to change that without you?In the Bush years, the special interests, lobbyists, pillagers, and crony corporations notonly pitched their tents on the public commons, but with the help of the President's menand women, simply took possession of large hunks of it. That was called "privatization."Now, as Bush & Co. prepare to leave town in a cloud of catastrophe, the feeding frenzy atthe public trough only seems to grow.It's a natural reaction – and certainly a commonplace media reaction at the moment –to want to give Barack Obama a "chance." Back off those critical comments, people nowsay. Fair's fair. Give the President-elect a little "breathing space." After all, the election isbarely over, he's not even in office, he hasn't had his first 100 days, and already thecriticism has begun.But those who say this don't understand Washington – or, in the case of various mediafigures and pundits, perhaps understand it all too well.Political Washington is a conspiracy – in the original sense of the word: "to breathe thesame air." In that sense, there is no air in Washington that isn't stale enough to choke apresident. Send Obama there alone, give him that "breathing space," don't startdemanding the quick ending of wars or anything else, and you're not doing him, or theAmerican people, any favors. Quite the opposite, you're consigning him to suffocation.Leave Obama to them and he'll break your heart. If you do, then blame yourself, nothim; but better than blaming anyone, pitch your own tent on the public commons andmake some noise. Let him know that Washington's isn't the only consensus around, thatAmericans really do want our troops to come home, that we actually are looking for"change we can believe in," which would include a less weaponized, less imperialAmerican world, based on a reinvigorated idea of defense, not aggression, and on theConstitution, not leftover Rumsfeld rules or a bogus Global War on Terror.[Note for TomDispatch readers: For those who want to follow issues of war andpeace, especially in the "arc of instability," I want to recommend four sites that are sureto prove as invaluable in the Obama era as they have been (to me at least) during theBush years: Juan Cole's never miss-able Informed Comment blog, Antiwar.com (whichhas recently added Jason Ditz's useful daily summaries of the latest news developmentslike this Iraqi one), Paul Woodward's sharp-eyed site The War in Context, and thealways fascinating and provocative online newspaper, Asia Times. I check in with all ofthem daily.]
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