The second anniversary of S11 comes in a week where Anglo-warspin continued to strangle its perpetrators. Thanks to Paul Wolfowitz we now know that “the war is not over” and that George Bush was not saying otherwise when he declared “the end of major combat” back in May. Thanks to Tony Blair, we know the British people must forgive defence minister Jeff Hoon for misleading the public over the infamous British Iraq WMD dossier because he helped “win a magnificent victory in Iraq”. In Australia, we now know that it’s OK for the government to risk breaching the criminal code to supply top secret intelligence reports to sympathetic journalists and backbenchers to attack whistleblowers, but that top secret intelligence reports which could help us decide whether Howard misled us on the reasons for war must remain top secret.
Meanwhile, Webdiary is being invaded by small l Liberals! Dave Green is a member of the Reid Group, formed recently in Sydney to revive the forgotten political philosophy of Liberalism (see Can Liberalism fight back?). Dave’s written a debut piece for Webdiary on the anti-war Howard Dean phenomenon in the United States.
Webdiarist Clem Coleman felt compelled to write about where Iraq’s at two years after S11. The Iraqi government had nothing to do with S11, of course – the Saudis were the closet to blame there – but now it’s the “central front” in the War on Terror. The long-suffering Iraqi people have been abused by stupid white men for hundreds of years and there’s no sign anything will change. Clem introduced Webdiarists to the Russian Iraq war website ‘Velnik’ during the first phase of Iraq in March/April, and describes himself as a bloke with a background in IT Security who scours the net for information and has an interest in the history of conflict.
I asked Dave to introduce himself:
“I started off studying Psychology at Uni and pursued a PhD until it became impossible when I got married and had a son. I got seduced by the money in IT at the tail end of the boom, got made redundant two years later, and now have time to write this stuff while looking for work :). I’m helping out with the Reid Group with the web stuff, which is pretty central to what they’re doing. I’ve always been politically aware, but never quite knew how to express it. I joined the ALP after Tampa, which seemed bizarre to many of my friends and probably was, and every time I’d resolve to get active within it either Carr or Crean would say or do something f…ed that would make me scratch my head and ponder whether there really was something more constructive I could be doing. I realised a while back that the whole thing was an ideological black hole that needed filling. Otherwise – and you’ve identified it too – we could very well be looking at the roots of a nasty western version of fascism. So, basically it’s time for a lazy suburban armchair political theorist to get active. If I don’t, my son might one day ask me why I didn’t. This could be an absolutely fantastic country, and there are assholes out there trying to ensure that it never is. I think I’ve probably got some more stuff to say on the Howard Dean phenomenon – I’ve got some friends in the US working on his campaign, and the dynamics are very interesting.”
Is true liberalism beginning to threaten the neo-conservative hegemony in the United States and Australia?
by Dave Green
The recent slide in George Bush’s approval ratings has been the focus of much recent media speculation. From a high of 89% in October of 2001, he had fallen to 63% by the time of the unfortunate media stunt on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln in May 2003. Since then he has dropped a further 11 points (Time-CNN poll). The Zogby has him even lower, at a dangerously low 45%.
George Bush’s address to the American nation this week may contribute further to his decline. At a time when Americans – a large proportion of whom have isolationist tendencies – are facing blackouts due to an outmoded power system, Bush has been forced to announce a further $87 billion dollars in expenditure on a foreign nation’s infrastructure. While the problems faced by populations in areas affected by the US blackouts pale in comparison to those faced by the Iraqis, it is uncertain as to whether the American voters will factor this into their evaluations of the situation.
However Bush’s slide is only part of the story, and not the most interesting part. The decline in support for neo-conservative policy – by all accounts a radical ideology – was inevitable once the blind rage that built up around September 11, 2001 abated. The most interesting element in current US politics is the rising star of former Vermont Governer Howard Dean, candidate for the democratic nomination for President.
Dean’s significance is in what he represents in the current political climate. The former Governer has clearly identifiable liberal tendencies. He supports Universal Healthcare and public education and was a strong critic of the war on Iraq right from the start. As Governor he was supportive of rights for same-sex couples. In recent polling, Dean is pulling 42% against Bush’s 52% – good numbers for a candidate that hasn’t even won the nomination yet. He has been able to raise more money than any of his more conservative Democratic competitors for the nomination.
Dean is the most socially liberal serious contender for the Presidency since George Dukakis and Walter Mondale. He is certainly more liberal than former President Clinton. That such a candidate is even within striking distance of a sitting American President who is prepared to boost poll numbers by dressing in military fatigues and parading around on the deck of an aircraft carrier must be significant.
I believe that this sudden change in political fortunes for progressive forces in the United States is the result of a deeper trend – a reawakening of the liberal consensus that dominated politics for almost a century. I believe, furthermore, that similar political dynamics exist in Australia – although we don’t yet have an identifiable point around which to rally in order to reassert the liberal consensus.
Prior to making my case I’ll need to assert my own definitions for terms, as the tussle of politics is partly about controlling language. The Liberal Party of Australia does not represent a liberalist agenda at all, but rather an opposing, conservative one. Indeed, as the Manildra affair demonstrates, the Liberal Party has pretty much rejected Classical Liberal economics as well.
Liberalism, in my formulation, refers to a set of principles founded on the notion of human equality and individual rights. Conservatives make the same claim, but the distinction is within the mode of thought.
Liberalism is grounded within a rationalist framework – issues are carefully analysed and dissected and a pragmatic approach is determined, always with the objectives referring back to the founding principles.
Conservatism, on the other hand, is based on the notion that societies develop their best traditions naturally, and that these should be respected when determining approaches to issues.
Ultimately – especially in the present climate – Conservatives have it much easier, as their solutions will almost always gel with some preexisting social norm, prejudice, or emotion. Conservatives can appeal to patriotism, to national pride, to God. Liberals will often find such approaches jingoistic at best and deceptive at worst – they are therefore left with a much greater task of explaining a position or policy in its own terms, on its own merits. (For a diferent view of conservatism, see Daniel Moye’s Why conservatives fear John Howard.)
In terms of policy approaches, liberals will always side with the rights of the individual where the actions of one individual clearly do not impinge on the rights of others. This is why liberals will support measures such as euthanasia, same-sex union, drug law reform and so on. If someone wants to smoke a funny smelling cigarette, giggle a bit, then get a craving for a Mars Bar, it’s their business, as it doesn’t impact on anyone else.
With more complex issues such as economics, where the actions of one individual will always, to some extent, affect the rights of another – liberals will adopt cautious, moderate approaches. They seek to balance a sound respect for free market principles within a pragmatic publicly funded framework aimed at guaranteeing equal access to the tools which enable citizens to participate in society – most notably in education and healthcare.
In theory Conservatism is more radically pro-free market, but socially conservative. In practice, the reliance of Conservative parties upon funding from big business often mysteriously coincides with pro-business policies – as opposed to pro-competition policies, a distinction drawn recently by Mark Latham in Competitive Capitalism versus Crony Capitalism: The Difference Between Labor and Liberal).
The Manildra affair comes to mind, as well as the awarding of Iraqi infrastructure contracts to companies associated with US Vice President Dick Cheney. It is not surprising, then, that Conservatism’s latest incarnation – Neoconservatism – has morphed the ideology into a state-centred, heavy spending system.
Until very recently it looked as though the Conservatives had won an unassailable victory, both in the USA and Australia. Now, Bush’s poll ratings are nosediving and in Australia, Howard looks to have suffered moderately from children overboard, SIEV-X, Manildra, Wilson Tucky, and the now regular gaffes on serious security issues (including involving the nation in a war of dubious legality). The difference between the two nations is that within the US, there is a natural rallying point for opponents of neo-conservatism. In Australia there is not. The question: could a truly brave and clearly defined liberal alternative, threaten John Howard to the same extent that it now threatens George Bush?
I believe the answer is yes, and that this is the result of a long term trend which has dominated politics in the USA, Australia, and to a lesser extent the UK, since the end of the Cold War.
Political ideology is the result of individuals making statements about the world based on theory, and in many cases, political necessity. It is not a science. Toward the end of the Cold War, the major political debate in western countries was economic – between advocates of a mixed economy and advocates of a largely privatised economy. On a macro level these distinctions could be drawn between continental Europe and the United States, with Australia and the partially Thatcherized UK lying somewhere in between.
The common view which emerged once the Berlin wall had been demolished and the USSR had collapsed was that the “American way” triumphed. This was due to a Republican administration eager to take credit for this shift in history and to rationalise massive military expenditures undertaken at a time when the USSR was clearly collapsing from within.
I was in Germany at the time of its reunification. One thing that struck me was how stridently the Germans would dispute that those events were the result of a triumph of capitalism over communism, and a victory of the “private” over the “public”. Cited more than once was the fact that a factory worker in the East, pulling a fifty hour week, made less money than a West German on unemployment benefits.
I don’t know if the example was true, but it was a common perception – and demonstrative of the fact that for Europeans the end of the Cold War was seen not as a triumph of the radical Thatcher-Reagan free market model over the radical socialist state, but the victory of the mixed economy over the planned economy. Gorbachev, for example, was quoted on a number of occasions detailing a plan for the USSR which read more like a gradual shift to a Swedish style 60-40 mixed economy than American capitalism.
In history an absolute victory requires a complete a 180 degree political U-turn. If one accepts this, then one should also accept that absolute victory in the Cold War was not in the economic realm. The economics of the Cold War involved populations rejecting a radical state-centred economics that was not functioning in favour of a moderate mixed economics, which functioned to varying levels of success, and in which the state-private mix could be tinkered with. It was in no way a victory of one economic ideology over another, but rather a rejection of economic ideology itself.
The absolute victory of the Cold War was the rejection by millions of people of centralised political power in general, whether that power be manifested in economic planning committees, press censorship boards or state interference in judicial procedures.
I believe that following the collapse of European Communism, the progressive movement in the West either misread or ignored this to a large extent. It is easy to see why it was largely ignored – if part of the lesson from the fall of communism is that power should be devolved, then following this lesson would involve large parties devolving their own power. As a result, the political debate has continued to centre upon economics – taxes, spending, and the “hip pocket”.
Throughout the 1990s, the progressive movement advocated the moderate, mixed economy that essentially won the Cold War, whilst the right has pushed for a more radical set of policies, largely untried. This was most acute in the early 1990s, in Australia with the challenge to the Keating government by the Coalition’s radical “Fightback” manifesto and in the USA with Gingrich’s “Contract With America”.
While moderate governments were initially able to withstand these assaults, they eventually succumbed as radicals learned to package themselves as moderates.
The “mainstream” progressive movement essentially missed the implications of the collapse of communism – that it had been a victory for liberalism. Had progressive politicians fully grasped this and presented populations with governments that were boldly reforming on social issues and devolved political power rather than just marked time, it would have been much more difficult for Conservatives to mount such an absolute, silencing victory over their opponents. Proof of this can be found in recent UK history, where New Labour, with a very moderate and limited set of policies aimed at political devolution, was able to capture the interest of the electorate.
The reasons why the broader implications of the end of the Cold War were ignored by progressive parties are obvious. Real liberalism is politically risky. It requires that leaders take head on the prejudices and fears of entire segments of the voting public, leaving themselves open to opportunistic attacks from competitors.
This pattern is clear in the approaches we saw during the 1990s. Recall John Howard fear mongering over Mabo on ‘Lateline’, and the attacks on Hilary Clinton over her advocacy for universal health care coverage for all Americans. Howard told Australians that a huge percentage of their country would be under claim. Gingrich’s spin doctors painted the Clintons as socialist evil-doers.
Advocates of liberal policy must expend extra energy as they become educators as well as policy advocates, exposing the illiberal and fascistic aspects of our societies without alienating citizens who may adhere to these aspects without fully grasping their implications.
At the same time, real liberalism requires a principled approach – based on a sound view of the importance of individual rights, a politically empowered society, and an economy that is as free and as open as it can be without sacrificing the rights of its citizens – not jumping on every minority cause that looks emotionally correct or popular.
The high level of support for Howard Dean in the USA, despite the fact that America is a largely conservative country in which the sitting President can wrap himself in the flag or the cloak of fear at any time, proves that a strong thread of liberalist sympathy still exists in that country. We can now say with some hope that the neoconservative victory was transient, even hollow – typically based on emotion and fear, rather than founded on the real.
It is too early to say if we are likely to see a President Howard Dean. In the present climate there are too many factors – the war in Iraq, the US economy, activities by terrorist organizations – and it would be a mistake to underestimate the obstacles in the way of a Dean victory. Personally, I find it difficult to see how Dean could head Bush off in the MidWest and Southern states. What is certain, however, is that Dean is seen by Americans as a liberal, and that this liberal has garnered significant support.
In Australia, as yet, there is no obvious way for true liberals to show up in opinion polls. The ALP continues to run a confusing and inconsistent approach on key human rights issues such as asylum seekers and the ASIO laws. The Greens, while principled on human rights, maintain an economic line that has more to do with airing the concerns of the anti-globalisation movement than finding solutions. However, there may well be a latent thread of liberalist thought that has survived years of neglect under the ALP and Howard’s attempts to obliterate it and which is crying out for representation.
This voter pool is comprised of individuals who hold strongly to universality of human rights, the value of hard work and innovation and equality of opportunity, and who prefer rational and detailed policy debates over flag waving. It includes a substantial number of current Labor, Green and Democrat voters who support those parties through gritted teeth. It also includes a significant proportion of Liberal Party supporters who subscribe to the small-l association in the party name and have a family history of voting Liberal.
The emergence of a true liberal party, or Labor shifting boldy in that direction (if such a thing is possible), could cut swathes through Liberal heartlands in major Australian cities.
Liberal supporters who are coming to the realisation that today’s Liberals are anything but should be Howard’s worst nightmare. The sweetest thing is he wouldn’t even see it coming.
***
Star Webdiary columnist Harry Heidelberg wrote of the Howard Dean phenomenon in last month in Will Howard beat Bush? Here’s an update he emailed just before Bush addressed the nation to declare Iraq the “central front” in the War on Terror:
“Hi Margo. I hope you saw the footage of Democrats presidential candidate Dick Gephardt where he repeatedly called George Bush a MISERABLE FAILURE. He says Bush is a miserable failure on foreign policy and the economy. One poll shows Howard Dean going down and Gephardt rising. George Bush is clearly in trouble. Big trouble. It is just after 7.30 pm in Europe and sometime soon George Bush is expected to make an address to the nation. He’s battling for survival. I’ll be interested to watch this address – Address to the Nation or Address to the World? Now there’s even a miserable failure web site! http://www.amiserablefailure.com
***
Clem Colman
With another diplomatic stand off starting to develop between the US and European Nations that opposed the invasion of Iraq, this time over the provision of UN Peace Keepers, you have to feel for the people of Iraq. They are screwed however this plays out. And whilst the players in this game all pontificate and spin about why their position is morally defensible one can’t help thinking that the welfare of the people of Iraq is the secondary issue to who gets control of this important middle eastern strategic piece.
The Bush administration has approached Congress seeking another $US100 Billion to help cover the costs of security and reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan, of which the majority will be spent in Iraq. This amount is more than double what Congress expected, showing just how much the cost of this conflict underestimated. Add to this the ongoing deployment of US units in the area, most of which have been in the Middle East since before the beginning of the conflict, and the energetic diplomatic attempts to involve the soldiers of other nations in security operations in Iraq, and a grim reality begins to emerge.
The US seems unable to establish security and a decisive end to conflict in Iraq. The US is unwilling, either because of political issues or incapability, to deploy more forces to Iraq. Some analysts now say that an increase in ground forces in Iraq would require a reintroduction of the draft. It is also appalling clear from the way things have been managed since “Mission Accomplished” that the Bush administration didn’t have a clue what to do in Iraq after it toppled Saddam. Still, the framing of the US request for UN assistance shows it is not prepared to let go of its easily won, hard to keep, Middle Eastern Prize.
Then there are the French, who in keeping with their tradition of delusions of grandeur, have decided to use their one last piece of real power, their Security Council Veto, to mitigate the extent of US Strategic influence in Iraq and the broader Middle East. Being the world superpower they are (the French that is), any continued ascendancy by the US represents a threat to them, and any chance to pull them back a peg should be taken.
The information from reporters on the ground in Iraq makes it pretty clear that Iraq has had its important infrastructure, including the machinery of industry, almost completely destroyed. Unemployment is rife, the currency is worth nothing, and residents need to organise themselves into armed gangs to protect themselves and their property. Add to that the growing problems in the Shite areas of the country, which were mostly quiet immediately following their subjugation, and we get an uneasy feeling that without the presence of Coalition of the Willing forces there could be outright civil war.
Australia gate crashed the party, but made a special deal that we didn’t need to stay to clean up afterwards. It is a strategic masterstroke that most Australian Forces are out of Iraq and won’t be required to return. But Australians are usually eager to assist when there is heavy lifting to do, and International Law is clear – Australia has a responsibility for peace and security in Iraq at the completion of “the war”.
Australia’s position is largely irrelevant on the world stage (as it usually is), and the main showdown will almost certainly be between France and the US over how and if the US will receive UN support in the form of troops.
So why is the US administration holding onto the idea of holding onto and controlling Iraq when it is so obviously struggling? In my opinion there are two reasons – one goes to the real reason for the war and the other to staying in power.
The US war in Iraq had basically zip to do with the war on terrorism, as most Webdiary readers probably concluded long before the American invasion. It wasn’t about getting Iraqi oil for free per se. It was about a couple of important strategic objectives, including, taking and maintaining a very usefully located strategic staging area from which to put pressure on Iran, Syria, and the whole middle east, as well as securing an important and reliable supply of oil for the US (not free but reliable; watch whilst Iraq is not allowed to participate in OPEC for example).
It is at the core of the ‘Project for the New American century’ philosophy that US control, by force if necessary, of such an important playing piece in the Middle East is just and proper, and that through this control the US can exert pressure for security throughout the region and import its brand of capitalist democracy to the region. (See Think tank war: Why old Europe says no).
The PNACers believe they are right – about everything. It takes bloody mindedness and certainty to invade and destroy a country in the hope that it will make the world a better place. However, with 150,000 troops – a significant chunk of the US Army – required in Iraq alone there are scant resources left with which pressure can be put on Iraq’s neighbours. In fact, rather than being alarmed about what is happening in Iraq, Iran and Syria are probably taking careful notes on how effective resistance has been at bogging the Americans down in a style of conflict they don’t want to participate in.
However, the PNACers are so sure they are right that despite all the warning signs they led their country into a bloody disaster and will keep on pushing on until someone convinces Bush that he has listened to the wrong people (unlikely, they have his ear), or the public decides to let Bush know what they think, assuming they can get a fair count at the polls next time.
The PNAC philosophy is US Dominance. The US cannot surrender Iraq to the UN for administration. That strategy would eventually see US forces having to withdraw from Iraq, and getting them there is the reason the US fought the war.
In terms of the public arena, the US loves a winner. If the US could establish reasonable peace and prosperity in Iraq, the public may be happy to just say they won in Iraq and move on. With the US economy slowly picking up, Bush Jnr may not suffer the same fate as his father provided a “good” outcome can be achieved in Iraq. Of course, how long the “economic” recovery in the US lasts depends on exactly how long it takes for people to realise that the emperor is not wearing any clothes. That’s a topic for another day.
Handing over control to the UN would give the US Administration one immediately good outcome – it could start to rotate troops out of Iraq. However, the Administration did so much to discredit the UN leading into the war that it must worry about how the public would perceive them giving up Iraq to it. And the PNACers are hoping they can convince other countries to come onboard, allowing them the PR win of some troop rotations without having to lose their prize.
So for now the US’s strategy seems to be keep on doing what we are doing and try and negotiate to get troops from other countries into Iraq on US terms. Expect to see Bush approach congress for more funding for “International Assistance” for those “Friends and Allies” who are prepared to help with the cleanup in Iraq. With Bush asking for $100 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan alone Congress may tire of this quickly, but we will see.
Of course, the French (and the Germans, and the rest of the world that didn’t participate in the COW to some extent) can see exactly what is going on. For those most scorned by the US, and the French would have to be close, the temptation to let the US suffer the pain of a situation its own gung ho attitude and wilful ignorance created must be strong. Even for people who are concerned about the welfare of the Iraqi people there must be a strong sense that to give the US what it wants, UN authorised troops without UN control, will only continue to encourage the sort of reckless behaviour this Administration seems intent on.
The French in particular know that at the end of the day they have leverage on this issue. They can, and may, prevent any UN resolution that provides political cover for countries that are keen to take the US up on its offer to put their young people in harm’s way for truth, justice and the American Economy. Time works in their favour, so of course they are in no particular rush.
So the French and the Americans both have their reasons for not wanting to give the other an inch. The Americans because they are still under the impression that they can have their cake and eat it. They need some people to help with carrying the cake and slicing it up, but on the understanding that it still belongs entirely to the Americans. The French, because the US called them nasty names, because they used to have a small piece of the cake the US has now, and because they don’t want the Americans to think it is okay to go around stealing other people’s cakes. The analogy would be moronic if it wasn’t so close to the truth.
You’ll also notice that neither side really has much invested in the welfare of the Iraqi people. They are screwed however this plays out.