Mirror, mirror on the wall
Show me where their bombs will fall
Mirror, mirror on the wall
Show me where their bombs will fall
Show me where their bombs will fall
Mirror, mirror on the wall
Show me where their bombs will fall
– Arcade Fire, “Black Mirror”
“You shall not murder.”
– God, Exodus 20:13
This week was a very busy one for Mr.
Obama. With the media hype about Syria reaching fever-pitch, Obama felt
compelled to take time out from backing a military coup d’état in Egypt,
killing Yemenis, Somali and Pakistani children with drone strikes, supplying
chemical weapons to Israel for use against Palestinians, prosecuting a war of
aggression in Afghanistan, spying on Americans via the NSA, violently
suppressing political dissent at home, and facilitating the torture of prisoners
at America’s iconic concentration camp in Guantanamo Bay, to denounce the Assad
regime for its alleged use of chemical weapons. With an appropriately stony
visage and folded hands, Obama told the American public that the Assad regime was
guilty of violating international norms. And international norms, the public is
to understand, must be taken very seriously.
While Obama’s saber-rattling evokes the
highest, blood-spattered form of hypocrisy, it is worth studying. Yes, its
reasoning is hypocritical when not simply wrong, but it is representative of
American foreign policy, more generally. By seeing beyond the platitudes and
dissecting the dross, it is possible to reach a more coherent understanding of
the government’s long-term goals in the Middle-East, as well as the internal
dynamics that make up that dark demimonde of American foreign policy. Upon
reflection, it becomes apparent that Obama’s approach to the war in Syria, far
from signifying a break with the past, is premised on attitudes long-held by
those who direct America’s foreign policy and redolent of the worst excesses of
Bush II. Like Marlow from Joseph Conrad’s Heart
of Darkness, to study Obama’s speeches is to look upon the maps, monuments
and might of great power, and to come away disillusioned, having seen the great
evil that seethes within.
________
Watching Obama and Secretary of State Kerry
shed crocodile tears over the war in Syria is not unlike watching a band of
persistent peddlers attempt to hawk their quack drugs amongst an unbelieving
audience. In any case, you have to admit, they have mastered the script. The furrowed
brow, ramrod posture and staccato delivery are tools of the trade that both of
them have perfected to the tee. And this is method acting – not only have they
come to fit their roles but they believe in them.
Yet as the unreality of political
theatrics is acted upon and consequently shapes objective reality, the audience
quickly becomes lost in the ensuing chaos. Which Act in the Middle-East passion
play is this, after all? The first, the second… the twentieth? Did the drama
begin for the U.S. when the government chose to arm the
Free Syrian Army, or the anti-regime rebels affiliated with al-Qaeda? Or did it
begin with the inception of the “War on Terror,” when Assad assisted the U.S.
in its invasion of Iraq, and even went so far as to help the CIA torture
prisoners obtained through its program of extraordinary rendition? Is it
possible to forget the words of former CIA agent Robert Bauer, when he said,
“If you want a serious interrogation, you send a prisoner to Jordan. If you
want them to be tortured, you send them to Syria”?
But maybe this assessment is wrong.
Perhaps Obama’s saber-rattling signifies not so much the opening of a new Act,
as the unfolding of a sequel. A sequel to what? Is the present U.S. attack
against Syria a sequel to their intervention in the Lebanon war of the 1980s (Syria
was a key party in the conflict) when the U.S. increased arms-shipments to
Israel while its army invaded the region – even as President Reagan and
Secretary of State Haig claimed to be impartial arbiters of the conflict? Or is
this a sequel to the Sykes-Picot Agreement (1916), in which the Western powers
colonized the Middle East through an illegal backroom deal without any regard
for the welfare of the region’s inhabitants: “...that in the blue area [Syria
and Lebanon] France, and in the red area Great Britain, shall be allowed to
such direct and indirect administrative control as they desire” (my italics). Is this why the U.S., Britain and
France talk so freely about contributing to the current carnage? Between this
triumvirate of power and privilege, no violence seems too taboo for discussion.
After all, two of these powers ravaged the region for decades as its imperial
overlords and one of them, the U.S., has been carrying the mantle of the white
man’s burden ever since. Any inhibitions against the use of violence, that is,
“intervention,” have long been sloughed off.
________
The official justification for
intervention resounds with literary devices, most notably the use of dramatic
irony. Obama et al. delude themselves into believing that their logic is
coherent and ironclad, even while its contradictions glare at the audience.
There are four thematic contradictions which run through not only Washington’s approach
to the war in Syria, but America’s foreign policy in general:
First, the administration claims that
it seeks to directly intervene primarily
for the good of the beleaguered Syrian people; its interests in intervening are,
at the fore, humanitarian ones. Consequently, Obama has construed the cases of
Kosovo and Rwanda as precedents for armed intervention in Syria. This is the
sugar-coating on the intervention pill that they are trying to get the American
public – only 9% of whom support intervention – to swallow. Yes this is a difficult
decision, they admit, but it is the moral one. Or so they claim.
Yet while framing intervention as a
primarily humanitarian measure, for public consumption, the administration
formally argues that the intervention is primarily
a self-defense measure, especially against the use of chemical weapons. Like
Bush, Obama is not only raising the WMD card without evidence of its use by the
Assad regime, but, furthermore, claims that the existence of this supposed WMD
is a threat to national security. While this similarity has rightly elicited
much commentary from critics, the contradictions it envelops have been paid
less note. With customary bluster, the government claims that it is pursuing
intervention for two contradictory reasons: one, primarily for the good of the
Syrian people; two, primarily for the defense of the American people.
Why does Obama pursue this double-sided
– that is, contradictory – approach? The answer is simple. He is trying to win the
support of both hawks and doves by shifting the focus of intervention depending
on the sensibilities of his audience. Above all, the president is trying to
build as broad of a basis as possible for justifying intervention, one which
adds more substance to this policy than previous (irresponsible) rhetoric about
one side crossing a proverbial “red line” – as if the war was some wild-west
showdown between Assad and the U.S. Consolidating domestic support or, at the
very least, passive tolerance for intervention is a political imperative for
Obama, seeing as the U.N. and some of the U.S.’s closest allies are firmly opposed
to such a measure.
Second, the administration entertains
the pretense of upholding international law, but in practice this means
upholding the law only when doing so fits the government’s perceived interests.
International law is an ideal to be championed or perverted when convenient,
but something to be ignored altogether when it clashes with the “national
interest” – that is, the perceived interests of those in power. The
administration has railed against Assad for violating “international norms,”
but norms do not hold the same force as laws. More important though, is the
fact that international law is inconclusive at best when it comes to
intervening in Syria. And this is assuming that Assad has used chemical weapons
or is deliberately engaged in cross-border violence, though there is no
concrete evidence to affirm this.
And if the Assad regime did use
chemical weapons, this would by no means justify intervention either. As the
political commentator Marwan Bishara notes, “Damascus isn’t a signatory to the
chemical and biological treaties, and Washington cannot make a case that Syria
has violated any of its international legal obligations, regardless of whether
it used poison gas.” It is further worth noting that these treaties carry no legal
provisions that actually allow for the punishment of parties which contravene
it.
Moreover, the Obama administration’s
refusal to operate within preexisting legal channels for ending the war belie
its claim that intervention would be based on a respect for international norms
and laws. A recent article in McClatchy Newspapers notes that “The U.S. has
already dismissed the U.N. as an avenue for action on Syria because any
resolutions are certain to be blocked by Assad’s ally, Russia, which holds veto
power on the Security Council.” Put another way, the administration has decided
to not seek the legal prerequisite for intervention in Syria because the
preexisting legal framework is not amenable to such a policy.
So while inveighing against Syria for
failing to abide by international norms and laws, the U.S. government is
charting a path for war that clearly violates both of these. The irony is that
in the case of Syria, it is unclear as to what relevant international laws have been broken (if any), that allow for outside intervention;
if the U.S. attacks Syria without first securing the support of the
international community, however, it will be very clear as to what norms and
laws the U.S. has violated.
Third, the Obama administration’s use
of the terms peace, morality and even “the world” are constrained by elite self-interest.
As shown below, this point is intimately related to the previous point concerning
international law, since it shows how even apparently uncontroversial terms can
be twisted against themselves for narrowly-conceived purposes.
One of the most interesting statements
made by Obama is the idea that international laws and norms can be dispensed of
during the march to war because they hinder quick and effective action. U.N.
authorization is unnecessary because “We don’t want the world to be paralyzed”
by litigious red-tape (another “red line” not to cross?). Of course, the legal
system exists precisely because hasty action in difficult situations can have
disastrous consequences. One wonders if the abortive Iraq War would have ever
gone underway if the Bush administration had chosen to respect the existing legal
framework: the checks and balances of Congress, U.N. strictures, the
prohibition against wars of aggression, etc.
But this statement is noteworthy at another
level; it betrays deep-seated assumptions of power that guide American
policymakers. When Obama speaks of the “world” being paralyzed, he is in
actuality speaking of the U.S. government. The restraining force or paralysis
is, ironically, the world – the vast majority of humanity, which happens to oppose
U.S. intervention. The term “world” consequently functions much the same as the
royal “we.” The interests of the “world” are understood to be interchangeable with
the whims of the U.S. government, just as the interests of the commoner were
understood to be interchangeable with the fancies of the monarch in Elizabethan
England. It is then, no wonder that the government can both wax over the
precepts of international law and ignore it in the same breathe: American
policymakers believe that their policies establish international law, even when
they violate it in practice. They are the law.
And this royal “we” is just as elitist
in its assumptions as that of the monarchs of Europe’s past. The most recent
polls show that the majority of Americans are firmly opposed to intervention in
Syria, with only 9% expressing favor for Obama’s policy line. This is
immaterial to those who occupy the rarefied world of policymaking, though; they
know what’s best. They, after all, are the American people; they are the “world.”
________
But what are the real conditions in
Syria and would armed intervention help?
The Obama administration’s focus on
chemical weapons again involves certain uncomfortable ironies. Right now, there
is no positive proof that the Assad regime has used chemical weapons. By
contrast, there is much stronger evidence which suggests that chemical weapons have
been used by members of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) – the faction that the U.S.
backs with both logistical and material aid. Carla Del Ponte, head of the U.N.
Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria, has stated that there
is “strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof of the use
of sarin gas, from the way… [that some] victims were treated.” But these
suspicions involve “use on the part of the opposition, the rebels, not by the
government authorities.”
Veteran journalist, Jason Hirthler, has
presciently noted that “Nobody mainstream has bothered to point out that Assad
would have to be suicidal to launch an attack with inspectors in-country, and
with the use of chemical weapons being President Barack Obama’s vaunted ‘red
line’ across which no sovereign Shi’ite government can cross.” That Assad would
use chemical weapons right after allowing U.N. inspectors into the country,
thus handing the U.S. a propaganda coup and a pretext for attack, defies commonsense.
Whatever Assad may be, he is no idiot – one does not survive the cutthroat politics
of Lebanon and Syria unless they have considerable political foresight. Yet as
with Iraq and shrill cries of WMD, the chemical weapons issue can be readily
grasped by the public and it gives the government a palatable pretext for
intervening.
And as in the case of Iraq, no concrete
evidence has been offered by the U.S. government to back these claims.
Officials imply that the sites where the weapons were supposedly used are either
too old or corrupted for use as evidence. Such claims are either disingenuous
or painfully naïve. As any WWI history buff knows, chemical weapons are highly
potent and generally remain in the ground for several months after their use. This
includes sarin gas, the weapon purportedly used by the Assad regime. In more
recent times, the longevity of their effects were demonstrated during the
Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), during which countless soldiers from both sides were
maimed or killed by exposure to poison gas that had percolated into the soil,
only to be wafted up by oncoming troops. Much of the gas, in this case, was
supplied to Iraq by the U.S. and other western countries, the very countries
now pontificating about the horror of chemical weaponry. At least in the case
of Iraq, the U.S. knew that Iraq had at one time owned WMD – that is, the chemical
weapons that the U.S. gave it.
________
The cold hard truth is that Syria is
currently hemorrhaging from a civil war between regime loyalists, a motely band
of rebels – some of whom are affiliated with al-Qaeda – and the majority of
Syrians who are caught in the middle, desperately longing for peace. This is
ultimately a political conflict and a set of “surgical” or “limited” airstrikes
by the U.S. would only serve to increase the death toll, which has now
surpassed 100,000 lives. Even in the “good” interventions, such as in Kosovo
during the 1990s, the death rate increased dramatically when the U.S. intervened.
When a government has its back against the wall without the hope of getting
out, they will fight to the death. If Assad really is the cold-hearted killer
that the Obama administration portrays him to be, then this rings even truer.
Obama’s proposed missile strike would
not bring peace, and, most disturbingly, it is not premised on a real
commitment to progress or peace in the region. The president admitted as much
when he stressed that, “We’re not considering any open-ended commitment.” Put
in simpler language, the proposed missile strikes do not embody a genuine “commitment”
to real change; they only provide an opportunity for Obama to protect his
reputation as a decisive statesman who is willing to address “tough” issues.
If the administration was sincerely
committed to peace in the region, it would have sought a diplomatic solution to
the conflict during the past two years
in which the civil war has been underway. There is a reason for this lack of
effort. America’s strongest allies in the Middle-East, the Arab states and
Israel in particular, are enemies of Syria. The regional balance of power,
broadly interpreted, lies as follows: the “Shi’ite Crescent” composed of Lebanon,
Syria, Iraq and Iran, which sits at odds with the wealthy (and Sunni) Gulf States,
Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Israel and Turkey – all of which have close ties with
the U.S. Simply put, the countries that are the closest to the U.S. and
historically most at odds with Syria are precisely those that support regime
change for their own purposes.
And, of course, the U.S. is not an
impartial observer of the regions affairs. During the Bush administration, for instance,
policymakers seriously considered adding Syria as another spoke on Bush’s now infamous
“Axis of Evil.” Hafiz Assad, Bashar’s father, was one of the most outspoken
politicians who opposed American/Israeli policies in the region during the past
decades, and tensions between the two countries have simmered since Syria sided
with Iran against Iraq, America’s proxy, during the interminable Iran-Iraq War
of the 1980s. The American government has consistently show contempt for the
inhabitants of Syria, too. It is important to remember that many of Syrians who
have fled their country are of Palestinian ethnicity, whose families originally
arrived in Syria as refugees after being ethnically-cleansed from their homes
in Palestine with U.S. backing. When American officials gaze upon the stygian
terror unfolding in Syria they are, in a very real respect, looking at a mirror
of their own sins from the past and present.
________
But why, one may ask, is Obama trying
to ram through a missile strike on Syria? In the 1990s the Clinton administration
ordered a missile strike on Iraq codenamed Operation Desert Fox. Besides
channeling attention away from Clinton’s extra-marital affair with Monica Lewinsky,
the operation allowed him to look tough on foreign affairs without expending
the effort necessary to achieve sustainable peace in the region. Then, as now,
the strikes were called surgical, narrow and precise. Without “boots on the
ground,” no one in the West had to witness the numerous civilian deaths that
occurred as a result of these “surgical” strikes. No reporters had to witness
the million-plus civilian deaths that had resulted from America’s illegal
sanctions regimen on the country, which had been in force since the end of the
Second Gulf War (the first American war with Iraq).
Today, Obama is in much the same
position. No, there are no serious political scandals that he needs to suppress
– though the Snowden Affair has shown that the administration is engaged in
numerous illegal activities. (It is a telltale sign that something is seriously
wrong when the kangaroo court (FISA) set up to provide a veneer of legitimacy
to an illegal surveillance apparatus itself calls these activities unconstitutional.)
However, Obama is trying to maintain his image as a serious statesman who has
mastery over foreign affairs. To not act gives his critics an excuse to call
him weak or ineffectual.
And one cannot overestimate the
importance of image in politics. For in politics image – not substance – is
everything. John F. Kennedy instigated the Cuban Missile Crisis by imposing an
illegal blockade on Cuba in an attempt to maintain his reputation as a strong
leader. Lyndon B. Johnson refused to allow Vietnam to “fall” out of a manic
fear that the ascent of a communist government would spell the end of his
political career. In these cases, as in the case of Syria, the concept of national
self-interest is understood to be synonymous with the political interests of
those in power. After all, they are the “world.”
A recent article in ‘The New York Times’
spelled out Obama’s dilemma like so: “Obama’s quandary is that he boxed himself
in by setting a ‘red line’ on the use of chemical weapons by Syria, a line he
now feels obligated to enforce to assume his credibility.” But the only “red
lines” are those of his own making; they are imagined, fictive and easily transgressed. Above
all, they function as little more than a self-serving and self-made
rationalization that allow for the destruction of more Syrian lives – in other words, more
human lives. If there is any “red line” it is that which enshrines the
essential dignity of human life, best captured in the divine command, “You
shall not murder.”
Let us pray that Mr. Obama chooses to
not cross this red line.
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