US: Iraq will be nothing less than a democracy, even if it isn't one

Quote of the week:

"It is undeniable that, compared to the situation prevailing under the Saddam Hussein regime, political participation and debate have increased in Iraq. This is a result of the recognition on the part of many Iraqis that political compromise and tolerance are the only way to hold the country together—and the clear understanding that the US will not accept anything less than a democracy in Iraq (even if this is confined to shallow institutions or even a façade)."

Katerina Dalacoura, ‘US Democracy Promotion in the Arab Middle East Since 11 September 2001: A Critique’, International Affairs, Vol. 81, No. 5 (2005), pp. 963–79.

The Jewish Democratic State

The American political scientist Norman Finkelstein, author of this superb book on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, has been deported from Israel during a visit there and banned from re-entering for ten years.

Israel does not appear to be making any attempt to justify this, other than some half-heartedly mumbled insinuation that Finkelstein has links with Hezbollah ...er ...or Al-Qaeda ... or something. The fact that those two groups actively hate each other shows how little effort Israel is making to formulate a cover story. And incidentally, Finkelstein is scornful of those few Western lefties who, from a comfortable position thousands of miles away, profess some meaningless "support for the resistance" (you can watch him express that scorn about halfway through this video). All this strongly indicates that Finkelstein was summarily declared persona non grata because of his political views, not an invented allegience with terrorists*. Let us then recall what those views are.

Finkelstein's dangerously radical position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is this: that Israel should comply with international law, giving back the land it has illegally expropriated from the Palestinians and withdrawing to its legal 1967 borders. In other words, his position is identical to that expressed in 2004 by the International Court of Justice (who perhaps are also terrorist-sympathisers, in Israeli eyes). Clearly such extremisim is beyond the pale in "the Middle East's only democracy".

So, a Jewish, democratic state....except for Jews who disagree too strongly with the state.

How fitting that Israel the outlaw state should ban someone - a Jewish son of holocaust survivors, no less! - from entering the country .... because he urges the government to comply with the law. For the Israeli state, criminality is the law, and standing up for the law is a crime. A crime punishable by banishment.

I was lucky enough to spend a few hours one afternoon earlier this year in a seminar on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which was largely led by Norman Finkelstein. Even in the face the current, disgusting treatment of the inhabitants of Gaza, he expressed optimism for the future. He said that the argument against Israeli colonianlism and in favour of Palestinian rights was being won, and that apolgists for the Israeli state were becoming increasingly desperate. I can't help but think that his shabby treatment by the Israelis supports that view very strongly.

In the long run, Israel's rulers will suffer for this far more than Finkelstein. I doubt that the majority of the world's Jews, who currently choose to live outside of Israel, will be remotely impressed by this crude display of authoritarianism. And what of the young Israelis who are emigrating in ever increasing numbers? When they see a fellow Jew expelled for taking a position that is shared by practically the entire international community bar the US and Israeli governments, do they see the sort of thriving liberal democracy that they'd want to return to live in?

"Aliyah" probably doesn't look like such a mystical, beatific experience when some Jews aren't even allowed to visit the land God promised them because they have the wrong political opinions. How does Israel sustain its mythology on that basis? How does the banishment of Finkelstein fit into the Zionist narrative? Some Jews are more Jewish than others?

*Update 1: According to the Jerusalem Post, "Officials said that the decision to deport Finkelstein was connected to his anti-Zionist opinions and fierce public criticism of Israel around the world". It seems plain that, nonsense about "security" aside, the real reason for the deportation was let slip here.

Update 2: In response to these letters, published in the Guardian yesterday, which were basically attempts to defame Finkelstein, I had a letter published in the paper today, along with others. My letter was edited. The full version read as follows:

"Lorna Fitzsimons (Letters, 29 May) says that Israel did not deport Norman Finkelstein, and ban him from returning for ten years, because of his criticism of its government, but on "legitimate security grounds", because he has met members of Hizbullah. However, according to the Jerusalem Post on 25 May, "[o]fficials said that the decision to deport Finkelstein was connected to his anti-Zionist opinions and fierce public criticism of Israel around the world."

Does Fitzsimons realise how ridiculous she sounds when she tries to portray a 54 year old political scientist as a threat to Israel's security? Perhaps her time might be better spent reflecting on the nature of a purportedly "Jewish and democratic state" that banishes the son of holocaust survivors because it dislikes his political opinions."

There's also a very good editorial on this in the Israeli paper Haaretz.

Time for change

With New Labour's latest huge defeat at the hands of David Cameron's Conservatives, it looks like a change is coming in British politics.

Crusaders for Democracy

Martha Raddatz, ABC News: Let me go back to the Americans. Two-thirds of Americans say [the Iraq war]'s not worth fighting, and they're looking at the value gain versus the cost in American lives, certainly, and Iraqi lives.

Vice President Dick Cheney: So?

Did the US aim to make Iraq a democracy?

The following is an email to Helen Boaden, director of BBC News, and "Newsnight" diplomatic editor Mark Urban. It discusses Urban's saying on "Newsnight" that the US invasion was in part about spreading democracy in the Middle East, for which Urban has drawn criticism from some in the anti-war movement. The point I wanted to make below was that, yes, Washington planners probably did, in their own minds, take the view that they were "democratising" Iraq, but the reality of US policies meant that in practise they were doing the opposite. Bottom line: the Iraqis were being made subjects to a new master, not being liberated to act as free agents.

**********************

Dear Helen and Mark

I've followed with interest your recent correspondence with viewers regarding the question of whether or not the US aimed to export democracy to Iraq. In my view its a shame that the debate has been reduced to a question of either/or since that tends to obscure the important issues at stake here. I think the real point is that one needs to acknowledge the problematic nature of the US claims, and some of the nuances involved, rather than saying the claims were either utterly true or utterly false.

You're right to acknowledge that the US planned to leave in place an Iraqi government that was legitimised by some form of electoral system. But the bottom line was that this government should be friendly to US strategic interests. The US therefore set about engineering a "democracy" that would lead to this outcome. Of course you don't need me to point out that there's a dissonance between this and the idea of democracy that you and I have; i.e. where the population governs its affairs according to its own wishes, without the manipulations of a foreign power.

Mark in particular will be aware that, shortly after the 2003 invasion, forms of local government, often democratic, began springing up all over Iraq, and that these were systematically stamped out by the CPA, which was alarmed to see Iraqi self-rule evolving under indigenous control in a way that might not suit US interests. Michael Knights and Ed Williams touched on this briefly in their report for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy entitled "The Calm Before The Storm"[pdf].(see pg 12).

Many gains for genuine democracy and popular sovereignty were actually prised from Washington's hands by the Iraqis themselves. For example, it was Sistani - backed by huge demonstrations in January 2004 - who insisted that any permanent Iraqi constitution should be written by people elected to do so, and that all future Iraqi governments should be elected on the basis of one-person one-vote. The US had been planning all sorts of stage-managed wheezes - like caucuses hand-picked by the CPA - to ensure that the process of "democracy-building" could be as US-managed as possible. Bush was apparently furious about having to give in to Sistani's demands, but faced with popular anger in Iraq he was left with no choice.

Consider also that under US plans, Iraq's principle source of revenue would be tied up in production-sharing agreements with Western oil firms, and that its army would be a wholly-owned subsidiary of the US military, which would retain massive permanent bases around the country. Then there's the fact that the US is building the largest embassy in the world - nearly as big as Vatican City - in the heart of Baghdad. You have to ask whether Iraq can be truly sovereign under these circumstances, how much less sovereign it would have been if Washington had kept its grip on the political process, and whether a country that - at the behest of a foreign power - is only allowed the formal trappings of sovereignty can be called "democratic" in any meaningful sense of the term.

I have no doubt that Washington planners sincerely believed that what they had planned for Iraq could accurately be described as "democracy". But clearly that judgement - that conception of democracy - was a highly questionable and unfamiliar one. It seems that no one in Washington contemplated an Iraq that was 100 per cent owned by the Iraqi population and completely free to make its own choices irrespective of how these may impact upon US interests. Washington's plans were to make the new Iraq a subject nation; not a free one. That much is plain.

Of course, its hard to express this in a sentence, as you must when filing your reports. All I ask is that you don't simply say that the US aimed to make Iraq democratic, since obviously that gives the viewer the sense that the US intended to make Iraq a free country, and that is a good deal less than true. There needs to be an acknowledgement of the reality of the US role; of its aim to assume de facto sovereignty over Iraq in pursuit of its geo-strategic interests. That's the essence of the whole Iraq story, as far as the US aims are concerned. And I think its certainly true that the BBC has not reflected this well in its coverage, sad to say.

Thanks to you both for taking the time to read this. I do hope it influences how you approach this story in the future.

Very best wishes

*****

For more on this topic, see my "Iraqi Democracy and the Limits of Western Idealism" from March 2006.

***********

Postscript - 22 January 2008.

Just received a belated response from Helen Boaden. Simply reads "Thank you for this thoughtful email", which is nice. Remains to be seen whether my thoughts will influence future coverage, but one lives in hope.

Bhutto and Pakistan: moderate martyrs and other myths

Reinhold Niebuhr - a man who in his time beat that well-worn intellectual path from the authoritarian left to the authoritarian right - argued that since "rationality belongs [only] to the cool observers", "the stupidity of the average man" meant that the former should spoon-feed the latter with "emotionally potent oversimplifications" to render the dim proletarian docile and pliant. To this day, the Western power-centres to whom Niebuhr gravitated employ those same "emotionally potent oversimplifications" in shaping public discourse to suit their interests. Understanding and challenging power means being able to identify and pick apart those rhetorical devices wherever they arise.

Reacting to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto last week, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that the Pakistan People's Party leader had been "assassinated by cowards afraid of democracy" adding that "terrorists must not be allowed to kill democracy in Pakistan". US President George Bush said "The United States strongly condemns this cowardly act by murderous extremists who are trying to undermine Pakistan's democracy". French President Nicholas Sarkozy said that "terrorism and violence have no place in the democratic debate and the combat of ideas and programmes". The Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh said that "the subcontinent has lost an outstanding leader who worked for democracy and reconciliation in her country". A simple narrative was affirmed and reinforced through repetition by one august commentator after another: Bhutto = moderation and democracy, as opposed to its evil antagonist "extremism", which much not be allowed to prevail.

Brown was of course right to say that "Benazir Bhutto was a woman of immense personal courage and bravery. Knowing as she did the threats to her life, and the previous attempt at assassination [she had nevertheless returned to Pakistan]". Bhutto's killing can only be lamented, for the tragedy of the loss of her life and those others killed in the attack, for the tragedies of those deaths that followed in the ensuing violence, and for all the resulting suffering that has yet to come. But the simplistic presentation of Bhutto as a martyr to liberalism, "moderation" and democracy, who died fighting "extremists", cannot be accepted. For one thing it is, at the least, an extremely problematic oversimplification. But more importantly, since we in the West are active participants in Pakistan's ongoing crisis, misunderstandings of this situation on our part will continue to result in policy choices that negatively impact on the people of Pakistan in the future. It is no exaggeration therefore to say that lives depend on us dispensing with "emotionally potent oversimplifications" and instead turning our attention to the facts.

The moderate vs extremist dichotomy obscures far more than it explains. William Dalrymple notes that the grip on power exerted by the feudal landowning classes of which Bhutto was a member has done as much as religious extremism or the role of the army, if not more, to undermine democracy in Pakistan: "real democracy has never thrived in Pakistan, in part because landowning remains the principle social base from which politicians emerge". Dalrymple quotes "writer Ahmed Rashid [saying that]: 'In some constituencies, if the feudals put up their dog as a candidate, that dog would get elected with 99 per cent of the vote.'"

"Benazir was the person", Dalrymple continues "who brought Pakistan's strange variety of democracy, really a form of 'elective feudalism', into disrepute [which in turn] helped fuel the current, apparently unstoppable, growth of the Islamists....[who] successfully depict [the feudal elite] as rich, corrupt, decadent and Westernised...During her government, the anti-corruption organisation Transparency International named Pakistan one of the three most corrupt countries in the world. Bhutto and her husband, Asif Zardari, widely known as 'Mr 10 Per Cent', faced allegations of plundering the country. Charges were filed in Pakistan, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States to investigate their various bank accounts."

From the highest offices of desperately poor Pakistan, hundreds of millions were apparently swindled. While most of her compatriots languished in destitution (between 1995 and 2000, 38 per cent of Pakistani children under 5 were underweight), Bhutto - "a feudal princess with [an] aristocratic sense of entitlement" - lived in the vast surrounds of "a giddy, pseudo-Mexican ranch [where] crystal chandeliers dangled sometimes two or three to a room", quoting Dalrymple. For himself, Zardari acquired a £4.3 million estate in Surrey, which could no doubt have bought one or two square meals for the malnourished infants of Pakistan.

In power, Dalrymple notes, "Amnesty International accused [Bhutto's] government of having one of the world's worst records of custodial deaths, killings and torture". More sinister still are allegations made by many, including her niece, and detailed in Tariq Ali's recent article for the London Review of Books, that Bhutto was involved in the murder of her own brother, who had become a political rival.

Nor should it be forgotten that it was under Bhutto that the Pakistani military and intelligence services helped bring the vicious Taliban government into power in neighbouring Afghanistan, as an exercise in Pakistani power-projection. Bhutto's was one of only a handful of world governments to recognise the "extremist" regime. All in all, the picture of Bhutto the moderate democrat - a latter-day martyr to secularism and modernity - begins to look a little thin under close examination.

As Barnett Rubin - a leading expert on Afghanistan and Pakistan - noted earlier this week: "The Bush administration [and this also applies to many other Western governments, intellectuals and commentators] has decided that in the "Muslim world" a battle is going on between pro-American "moderates" and anti-American "extremists." According to them, the "Muslim world" has a two-party system organized around how Muslims feel about America. In Pakistan, General Pervez Musharraf is a "pro-American moderate." Benazir Bhutto is a "pro-American moderate." Therefore it is only logical (and in U.S. interests!) for the U.S. to realign Pakistan politics so that the "moderates" work together against the "extremists.""

In reality, it is these very "moderates" whose venal, corrupt and amoral behaviour creates the conditions - poverty, disenfranchisement and a government in the pocket of foreign powers - that fan the flames of extremism to begin with. Certainly it is more than a little rich for the Western leaders who have enthusiastically backed a military dictatorship in Pakistan since 1999 to talk of their desire to see democracy flourish in that country. Bhutto's return had been a Western-sponsored attempt to prettify the tottering despot Musharraf by engineering an unseemly and decidedly non-democratic power-sharing accommodation between the two. This clumsy attempt to put lipstick on a pig descended into grim farce as Musharraf attempted to minimise his losses by enacting a state of emergency; ostensibly to crack down on extremists but which in fact targeted members of Pakistan's genuinely democratic opposition. As Musharraf sacked the judiciary and replaced them with his own lackeys, the West could only mumble disapproving platitudes (perhaps privately welcoming the resulting strengthening of their pet "moderates"). For Bhutto's part, the Guardian's leader writers commented that "her resistance to Mr Musharraf's attacks on civil society was equivocal. Her demands for the release from house arrest of Pakistan's former chief justice Iftikhar Chaudry were tempered by the knowledge that if the supreme court were restored to its pre-emergency rule state, the amnesty she had obtained from Mr Musharraf would be up for judicial review."

Undermining extremist forms of Islam and terrorist groups whilst bolstering democratic governance are plainly urgent tasks for Pakistan. A yet more urgent task is to deal with the principle obstacles to achieving these goals. One of these is the military/security complex - an institution whose own corruption is epic, whose extensive involvement in nuclear proliferation could yet have catastrophic consequences, which has inflicted dictatorship after dictatorship on Pakistan, which was the perpetrator of the bloodbath in East Pakistan .... and on, and on...and which has enjoyed strong Western backing throughout. The other is the oligarchical/kleptocrat class - hailed as "moderates" and "liberals" by clueless Western governing elites - of which Bhutto was a fully paid-up member.

The current collapse of the West's Pakistan policy shows that there are factors other than our own actions that influence events. But the responsibility to at least do no harm still remains upon us. Forcing our governments to withdraw their support from feudal rule and military despotism will not guarantee that Pakistan is able to find democracy, stability and security. But the effect of our governments' actions to date suggest that a policy-reversal might just give the people of that country a better chance of seeing a way through the current crisis and into a better future. That reversal will not come because democracy and liberty are under threat in Pakistan: the lofty ideals claimed by the West can, quite clearly, not be taken entirely at face value. Only when the power and interests of our governments' are threatened will the course be changed. It therefore falls upon us to raise the political costs of the current policies. Challenging "emotionally potent oversimplifications" and drawing attention to the reality of our involvement in Pakistani affairs, and the real nature of our allies, is an essential first step along that road.

A new assault on Venezuelan democracy?

Venezuela goes to the polls this weekend to vote on a new constitution. Various measures are being proposed; some that would devolve democratic and economic power to local communities, others that would grant more powers to the Presidency.

I have reservations about some elements of the package. For instance, I don't support the move to abolish presidential term limits. Plainly the attempt made by some to portray this as a move to dictatorship is, shall we say, a little shrill. But my personal view is that a liberal democratic constitution is healthier when terms of office at the highest level are limited.

However, to the extent that it devolves power to the Venezuelan people and empowers them politically, socially and economically in their everyday lives - a central theme of the Bolivarian government's reform program of recent years - I think there's much to applaud in the proposals. You can read more about them here.

Above all where Venezuela is concerned, its heartening to see a third world government acting independently of global power, and using its resources and wealth to benefit its people, instead of to enrich international capital and a domestic kleptocrat class as is more usually the case. In recent years the Bolivarian government has cut poverty by a massive 30 per cent, and access to healthcare and education have also increased dramatically. Perhaps most importantly of all, the poor majority of Venezuelan's now have an active stake in their country through grassroots economic, social and political co-operation initiatives that put power firmly into their own hands. And this example has inspired governments and populations across the continent to take major steps to kick Washington (the source of so much torture, impoverishment, brutality and oppression in recent decades) out of their affairs permanently.

Given the 500-year tragedy that in so many ways is the history of Latin America, it would take a hard heart to begrudge the poor majority in Venezuela what they have won for themselves with much effort and perseverence. But of course, there will be winners and losers from a successful move to full Latin American independence. The losers would be the US - the regional hegemon for the past century - and the wealthy elites (domestic and international) that have spent so much of the Colombian era bleeding the continent dry. Those forces have no intention of giving up lightly what they believe is rightfully theirs. That was demonstrated unequivocally in the US-backed coup five years ago when the Venezuelan business elite attempted to overthrow the democratically elected government, only to be thwarted by mass popular opposition. Now, in advance of tomorrow's vote, there is every chance that Venezuelan democracy will come under renewed attack.

An alleged CIA internal memo written last week, which Venezuelan counterintelligence claims to have intercepted, sets out a detailed plan to use the elections to destabilise the country with the eventual goal of overthrowing the government. The alleged plan involves publishing and disseminating fraudulent polls showing that the government is on course for defeat in Sunday's vote, which can then be used as "proof" of electoral fraud when the vote is in fact won, as is far more likely to happen (the government has comfortably won 11 elections in recent years, verified as free and fair by international monitors). Contesting the election results will be the focus of broader manufactured unrest designed to make the country ungovernable and set the stage for a coup.

In a sense, it matters little whether the memo is genuine or not, since it offers no surprises, only a reminder. What it describes is simply standard procedure for US covert actions in Latin America (and elsewhere). Take as an example Nixon's order to make the Chilean economy "sceam" in order to destabilise the elected socialist government and lay the groundwork for the eventual coup that brought the murderous General Pinochet (and Friedman-style neo-liberalism) into power in Santiago. The memo merely reminds anyone who knows a little of the history of US Latin America policy of the sort of black operations they can expect to now be taking place. Indeed, as you'll see below in respect of faked polls, aspects of what is described in the memo have indeed been occuring. Can we be surprised? What reason would we have, after all, to believe that the US would choose this point in history to stop doing what it has always done whenever the weakest in what it describes as its "backyard" have dared to raise their heads?

So that's the context in which I sent the below email to Rory Carroll of the Guardian (whose coverage on Venezuela I've written about previously here). The western media - with a few exceptions - have performed their standard propaganda function where Venezuela is concerned in recent years. For example, by reducing their coverage to hysterical caricatures of the personality of President Chavez instead of reporting the policy substance of the Caracas government's programme. If things do turn nasty in the coming days, the role of the media will be crucial in isolating Caracas on the world stage - portraying the democratically elected President as a "dictator-in-the-making", those working to overthrow democracy as plucky freedom-fighters, and so on. We should be alive to this now, in case the worst happens, and be prepared to politely challenge journalists with the facts wherever necessary. The end of the Bolivarian government and the return of the elites would send millions of people back to the poverty and deprivation that they have only recently begun to escape. To the extent that we can make a small but valuable effort to help prevent that from happening, we should do so.

*************************

email to Rory Carroll - sent 1 December 2007

Hi Rory - hope you're well

I notice that a couple of your recent reports have relied on polls by Datanalisis.

I've just read Luis Vicente Leon of Datanalisis telling Reuters that "The most probable [of tomorrow's constitutional referendum] is that there will be no surprise and Chavez will win 60 percent against 40 percent".

I found this strange because you reported on Thursday 29th that "A survey for Datanalisis, a polling company, said 49% of likely voters would vote no [to the constitution] and 39% would vote yes".

I thought you might be interested in the discrepancy between what Datanalisis staff think is "probable" and what they are presenting as the results of their polls. Are you satisfied that this firm is a reliable, neutral source of statistical data? Are you aware that The LATimes once quoted José Antonio Gil of Datanalysis saying that Chavez "has to be killed"? Are you aware of the recent history in Venezuela of fake polls being used by the opposition?

The opposition's alleged poll lead was central to your story of Thursday 29th ("Chávez forced to battle for long-term future"). Given that Mr Leon has now effectively admitted that the figures you published last week were fraudulent, I was wondering if you would be drawing attention to this in your next report? Please let me know.

Best wishes
David Wearing

Iraq: "the oil conspiracy theory"

"...the oil conspiracy theory is honestly one of the most absurd when you analyse it."
Tony Blair, 6 Feb 2003

"The Australian defence minister today triggered a political storm when he suggested that protecting Iraq's huge oil reserves was a reason for the continuing deployment of foreign troops in the war-torn country.

Brendan Nelson told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that Iraq was "an important supplier of energy, oil in particular, to the rest of the world, and Australians ... need to think what would happen if there were a premature withdrawal from Iraq"."
Oil a factor in Iraq conflict, says Australian defence minister, Guardian Unlimited Website, 5 July 2005

Oops.

To be honest, today's embarrassing remarks from the Australian Defence Minister could be safely filed in the "no s**t" category (together with news of the Bear's lavatorial rituals and the chosen religion of Joseph Ratzinger) if the likes of Tony Blair hadn't been repeatedly insulting our intelligence with their shrill denials that Iraq's having probably the second or third largest oil reserves on the planet had anything to do with the...er..mission to "bring democracy" to Iraq. Methinks the laddie doth protest too much. But given that he, and so many others, insist on maintaining this charade, the bleeding obvious will have to be stated and re-stated. So, let me repeat what I said last year:

"At a point in history where extraction of the world’s finite oil reserves may soon peak and fall away, just as the economies of two of the world’s most populous nations – India and China – are growing at breakneck speed, thus putting massive new demands on those dwindling resources, control over energy reserves constitutes “critical leverage” over one’s rivals, in the words of former US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, or “veto power” in the words of Cold War era US diplomat George Kennan, and is therefore a prize that Washington cannot afford to lose if it is to fulfil its aim of maintaining permanent global dominance, as set out in its 2002 National Security Strategy. Securing a long-term military presence in Iraq, which has the world’s second largest oil reserves and lies in the centre of the principal energy producing region, constitutes a decisive step towards achieving that goal."

As Noam Chomsky points out, we have no problem recognising these calculations when examining the behaviour of other countries. US Vice President Dick Cheney for example, recently warned that Russia's oil and gas reserves could be used as "tools of intimidation and blackmail". Of course, the very idea of using the energy reserves under US control "as tools of intimidation and blackmail" wouldn't begin to contemplate the merest possibility of crossing Dick Cheney's mind. Cheney's only wish for the Middle East is to see democracy and human rights blossom througho......well, why go on? You know the script.

As Chomsky observes, "it is unacceptable to attribute rational strategic-economic thinking to one’s own state, which must be guided by benign ideals of freedom, justice, peace, and other wonderful things. That leads back again to a very severe crisis in Western intellectual culture, not of course unique in history, but with dangerous portent."

Only in an intellectual culture where fantasies like "democracy-promotion" are taken for reality, and realities like the standard behaviour patters of nation states are derided as conspiracy theories, could the remarks of the Australian defence minister possibly be described as news. But here we are.

For more on this, see my March 2005 piece, "Iraq, Oil and Conspiracy Theories"

Coup in Gaza?

At his indispensable blog "Rootless Cosmopolitan", Tony Karon gets to the core of what's happening in Gaza at the moment: a hard coup engineered in Washington and effected by Gaza's own Pinochet, Mohammed Dahlan.

An excerpt:

"only [a US] Administration as deluded about its ability to reorder Arab political realities in line with its own fantasies — and also, frankly, as utterly contemptuous of Arab life and of Arab democracy, empty sloganizing notwithstanding — as the current one has proved to be could imagine that the Palestinians could be starved, battered and manipulated into choosing a Washington-approved political leadership. Yet, that’s exactly what the U.S. has attempted to do ever since Hamas won the last Palestinian election, imposing a financial and economic chokehold on an already distressed population, pouring money and arms into the forces under Dahlan’s control, and eventually adapting itself to funnel monies only through Abbas, as if casting in him in the role of a kind of Quisling-provider would somehow burnish his appeal among Palestinian voters. (As I said, their contempt for Arab intelligence knows no bounds. )"

"But while the hapless Abbas is little more than a reluctant passenger in Washington’s strategy .... Mohammed Dahlan is its point man, the warlord who commands the troops and who has been spoiling for a fight with Hamas since they had the temerity to trounce his organization at the polls on home turf."

"Dahlan’s ambitions clearly coincided with plans drawn up by White House Middle East policy chief, Elliot Abrams — a veteran of the Reagan Administration’s Central American dirty wars — to arm and train Fatah loyalists to prepare them to topple the Hamas government..."

Read the rest here.

What we're witnessing now is not just civil war but also the attempted overthrow of a democratically elected Palestinian government, not four years since Blair and Bush announced their grand vision to spread democracy in the Middle East. The strangulation of Gaza, which I've written about previously, prepared the ground for this. The current violence may well turn out to be the culmination of that strategy.

More on this from Paul Woodward. And for the Palestinian perspective, see Rami Almeghari and Laila El-Haddad.

Notes on illiberal Liberalism

It is worth relating any political theory to the historical context in which they have gained most currency. This exercise often reveals a close correlation between what the dominant theory of the time tells us is right on philosophical grounds and what philosophical conclusions happen to suit those in power. Nowhere is this more applicable than in the case of political Liberalism. As the Athenians said of the Spartans in the Melian dialogue, western liberals "are most conspicuous for believing that what they like doing is honourable and what suits their interests is just".

Liberalism's central tenants are as follows:
1. Equality before the law and equal rights
2. State legitimacy derives from popular consent
3. Right to own property and productive forces
4. Primacy of the market as an organising force of societies material assets

The rise of Liberalism coincided with and was driven by the emergence of the new bourgouisie in the late C18th and early C19th, who adopted it as their defining philosophical creed. Under its flag came the creation of the new United States of America, the French Revolution and various socio-political and economic reforms in Britain. Overwhelmingly, these social changes benefitted this emerging economic class which, though non-aristocratic, was gaining wealth and commensurate socio-political power.

Of the four values highlighted above, it was the last two that were dominant (note in particular that point 3 accentuates a right that, in a different value system, could easily be slotted in with the rights to education, healthcare etc under point 1). Thus the new liberal United States maintained slavery for nearly a century after its inception in accordance with Liberal Article Of Faith number 3, if not Article number 1. For all the fine words of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, it was John Jay's remark that "the people who own the country ought to govern it" that best characterised the new Liberal order. This new order primarily liberalised the bourgouisie from the constraints that prevented them from extending their new found wealth and power, often at the cost of broader human values. Witness the general social trauma of the creation of the industrialised working class in C19th. Would their fate have improved if mass political organisation had not taken place among them, and Liberalism been left to its own devices?

Neo-Liberalism, in the field of international relations, must bear some of these same criticisms. It cites the Bretton Woods system, the United Nations and US hegemony over this institutional order in the post WWII era as being a generally benign manifestation of liberal values. However:

1. The Bretton Woods system has presided over grotesque levels of inequality, where widespread poverty abides alongside extraordinary wealth whose potential to all but end much of human economic suffering remains untroubled. Moreover, the "liberal" economic system liberalises only when in Western interests (e.g. manufactured goods) and remains restrictive when not (e.g. agriculture). Its imposition of aid conditionality on developing countries undermines democracy and its privitisation programs deny basic public services through charges (contra Article 1) and encourage corruption;

2. The United Nations entrenches great power privilege and ability to coerce smaller states; and

3. The US frequently overthrows democratic regimes, supports or commits human rights abuses, backs tyrants and launches wars of aggression, covert or overtly, directly or by proxy.

Contra Liberal Article Of Faith number 1, there are clear winners and losers in this system. The winners are a general transnational Executive Class and their companion state/institutional interests. The losers - from a small to a great extent - are just about everyone else. By privileging economic interests over the other purported liberal values of human welfare and equality, Liberalism - rathar than Marxism or Realism - has become the prime ideological force for imperialism in the modern age.

Blair in numbers

Tony Blair has announced that he will step down as Prime Minister on 27 June 2007. Strong stomachs will be required over the next seven weeks as the political classes feed us a steady diet of nostalgia and hagiography. This should reveal, for anyone who doubted it, that something approaching a personality cult exists around Blair, as it did around Thatcher and Reagan before him.

A government memo describing the plans for Blair's departure was leaked last September. Its call for Blair to go "with the crowds wanting more" with the PM as "the star who won't even play that last encore" was the cause of much hilarity from the general commentariat. And yet, pathetically, that's exactly the send off that he is now getting. And more pathetically still, the wails of anguish from the punditocracy as the dear leader departs couldn't be more at odds with the views of the apparently irrelevant public.

So BBC political editor Nick Robinson tells us that "love him or loathe him...Blair will be missed" and will "leave Downing Street after a decade in office without being forced out, and with a smile on his face - a feat which no other modern prime minister has matched". Whilst the BBC's graph tracking Blair's approval rating throughout his time in office, show his support steadily declining from a post-97 election high of around 75 per cent to a current low of less than 25. There are highs and lows, but the trend line heads downwards inexorably. Hard to see what he's smiling about. And if he's not being forced from office, is that his achievement or our democracy's failing?

Then we have the headline on the front page of today's Guardian, which tells us that a "Poll shows [Blair] will leave with voters' respect". The framing of the poll results in question, both in that headline and in the article, are a masterclass in editorial spin. Someone has plainly decided that something positive needed to be said about Blair in this piece. One is almost forced to admire the valiant efforts of hapless writer Julian Glover to make completely contradictory facts support the preordained conclusion.

For instance:

"Despite Iraq and Labour's steep decline in public support, Mr Blair will be remembered as a force for change in Britain - although not necessarily for the better - by 60% of all voters and 70% of Labour ones"

Its hard to see exactly where the word "despite" comes in here, unless one had already decided to say that there were positives in the poll to offset Blair's recent disasters, and then had to find a way to present the facts so as to support this conclusion. As the article admits, being a "force for change" is neither a positive nor a negative, so where's the "on the one hand Iraq, but despite that...." angle here?

I'm sure many Iraqis see Blair as a "force for change".

"Asked to give their impressions of the prime minister, taking into account his entire decade in power, 80 per cent of Labour voters say that he was good for the country. Overall, 44 per cent of voters agree - a rating that stands well ahead of Labour's current position in the polls."

Blair then can at least say that most of the people who vote for his government think he's been good for the country. A mighty achievement. But that still leaves the 56 per cent of the general public who were not able to say the same.

"But despite the police investigation into cash for honours, 44 per cent of all voters and 73 per cent of Labour ones still say that they think Mr Blair was "an honest kind of guy"."

Another curious use of the word "despite". 56 per cent of the public can't say that Blair is honest. More than a quarter of people who actually vote for his government can't say that Blair's honest.

Perhaps I'm missing something, but I can't see anything in this poll that says that Blair "will leave with voters' respect".

Let's look at the results of another poll, which appeared in The Observer last month. See if you can find any of these conclusions fairly reflected in the political obituaries of Blair that appear in the coming weeks.

Respondents are asked to rate Blair from 0 to 10, where where 10 means strongly like, and 0 means strongly dislike. 48 per cent rate him 0, 1, 2 or 3. 24 per cent rate him at 0. 19 per cent rate him in the corresponding 4 places at the top of the scale (7, 8, 9 and 10). 3 per cent rate him at 10.

56 per cent of respondents say their view of Blair has deteriorated over 10 years. 5 per cent like him more.

55 per cent believe that Blair is too influenced by the rich.

57 per cent say Blair "has stayed in office too long". 9 per cent think not long enough.

6 per cent think Blair's performance in office has been very good. 20 think good. That leaves 71 per cent. Of these 42 are evenly split between poor and very poor.

Its unsurprising that 58 per cent think Iraq was Blair's biggest failure. But how many times will we see reflected in political coverage the fact that the next on the list was his presiding over an increase in the gap between rich and poor? That polled 10 per cent, well above the fuel tax (3), foxhunting (3) and Europe (1). Plainly the public and the punditocracy have different political priorities (and the claim of the rightwing tabloids to "speak for Britain" might need a review).

Finally, lets look at the big myth on Blair's popularity - Blair the electoral wizard. Geoffrey Wheatcroft nailed this myth in an article last August. As he points out:

"...that first landslide [1997] needs to be deconstructed. There were several factors at play... The Tory vote collapsed by an astonishing 4 million (not least because rightwing Europhobic parties picked up nearly a million votes)."

"Then the British learned the art of tactical voting for the first time since the 1920s, as demonstrated by the fact that the Lib Dems won more than twice as many seats in 1997 as five years earlier with substantially fewer votes, both absolutely and as a percentage. And finally, as Herbert Morrison put it, "When the British people say something they say it in italics," meaning that our electoral system distorts the result in favour of the winning party, in 1997 giving Blair 63% of parliamentary seats with only 44% of the popular vote."

"Since then it has been downhill all the way. When the desperate last-ditch Blairites talk about Tony's electoral flair, remember that in 1997 Blair and New Labour won fewer popular votes than John Major and the Tories in 1992; that in 2001, Blair won fewer popular votes than Neil Kinnock and Labour in 1992; and that in 2005 Labour won fewer popular votes than the Tories had in the 97 disaster."

"Over three elections under Blair, his party's vote has fallen from 13.5 million to 10.7 million to 9.6 million. And that .....is what statisticians call a trend line."

So Between 1997 and 2005, Labour lost nearly 4 million popular votes; the same amount the Tories lost during the living death of the Major years. And this in the face of no meaningful parliamentary opposition. Yet Major was a disaster and Blair is a magician. And this is the view, not just in the Guardian offices but across the political spectrum, even in Tory central office.

Worth keeping a few of these figures in mind when you're watching TV news or reading the papers over the next few weeks and wondering if you've missed something where Blair's alleged popularity and political skills are concerned.

Venezuela: myth and reality

With a little more time on my hands, and with events in the Middle East in a less ominous state, I would certainly devote more space here to a subject I'm very interested in and haven't written nearly enough about: Latin America in general and Venezuela in particular.

Venezuela has been undergoing some very interesting changes over the past ten years, with a popular government using the nation's oil wealth to combat the grinding levels of poverty that affect most of the population[pdf]. Venezuela has also been a prominent critic of the United States, whose foreign and economic policies devastated Latin America during the twentieth century [pdf]. Indeed, Venezuela has particular reason for taking exception to a Bush Administration that backed a failed coup attempt against the Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in 2002.

Getting hold of useful information about Latin America and Venezuela is not straightforward. Mainstream news reporting passes through the standard ideological filters[pdf], with the corporate media unable to forgive Chavez for contradicting the Western script on good governance. This has resulted in some pretty unreliable coverage on the success of Venezuela's economic policies and the state of its democracy. Most bizarre amongst these criticisms are the increasingly desperate attempts to portray President Chavez as a quasi-dictator; though he has regularly contested and won elections that have been certified as free and fair by the most respected of international observers. These inconvenient facts have reduced Chavez's opponents to using dictator-substitute words such as "autocrat" and "strongman", even as the autocrat devolves democratic power to the local level, enlists public participation in writing a new democratic constitution, and removes power from the corrupt political-economic elite that, like their counterparts across Latin America, had ruled the country like a private plantation since the dawn of the Columbian era.

A good example of this sort of media coverage was a piece written by Rory Carroll for the Guardian in January this year. Carroll reported that Chavez had declared himself to be a Communist, which will have surprised many people since Chavez has never described himself in such terms before. The report contained no direct quote where Chavez said "I am a Communist" or words to that effect. I spoke to Carroll by email and, though he insisted that Chavez had indeed called himself a Communist, he wouldn't provide me with a direct quote despite my repeated requests.

Julia Buxton, a British academic expert on Venezuelan affairs, casts further doubt on Carroll's paraphrasing. Buxton told me that:

"Chavez has, as far as [I] know, absolutely never, ever said he was a communist. He has always been explicit in this - only ever a socialist and only ever a Venezuelan model of socialism. There can be Bolivarian socialism and Socialism of the C21st - but each socialism has to refect the historical and social experince of each country."

"Chavez has said he is a christian, a socialist, a democrat etc but always distant from communism - and what he calls the 'failed Marxist experiments of the C20th'" [her emphasis]

But as ever, one does not need to rely on the corporate media. More accurate information can be found on Venezeula if one knows where to look. Academic and former Guardian foreign correspondent Richard Gott is probably the UK's best known expert on the Chavez era. His book on the "Bolivarian Revolution" provides a solid introduction to the socio-economic conditions that gave rise to the current changes. Venezuelanalysis is a good one-stop shop for independent news and comment on Venezuelan affairs. And the Washington based Centre for Economic Policy Research produces detailed analysis of the Venezuelan economy on a fairly regular basis.

I would also highly recommend the work of the above-mentioned British academic Julia Buxton, who is particularly good at challenging mass media misreporting of the situation in Venezuela. Her most recent article "The deepening of Venezuela’s Bolivarian revolution: why most people don’t get it" sheds light on the most recent developments in Venezuela and debunks some of the official Western mythology on the subject.

Few occurences in politics are unambiguously good or bad, but recent events in Venezuela may be viewed with cautious optimisim. If Venezuela can demonstrate that it is possible to defy the dominance of international political-economic power, and chart its own independent path whilst retaining, even deepening its democracy and effectively attending to the needs of its most deprived citizens then it will stand as a source of enormous encouragement to countries across the developing world. Perhaps it is this prospect, the threat of a good example and a functioning challenge to Western power, that so offends Washington and its ideological allies.

Britain retreats from Iraq

I've frequently cited and recommended the US Middle East scholar, Juan Cole, and in his short, sharp summation of Britain's withdrawal of many of its troops from Iraq, announced today, he doesn't disappoint:

"This is a rout, there should be no mistake. The fractious Shiite militias and tribes of Iraq's South have made it impossible for the British to stay. They already left Sadr-controlled Maysan province, as well as sleepy Muthanna. They moved the British consulate to the airport because they couldn't protect it in Basra. They are taking mortar and rocket fire at their bases every night. Raiding militia HQs has not resulted in any permanent change in the situation. Basra is dominated by 4 paramilitaries, who are fighting turf wars with one another and with the Iraqi government over oil smuggling rights.

Blair is not leaving Basra because the British mission has been accomplished. He is leaving because he has concluded that it cannot be, and that if he tries any further it will completely sink the Labor Party, perhaps for decades to come."

I would only add a note of caution to that last point. This is being very successfully spun in the UK, with little suggestion in any of the coverage I've seen thus far that British forces are not withdrawing at their own leisure.

Here in the UK we probably hear as much about the situation regarding US forces as we do our own. I have to admit that I've some guilt on that score myself. The fact is that the occupation is an American operation. We're complicit, but we're not in the driving seat (a "pillion passenger" as the Royal Institute for International Affairs put it), so one tends to home in on the activities, conduct and fate of US forces.

As a result of this, a lot of people in Britain simply won't recognise the picture that Cole describes. We don't see reports like this from the Washington Post on the front pages of our newspapers (nor perhaps even in our blogs) though we undoubtedly should. Here's what Cole's talking about:

"BAGHDAD, Aug. 24 -- British troops abandoned a major base in southern Iraq on Thursday ...... a move that anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr called the first expulsion of U.S.-led coalition forces from an Iraqi urban center.

Maj. Charlie Burbridge, a British military spokesman, said the last of 1,200 troops left Camp Abu Naji, just outside Amarah, at noon Thursday, after several days of heavy mortar and rocket fire by a local militia, which local residents identified as the Sadr-controlled Mahdi Army.

The withdrawal sparked wide-scale looting at the base and then intense clashes late Thursday between Iraqi army forces guarding the camp and unknown attackers, a military intelligence official said. The volatile situation worsened when the 2nd Battalion of the Iraqi army's 4th Brigade mutinied and attacked a local military outpost, said the official, who spoke on condition that his name not be used.

Burbridge acknowledged that constant shelling of the base in Amarah by militia forces, including 17 mortar rounds fired in recent days that wounded three people, were part of the reason the camp closed.

"By no longer presenting a static target, we reduce the ability of the militias to strike us," he said. But he rejected Sadr's claim that the British had been defeated and pushed out of Amarah. "It's very difficult to claim a victory without causing significant casualties."

The mood was quite different in Amarah, where jubilant residents flocked to Sadr's office to offer their congratulations. Drivers in the street honked their car horns in celebration. Some prepared to take to the streets to rejoice.

"Today is a holiday in our province," said Abu Mustaffa, an unemployed 45-year-old from the city's al-Hussein district. "Thanks be to God!"

Abu Mustaffa said anger toward the British reached fever pitch in recent days after soldiers entered a mosque and arrested several local men. The provincial government is controlled by Sadr's movement, he said."

As I've pointed out many times, the majority of Iraqis want our armed forces to leave their country. For example, a poll conducted by the British Ministry of Defence in 2005, showed a majority - 67 per cent - believing that the occupation has made the security situation worse (less than one per cent believed it had improved matters) and 82 per cent "strongly opposed" to the presence of coalition troops. I rather doubt that those numbers have improved in the last 18 months.

Two things should be noted here before proceeding further: firstly - in terms of what will and will not help security - that Iraqis are rather better placed to judge the situation they are living through themselves than we are from our vantage point several thousand miles away; and secondly, that whatever we think is irrelevant in any case, since its what Iraqis want for Iraq that counts.

Given the dissonance between our proclaimed mission to bring the gift of democracy to Iraq and our explicit rejection of the population's clear wish for us to leave their country, it should come as no surprise that the same MoD poll found that 65 per cent of Iraqi citizens in Maysan province - one of the four provinces under British control at that time - believed that attacks against coalition forces were justified. Hence the expulsion from the base in Amarah, and the jubilant scenes thereafter. Only last Sunday, UK forces clashed with Iraqi militiamen armed with machine guns and RPGs in Basra. And last month, Royal Air Force Tornado jets provided cover for the US Air Force in what is increasingly looking like a massacre of Iraqi tribesmen in Najaf.

What's been announced today has little to do with spreading democracy or improving the general welfare of the people of Iraq (much less the "war on terror" or the long-forgotten weapons of mass destruction). The British government it seems has done what the US Republican senator George Aiken urged Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon to do during the Vietnam war (only to be ignored): declare victory and leave.

One final thought. If the US attacks Iran, as many senior figures in the US establishment fear, Iran responds asymmetrically via regional proxies and allies, as is widely expected, and southern Iraq goes up in flames, what will then happen to Blair's victorious exit? UK forces aren't leaving tomorrow. They will remain there at least til the end of George Bush's term in office.

Update: 22/2/07

Yesterday I said: "This is being very successfully spun in the UK, with little suggestion in any of the coverage I've seen thus far that British forces are not withdrawing at their own leisure."

In fairness, I reckoned without the excellent Patrick Cockburn of the Independent, whose front page story is entitled..

"The retreat from Basra

It is an admission of defeat. Iraq is turning into one of the world's bloodiest battlefields in which nobody is safe. Blind to this reality, Tony Blair said yesterday that Britain could safely cut its forces in Iraq because the apparatus of the Iraqi government is growing stronger.

In fact the civil war is getting worse by the day. Food is short in parts of the country. A quarter of the population would starve without government rations. Many Iraqis are ill because their only drinking water comes from the highly polluted Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

Nowhere in Mr Blair's statement was any admission of regret for reducing Iraq to a wasteland from which 2 million people have fled and 1.5 million are displaced internally.

Nadia al-Mashadani, a Sunni woman with four children, was forced from her house in the Hurriya district of Baghdad under threat of death by Shia militiamen on 25 December. She was not allowed to take any possessions and is living with her family in a small room in a school in a Sunni neighbourhood. She told The Independent: "They promised us freedom and now we find ourselves like slaves: no rights, no homes, no freedom, no democracy, and not enough strength to say a word." Like many Sunni she believed the US had deliberately fomented sectarian hatred in Iraq to keep control of the country."

The LA Times also has some good coverage:

"The British military is approaching "operational failure," former defense staff chief Charles Guthrie warned this week.

"Because the British army is in essence fighting a far more intensive counterinsurgency war in Afghanistan, there's been a realization that there has to be some sort of transfer of resources from Iraq to Afghanistan," said Clive Jones, a senior lecturer in Middle East politics at the University of Leeds, who has closely followed Britain's Iraq deployment."It's either that, or you risk in some ways losing both," he said. "It's the classic case of 'Let's declare victory and get out.' "

Vice President Dick Cheney called the reduction "an affirmation of the fact that there are parts of Iraq where things are going pretty well," ...

But the Pentagon, in its most recent quarterly report to Congress, listed Basra as one of five cities outside Baghdad where violence remained "significant," and said the region was one of only two "not ready for transition" to Iraqi authorities

British bases in Basra regularly come under mortar fire. British troops engage in almost daily gunfights with militiamen. In recent months, the British all but evacuated their downtown base and moved to a more secure site on the grounds of the city's airport."

Its also worth noting that even this small reduction in forces has given ammunition to Bush's critics and put the White House on the back foot. It hints at the impact a full repudiation of our role in the war could have in Washington and thereby implies the political strength the White House gained from British support, begging the question: what if we hadn't joined the invasion in 2003? Probably the war would have gone ahead. But would Bush have won that narrow re-election the next year, isolated on the world stage and with the insurgency on the rise?

The New York Times reports that Bush administration officials were forced onto the defensive by yesterday's announcement:

"On Wednesday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice denied suggestions that the British withdrawal plans meant the coalition forged to topple Saddam Hussein had crumbled

Democratic leaders in Congress saw it differently.

"By announcing its decision to redeploy troops from Iraq, the British government has acknowledged a reality that President Bush still stubbornly refuses to accept,” said Senator Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, the majority leader. “There can be no purely military solution in Iraq.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, said, “the announcement by the British government confirms the doubts in the minds of the American people about the president’s decision to increase the number of U.S. soldiers in Iraq.”"

See also:

Juan Cole: "The British retreat from Iraq brings peril for U.S. troops", at Salon.