President Bush's Real Goal

Bookman is the deputy editorial page editor of The Atlanta Journal- Constitution

By JAY
BOOKMAN

29 September  2002.

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The official
story on Iraq has never made sense. The connection that the Bush
administration has tried to draw between Iraq and al-Qaida has always
seemed contrived and artificial. In fact, it was hard to believe that
smart people in the Bush administration would start a major war based on
such flimsy evidence.

The pieces just didn't fit. Something else had to be going on;
something was missing.

In recent days, those missing pieces have finally begun to fall into
place. As it turns out, this is not really about Iraq. It is not about
weapons of mass destruction, or terrorism, or Saddam, or U.N.
resolutions.

 This war, should it come, is intended to mark the official
emergence of the United States as a full-fledged global empire, seizing
sole responsibility and authority as planetary policeman. It would be
the culmination of a plan 10 years or more in the making, carried out by
those who believe the United States must seize the opportunity for
global domination, even if it means becoming the "American
imperialists" that our enemies always claimed we were.

Once that is understood, other mysteries solve themselves. For
example, why does the administration seem unconcerned about an exit
strategy from Iraq once Saddam is toppled?

Because we won't be leaving. Having conquered Iraq, the United States
will create permanent military bases in that country from which to
dominate the Middle East, including neighboring Iran.

In an interview Friday, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld brushed
aside that suggestion, noting that the United States does not covet
other nations' territory. That may be true, but 57 years after World War
II ended, we still have major bases in Germany and Japan. We will do the
same in Iraq.

And why has the administration dismissed the option of containing and
deterring Iraq, as we had the Soviet Union for 45 years? Because even if
it worked, containment and deterrence would not allow the expansion of
American power. Besides, they are beneath us as an empire. Rome did not
stoop to containment; it conquered. And so should we.

Among the architects of this would-be American Empire are a group of
brilliant and powerful people who now hold key positions in the Bush
administration: They envision the creation and enforcement of what they
call a worldwide "Pax
Americana," or American peace. But so far, the American people
have not appreciated the true extent of that ambition.

Part of it's laid out in the National
Security Strategy, a document in which each administration outlines
its approach to defending the country. The Bush administration plan,
released Sept. 20, marks a significant departure from previous
approaches, a change that it attributes largely to the attacks of Sept.
11.

To address the terrorism threat, the president's report lays out a
newly aggressive military and foreign policy, embracing pre-emptive
attack against perceived enemies. It speaks in blunt terms of what it
calls "American
internationalism," of ignoring international opinion if that
suits U.S. interests. "The best
defense is a good offense," the document asserts.

It dismisses deterrence as a Cold War relic and instead talks of
"convincing or
compelling states to accept their sovereign responsibilities."

In essence, it lays out a plan for permanent U.S. military and
economic domination of every region on the globe, unfettered by
international treaty or concern. And to make that plan a reality, it
envisions a stark expansion of our global military presence.

"The United States will require
bases and stations within and beyond Western Europe and Northeast Asia,"
the document warns, "as well as temporary access arrangements for
the long-distance deployment of U.S. troops."

The report's repeated references to terrorism are misleading,
however, because the approach of the new National Security Strategy was
clearly not inspired by the events of Sept. 11. They can be found in
much the same language in a report issued in September 2000 by the Project
for the New American Century, a group of conservative
interventionists outraged by the thought that the United States might be
forfeiting its chance at a global empire.

"At no time in history has the international security order been
as conducive to American interests and ideals," the report said.
stated two years ago. "The challenge of this coming century is to
preserve and enhance this 'American peace.' "

Familiar themes

Overall, that 2000 report reads like a blueprint for current Bush
defense policy. Most of what it advocates, the Bush administration has
tried to accomplish. For example, the project report urged the
repudiation of the anti-ballistic missile treaty and a commitment to a
global missile defense system. The administration has taken that course.

It recommended that to project sufficient power worldwide to enforce
Pax Americana, the United States would have to increase defense spending
from 3 percent of gross domestic product to as much as 3.8 percent. For
next year, the Bush administration has requested a defense budget of
$379 billion, almost exactly 3.8 percent of GDP.

It advocates the "transformation" of the U.S. military to
meet its expanded obligations, including the cancellation of such
outmoded defense programs as the Crusader artillery system. That's
exactly the message being preached by Rumsfeld and others.

It urges the development of small nuclear warheads "required in
targeting the very deep, underground hardened bunkers that are being
built by many of our potential adversaries." This year the GOP-led
U.S. House gave the Pentagon the green light to develop such a weapon,
called the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator, while the Senate has so far
balked.

That close tracking of recommendation with current policy is hardly
surprising, given the current positions of the people who contributed to
the 2000 report.

Paul Wolfowitz is now deputy defense secretary. John Bolton is
undersecretary of state. Stephen Cambone is head of the Pentagon's
Office of Program, Analysis and Evaluation. Eliot Cohen and Devon Cross
are members of the Defense Policy Board, which advises Rumsfeld. I.
Lewis Libby is chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. Dov Zakheim
is comptroller for the Defense Department.

'Constabulary duties'

Because they were still just private citizens in 2000, the authors of
the project report
could be more frank and less diplomatic than they were in drafting the
National Security Strategy. Back in 2000, they clearly identified Iran,
Iraq and North Korea as primary short-term targets, well before
President Bush tagged them as the Axis of Evil. In their report, they
criticize the fact that in war planning against North Korea and Iraq,
"past Pentagon wargames have given little or no consideration to
the force requirements necessary not only to defeat an attack but to
remove these regimes from power."

To preserve the Pax Americana, the report says U.S. forces will be
required to perform "constabulary duties" -- the United States
acting as policeman of the world -- and says that such actions
"demand American political leadership rather than that of the
United Nations."

To
meet those responsibilities, and to ensure that no country dares to
challenge the United States,the report advocates a much larger military
presence spread over more of the globe, in addition to the roughly 130
nations in which U.S. troops are already deployed.

More specifically, they argue that we need permanent military bases
in the Middle East, in Southeast Europe, in Latin America and in
Southeast Asia, where no such bases now exist. That helps to explain
another of the mysteries of our post-Sept. 11 reaction, in which the
Bush administration rushed to install U.S. troops in Georgia and the
Philippines, as well as our eagerness to send military advisers to
assist in the civil war in Colombia.

The 2000 report directly acknowledges its debt to a still earlier
document, drafted in 1992 by the Defense Department. That document had
also envisioned the United States as a colossus astride the world,
imposing its will and keeping world peace through military and economic
power. When leaked in final draft form, however, the proposal drew so
much criticism that it was hastily withdrawn and repudiated by the first
President Bush.

Effect on allies

The defense secretary in 1992 was Richard Cheney; the document was
drafted by Wolfowitz, who at the time was defense undersecretary for
policy.

The potential implications of a Pax Americana are immense.

One is the effect on our allies. Once we assert the unilateral right
to act as the world's policeman, our allies will quickly recede into the
background. Eventually, we will be forced to spend American wealth and
American blood protecting the peace while other nations redirect their
wealth to such things as health care for their citizenry.

Donald Kagan, a professor of classical Greek history at Yale and an
influential advocate of a more aggressive foreign policy -- he served as
co-chairman of the 2000 New Century project -- acknowledges that
likelihood.

"If [our allies] want a free ride, and they probably will, we
can't stop that," he says. But he also argues that the United
States, given its unique position, has no choice but to act anyway.

"You saw the movie 'High Noon'? he asks. "We're Gary
Cooper."

Accepting the Cooper role would be an historic change in who we are
as a nation, and in how we operate in the international arena. Candidate
Bush certainly did not campaign on such a change. It is not something
that he or others have dared to discuss honestly with the American
people. To the contrary, in his foreign policy debate with Al Gore, Bush
pointedly advocated a more humble foreign policy, a position calculated
to appeal to voters leery of military intervention.

For the same reason, Kagan and others shy away from terms such as
empire, understanding its connotations. But they also argue that it
would be naive and dangerous to reject the role that history has thrust
upon us. Kagan, for example, willingly embraces the idea that the United
States would establish permanent military bases in a post-war Iraq.

"I think that's highly possible," he says. "We will
probably need a major concentration of forces in the Middle East over a
long period of time. That will come at a price, but think of the price
of not having it. When we have economic problems, it's been caused by
disruptions in our oil supply. If we have a force in Iraq, there will be
no disruption in oil supplies."

Costly global commitment

Rumsfeld and Kagan believe that a successful war against Iraq will
produce other benefits, such as serving an object lesson for nations
such as Iran and Syria. Rumsfeld, as befits his sensitive position, puts
it rather gently. If a regime change were to take place in Iraq, other
nations pursuing weapons of mass destruction "would get the message
that having them . . . is attracting attention that is not favorable and
is not helpful," he says.

Kagan is more blunt.

"People worry a lot about how the Arab street is going to
react," he notes. "Well, I see that the Arab street has gotten
very, very quiet since we started blowing things up."

The cost of such a global commitment would be enormous. In 2000, we
spent $281 billion on our military, which was more than the next 11
nations combined. By 2003, our expenditures will have risen to $378
billion. In other words, the increase in our defense budget from
1999-2003 will be more than the total amount spent annually by China,
our next largest competitor.

The lure of empire is ancient and powerful, and over the millennia it
has driven men to commit terrible crimes on its behalf. But with the end
of the Cold War and the disappearance of the Soviet Union, a global
empire was essentially laid at the feet of the United States. To the
chagrin of some, we did not seize it at the time, in large part because
the American people have never been comfortable with themselves as a New
Rome.

Now, more than a decade later, the events of Sept. 11 have given
those advocates of empire a new opportunity to press their case with a
new president. So in debating whether to invade Iraq, we are really
debating the role that the United States will play in the years and
decades to come.

Are peace and security best achieved by seeking strong alliances and
international consensus, led by the United States? Or is it necessary to
take a more unilateral approach, accepting and enhancing the global
dominance that, according to some, history has thrust upon us?

If we do decide to seize empire, we should make that decision
knowingly, as a democracy. The price of maintaining an empire is always
high. Kagan and others argue that the price of rejecting it would be
higher still.

That's what this is about.

"Rebuilding
America's Defenses," a 2000 report by the Project for the New
American Century, listed 27 people as having attended meetings or
contributed papers in preparation of the report. Among them are six who
have since assumed key defense and foreign policy positions in the Bush
administration. And the report seems to have become a blueprint for
Bush's foreign and defense policy.

Paul Wolfowitz

Political science doctorate from University of Chicago and dean of the
international relations program at Johns Hopkins University during the
1990s. Served in the Reagan State Department, moved to the Pentagon
during the first Bush administration as undersecretary of defense for
policy. Sworn in as deputy defense secretary in March 2001.

John Bolton

Yale Law grad who worked in the Reagan administration as an assistant
attorney general. Switched to the State Department in the first Bush
administration as assistant secretary for international organization
affairs. Sworn in as undersecretary of state for arms control and
international security, May 2001.

Eliot Cohen

Harvard doctorate in government who taught at Harvard and at the Naval
War College. Now directs strategic studies at Johns Hopkins and is the
author of several books on military strategy. Was on the Defense
Department's policy planning staff in the first Bush administration and
is now on Donald Rumsfeld's Defense Policy Board.

I. Lewis Libby

Law degree from Columbia (Yale undergrad). Held advisory positions in
the Reagan State Department. Was a partner in a Washington law firm in
the late '80s before becoming deputy undersecretary of defense for
policy in the first Bush administration (under Dick Cheney). Now is the
vice president's chief of staff.

Dov Zakheim

Doctorate in economics and politics from Oxford University. Worked on
policy issues in the Reagan Defense Department and went into private
defense consulting during the 1990s. Was foreign policy adviser to the
2000 Bush campaign. Sworn in as undersecretary of defense (comptroller)
and chief financial officer for the Pentagon, May 2001.

Stephen Cambone

Political science doctorate from Claremont Graduate School. Was in
charge of strategic defense policy at the Defense Department in the
first Bush administration. Now heads the Office of Program, Analysis and
Evaluation at the Defense Department.