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  • Smoke and mirrors

    SMOKE AND MIRRORS

    Boise Weekly, Indiana
    June 3 2004

    Many media outlets are currently lamenting an unravelling of
    administration policy and progress in Iraq. There seems to be a lack
    of coherence (or presence of confusion, if you prefer) among our
    expressed vital interests, our professed humanitarian imperatives
    and the strategies, costs and timing associated with achieving
    a "success" defined with reasonable clarity. This confusion is
    weakening the support of our populace and making potential allies
    (nation participants) reluctant to shoulder part of the load in
    putting Iraq back into autonomous and reasonably compliant operation.
    America's preemptive strike in March 2003 was ostensibly due to
    imminent threat of use of weapons of mass destruction by Saddam
    Hussein and retribution for Iraq's support of al Qaeda which implies
    some responsibility on the part of Iraq for the 9/11/01 World Trade
    Center tragedy. In the administration's world of smoke and mirrors,
    the Saudis somehow skated free of this opprobrium.


    To anticipate the sincerity, speed and quality of aid the States
    might receive from our recently disaffected allies it is instructive
    to understand how the Europeans view and remember our role in World
    War I. President Wilson led our nation into the war for the reason:
    "support of Christianity and, in particular, American missionary
    colleges and missionary activities." A corollary, long-term objective
    was that "the peoples of the region were (to be) ruled by governments
    of their choice." As the realities of the war took hold and as the
    complexities of defining a durable peace loomed on the horizon the
    reasons and objectives for the war morphed through at least five
    iterations in 1918.

    Designing the peace and the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire at the
    end of World War I was an enormously complex task. In a diplomatic note
    from President Wilson to the French ambassador on March 24, 1920, the
    United States ducked any responsibility to further participate with
    England and France in Middle Eastern affairs. Moreover, the United
    States reneged on a commitment to accept mandates from the League
    of Nations to assume responsibilities for Armenia, Constantinople
    and the sea lane between the Aegean and Black seas. Yet the note
    concluded with a requirement that the anticipated treaty should be
    consonant with American views and in particular Wilson's views on
    specific Middle Eastern matters. A last requirement was that treaty
    nonparticipants would not be discriminated against and that existing
    American rights in the area would be preserved.

    What were these existing rights? As defined in 1919 and 1920 by
    the Department of State, beyond the rights in the capitulation
    agreements, the United States insisted on freedom of navigation of the
    aforementioned sea lane; and protection of missionary, archaeological
    and commercial activities. Salient among these commercial interests
    were those of the American oil companies. Standard Oil of New York had
    exclusive, pre-war licenses from the Ottoman government to prospect
    in Palestine and Syria, but not Iraq.

    In 1919 Standard Oil of New Jersey jumped on the bandwagon and
    lobbied with the American delegation to the ongoing Peace Conference
    for similar preferences in Iraq. Unfortunately this was followed by
    a secret oil bargain between only France and Britain to monopolize
    the Middle East's oil output to the exclusion of U.S. interests.
    This agreement was leaked to the American embassy and the reaction
    was severe. Not only did this deal discommode the two oil companies,
    it was viewed as an affront to the United State's interests. The
    Department of State was advised: "It is economically essential … to
    obtain assured foreign supplies of petroleum."

    This March 24, 1920, fundamental shift in American foreign policy
    was made even more strident under the administration of President
    Harding. The professed advocacy and protection for Christian activities
    in the Middle East dissolved into nothing when the administration
    declined to intervene in September 1922 in the self-described
    "sacrifice and martyrdom" of the Christians in Smyrna, the greatest
    city in Asia Minor, by the Turkish army. In a delayed response to
    pleas for intervention in the Smyrna massacre, the Secretary of State
    in Boston, October 1922, opined that "the entire situation was the
    result of a war to which the United States had not been a party; if the
    Allies, who were closely connected to the situation, did not choose to
    intervene, it certainly was no responsibility of America's to do so."

    Finally in July 1928, with the Red Line agreement, U.S. participation
    in oil ventures in Iraq was assured.

    In essence, by March 1920, the United States stopped being a team
    player of the entente Allies, and in the following years extorted
    what they could from exhausted, depleted and disarrayed British and
    French governments, and backed away from any responsibility to help
    manage the peace in the Middle East.

    In early June 2004 it seems the shoe is now on the other foot. With
    this history in the Middle East it seems plausible that no nation will
    step forward today to shoulder part of the responsibility for managing
    the peace in Iraq and the surrounding area. The impertinence of the
    United States in almost single-handedly deposing Saddam Hussein without
    substantial international support and snubbing long-term allies as
    feckless traitors and cowards in the process, sets the stage for a
    torturous time in Iraq for the United States.

    This legacy could be as intractable as the Jew/Israel/Arab/Palestine
    debacle has been over the last 100 years. Moreover, the most obvious
    scam of the last century has been the attempted gulling of the U.S.
    citizenry and erstwhile allies that the United States's war motivation
    has humanitarian and self-preservation bases as opposed to a control
    of petroleum basis.

    President Wilson's participation in the 1919 Peace Conference with
    Lloyd George and Georges Clemenceau was characterized by Arthur
    Balfour as: "These three all-powerful, all-ignorant men, sitting
    there and carving up continents, with only a child to lead them."
    One could conjure up a similar observation regarding President
    Bush's inner circle stampeding our nation and by reckless haste,
    leaving international cooperation and institutions in disarray,
    to go half-cocked into an Iraq adventure—before it "gets too hot
    over there." This hubris will haunt our nation for decades to come
    and stiffen resistance by Muslims everywhere to the initiatives and
    prerogatives of the United States. "Shock and awe" and "Bring 'em on"
    cockiness is not mature foreign policy. This is the most visible and
    memorable occurrence of the government of a first-rate, industrialized
    nation having a tantrum.

    Gene E. Bray,
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