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May 3, 2008
Some Nuance for Barack Obama
By Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
Going through the vast literature that is being daily produced with focus on the ongoing Democratic campaign, one gets the idea that rich conceptual thinking, innovative approaches, and nuance are all there. Yet, the field where nuance seems to be permanently absent in America is the US foreign policy.
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Some Nuance for Barack Obama
click here
Going through the vast literature that is being daily produced with focus on the ongoing Democratic campaign, one gets the idea that rich conceptual thinking, innovative approaches, and nuance are all there.
Yet, the field where nuance seems to be permanently absent in America is the US foreign policy. This does not concern the present campaign only, but the situation has certainly been exacerbated over the past weeks. From the comical comments of Senator Mac Cain about the US staying in Iraq another 100 years (http://thinkprogress.org/2008/01/04/mccain-100-years/) to the hysterical reaction of Senator Clinton as regards to US 'policy' toward Iran' Ayatollahs (click here one gets the impression that the US foreign policy risks being entrusted in irrelevant hands precisely at a moment when the unipolar world of one and sole superpower seems about to end.
With the American economy in the middle of a serious crisis that can be tremendously deteriorated, with a great number of social issues unresolved, with a wide range of very preoccupying global problems (energy, food crisis, bio-fuel, environment), America's foreign policy needs reconsideration, reassessment and re-evaluation from scratch.
The need for an immediate shift in the US foreign policy consists in the most urgent demand for America as it hinges on all other issues, energy, environment, commodities prices, economy, to name but a few.
In a rising multi-polar world where China, India, Russia, the Islamic World, Africa, Brazil, Mexico and Japan vindicate their position next to the US and the EU, America needs to think out-of-the-box, and devise a global strategy that will promote the US interests genuinely conceived.
To briefly comment on the aforementioned oversights, we would focus on US-Iraq issues, and ask the following:
- What is the benefit of the US staying 100 years in Iraq, if the Christian Aramaeans who are the ethnic majority of Mesopotamia (Iraq is a false term that severely damages the US interests) are thus eradicated from their fatherland?
- To whose profit is this sort of extended American presence in Iraq going to be?
- Are Americans able to understand that the US-led invasion of Iraq turned to the unique advantage of the Islamic terrorists?
- Is Senator Mac Cain mentally capable of envisioning an 100-year long American presence in Iraq that would not be to the profit of the terrorists? If yes, why doesn't he publish an overview of this policy so that people be able to appreciate the pillars on which it may be based and be convinced about it? If not, for whom is he working in order to practically extend US damage (present policy has been clearly assessed as such thus far) due to the invasion of Iraq for another 100 years?
One can therefore understand that what matters in Iraq is not whether the US military stay there 3 months, 3 years or 3 centuries but whether US presence in Iraq can let Justice prevail, help repair damages caused to several ethno-religious groups over the years of colonialism and post-colonialism, and promote a culturally – educationally genuine, democratic nation building that has long been deliberately averted.
As we have entered, since 2001, in the period of the so-called War against the Islamic Terrorism (irrespective of the veracity or not of the events of September 11), America should consider whether the infantile US foreign policy has so far committed, in this new era, precisely the same errors that have been perpetrated in the period of the foremost waste of US national resources, namely the Cold War.
Absence of Nuance
To be more precise, we will circumspectly present two models of consideration. Evaluating America's performance during, and contribution to, the Cold War (1950 – 1990), one could conclude that the US, by forging an alliance with Western European democracies, managed to contain and in time to cause the downfall of the Soviet regime.
This is the conventional thinking that does not take into consideration the resources and the time wasted, the loss in other fronts (Europe, Africa, China, Latin America), as well as the impact on the image and the perspectives of America. Even worse, this conventional way of thinking does not take into account the fact that the so-called collapse of the Soviet Union consists in an absolutely false myth; in real terms, it was a 10-year moratorium that ended up with the replacement of the former Soviet Union by Russia.
As conventional thinking is based on a quantitative approach, defenders of this interpretation would say that Russia is now much weaker (comparatively speaking) than Soviet Union in the mid-70s. This is absolutely wrong because America is similarly weaker now, as Europe, China, and to lesser extent India and Brazil have risen to significance.
This ominous way of conventional thinking is what publicly unseen but real and omnipotent centers of power promote in order to besot the vast masses of the Americans, divert them from global issues, and then effectively run them without them even understanding it.
According to an unconventional approach and interpretation, after WW II, all the administrations failed to understand that 'superpower' (anytime anywhere) means above all ability to deal with nuance.
Of course, the Russians are quite the same. And perhaps, this is the reason for which the Cold War lasted that long. If France or England had been in the position of (as powerful as) America in 1945, the Soviet Empire would have collapsed in the early 60s.
America cannot be an ally for Colonial England and France
As a matter of fact, the lack of nuance made America (under either Democrats or Republicans) perceive itself as an ally of colonial empires that following their collapse managed to turn the colonial rule to postcolonial rule (which is just another form of colonial rule) under America's nose - and the US started understanding this reality only in the 90s.
For Eisenhower or Kennedy, Johnson or Nixon, Carter or Reagan, the Search for Freedom could not have a positive exit if undertaken in alliance with the most vicious enemies of Freedom, France and England. The two colonial countries are not only guilty for Serial Crimes against the Mankind because of their deeds in Africa, Oceania, and Asia but also responsible for terrorism, oppression and cultural genocide practiced in Ireland, Scotland, Brittany, Occitania, Corsica, Bask Land, Catalonia and French Polynesia.
The oppression in Corsica was not different from the oppression in Estonia. If Ukraine is now an independent country, so Scotland and Catalonia must. Today, in 2008, France cannot possibly dare demand of China to respect the rights of the Tibetans because France has long implemented far crueler practices of oppression in Brittany under the infamous emblem "In the streets it is prohibited to spit and to speak Breton".
It would be a terrible political mistake to identify 'anti-colonial' with "Democrat", 'left' or even 'leftist'. Anti-colonialism is Americanism, the essence of the Declaration of Independence. It has to be undertaken / promoted / implemented by either Democrats or Republicans.
Lessons to take from the Cold War
Conventional thinking and traditional approach to foreign policy are responsible for the following oxymoron - all due to the lack of nuance:
Anti-colonial (by nature) America was the ally of the colonial powers England and France (1950 - 1990), while they promoted postcolonial structures in Africa and Asia, involving state run economies, totalitarian regimes, and at the same time a great dose of Anti-Americanism.
Was it not a form of American suicide?
In fact, the Cold War was in itself a terrible anti-American trickery of England and France. It helped the colonial powers ensure the implementation of the following projects for some decades:
1. America would waste an incredible amount of resources in the Cold War.
2. England and France would recover financially.
3. They would maintain the colonial control in most of their former colonies.
4. Soviet Union would also waste an incredible amount of resources.
5. Every liberation movement would be triggered by the Soviet Union, thus
contributing to a good public image of that monstrous realm for decades. It would however be without real effect as the Soviet system was never viable.
6. Americans would try to prevent 'Soviet expansion', thus triggering anti- Americanism, and identifying themselves as the 'bad' guys!
It is all being currently reproduced in the equally fake War against Islamic Terrorism. By this I don't imply that there are no Islamic extremists! On the contrary! Simply, the setup is fake. All the US has done against Islamic extremism thus far is just a mere unilateral damage of the US image, influence and potential allover the world. America rather contributed to severe worsening of the case.
It is high time for Obama to envision an American policy able to redress the current ordeal. The only way would be rethinking from scratch without endorsing anything in the world that contradicts America's basic principles and values as defended by the Founding Fathers. Political realism is a monodrama for which the US has an expiry date.