Recently, I was accused by
a writer for the ultra-right Washington Times of
being a "defeatist" when it comes to America's
expansionist military policy abroad. The giveaway,
it seems, is that I penned a book for the American
Empire Project - a series of critical volumes
published by Metropolitan Books. Contributors to
the series, the article claimed, want "a retreat
from Iraq to be the prelude to a larger collapse
of American pre-eminence worldwide". My
initial response on reading this was to insist -
like so many anxious liberals - that no, I am not
opposed to US pre-eminence in the world, only to
continued US involvement in Iraq. But then,
considering the charge some more, I thought, well,
yes, I am in favor of abandoning the US imperial
role worldwide. The United States, I'm convinced,
would be a whole lot better off - and its military
personnel a whole lot safer - if we repudiated the
global-
dominance project of the Bush
administration and its neo-conservative boosters.
Supposedly, the US military has expanded
its presence and combat role around the world to
foster democracy and prevail in President George W
Bush's "war on terror"; and, without a doubt, many
brave Americans have risked their lives - and some
have died - in the pursuit of these noble
objectives.
But this is not, I believe,
what has motivated Bush, Vice President Dick
Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in
their pursuit of global supremacy. Rather, they
appear driven by a messianic determination to
impose US dominance on large swaths of the planet
and to employ this hegemonic presence to gain
control over global energy supplies. In attempting
to do so, they are bankrupting the nation and
exposing US citizens to a higher, not lower, risk
of terrorist attack.
Take a look at US
policy in the greater Persian Gulf/Caspian Sea
region - the main site of US military activism and
home to seven-tenths of the world's remaining
petroleum reserves. Bush and Cheney have spoken
eloquently of their determination to promote
democracy in this troubled region, but what they
have largely done, in practice, is to continue to
prop up the kings, sheikhs and dictators who rule
the local petro-states.
Remember Bush's
touching moment of hand-holding with Saudi Prince
Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al-Saud a year ago at the
president's ranch in Texas? Abdullah (now king)
may be a tad more moderate than his pro-jihadist
brothers and cousins, but he is no advocate of
democracy. More recently, Bush gave Ilham Aliyev,
the dictator of pipeline-cluttered Azerbaijan, a
gala White House reception while, at about the
same time, Cheney lauded the democratic
aspirations of Nursultan Nazarbayev, the dictator
of Kazakhstan, during a visit to that energy-rich
country. These moves are consistent with a
neo-imperial strategy not even faintly aimed at
"democracy", but rather at the procurement of
energy sources - or the control over the
distribution of oil and natural gas to other
energy-hungry nations.
What about the US
invasion of Iraq? This was not about oil, we were
assured at the time. The US invaded to do away
with weapons of mass destruction (WMD) said to be
controlled by Saddam Hussein, or because of his
alleged ties to al-Qaeda, or to spread democracy
in Iraq and the surrounding region - in other
words, for anything you can name, except oil. But
there were no WMD stockpiles in Iraq, no ties to
al-Qaeda, and few signs of an incipient democracy.
Why, then, is the US squandering so many
lives and so much treasure in a desperate effort
to hold on in Iraq? Only one answer makes any
sense from a Washington policymaker's point of
view: to remain the dominant military power in the
Persian Gulf region and thereby control the global
flow of oil. This is the only interpretation that
fits with the Pentagon's admission that it plans
to retain at least some bases in Iraq
indefinitely, no matter what sort of future
government emerges in Baghdad (or whether such a
government approves of a US presence).
The
striking expansion of the US military presence in
Central Asia, Southwest Asia and Africa in recent
months reveals a similar geopolitical impulse. All
of these areas are becoming increasingly important
to the United States as sources of oil and natural
gas, and in none of them can it be said the US is
setting up bases to serve as beacons for the
further advance of freedom and democracy, not
given the nature of most of the governments the US
supports in those places. Because many of
America's leading energy suppliers in these
regions are subject to internal unrest and ethnic
conflict - a reaction, in most cases, to despotic
regimes that remain in power with Washington's
blessing - the United States is becoming ever more
deeply involved in their defense, whether through
the delivery of arms and military aid (as in
Angola, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Nigeria) or via
a direct US military presence (as in Iraq, Qatar,
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates).
This is not likely to be a passing
phenomenon. The United States is becoming ever
more dependent on imported energy - most of which
will have to come from what the neo-conservatives
of the Bush administration term the "arc of
instability" - and US military strategy is being
reshaped accordingly. Currently, the US obtains
nearly 60% of its petroleum from foreign sources;
before long, it will be 70% or more. To ensure
that these imported supplies safely reach US
shores, the Department of Defense is devoting an
ever-increasing share of its troops and resources
to the defense of foreign pipelines, refineries,
loading platforms and tanker routes. In essence,
the US military is being converted into a global
oil-protection service - at great risk to the
lives of American servicemen and women.
In
response to all this, I say: repudiate empire,
overcome our oil addiction and bring the troops
back home. This will save lives, save money and
restore America's democratic credentials. Even
more significant, it will help us prevail in any
long-term struggle with small, stateless groups
that employ terror as their weapon of choice.
Let's be very clear: the pursuit of empire
and success in what Bush calls "the global war on
terrorism" are mutually incompatible. The more the
US seeks to dominate the Middle East, Central Asia
and Africa, the more it will provoke anti-American
fury and the very violent extremism with which the
US claims to be at war.
Recent polling
data suggest that hostility toward the United
States is on the rise in all of these areas and
that America's hegemonic policies and hypocritical
stance on the spread of democracy are largely
responsible for this. Only by repudiating the
unilateralist military doctrine of the Bush
administration and withdrawing most of the US
forces from these areas can we hope to achieve a
reduction in militant anti-Americanism. By
rejecting unilateralism, moreover, we can secure
the assistance of local officials whose help is
desperately needed to identify and root out hidden
terror cells.
Indeed, success in the
global struggle against terrorist movements can
only be achieved by a multilateral effort
entailing the vigorous application of police-type
investigative methods and a moral campaign
designed to invalidate the legitimacy of
indiscriminate violence against innocent people.
The unilateralist, shoot-first-ask-questions-later
approach of the Bush administration has
demonstrably undermined such efforts. The upshot
is bound to be but more terrorism and a greater
risk to American lives. Only by cooperating with
other countries on an equitable basis can the US
diminish this risk.
A retreat from empire
would also force Americans to use oil more
sparingly, and this, in turn, would enable us to
address another critical threat to US security:
the danger of catastrophic environmental damage
caused by global climate change.
As
Hurricane Katrina demonstrated, America's shores
are highly vulnerable to powerful storms; and
higher ocean temperatures, caused by global
warming, are producing increasingly violent ones.
Global warming is also contributing to the extreme
drought and susceptibility to voracious forest
fires in many areas of the US west. By reducing
petroleum consumption and relying more on ethanol,
bio-diesel, wind power, solar and other
domestically produced, alternative sources of
energy - but especially by putting money into the
development of such alternatives rather than to
imperial expansion around the globe - the US can,
in the long run, reduce its exposure to violence
abroad and to environmental catastrophe at home.
So yes, I'm a "defeatist" when it comes to
imperial expansion. But I'm a hawk when it comes
to overcoming terrorism, saving American lives,
averting environmental collapse and promoting core
American values. This is the only truly patriotic
course that any of us can espouse.
Michael T Klare is professor of
peace and world security studies at Hampshire
College and the author, most recently, of
Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of
America's Growing Dependence on Imported Petroleum
(Owl Books) as well as Resource Wars, The
New Landscape of Global Conflict.
