President Obama has mocked his Republican challenger Mitt
Romney for having a foreign policy straight out of the 1980s (as well as
economic policy from the 1920s and social policy from the 1950s). The jibe was
prompted principally by the fact that Romney has described Russia as the
principal challenger to the US. It focuses attention, quite reasonably, on
Romney’s parochial ignorance of much in global affairs and his tendency to make
gaffes.
But it is also an instance of Obama positioning himself
as best-suited to offer leadership in the current period of US imperialism. The
aim is to convey that Romney is stuck in the past, while Obama grasps what is
needed to fight the ‘war on terror’. This narrow debate does not necessarily
reflect American public opinion, as polling has repeatedly established domestic
majorities believing the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were a mistake.
Continuity
not change
Obama’s approach to world affairs is still largely stuck
in the first decade of this century. There is far more continuity than change
from the George W Bush era. The era that opened in the immediate aftermath of
the 11 September 2001 terrorist atrocities – the War on Terror, more aptly
characterised as a War of Terror – continues
under different management.
Obama’s electoral victory in November 2008 was assisted
by widespread popular approval for his anti-war stance over Iraq, but
Obama-mania has long since dissipated – partly for domestic reasons, but also
fuelled by a series of disappointments in US operations abroad.
As Seumas Milne wrote this week, ‘Whatever the personal views of the politician at the top, the US
empire is a system, not a policy, underpinned by corporate and military
interests.’ Washington is at the political centre of what is, in effect, a
global empire. Barack Obama has made only minor modifications to the workings
of that imperial system.
The ideology remains broadly the same: America is a
champion of freedom and democracy, taking on ‘rogue states’ and ‘Islamist
terror networks’, to liberate oppressed peoples in faraway lands. In such a
climate, international law and respect for human rights are luxuries we can
dispense with, while torture, rendition and targeted killing can all, at least
obliquely, be justified.
Of course the real motivations – political and economic –
were different to the fanciful rhetoric back in 2001. They remain different
now. The US has sought to assert its superiority and strength in the Middle
East and western Asia, areas of the globe that remain strategically important.
The invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001 and the invasion of Iraq in March
2003 were decisive moments in a broader project.
The last decade or so of war has unfolded against a
backdrop of long-term relative economic decline for the US. There is, also, the
rise of potential economic and geopolitical threats, most importantly China.
Washington relies heavily on military dominance to compensate for the shifting
dynamics of the global economy. An iron fist enables it to punch harder.
The US massively outstrips other states on arms spending.
It continues to maintain a network of military bases that helps ensure global
military dominance, with a special focus on the Middle East.
Washington can also deploy the economic strength the US
does still maintain through imposition of sanctions on troublesome states. The
sanctions on Iran are currently having a brutal, destructive toll on ordinary
people, not those running the country who are supposedly their targets.
Sanctions, it should be remembered, can be a prelude to war not an alternative
to it. The threat to Iran is ever-present.
The development of targeted killing, or drone warfare, in
the last few years – primarily an Obama-era phenomenon – enables the US to
intervene in countries it hasn’t attacked, invaded or occupied. The aim is
‘control without occupation’, minimising the costs both financially and in
terms of US troop fatalities. There has in fact been a geographical expansion
of the war since Obama became president, with drone deployments in Pakistan,
Yemen and Somalia.
The
War on Terror
Since 2001, then, the US has asserted itself militarily
in the hope this will compensate for declining economic status. Armed force is
its greatest asset. US ‘foreign policy’ directly affects the populations of
many countries, not just those like Iraq and Afghanistan which have endured
direct occupation.
The post-2001 phase of US imperialism has had a number of
elements. In addition to wars and occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq, there
has been continued funding of Israel (as a loyal colonial-settler ally in the
region); reliance on viciously repressive regimes like Saudi Arabia, Bahrain
and (prior to the revolution) Mubarak’s Egypt; and threats or sanctions against
countries, most notably Iran.
During the Obama era we have not only seen a huge
increase in drone warfare, but also the use of direct military intervention
when feasible, as seen in Libya, and more covert means, like liaising with
elements of Syria’s popular movement, when that isn’t feasible.
Since 2001 we have also seen a shifting of the boundaries
in what kinds of state surveillance and coercion are deemed acceptable:
rendition, torture, erosion of civil liberties, the growth of surveillance.
Obama promised to close Guantanamo Bay. It hasn’t happened.
Islamophobia – associating Muslims as a whole with images
of terrorism, characterising Muslim communities as an ‘alien’ or ‘backward’
threat within Western societies – has accompanied all this. It remains a potent
ideological weapon.
An
impasse for US armed force
Almost every aspect of Bush-era global relations has
therefore been maintained. But none of this should suggest the US and its allies
have got it all their own way.
The withdrawal from Iraq reflected the disastrous impasse
that had been reached (as well as the impact of massive anti-war protests
globally). Afghanistan – unstable, violent and riddled with corruption – is no
more of a success story. There are political tensions in both Washington and
London over the timing of withdrawal, with growing calls for troops to be
brought home much sooner than planned.
The Arab revolutions have shaken US influence in the Arab
world, most importantly by bringing down the Mubarak regime – one of the three
most important US allies, alongside Israel and Saudi Arabia – and through the
spread of popular uprisings to traditionally stable Gulf states. Ideologically
the uprisings have shattered the myth that Arabs need external intervention –
in the form of Western bombs or tanks – in order to overthrow or challenge an
oppressive order.
The US, together with allies including the ever-faithful
UK, would undoubtedly like to bomb Syria, but have struggled to build a global
alliance. Russia and China oppose a UN resolution, having been unhappy with the
way their support for a resolution on Libya was used to sanction a sustained –
and devastating – bombing campaign that escalated the death toll in that country
to around 30,000 and ensured long-term political instability and social chaos.
The Western powers, and regional allies like Turkey and
Saudi Arabia, are instead attempting to buy off sections of the Syrian
movement, those who they can ‘do business with’, in an effort to shape a
post-Assad Syria that is favourable to Western interests. This fits into a
bigger context. Since March 2011 – when the bombardment of Libya began and
Saudi forces, with a nod from Washington, crushed Bahrain’s popular movement – the
US has sought to re-assert its influence through a combination of co-opting the
Arab revolutions (with mixed results) and continuing support for centres of
counter-revolutionary repression like Saudi.
The US and its allies are, therefore, in some ways weaker
than in 2001. Profound problems with overt military interventions have
encouraged a turn to more covert means, from the deployment of drones in
Pakistan, to arming some of the Syrian rebels, to imposing sanctions on Iran.
What happens in the future depends more on what we do
than whether Obama or Romney sits in the White House. We must broaden the
parameters of debate, sustaining and developing our critique of US imperial
belligerence, but also mobilising to end the occupation of Afghanistan and stop
further wars.
In response to both austerity and war, there is – on both
sides of the Atlantic - public appetite for a different set of values and
priorities. In this country, slogans like ‘fund education not war’ and ‘cut
Trident not public services’ were raised on the 20 October anti-cuts demonstration.
Millions of people across north Africa, the Middle East
and western Asia have also shown their capacity for mass protest. This has been
seen in the Arab uprisings, in Palestinian resistance (and solidarity movements
elsewhere), and in the popular rejection by Iraqis and Afghans of foreign
colonial occupation of their land. Combined with anti-war movements based
inside the imperialist countries, popular mobilisations in these parts of the
world can be a counterweight to imperialist intervention, whatever form it may
take.
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