LEBANON AND THE NEO-CON ENDGAME

by Sarkis Pogossian

There have been signs over the past three years, as the debacle in Iraq has gone from bad to worse, that the so-called “neo-cons”—the Pentagon-connected policy wonks with traditional ties to the Israeli right and ultra-ambitious schemes to remake the entire order of the Middle East—have been taken down a peg. With the US actually in danger of losing control of Iraq, the notion of attacking Iran, or even plotting against supposed allies like Saudi Arabia, is starting to look more dangerous than attractive to Washington pragmatists.

The turning point would seem to have been in March 2003, when US troops were still advancing on Baghdad. At this decisive moment, Pentagon official Richard Perle resigned as chairman of the Defense Policy Board, a high-level group that advises Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on policy issues. On March 27, the same day he resigned, Perle told BBC: “This will be the short war I and others predicted… I don’t believe it will be months. I believed all along that it will be a quick war, and I continue to believe that.”

Stepping down as chair, Perle would remain on the board until 2004. Also serving on the Defense Policy Board at this time were former CIA director James Woolsey, former Vice President Dan Quayle, and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

Perle had become increasingly identified with a maximalist agenda to go beyond mere “regime change” in Iraq to topple regimes and even redraw borders throughout the Arab and Islamic worlds. On Oct. 1, 2002, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported on a recent meeting in which Perle told Pentagon officials that Iraq was just a tactical goal, while Saudi Arabia was the strategic goal and Egypt was the great prize. Other ideas he reportedly put forth included permanent Israeli annexation of the Palestinian territories, a Palestinian state in Jordan, and a restored Hashemite monarchy in Iraq.

Many analysts say the strategy for US domination of Iraq originated in a plan drafted in 1997, when the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) sent a letter to then-President Clinton urging him to take action to oust Saddam Hussein. The group also called for the “democratization” of Syria and Iran. Among the 40 neo-conservatives in the think-tank, 10 would go on to become members of the Bush administration–including Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Richard Perle.

With Perle’s optimistic prediction about Iraq now proven so horribly wrong, the administration pragmatists (mostly in the State Department) seemed poised to seize the initiative and start bringing US policy back towards the center.

Then, on July 12, 2006, the Lebanese Shi’ite militia Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid, and Israel responded with massive air-strikes on Lebanon–ostensibly aimed at crushing Hezbollah, but actually widely targeting the country’s infrastructure. Hezbollah has been striking back with missile attacks on Israel, but has no capacity to inflict anywhere near equivalent damage. Some 600 are believed dead in Lebanon (compared to 50 in Israel), at least some 500,000 have been displaced, and there is no end in sight. A week into the campaign, the US Congress passed a resolution (unanimously in the Senate) endorsing Israel’s aggression.

Lebanon was actually something of a showcase for the neo-cons, a model for their vision of pro-Western revolutionary change in the region. Following the February 2005 car-bomb assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, a longtime opponent of the Syrian presence in the country, a wave of protest was unleashed. In what would become known as the “Cedar Revolution,” a new government was elected and Syrian troops, which had occupied the eastern part of the country since 1976, were finally called home.

But the victory was incomplete. Power was still uneasily divided between the West-backed Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and the pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud. And Hezbollah, backed by Syria and Iran, was allowed to maintain a virtual army within Lebanon’s borders.

Israel has been quick to portray the Lebanon campaign as a proxy war in which Syria and Iran are the real enemies. “This is about Iran as much as it is about Hezbollah or Lebanon‚” Lt. Col. Amos Guiora, the former commander of the Israeli Defense Forces’ School of Military Law and currently a law professor at Western Reserve University, told New York’s Jewish weekly The Forward July 14.

Such statements imply that Lebanon’s Cedar Revolution cannot be successfully consolidated unless there is a general re-shaping of the Middle East political order. And the American neo-cons who share this agenda have once again been on the offensive since Israel’s new war on Lebanon.

Return of the Prince of Darkness

Richard Perle was so strongly opposed to nuclear arms control agreements with the USSR during his days as an assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration, that he became known as ”the Prince of Darkness.” Since leaving the Defense Policy Board, he has carried on a political blog for the Washington Post. On June 25, just before the Lebanon conflagration began, he wrote a piece that took on the State Department pragmatists for backing down from expansion of Washington’s war beyond Iraq. Unsubtly entitled “Why Did Bush Blink on Iran? (Ask Condi),” it stated:

“President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran knows what he wants: nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them; suppression of freedom at home and the spread of terrorism abroad… President Bush, too, knows what he wants: an irreversible end to Iran’s nuclear weapons program, the ‘expansion of freedom in all the world’ and victory in the war on terrorism. The State Department and its European counterparts know what they want: negotiations… And now, on May 31, the administration offered to join talks with Iran on its nuclear program. How is it that Bush, who vowed that on his watch ‘the worst weapons will not fall into the worst hands,’ has chosen to beat such an ignominious retreat?”

Perle perceives that the White House has capitulated to the appeasement-oriented Europeans—and clearly places the blame with Rice’s promotion to Secretary of State. He laments that “the geography of this administration has changed. Condoleezza Rice has moved from the White House to Foggy Bottom… [S]he is now in the midst of—and increasingly represents—a diplomatic establishment that is driven to accommodate its allies even when (or, it seems, especially when) such allies counsel the appeasement of our adversaries.”

Oblivious to the torture state that has consolidated power in Iraq since its “liberation,” Perle portrayed the issue in terms of human freedom, and played openly to Reagan nostalgia:

“In his second inaugural address, Bush said, ‘All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: The United States will not ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for liberty, we will stand with you.’ Iranians were heartened by those words, much as the dissidents of the Soviet Union were heartened by Reagan’s ‘evil empire’ speech in 1983…. Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) tried two weeks ago to pass the Iran Freedom Support Act, which would have increased the administration’s too-little-too-late support for democracy and human rights in Iran. But the State Department opposed it, arguing that it ‘runs counter to our efforts…it would limit our diplomatic flexibility.’ I hope it is not too late…to give substance to Bush’s words, not too late to redeem our honor.”

Since the Lebanon explosion, Rice has tilted back to the neo-con position, with rhetoric pointing to a fundamental power shift in the entire region as the only acceptable requisite for peace. She has argued against the international community demanding an immediate ceasefire, calling for a more “enduring” arrangement that would end Hezbollah’s presence in southern Lebanon and further diminish the influence of Syria and Iran in Lebanon’s affairs.

She told a press conference in Kuala Lumpur July 28 that the US would only support a ceasefire that “does not return us to the status quo ante. We cannot return to the circumstances that created this situation in the first place.”

A day earlier in Rome, she said: “Syria has a responsibility. And we are deeply concerned, as we have said, about the role of Iran. It is high time that people make a choice.”

Hindsight may reveal Israel’s Lebanon campaign as the strategic masterstroke that will force the Bush administration’s hand and put the neo-cons back on top.

Gingrich Sees World War III

Commentator Bill Berkowitz, a left-wing watchdog on the conservative movement, has been keeping close tabs on the ominous rhetoric emanating in recent weeks from Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House of Representatives, whose “Contract with America” legislative package provoked a shutdown of the federal government in 1995.

In a July 16 appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Gingrich said that the US should be “helping the Lebanese government have the strength to eliminate Hezbollah as a military force.”

A day earlier, the Seattle Times reported that during a fund-raising trip in Washington state, Gingrich was even more bellicose. “This is World War III,” Gingrich said. “Israel wouldn’t leave southern Lebanon as long as there was a single missile there. I would go in and clean them all out and I would announce that any Iranian airplane trying to bring missiles to re-supply them would be shot down. This idea that we have this one-sided war where the other team gets to plan how to kill us and we get to talk, is nuts.”

Gingrich openly maintained that the use of the term “World War III” could re-energize the base of the Republican Party. He said that public opinion can change “the minute you use the language” of world war. “OK, if we’re in the third world war,” he asked, “which side do you think should win?”

On July 17, Gingrich restated his World War III contention on the Fox News Channel’s “Hannity & Colmes.”

Berkowitz notes that the watchdog website Media Matters for America has documented a number of recent “World War III” references by cable television’s conservative commentators. On the July 13 edition of Fox News’ “The O’Reilly Factor,” host Bill O’Reilly said “World War III… I think we’re in it.” On the same day’s edition of MSNBC’s “Tucker,” a graphic read: “On the verge of World War III?” On July 12, “CNN Headline News” host Glenn Beck began his program, featuring an interview with former CIA officer Robert Baer. by saying “We’ve got World War III to fight,” while also warning of “the impending apocalypse.” Beck and Baer had a similar discussion the next day, in which Beck said: “I absolutely know that we need to prepare ourselves for World War III. It is here.”

Back in May, even President Bush told the CNBC cable TV network that the action taken by the passengers on the hijacked Flight 93 on Sept. 11, 2001 was the “first counter-attack to World War III.”

Bush said that he agreed with the description by David Beamer, whose son Todd died in the crash, in an April Wall Street Journal commentary that the act was “our first successful counter-attack in our homeland in this new global war—World War III.”

Woolsey Weighs in for World War IV

Writes Bill Berkowitz: “Hyping World War III isn’t new to conservatives. Some have even argued that the real World War III was the Cold War against the Soviet Union, and that now the US is engaged in World War IV.”

Berkowitz notes that the idea that the Cold War was World War III originates from PNAC, and that the concept has taken on growing currency among the neo-cons since 9-11. In April 2003, at a teach-in at UCLA sponsored by Americans for Victory Over Terrorism, James Woolsey, the former CIA director and founding member of PNAC, told the audience: “This fourth world war, I think, will last considerably longer than either World Wars I or II did for us; hopefully not the full four-plus decades of the Cold War.”

Appearing on Fox News’ “The Big Story” this July 17, Woolsey weighed in on the Lebanon crisis in frighteningly bellicose terms.

“I think we ought to execute some air-strikes against Syria, against the instruments of power of that state, against the airport, which is the place where weapons shuttle through from Iran to Hezbollah and Hamas,” Woolsey said. “I think both Syria and Iran think that we’re cowards. They saw us leave Lebanon after the ’83 Marine Corps bombing. They saw us leave Mogadishu in ’93.”

The former Central Intelligence director, now a vice president at the global consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, flatly rejected calls for a cease-fire in Lebanon. “I think the last thing we ought to do now is to start talking about cease-fires and a rest,” he said.

Iran, of course, did not escape Woolsey’s ire either: “Iran has drawn a line in the sand. They’ve sent Hezbollah and Hamas against Israel. They’re pushing their nuclear weapons program. They’re helping North Korea, working with them on a ballistic missile program. They’re doing their best to take over southern Iraq with [radical Shiite cleric] Muqtada al-Sadr and some of their other proxies. This is a very serious challenge from Iran and we need to weaken them badly, and undermining the Syrian government with air-strikes would help weaken them badly.”

Asked by host John Gibson if he also advocated air-strikes against Iran, Woolsey replied: “One has to take things to some degree by steps,” Woolsey responded. “I think it would be a huge blow to Iran if the Israelis are able after a few more days’ effort to badly damage Hezbollah and Hamas as they are doing, and if we were able to help undermine the continuation of the Assad regime [in Syria] – without putting troops on the ground, I wouldn’t advocate that. We’ve got one major war in that part of the world on the ground in Iraq and that’s enough for right at this moment I think.”

The “Clean Break”

Joseph Cirincione, writing for the ThinkProgress blog, traces the plan for Lebanon to a controversial document prepared in 1996 by Richard Perle, Douglas Feith (undersecretary of defense for policy until last year) and David Wurmser (former American Enterprise Institute wonk and now Dick Cheney’s Middle East adviser). They document was prepared for the newly-elected Likud government in Israel, and called for “A Clean Break” with the policies of negotiating with the Palestinians and trading land for peace.

According to the document, the problem could be solved “if Israel seized the strategic initiative along its northern borders by engaging Hizballah, Syria, and Iran, as the principal agents of aggression in Lebanon.” The document also called for removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and “reestablishing the principle of preemption.” It anticipated that the successes of these wars could be used to launch campaigns against Saudi Arabia and Egypt, reshaping “the strategic balance in the Middle East profoundly.”

Writes Cirincione: “Now, with the US bogged down in Iraq, with Bush losing control of world events, and with the threats to national security growing worse, no one could possibly still believe this plan, could they? Think again.”

He notes that William Kristol, neo-con editor of the Weekly Standard, wrote in a column entitled “It’s Our War” July 24 that Hezbollah is acting as Tehran’s proxy and that the US should respond with air-strikes against Iran: “We might consider countering this act of Iranian aggression with a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. Why wait? Does anyone think a nuclear Iran can be contained? That the current regime will negotiate in good faith? It would be easier to act sooner rather than later. Yes, there would be repercussions—and they would be healthy ones, showing a strong America that has rejected further appeasement.”

Cirincione concludes: “The neoconservatives are now hoping to use the Israeli-Lebanon conflict as the trigger to launch a US war against Syria, Iran or both. These profoundly dangerous policies have to be exposed and stopped before they do even more harm to US national security then they already have.”

Among the most ambitious of the neo-con voices demanding a reshaping of the Middle East is Michael Ledeen, an American Enterprise Institute wonk and National Review columnist. While Perle advocates restoring a Hashemite king to the throne of Iraq, Ledeen’s personal crusade is a restoration of the Pahlavi dynasty in Iran. His writing frequently affects a nervous impatience. In a December 2005 National Review Online column calling for “active support of the democratic forces” in Syria and Iran as a strategy for “regime change in Tehran [and] Damascus,” he concluded: “Faster, confound it.” In August 2002 he wrote in NRO: “One can only hope that we turn the region into a cauldron, and faster, please. That’s our mission in the war against terror.” In a December 2002 piece in the Wall Street Journal, “The War Won’t End in Baghdad,” Ledeen wrote that after taking Baghdad, “we must also topple terror states in Tehran and Damascus… If we come to Baghdad, Damascus and Tehran as liberators, we can expect overwhelming popular support.”

Predictably, Ledeen sees the current Lebanon crisis as good news for his agenda. On July 25, he wrote on his National Review Online blog: “Remember that the Iranians believe(d) that we (US and Israel) are hopelessly internally divided, politically paralyzed, and hence unable to take a difficult decision and react forcefully. Ergo they thought they had a free hand. A few days ago I compared the attack on Israel to the same blunder Osama made on 9/11. If only we take full advantage.”

Redrawing the Map

In another sign of revived neo-con ambitions, the June 2006 edition of Armed Forces Journal, a private publication that cultivates a high-level Beltway readership, retired Army Lt. Col. Ralph Peters called for actually redrawing the map of the Middle East “according to the situation of the ethnic minorities.” This echoes a periodically re-emergent neo-con strategy of exploiting the real grievances of ethnic minorities in the Islamic world to affect not only “regime change” but an actual dismantling of the major states of the Middle East.

The Kurds are of course particularly strategic because giving them a unified national state would diminish both Syria and Iran, as well as Iraq, where it seems increasingly likely anti-Western forces could once again gain the upper hand. Peters does not seem bothered by the fact that such a state would also diminish US ally Turkey. He wrote that a Kurdish state “stretching from Diyarbakir [in eastern Turkey] through Tabriz [in western Iran] would be the most pro-Western state between Bulgaria and Japan.”

In Peters’ vision, Iran would also lose territory to a Unified Azerbaijan in the north, an Arab Shia State in the west and a Free Baluchistan in the east.

Peters also suggested a break-up of Saudi Arabia, with the Saudi family continuing to rule the holy cities of Mecca and Medina in the west as a sort of Muslim “super-Vatican,” but a Shi’ite rebellion bringing a separatist, pro-Western state to power in the east—where the oil is.

This idea has been heard before in neo-con circles. In July 2002, a Rand analyst presented a briefing in Defense Secretary Rumsfeld’s private conference room titled “Taking Saudi Out of Arabia.” Assembled members of the Defense Policy Board were told that the US should demand Saudi Arabia stop supporting hostile fundamentalist movements and curtail the airing of anti-US and anti-Israel statements—or face seizure of its financial assets and oilfields. A month later, Max Singer of the Hudson Institute gave a presentation to the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment advising the US to forge a “Muslim Republic of East Arabia” out of Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province.

Peters, predictably, is also heartened by the bloodbath in Lebanon—and only fears it won’t go far enough. In his July 28 column in the New York Post, he chastised Israel for its perceived restraint: “Yesterday, Israel’s government overruled its generals and refused to expand the ground war in southern Lebanon. Given the difficulties encountered and the casualties suffered, the decision is understandable. And wrong. In the War on Terror—combating Hezbollah’s definitely part of it—you have to finish what you start. You can’t permit the perception that the terrorists won. But that’s where the current round of fighting is headed.”

What is truly amazing about these schemes is the assumption, even after disastrous results in Iraq, that the break-up of the Middle East’s states would be in the US interest. The US has played a Shi’ite card in Iraq against the Sunni Arabs–and is consequently in danger of losing control of southern Iraq and even the Baghdad government itself to Iran. Peters would have the US replicate this strategic blunder in Saudi Arabia—forgoing Washington’s most strategic ally in the Arab world.

Similarly, Peters would forgo Washington’s traditional alliance with NATO-member Turkey to gamble on a Kurdish state which could ultimately come not under the control of Iraq’s US-aligned Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), but of the radical Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK)—one of the State Department’s official “terrorist organizations,” but the group which has actually made significant inroads in fomenting Kurdish separatism in Turkey and, more recently, Syria and Iran. The PKK, ironically, has even found haven in “liberated” Iraq for its guerilla attacks on US ally Turkey.

In another indication of how the Iraq adventure could ultimately prove disastrous for US interests in the region, on July 18, the Turkish government summoned the US and Iraqi ambassadors in Ankara to the Foreign Ministry, and warned: “Our patience is not endless. Root out Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) guerillas immediately, otherwise, we will be forced to resort to our right of self-defense.” The statement from the Turkish government said Ankara will wait for the US and Iraq to take “necessary steps”; and if they fail to do so, Turkey might resort to a “cross-border operation.”

Not only is the specter of Kurdish separatism pitting US ally Trukey against US proxy state Iraq, but it is even leading to a rapprochement between Turkey and Iran. The Iranian Ambassador to Ankara, Firouz Dowlatabadi, has said Iran will support Turkey in the event of a military operation against the PKK in northern Iraq. “Turkey has the right to annihilate terrorists wherever they are found,” Dowlatabadi told Turkish television July 19. “Iran is ready to do its best to help Turkey.”

Sykes-Picot Revisited

Commenting on Perle’s purported October 2002 meeting with Pentagon officials to chart the future shape of the Middle East, Egypt’s Al-Ahram weekly opined the following February: “What all this makes clear is that the future map of the region is a subject of discussion in Washington and dialogue with Israel. The Arab countries are not party to the talks. The scene brings to mind the events of World War I and how the victorious countries reshaped the region after the Ottoman Empire’s defeat, divvying it up among themselves in a secret deal by the name of Sykes-Picot in 1916.”

The 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement, codified by the League of Nations in 1920, divided the crumbling Ottoman Empire’s holdings in the Arab world between Britain and France, which then drew the new boundaries in the interests of control of oil. The Sykes-Picot boundaries, calling for a British-controlled Iraq and a French-controlled Syria, were actually redrawn after World War I, when it became clear that the Ottoman province of Mosul, originally apportioned to French Syria, was a source of much oil wealth. Britain threatened war with France to have Mosul attached to Iraq rather than Syria.

For generations thereafter, Britain looked to the Sunni Arabs of central Iraq to hold the oil-rich north around Mosul and the oil-rich south around Basra together in one national state, suppressing Kurdish national aspirations in the north and Shi’ite ambitions in the south. The US inherited this strategy when it groomed Saddam Hussein as a proxy in the 1980s. It has only been since Desert Storm and, more significantly, since 9-11 and the neo-con revolution that Washington has reversed this strategy. But already the Shi’ites are showing unambiguous signs of being unreliable proxies, and the Kurds could easily follow suit. Having already dismantled or radicalized virtually all the Sunni Arab leadership, the US could be left with no effective proxies in Iraq at all before too long.

If the Lebanon crisis spins out of control and is further internationalized—as Perle, Woolsey, Gingrich, Ledeen and Peters so ardently hope—Washington could a year or two hence be facing a similar situation throughout the Middle East. Taking the war to Syria and Iran could leave those countries yet further radicalized, the authoritarian but stable regimes there subsumed by ethnic warfare and jihadist terror.

Even Bush seems to be at least vaguely aware of the risks. His one caveat in supporting the Israeli aggression is that it not destabilize the government of Fouad Siniora and wipe out the gains of the Cedar Revolution.

And in Washington itself, a backlash against the hubristic neo-cons is virtually inevitable sooner or later. But if the chaos goes on long enough and reaches sufficiently apocalyptic proportions, the likelihood increases that it will come not from pragmatists and technocrats but nativists and anti-Semites.

The Lebanon crisis represents a tipping point. If voices for peace across ethnic, national and sectarian lines cannot be brought to bear, and quickly, the Middle East—and, indeed, the planet—could be going over the edge into something that will make all the horrors that have unfolded since 9-11 seem a mere prelude.

RESOURCES:

“Why Did Bush Blink on Iran? (Ask Condi),” by Richard Perle,
Washington Post, June 25, 2006
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/23/AR2006062301375_
pf.html

“GOP Tests How ‘World War III’ Sounds to Voters,” by Bill Berkowitz,
PNS, July 20
http://www.wbai.org/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=8897&Itemid=2

“Bringing on ‘World War III’,” by Bill Berkowitz,
Working for Chnage, July 27, 2006
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=21146

“Ex-CIA chief: Bomb Syria!” WorldNet Daily, July 17, 2006
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51114

“Ex-CIA Director: US Faces WWIV,” CNN, April 3, 2003
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/04/03/sprj.irq.woolsey.world.war/

Media Matters for America
http://mediamatters.org/

“Neocons Resurrect Plans For Regional War In The Middle East,” by Joseph
Cirincione, Think Progress, July 17, 2003
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/07/17/neocons-middle-east-war/

The “Clean Break” document, Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political
Studies, Jerusalem
http://www.iasps.org/strat1.htm

“It’s Our War,” by William Kristol, The Weekly Standard, July 24, 2006
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/433fwbvs.asp

“How a Better Middle East Would Look,” by Ralph Peters
Armed Forces Journal, June 2006
http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2006/06/1833899

“PKK Warning to US and Iraq: We are Losing Patience,” Zaman, July 18, 2006
http://www.zaman.com/?bl=international&alt=&trh=20060718&hn=34872

“Iran: We Support Turkey’s Possible Cross-Border Operation,”
Zaman, July 19, 2006
http://www.zaman.com/?bl=international&alt=&hn=34901

See also:

“Hezbollah: Iran’s proxy?”
WW4 REPORT, July 16, 2006
/node/2205

“Eastern Anatolia: Iraq’s Next Domino,” by Sarkis Pogossian
WW4 REPORT #115, November 2005
/node/1238

“Lebanon’s Post-Electoral Crossroads,” by Bilal El-Amine
WW4 REPORT #111, July 2005
/node/744

“Welcome to World War IV,” by Bill Weinberg
WW4 REPORT #106, January 2005
/worldwar4

“‘Three-State Solution’ for Iraq’s Future?”
WW4 REPORT #93, December 2003
/static/93.html#iraq11

“Prince of Darkness Perle Resigns”
WW4 REPORT #79, March 31, 2003
/static/79.html#shadows1

“New Imperialist Carve-Up of Middle East Planned”
WW4 REPORT #63, Dec. 9, 2002
/static/63.html#greatgame1

———————–
Special to WORLD WAR 4 REPORT, Aug. 1, 2006
Reprinting permissible with attribution

Continue ReadingLEBANON AND THE NEO-CON ENDGAME 

Fund Drive Extended

Dear WW4 REPORT Readers:

Thanks to an unexpected donation of $1,000 (as well as 20 more modest donations), we have exceeded our goal of $1,200 for our summer fundraiser. But we are continuing into a second month, hoping that we can maintain this momentum. Our ambitions go beyond mere survival. We think our voice brings vital news and perspectives to the anti-war forces, and we want to reach the point where we can pay our writers, travel for more first-hand reportage and (dare we dream it?) have a print edition. And we want to do it without going hat-in-hand to the big foundations and compromising our independence.

If we can continue to depend on you, our readers, to come through for us, we can make this dream a reality in a year or two. Meanwhile, your support will allow us to continue and to grow. If we can reach $2,000 this fund-drive, that would be extremely encouraging.

We will be putting some of the unexpectedly generous donation into a second print-run of our new pamphlet, Iraq’s Civil Resistance Speaks: Interviews with the Secular Left Opposition, Pt. 2. Once again, we are offering copies to the first ten people to donate ten dollars or more. But that will just cover the print-run, so please try to make it more—even just a little more.

For those who wish to become official sustainers of WORLD WAR 4 REPORT, we are offering a special premium. This was tremendously successful as a premium for WBAI Radio’s last fundraiser: a three-disc compilation of the best music I’ve played over the past ten years that I have been producing the Moorish Orthodox Radio Crusade. This is music from all over the world, and from many of the indigenous peoples and threatened cultures we cover in WORLD WAR 4 REPORT: the Berbers of North Africa, the Garifuna of Central America, the Afro-Colombians, the Bosnian Muslims, the Pashtuns of Afghanistan and much more. Some of it is deep traditional music, some of it is ethno-pop and urban rap. All of it really scratches the itch—the best of the best of a decade of radio programming. Most of it is not available in the United States. Also featured are offerings from Colombia’s underground punk scene, Neapolitan hip-hop, classical maqams from Baghdad, and a few samples of Bill Laswell’s collaborations with our sometime contributor, the elusive anarcho-sufi writer Hakim Bey. We are offering this three-CD set for the same donation we offered it on WBAI: $100.

This contribution will go a long way towards growing WORLD WAR 4 REPORT. Out of respect to WBAI listeners, who were told they were being offered an exclusive, we are limiting this offer to only five copies of the three-CD set, and we won’t be offering it again. When we have reached our limit, we will post a notice to the list and the blog. This is a unique opportunity to support our project while getting a truly rare token of our appreciation.

If you feel that we bring something vital at this time of fast-escalating global crisis, please continue your support. Send something today—and please spread the word about our project.

Send checks to: WORLD WAR 4 REPORT 89 Fifth Ave. #172 Brooklyn NY 11217

Please make checks payable to WORLD WAR 4 REPORT.

Or donate by credit card:
http://ww3report.com/donations.html
Thank you for your support. We can’t do it without you—really.

Bill Weinberg WORLD WAR 4 REPORT

Aug. 1, 2006

Continue ReadingFund Drive Extended 

CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM IN BOLIVIA:

Between Electoral Theater and Revolution

by Ben Dangl, Upside Down World

Before Evo Morales won a landslide victory in the Bolivian presidential election on December 18, 2005, one of his key campaign promises was to organize a constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution. The election for representatives to that assembly took place on July 2 in tandem with a referendum on autonomy for all provinces. The election, and its results, revealed significant aspects of the relationship between the Morales administration and the social movements that helped put him in power.

For years, Bolivian social movements have been demanding that a constituent assembly be organized to rewrite the constitution, in part to create a more egalitarian society. The constituent assembly which will take place in Sucre on August 6 was supposed to be by and for the people, and was presented that way throughout the presidential election. As the July 2 Election Day approached, more criticisms emerged about the organization of the race and the assembly itself. Though Morales’ Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) had support in its policies and candidates for the assembly, many people in Bolivia said the way in which the elections and assembly were organized excluded the country’s social movements. As Jim Shultz in Cochabamba wrote on the Democracy Center’s website, in order to qualify to run a candidate in the election, “Unions, indigenous groups, and other social movements had to hit the streets and gather 15,000 signatures each–complete with fingerprints and identification card numbers–in a few weeks.”

As a result, many powerful social and labor organizations outside of political parties were blocked from participating in the election. Many argue that this will make the assembly less democratic. In an article on the constituent assembly for IRC Americas, Raquel Gutiérrez Aguilar and Dunia Mokrani Chavez explained that the assembly will not be an “ample space for political deliberation and direct intervention about public issues,” but instead “has been converted into a well known electoral theater.” The authors argue that the MAS leaders want to be the only actors for social change and want to use the assembly as a way to increase their own power.

However, as MAS militants are quick to point out, many social and labor groups are operating within their party. Of the 50 MAS representatives for La Paz, 18 are leaders of labor and social organizations. Many of the MAS belong to unions, indigenous groups and neighborhood councils. Some of them are leaders of coca farmer, miner and student organizations. This type of participation, which was similar in races around the country, could help the assembly communicate with a broader range of citizens and social movements.

The referendum on whether or not provinces should have autonomy from the central government has been another divisive issue. For one thing, vast differences in opinion exist about what autonomy means. This will be up for discussion at the constituent assembly in August. In Santa Cruz and other provinces, autonomy will probably signify more power within the province to manage the economy, taxes, education, gas and other natural resources without the omnipresence of the central government in La Paz.

Marielle Cauthin, a former journalist at the Bolivian paper La Prensa and currently an employee at the Ministry of Education, said: “The autonomy has been discussed for twenty years in Santa Cruz. Bolivia has always been centralized. Many cities and provinces can’t do what they want because the political power is so centralized.” In the case of Santa Cruz, she explained, “they could change the flag, or the money or the religion of the province. They might even require that people use passports to enter the province. This is all up for discussion now. At the end of the day, it will probably have more to do with the redistribution of funding from the state.” She said the MAS is against autonomy in Santa Cruz because it’s a proposal of the elite business class there and could mean more harmful neoliberal economic policies and exploitation of natural resources.

The question of autonomy created divisions throughout the country in the run up to elections. Business owners, labor sectors and citizens of Cochabamba marched for autonomy in that province days before Election Day. Protestors said they were organizing a front against a centralized, vertical government run by the MAS. They went to the main plaza where MAS had set up a permanent and open office for the public to discuss and campaign for the election and referendum. The two groups confronted, and eventually came to blows. The police had to intervene.

From the Streets to the Assembly

Raul Prada is a well-known academic, sociologist and writer in La Paz who currently works as a foreign relations advisor in the government. He ran as a representative in the MAS for the constituent assembly and won. I talked with him in his office about the election, autonomy and the upcoming assembly.

“We can’t understand what’s happening now with this constituent assembly without looking back at the last six years,” he explained, squinting at me through his glasses and picking leaves of coca out of a bag on the desk. “Many of the demands for a constituent assembly began with the water war in Cochabamba in 2000 and came to a head in the 2005 gas war. The social movements opened up this space for the assembly.”

In spite of the MAS victory in December, the assembly and elections haven’t turned out as people had hoped, Prada said. The fact that the referendum happened with the assembly election complicated things. “It also all happened too fast, there was not enough debate… The social instruments [unions, social organizations] that could have participated in the election were not utilized enough…”

“No one is against the decentralization of the government,” he said, referring to the autonomy proposals. “But they are against the way it was proposed by Santa Cruz. The referendum on indigenous autonomy was excluded… MAS made a mistake in allowing the exclusion of indigenous groups.” Before the election, major indigenous organizations and groups mobilized to demand a referendum on their own autonomy, outside that of the provinces.

As a representative in the assembly, Prada said he will work to correct the mistakes made in the election and plans for assembly. He said there needs to be more popular participation among the base groups of the MAS.

“This is a mandate we [the MAS] have to defend. Various indigenous leaders are pushing for something pluri-national. They are fighting for more space to discuss the proposals and communicate with representatives in the assembly. This is the work we have to do, this is an obligation… It will also be important that different groups mobilize and communicate with those in the assembly. This is not going to work without a fight. The traditional parties will pose a challenge. Social organizations also need to control their representatives in the MAS.”

He said that many MAS representatives are not closely connected to their base and that there were many mistakes made in the selection of candidates within the party. I asked him why he ran if he was so critical of the whole process. “I didn’t want to run but the people asked me to run, so I did.”

Prada explained that some people in the MAS want to co-opt the social movements. “MAS has had some problems with social movements. The party has been de-mobilizing social movements for some time. The MAS left the social movements to become an electoral force. It became more of an electoral instrument. There are social movements in the MAS and strong groups at the base. But there are sectors within MAS that want to co-opt these groups.”

Many critics contended that only a small part of the constitution can be changed. Prada disagreed. “We are not going to revise the constitution, we are going to change the institution,” he explained. “This is a colonial institution, a mechanism of domination. We need to work toward de-colonization.” He spoke of a pluri-nation that respects the rights of indigenous autonomy. “According to the law, only 20% of the constitution can change in this assembly. But in the assembly we can change this law and so change the entire constitution. Alvaro [Garcia Linera, the vice president] said only 20% could change because he believes in reform, not revolution. I don’t share this view. We need to guarantee the constituent characteristic of this assembly.” He said some representatives in the MAS believe in this 20% idea but the bases want it all to change. “It is going to be a difficult fight to change the whole constitution.”

The Great Divide

A few days before the election was to take place, the MAS party closed its campaign in the main plaza in La Paz. Music, lofty speeches and cold wind marked the rally against autonomy and for the MAS representatives to the constituent assembly. A banner hung behind the main stage with the words “Bolivia changes its history: democratic and cultural revolution.” Below this phrase a hand clutched a pencil colored like the Bolivian flag. A giant portrait of a smiling Evo Morales with an indigenous flag behind him was hanging next to the stage. As the event began with Andean music and speeches about coca leaves and revolution, the plaza filled with people carrying banners against autonomy and for a MAS victory. One sign simply said, “Autonomy—destruction of Bolivia.”

The gathering was a convergence of revolutionary fervor and elements of daily life in La Paz. Large advertisements for a lottery company, construction materials and car oil lube were the plastered on buildings behind the stage. The smell of burning meat was everywhere; vendors selling shish kabobs, steaks and potatoes were lined up along the streets. Their grills sputtered with flames and spewed smoke throughout the crowd. A girl around 8 years old walked past selling cigarettes and candy. At one point I counted more child workers than adults. In Bolivia, child labor is rampant. The presence of these kids in the crowd made the event’s speeches of development and new opportunities sound ironic. A finger-nail clipper salesman sat next to me and propped up his cardboard display on the sidewalk. People were more interested in chanting and eating shish kabobs than buying his nail clippers. Another man walked by with a green hat and a star on it that said, “Dallas Sucks.” Fireworks cracked feebly in the air while a cameraman from the Venezuelan TV program Telesur asked a shoe shiner boy to back up a bit so he could get a better shot.

The crowd was decidedly pro-MAS. “We have had enough exploitation in this country,” a woman next to me yelled over the speakers. She assured me MAS was going to win in La Paz. “The transnational companies have taken everything. I’ll vote for MAS because we need change, it’s long overdue.”

The audience grew to include around 15,000 people. A man on stage dressed in a Bolivian flag jumped around in between sets from Andean folk and rock bands. Images of Che Guevara bobbed on placards in the crowd as the moderator on stage yelled, “Vote for MAS. Vote for a new Bolivia!” A number of candidates to the assembly sat on stage, buried in flower necklaces and confetti, and nodding their heads on cue. Arturo Rojas, an 11-year-old boy, stepped up to the microphone and gave a rousing speech that could’ve come from the mouth of a 40-year-old man. It included such phrases as “A thousand times no to the exploitation of our country!” and “The people are in power to construct a new country!” At the end of his speech the moderator shook his fist in the air and asked the audience if they wanted coca. Thousands responded with cheers and bags of the green leaf were tossed into the crowd.

I retreated from the audience to a street vendor under a blue tarp with bottles of shampoo and skin lotion piled up next to her. The outposts of vendors exhaled shish kabob smoke as waves of applause swept through the crowd. A street band responded to each rally cry from the stage with an explosion of flute music and pounding drums. The president and vice president were ushered onto the stage at a jogging speed by their security officials. The wrinkles on a giant screen broadcasting their images made the politicians look like they were underwater.

The following day I went up to El Alto, a poor city outside of La Paz where key street mobilizations in October 2003 ousted President Sanchez de Lozada during a conflict over the exportation of the country’s gas. I met up with Julio Mamani, a journalist in the city with his finger on the pulse of its politics and daily life. His thoughts on the election echoed others I heard.

“The constitutional assembly is happening without the participation of the indigenous groups and social organizations,” he said. “Only political parties are participating. Many people are angry about this. The result is that people are not excited about it. Only just recently are the parties putting up signs and campaigning and debating. Only recently people have begun talking about the autonomy question. There hasn’t been a lot of debate or discussion.”

Julio said everyone in his extended family has been in touch with each other about how they would vote. They decided to vote no for autonomy, but would vote in blank for representatives; they were angry about how it was all organized. “There are no proposals for the constitutions, just fights between parties. Because of this, MAS lacks support in El Alto. I will not vote for people that I don’t believe in.” He said he was invited to a meeting with Evo in March 2006 regarding the constitutional assembly. Various representatives of social organizations were there that support the MAS. According to Julio, Evo told them, “There will be no discussion. You will support what the MAS decides.”

In the days leading up to the election, there was a lot of confusion and vagueness surrounding what autonomy would mean and little discussion of proposals for the constituent assembly from any party. There were attacks from both sides of the political spectrum. PODEMOS, (Poder Democratica y Social), the leading right-wing party of Jorge Quiroga, a former president and second-place finisher in the December elections, said that Venezuela’s Chavez had impacted the electoral race, and that a vote for MAS would be a vote for Chavez.

Sylvia, a woman who works in the government and didn’t want her last name used, echoed this sentiment. She voted for Evo Morales in the last election but decided to support autonomy and right-wing candidates from PODEMOS in this election. Throughout our conversation Sylvia referred to herself as white and middle class. “We, the middle class, are now suffering in the same way poorer people have been for years,” she said, explaining her shift in support. Much of her argument was based on the idea that there needed to be a strong party to confront MAS. “Now there is no opposition,” she said. Silvia’s explanation was peppered with words like “authoritarian” and “dictatorial.” She regularly compared the political divide in Bolivia to that in Venezuela.

Sylvia’s opinion reflected the war of insults and accusations between the two leading parties, MAS and PODEMOS. The Bolivian newspaper El Diario announced that the campaigns were “full of insults, without debate” and that the confrontations between parties were more ideological than strategic. Jorge Quiroga of PODEMOS said MAS was misusing the state funds to help his own campaign and traffic his supporters around the country to campaign for the election. PODEMOS also said that Chavez impacted the discourse of MAS and, that MAS wants to “Cubanize” the country and make it atheist. Evo, in turn, said PODEMOS was focused on the exploitation of the nation’s natural resources and continuing harmful economic policies which have left the country impoverished. Such infighting distracted people from the key issues up for discussion in the assembly.

Among forty-two people interviewed about the election by the Bolivian paper La Prensa, the majority voiced complaints about the lack of proposals from any party and the fighting between groups. Some suggested it was just the same old electoral game with a lot of promises and no specific proposals. Many said they didn’t understand the question of autonomy or the election issues in part because of a lack of information and discussion among candidates.

On June 27, the Bolivian newspaper La Razon published in interesting list of platforms pushed by candidates from various parties in La Paz. Freddy Roncal Daza of the Unidad Civica Solidaridad said he was not of the right or left but in the center and would work for a mixed economy with private investment as well as state involvement. Roberto Aguilar Gomez, of the MAS said, “All of the expressions of the original [indigenous] peoples should be recognized in the new constitution.” Samuel Medina, of the Unidad Nacional party who finished third place in the last presidential elections and is the owner of Bolivia’s Burger King chain, said the state should participate in the exploitation of raw materials but not discard the participation of the private sector. He believed the constitution should help to produce more prosperity and employment. A candidate from PODEMOS supported autonomy and less centralization in the government. Victor Hugo Canelas Zannier, of the Agrupacion Ciudadana Ayra, said the constitutional assembly should work to “go beyond the traditional government which was left in [the revolts of] October 2003, toward a state that promotes development and recuperates the raw materials…” Estefa Alarcon, of the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria, wanted to promote women in the new constitution, as they are the “axis of the economy and society.”

When I met Yoni Bautista, a MAS representative for a working-class part of the city, his right hand was in a bandage so he motioned for me to shake his arm instead. Bautista was wearing a blue MAS hat and smiled often. I asked him about his plans for the assembly. Regarding corruption, he said, “we need to moralize the public departments and put trustworthy people in public positions.” Like the rest of his party, he said the natural resources such as land, water and gas should go into the hands of the state and shouldn’t be privatized. He said in essence, that autonomy is a good thing. “We want something more decentralized.” Yet he didn’t support the kind of autonomy being pushed by civic groups in Santa Cruz. “Santa Cruz wants to take control of natural resources… We want uniform development for the country.”

Election Day

On Election Day the voting areas were full of life. Kids were playing among the ballot boxes, kicking soccer balls and chasing pigeons. Traffic was limited to only government and election official vehicles in order to prevent masses of voters from being transported to different voting places to vote twice. As a result, the air in La Paz was very clean and fresh, the streets were quiet and full of pedestrians instead of traffic jams. Most voting areas looked like a family picnic; a celebration between neighbors and friends. It was very loose and informal. Outside of voting booths people cooked steak and sausages. Most of the voting areas were in schoolyards where there were soccer goals and basketball courts, so games went on among neighbors while the voting happened. Throughout the day I ran around the city interviewing voters to get a feel for public opinion regarding the candidates and autonomy question.

Humberto Herbas, an older family man and business-owner with strong convictions who was perhaps the most enthusiastic MAS supporter I spoke with, said: “With the MAS we are in a time of transformation, things are changing. This party represents the majority of the country. No one has ever done what this party has done. For example, the nationalization of the gas; this goes beyond good intentions.” I asked what he thought about the election and the way in which representatives were chosen. He said: “We need to have professionals rewriting the constitution, not just any person. The assembly isn’t for everyone.” He didn’t think the various social organizations of the country needed to be directly included. “There are certain people that should do this, lawyers and professionals.” Herbas was against the autonomy question in the way that Santa Cruz proposed it, but supported the idea of a less centralized government. As for the criticism about the lack of debate and information during the campaign, he said, “People aren’t patient enough to discuss these issues and look into all of the information.”

Dora Araya Castro, a retired woman, spoke with me on the sidewalk as people were meandering in the empty streets toward their voting places. She wore a green shawl and gloves and peered at me through eyes surrounded by vast wrinkles. Each moment before speaking she looked around to make sure no one was listening; she was afraid to be chastised for being so supportive of right-wing parties. She shook her finger at me while she talked and said it was “a shame that I have the same last name as that bastard Fidel Castro.”

“I do not support this government,” she said. “It is full of terrorists. I never voted for this campesino [rural worker] president Evo. He doesn’t even know how to speak. He repeats things over and over again. MNR, Quiroga, Medina, these are ones that I support. The majority of the people in this government are just campesinos. They say all the traditional parties are bad and they did all of this propaganda to put themselves in power… These campesinos want to knock us all down… The US should cut all ties and stop the financial help to Bolivia.”

Estella Bare, a clean-cut doctor in a pink outfit, said she was unsure about who to vote for but that she was not going to support autonomy because it would divide the country. Part of the reason why she was undecided was because she believed the parties running “don’t represent the people. It was organized way too quickly.”

Rosa Salgado, a mother dressed in a typical campesina outfit with a hat and wide skirt, held her small child while she spoke to me. “Ever since Evo entered he has been fulfilling his promises in ways that affect us all.” Though she supported Evo wholeheartedly, she voted for autonomy. “Some said it was a good idea, others no. It was confusing and there was a lack of information about it.”

Two giggling women walked out of the voting area wearing hats from the right-wing party Unidad Nacional (UN). One of them was Mirian Castellon, a retired teacher. She described herself as a “militant UN supporter” and said the key proposals of her party included “more work, education, healthcare and an end to the poverty.” She supported autonomy because it was “good for the country.” Castellon explained that there should have been more time during the elections to spread more information and discuss more issues. She admitted she didn’t know exactly what autonomy meant.

Luis Garcia, a student who also works at a job in La Paz, said “I don’t support any candidates. They are the same as always. Only the faces have changed. The same party politics continue. I voted in blank because I didn’t agree with the way it was organized.” He said there hasn’t been that much discussion or debate about the proposals or the candidates. “Much less so than in other elections,” he said. “In other elections there was more participation, more knowledge about proposals and the issues and so on.”

A young student named Laura Batista also criticized the amount of fighting between parties and lack of discussion. For the constitutional assembly, she hoped to see things change that “would help isolated communities in the country in health care and education.”

A public employee, Consuela Torico, also said there was a lack of information and specific proposals and “too much dirty war. Only the parties are involved so they don’t lose their power.” Torico said the way the parties have talked about autonomy has divided the country between the west and the east.

In general most people didn’t seem that excited about the election. The momentum of the popular, participatory social movements and the landslide MAS victory didn’t seem to carry over into this election.

Few people were surprised when the election results were announced in the evening of July 2. MAS won 135 seats in the assembly, PODEMOS won 60, and Unidad Nacional won 11. MAS didn’t get all they’d hoped for; two thirds of the seats (170 out of 255) were needed to control the assembly. In the referendum on autonomy for provinces, the NO to autonomy won 54% and the YES won 46% nationally. Departments that voted for autonomy were Santa Cruz, Beni, Pando and Tarija. Those that voted against included La Paz, Oruro, Potosi, Cochabamba and Chuquisaca. When the results came in, huge marches and rallies in Santa Cruz celebrated their victory for autonomy.

Few incidents of fraud or conflicts at the voting booths were reported. However, in Pando, indigenous organizations said that PODEMOS handed out radios and food in exchange for votes for their own party and for autonomy. In Puerto Suarez, someone was attacked for putting a sticker in favor of autonomy near where people were voting. La Prensa reported that on Election Day, 800 indigenous people from the province marched and took over streets in Sucre demanding an indigenous constituent assembly. They were dispersed by the police with teargas. The protestors declared they had been excluded from the assembly by the political parties. They demanded an assembly that was in accord with their customs and way of life.

Without two thirds of the seats, MAS won’t be able to easily push its agenda at the assembly. The event will involve a lot of negotiation between feuding factions and parties, and the issue of autonomy will likely continue to be a divisive one. Nonetheless, the MAS mandate is still very large and many are hopeful that the party can push for a progressive constitution. The elections and the planning for the constituent assembly illustrate the country’s tension between state power and the social movements. How this divide is addressed will make or break the Morales administration. For the streets and the state, much still depends on the assembly in August.

——

Benjamin Dangl is the editor of UpsideDownWorld.org, an online magazine uncovering activism and politics in Latin America and TowardFreedom.com, a progressive perspective on world events. He is the author of The Price of Fire: Resource Wars and Social Movements in Bolivia, forthcoming from AK Press in March 2007, and a recipient of a 2007 Project Censored Award for his coverage of US military operations in Paraguay.

This story first appeared July 6 in Toward Freedom
http://towardfreedom.com/home/content/view/851/

See also:

“The Wealth Underground: Evo Seizes the Gas,” by Ben Dangl
WW4 REPORT #122, June 2006
/node/2028

——————-

Reprinted by WORLD WAR 4 REPORT, Aug. 1, 2006
Reprinting permissible with attribution

Continue ReadingCONSTITUTIONAL REFORM IN BOLIVIA: