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The naked emperor

By Achin Vanaik

The war is being fought for imperial purposes, no matter what Washington's official explanations are.

THE UNITED States' assault on Iraq marks a turning point in history. There are those, of course, who cynically ask, "so, what is new"? After all, they would say, throughout the ages great powers have invariably pursued their interests and indulged in hypocrisy to cover up their real motives. Moreover, other countries, for example India, must simply pursue their own interests always keeping in mind the need to adjust to the "realities of power", hence the value of the "middle path". Such voices have simply missed the crux. The worldwide popular revulsion to this war of a depth and scale not witnessed even during the Vietnam War means that the war has, in fact, the character of a profound revelation regardless of its eventual outcome. That the opposition should be so strong despite the dictatorial nature of the Saddam Hussein regime only reinforces the point.

The sheer brazenness of American behaviour has forced upon the international public's consciousness the recognition as never before that the U.S. is an emperor without clothes; that this war is being fought for imperial purposes, no matter what Washington's official explanations are. These are the claims that Iraq has accumulated sufficient WMD (weapons of mass destruction) to be a threat to the U.S. and the world, and that the invading forces are really "liberators", motivated by deep concern for ordinary Iraqis. No matter how dedicated a job the Western-dominated global media (as well as sections of our own) does to sell these justifications, the double standards involved are simply too stark.

Indeed, the longer the war drags on and the more obvious it becomes that the invading forces are not being popularly welcomed, the more the reality of U.S. empire-building as the primary purpose of the whole exercise gets exposed.

It is the widespread negative public reappraisal of America (outside of it) that is the decisively new and historic development. It is not as if previously many people were not aware of the U.S.' imperial ambitions. But there was always a widespread sense (outside of the Left) that the U.S. was a benevolent power, guilty sometimes in its foreign policy of overreaching itself and making mistakes that could cause great suffering to others, but nonetheless a power to generally support even if to specifically criticise. Furthermore, the existence of a seemingly enduring Cold War forced most people to take sides. Most liberals and the politically non-committed chose the West and the U.S. Most party-affiliated and party-influenced communists chose the side of the Soviet Union or China.

Only a small section, comprising for the most part the independent Left and the radical liberal, took the only morally honourable position of opposing both sides by attacking their respective "empire-building" and undemocratic proclivities, even as they reserved the right to qualify their criticism in specific cases or take sides on specific issues.

Victory for the West and the U.S. in the Cold War and the acceptance by the defeated side of the values and norms of the other side (a common enough historical occurrence) only reinforced the image of the U.S. as a benevolent power, basically liberal, not imperial or imperialist. The truth has always been very different.

There has always been a political disjunction of sorts in the U.S. It has been strongly democratic in its internal structures (though less so than the West European advanced, industrialised democracies) but brutally imperialist over a period of 150 years, first towards Central and South America, then towards the Pacific, and after the Second World War, towards Eurasia and Africa, though its foreign policy was cloaked in the mantle of "defending the free world".

However, it is not as if the current assault on Iraq is going to lead to quite this kind of radical reappraisal. It is simply that this imperialist behaviour is at such obvious odds with the generally accepted view of what the U.S. stands for, that a fundamental yet popular reappraisal of what the U.S. stands for today and in the future is now taking place on a scale previously unimaginable. This has greatly disturbed even those American conservatives and liberals who continue to believe in the myth of American foreign policy benevolence, including the general justice of waging a war on Iraq, but worry about whether a) this is the right way to wage war on Saddam Hussein's regime, and b) international opposition might not lead to a level of political isolation that bodes ill for the U.S.' future "benevolent" foreign policy ambitions and plans.

The stakes in this war are extremely high. The main issue is not what Iraq has done or not done. Nor is it what feeble "rewards" the Government of India might get from following the "middle path". It is whether one opposes or supports the unbridled expansion and consolidation of the American empire. Those who refuse to oppose, or advise the Indian Government not to genuinely or seriously oppose the U.S., are passively and indirectly supporting American plans. Washington understands the stakes clearly, knows it cannot take on every country and therefore expresses frustrated but essentially ineffectual anger against those diplomatic positions that weaken it by enhancing its political isolation. The opposition from Malaysia (which gets much more FDI than India), Greece, France, Germany (all NATO members) and others has left it seething, but Washington is comfortable with New Delhi's official position.

Today, we have the sorry spectacle of both the dominant ruling party, the BJP, and the main Opposition party, the Congress, separated on crucial terrains by tactical shades, not strategic differences. On neo-liberal economics, they are indistinguishable. On Hindutva, one is hard, the other soft.

Regarding the American imperium, both aim only at adjusting to whatever power realities might subsequently emerge. Neither wishes, however subtly on the diplomatic front, to help change power equations in ways benefiting all countries and peoples. This would come about from a taming of the U.S. and of it coming to realise that it cannot pursue aggressive unilateralism without paying an unacceptably high price.

The tragedy of the Indian Government's position lies not simply in refusing to recognise the true nature of the stakes involved but in pretending that this posture is in the "national" or "popular" or "global" interest when it is the reverse — the defeats that the U.S. might suffer in its expansionist plans — that can most promote such various collective interests.

This moral-political failing is made all the worse because the U.S. today can win the war on Iraq, yet lose the peace because it has aroused more collective hatred and political isolation towards it than ever before. The contrast between the posture of a world statesman such as Nelson Mandela and the pedestrian thinking of the "experts" who advise the BJP and the Congress could not be sharper.

The clarity of Mr. Mandela's opposition to the U.S. comes not just from a greater moral integrity but a greater political wisdom. He knows that, as in the struggle against apartheid, so in the struggle against American empire-building, you never compromise on the goal itself.

Flexibility and compromise on the means, including a Government's or a movement's diplomatic postures, is acceptable but must always be directed towards achieving that goal.

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• Maintaining communal harmony
• Selective use of POTA
• The naked emperor
• The Judiciary and the Legislature — II
• 'Operational pause' in Iraq
• Catastrophic war
• Two equal eyes
• Only on paper
• Fighting corruption

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