Replies to post #3774 on Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

Unique text on US Iran relationship.

Coal, I wish I could have heard Tariq Ali.


Khomeini added: "...it is natural that Islam permits us to enter the Tyrant's establishments if the real aim is to stop oppression or to make a coup de'tat. Against the people in power, this "treachery" will be mandatory, and there is no doubt about it." It is obvious that Khomeini perceived cooperation with the enemies of the Muslims as mandatory if it benefited his sector. As a result, Khomeini claimed that it was permissible for al-Tusi to serve the Tartar invaders and must have used it to justify his cooperation with the CIA on the notion that it was beneficial for him and his country.

And what of all the anti-American slogans that continuously hail from various leaders in Iran? "Anti-American rhetoric by Islamic extremists in Teheran is not to be taken seriously. "It is for domestic, anti-imperialist consumption that the so-called radicals shout war mongering slogans against the Americans" says an Iranian political scientist living in Paris.[i/]

-Am

THE US AND IRAN RELATIONSHIP


May 20 2005, 05:58 AM

Britain & Persia / Iran

Persia (as it was known until 1935) during the First World War, was divided between Britain and Russia until the Russians left after the Bolshevik Revolution. The end of the war in 1918 left Persia under British influence with sole rights in the exploitation of Persian oil. As in Iraq, Britain in 1921 moved away from direct control to indirect control through their agent the commander of the Cossack Brigade, Reza Khan. He soon extended his military power over the whole country, crushing revolts and political opposition.

In 1925 with the support of Britain he declared himself the new shah and declared the foundation of the Pahlavi dynasty, whose survival he and Britain ensured by despotic rule and murder.

What mattered to the British was to maintain the Anglo-Persian oil concessions and the bulk of the profits. As oil production increased, the royalties the British paid to the shah also increased, these he used to strengthen his army. Following the example of Kemal Attaturk he forced Westernisation through which benefited only the privileged few, with over 90 % remaining in poverty.
However during the Second World War in August 1941, fearing that the Shah was beginning to lean towards Germany, Britain invaded Iran and deposed the Shah. The 21 year old Mohammed Reza was installed in place of his father.

The United States had established diplomatic relations with Iran in 1856, but did not send a diplomat of ambassadorial rank until 1944. During the late 1800s and early 1900s, the US did have missionaries, teachers, and archaeologists positioned in Iran. In 1942, the US established two military missions to balance British and Russian presence. The US Mission to the Iranian Gendarmerie (referred to as GENMISH) and the US Mission to the Iranian Army (ARMISH).

In 1947 and 1948, the US embassy staff grew considerably in size. More importantly, the Office of Strategic Services, the predecessor to the CIA, established a station in Teheran's military attaches and embassy offices. This increasing US involvement in the internal affairs of Iran became particularly evident in the Mussadeq affair, and later in the revolution, and in the general setup and direction of Iran.

In the late 1940s, unrest began growing steadily mainly by the help of the Americans. This was because of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), a British-owned firm, earning large profits from its monopoly over Iran's oil industry. In October, 1949, a group of prominent political figures established the National Front to press for political reforms and nationalization of the AIOC's assets in Iran. The National Front was led by Muhammad Mussadeq and brought into power with American assistance.
Mussadeq was from a prominent landowning family which hailed from prominent tribes. GENMISH had already been working with many of the tribes to prepare them to take a more active role in the Iranian government. After Mussadeq assumed office, the Truman administration publicly expressed strong support for him. Truman،¦s administration pursued a policy of supporting Mussadeq, opposing any efforts to overthrow him.

The US brought Mussadeq to power so that it would procure their share of oil wealth from Iran and seriously threaten the British position in the Middle East. The importance of Middle Eastern oil had increased exponentially since the period before the 2nd World War. So control of the oil supplies became the vital new factor in international politics after 1945, with the West calling it the greatest prize. In the 5 years following the war, the production of crude oil was doubled from 250 million tons to 500 million; by 1960 it had reached 1000 million tons. On April 29th 1951 the largest oil refinery in the world, at Abadan, and all other installations of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company were nationalized by Mussadeq. This prompted Britain to initiate covert operations in Iran, none of which succeeded at the time.

To protect its interests the British imposed a series of bilateral economic sanctions on Iran and began an ominous military buildup in the region. In September, 1951, British officials began implementing a plan to invade southwestern Iran in order to seize its oil fields. When US officials were told about this plan, President Truman notified British Prime Minister Clement Attlee that the US would not support an invasion and urged him to resume negotiations with Iran over the oil dispute. As a result, Attlee was force to abandon the invasion plan, telling his cabinet that "in view of the attitude of the United States government, [he did not] think it would be expedient to use force¨ in Iran.

However in August 1953 the Shah staged a coup with the help of British intelligence services ousting Mussadeq and recovering the powers he had lost. In 1955 Iran joined the Baghdad Pact an alliance created by England to affirm her influence in these countries and to shift the balance in her favour.

For the next twenty five years, Iran continued under the domination of Britain. During these years, the process of Iran's integration into the global capitalist system was consolidated. Iran،¦s rule, along with other countries in the region was to deliver cheap oil and receive mostly finished consumer commodities.

The US continued to be concerned. The Shah wanted to build an empire which he claimed would be the sixth greatest power in the world and thereby threatening American presence in the region. To make his dream a reality, he wanted to buy the most modern and sophisticated weapons in the world. To accomplish this, the Shah spent more than $20 billion in the military field. The imbalance it would create between Iran and some of its US influenced neighbors was mentioned in documents seized from the Embassy, right after the revolution. One of these documents stated that the Iranian military buildup would have serious consequences on the future cooperation between Iran and Saudi Arabia, a custodian of American support. And a relationship that was strategically important in securing the Gulf region.

In an interview with the US News & World Report, the Shah said that if the US would take an unfriendly attitude towards Iran, then Iran "can hurt you (US) as badly, if not more so, than you can hurt us (Iran). Not just through oil, we can create trouble for you in the region. If you force us to change our friendly attitude, the repercussions will be immeasurable.¨ There was also concern over the Shah's attitude towards oil policies, which differed from America's point of view.

The Shah was forced to openly accuse the CIA of being behind the plot to get rid of him and behind forging strong relations with his opposition, the head of whom being Khomeini.

Was their any plausibility in what the Shah said? Can anybody believe in such an accusation while believing in the asceticism which surrounded Khomeini?

Here, it is worth mentioning Khomeini's ideological stance. He adopts Tuqi'a, which means "legitimacy to lie if it is beneficial." Additionally, Khomeini said: "If the circumstances of Tuqi'a forces anyone of us to enter the Sultan's doors, we should not do it even if it causes murder, unless his seeming treachery causes a real victory for Islam and the Muslims like the treachery of Ali bin Yekteen and Nasir al-Din al-Tusi." Thus, Khomeini took Tusi as the ideal figure to follow.

Al-Tusi was a scientist in the Khilafah. In 1256 the Mongol leader Hulegu, a grandson of Genghis Khan, attacked Alamut. Al-Tusi betrayed the defences of Alamut to the invading Mongols. Hulegu's forces destroyed Alamut and, Hulegu himself being himself interested in science, treated al-Tusi with great respect and appointed him as their scientific advisor. He was also put in charge of religious affairs and was with the Mongol forces under Hulegu when they ransacked Baghdad in 1258 including murdering the caliph al-Musta'sim together with 300 of his officials.

If Khomeini considered al-Tusi as a role model, a relationship with the US was therefore not out of the question.

Khomeini added: "...it is natural that Islam permits us to enter the Tyrant's establishments if the real aim is to stop oppression or to make a coup de'tat. Against the people in power, this "treachery" will be mandatory, and there is no doubt about it." It is obvious that Khomeini perceived cooperation with the enemies of the Muslims as mandatory if it benefited his sector. As a result, Khomeini claimed that it was permissible for al-Tusi to serve the Tartar invaders and must have used it to justify his cooperation with the CIA on the notion that it was beneficial for him and his country.

However some would still find it hard to believe that Khomeini had a relationship with the Americans while attacking the US at the same time?

The US - Khomeini Relationship

There is a tremendous amount of information which link Khomeini with the Americans. Evidence shows that there was a series of meetings on a regular basis between Khomeini and high level US government representatives, American representatives met Khomeini, not for the sake of discussions' or to carry on a dialogue with him, but to share with Khomeini their (American) intelligence reports. Such as the following:

1. By late 1978, many in the Embassy and State Department were convinced that the Shah could not last and were in contact with secular and religious figures who might assume governmental posts. The Shah sent a letter to the Iraqi government accusing the CIA of what happened in Iran, telling Iraq that the US was trying to change the political systems in the region by using religion and that Baghdad's turn would be next. The Shah asked Iraq to watch Khomeini more closely because he (Khomeini) had connections with the CIA.

2. On January 21, 1979, the former Attorney General, Ramsey Clark, arrived in Paris from Teheran. He held talks with the opposition leader Khomeini and told him Carter's opinions of the recent events. As the news agencies reported, when Clark left Khomeini, he said, "I have great hope that this revolution will bring social justice to Iranian people."

3. An interview with the Sudanese leader, Sadiq Al-Mehdi, in Al-Mostaqbal magazine, shows that the American administration used him as a mediator in the hostage crisis by visiting Khomeini. He added that this was not the first time he mediated between the American administration and Khomeini.

4. Meetings between Bruce Laingen and Khomeini. Laingen, the American Charge D'Affaires in Teheran, held four meetings with Khomeini in Qum in mid-August, 1979. Right after the meetings, the riots took place in Ahwas which caused reductions in the oil supply, and the result was a shortage in the gasoline supply.

5. The Shah said in his memoirs, that he did not know about the Deputy Commander of US Forces in Europe General Huyser's arrival in Teheran until a few days after its occurrence. The Shah also said that this was strange because the General "had come to Teheran a number of times, scheduling his visits well in advance to discuss military affairs with me and my generals." However, this arrival was secret "As soon as Moscow learned of Huyser's arrival, Pravada reported, 'General Huyser is in Teheran to foment a military coup.' The Shah added, It was therefore necessary to neutralize the Iranian army. It was clearly for this reason that General Huyser had come to Teheran."

Then the Shah said, "Huyser succeeded in winning over my last chief of staff, General Ghara-Baghi, whose later behavior leads me to believe that he was a traitor.. I do know that Ghara-Baghi used his authority to prevent military action against Khomeini. It is perhaps significant that although all my generals were executed, only General Ghara-Baghi was spared.

The Shah ended by saying that plans for his departure had been announced, "interestingly enough, on January 11 in Washington by US Secretary of State Vance."

6. Among those movements who traditionally supported Khomeini were, Sanjabi, Feda'iyan, and Mujahideen Khalq, but now they all disagreed with Khomeini. The reporter Houda Al-Hocine from Al-Hawadess met with these people, and she reported an important story as follows: "These new revolutionaries rejected Khomeini's revolution because they said the revolution carried America's blessing and they consider America as the force behind the fall of the Shah and therefore, were backing Khomeini. They gave evidence by saying that America's president Carter was against Shah since the beginning for these reasons:

The Shah was feuding with the Democratic Party; most of the members of Congress were against the Shah because the Shah considered himself OPEC،¦s leading hawk and led the campaign of raising the oil prices.

The US loss of her largest base in Asmara Ethiopia, meant that the US was looking for a solution which would protect American interests,. The Americans noticed that Communists began to organize terrorist activities.

Also, they found that the Soviet Union was the only beneficiary from the situation, gaining whatever natural resources they desired from Iran, especially natural gas. The Afghanistan invasion took place, as well as the incidents in the Horn of Africa and South Yemen. This brought Iran under the mercy of the leftist wave. Therefore, the situation had to be salvaged. A coup d'etat was not acceptable by the Iranian people. Therefore, the change had to emanate from the people, who could be only incited by a revolution which would depend on religion. Accordingly, the Americans looked for a religious personality.

There was an attempt to destroy Khomeini's movement on the night of February 11, but something unexplainable made the attempt fail. The army announced that it was standing neutral. This announcement changed the core of events. The orders were given to the army and to the Embassy's guards to drop their weapons.

7. Al-Watan newspaper uncovered some secrets. One of them mentions that the United States explicitly asked the army commanders and generals to take this attitude at the last moment, and the State Department urged Ambassador Sullivan to persuade the senior generals, as soon as possible, not to intervene in any offensive action and to announce their neutrality in the political feuds.،¨

Without any doubt, Carter and his aides supported Khomeini. Here are some facts to show this:

President Carter praised Khomeini's first Prime Minister by saying, "He and his predominantly Western-educated cabinet members cooperated with us. They protected our embassy, provided safe travel for General Philip C. Gast, who had replaced Huyser, and sent us a series of friendly messages. Bazargan publicly announced his eagerness to have good relations with the US and said that Iran would soon resume normal oil shipments to all its customers.¨ President Carter also praised Khomeini when he said, "Khomeini sent his personal representative to see Secretary Vance to pledge increased friendship and cooperation, and to seek our assurance that we were supporting the new Prime Minister and a stable government. Despite the turmoil within Iran, I was reasonably pleased with the attitude of the Iranian government under Bazargan.¨ In an interview with the former Secretary of Defense Harold Brown on the CBS program Face the Nation،¦, he said that the Bazargan government was "very helpful in trying to protect Americans in a difficult and unstable, dangerous situation.¨ He added that America "can work out friendly relations.¨

At that time, the assistant Secretary of State for Middle Eastern and South Asian Affairs Harold H. Sanders said in his report before the Middle East Committee, "The American interests did not change in Iran, and we have a strong interest to keep Iran a stable, free, and independent state."

As we can see, the high figures in the Iranian Revolution also had a connection with the United States.

Abbas Amir Entezam: was one of the key figures known to be a CIA agent. After the occupation of the Iranian Embassy, some documents were discovered which confirmed his relationship with the CIA.

Ayatullah Hamid Rouhani: In an interview with Paris-Match magazine, said, "The army was in the hands of its 40,000 American advisors. From the moment when America gave the green light - and I am convinced that America gave us the green light - the army could no longer do anything except what it is doing today.

Post Khomeini

After Khomeini's death, the successive presidents Hashemi Rafsanjani, (Ali) Mohammad Khatami-Ardakani have worked quietly to improve ties with Washington. Succeeding in shedding much of Iran،¦s ultraconservative image and upgrading relationships with many European and Middle Eastern countries. Their aim has been to turn Iran into a "moderate" state. Their policies seem to be working. As Newsweek reported at the time of Rafsanjani, "In Teheran, peeling slogans have been scrubbed off the walls... A capitalist-style stock market is booming, children snap up Ninja Turtle toys, and "Dancing with Wolves" is the first Hollywood movie to be screened legally in years."

And what of all the anti-American slogans that continuously hail from various leaders in Iran? "Anti-American rhetoric by Islamic extremists in Teheran is not to be taken seriously. "It is for domestic, anti-imperialist consumption that the so-called radicals shout war mongering slogans against the Americans" says an Iranian political scientist living in Paris.

Furthermore it is clear that Iran has been maintaining trade relations with the United States, despite calling it the Great Satan. Trade has been in the millions. For example the following have all had US approval to sell to Iran. Mitac Corporation of Fremont, California, has shipped million of dollars worth of computers to Raymeh Saz Engineering Co. in Iran. So has another computer firm, Modular Computer Systems Inc. of Fort Lauderdale, Fl., to the Iranian Chemical Co. So does Siemens, the German electronics firm. Rockwell International sold Teheran helicopter gear and electronics worth $533,000. Other contracts have gone to Apple Computer, Sun Microsystems, Honeywell, NCR, and AST Research. Each sale was approved by the Commerce Department after consultation with other government agencies.

So it appears clearly that after the US orchestrated the revolution, controlling and containing it, and after pacifying millions of sincere Muslims of Iran to be content with the revolution, the US is now ready to officially end the revolution.

How then does this explain Bush's axis of evil statement?

According to Glynn Davis, deputy head of mission at the American embassy in London, Bush's statement is aimed at speeding up the reformation process within Iran.

This on one hand whilst on the other it is also preparing the way to contain Iran should it decide to independently exercise its influence in the Middle East against US policy.

Thus although moderate elements in Iran are being encouraged, Washington is weary of the hardliners, who control the military, intelligence, judiciary and security. Washington،¦s concern being that Iran is attempting to acquire sophisticated weapons, including nuclear weapons that might may threaten the US and its interests. Particularly as Iran has developed a sophisticated missile programme, including 1,300 kilometre Shahab-3 missile. According to Chief Vice Admiral Thomas Wilson US Defence Intelligence Agency "Iran also has a strong enough navy to stem the flow of oil from the Gulf for brief periods."

So the US, as it is doing currently with China, is therefore walking a tightrope policy of encouraging the reformers within Iran whilst also making it clear that it is prepared to react to contain any opposition that may present a threat to US interests and its hegemony in the region.

http://www.pakistanidefenceforum.com/lofiversion/index.php/t45003.html

[Ace Hanlon]

Bush unveils plans for US colonial office

By Bill Van Auken
21 May 2005

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The US government is creating a permanent agency tasked with the rapid consolidation of US control in countries targeted by Washington for military aggression. That was President George W. Bush’s essential message in a speech delivered Wednesday to a Republican audience in Washington.

He announced that his administration is proposing $100 million in funding in next year’s budget for a new “conflict response” fund and $24 million for a new Office of Reconstruction and Stabilization within the State Department. This office is to include an “Active Response Corps” made up of government foreign affairs specialists, as well as private consultants and contractors.

Bush wrapped this new initiative in the mantle of democracy. “We are seeing a rise of a new generation whose hearts burn for freedom—and they will have it,” he declared. What they will really have, however, and what the US administration is preparing, is more war.

The president picked a sympathetic audience for unveiling his plan: the International Republican Institute, a constituent part of the National Endowment for Democracy. The NED was created more than 20 years ago to use the Republican Party, the Democrats, big business and the AFL-CIO labor bureaucracy as conduits for funding that previously was provided covertly by the CIA to destabilize foreign governments or promote US-backed movements.

The title of the new agency, “Reconstruction and Stabilization,” obviously presupposes acts of destruction and destabilization, which are to be carried out by its counterparts in the Pentagon and American intelligence.

It should be pointed out that the annual funding for the global operations of this new supposedly altruistic US effort—$124 million—is barely one-seventieth of the amount contained in the latest “emergency” appropriations for the continuing military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Bush claimed that the impetus for the new agency—with its ability to dispatch civilian occupation teams anywhere in the world—came from the experience of the US invasion of Iraq.

“You know, one of the lessons we learned from our experience in Iraq is that while military personnel can be rapidly deployed anywhere in the world, the same is not true of US government civilians,” Bush said. He praised US officials for doing an “amazing job under extremely difficult and dangerous circumstances,” while adding, “But the process of recruiting and staffing the Coalition Provisional Authority was lengthy, and it was difficult.”

This is all lies and distortions. The essential problems confronting the US occupation authority in Iraq stemmed not from the lack of a “rapid response corps,” but rather from the resistance of the Iraqi people and the criminality of the entire enterprise.

Those who staffed the Coalition Provisional Authority were selected not for any expertise—knowledge of the region, fluency in Arabic and government experience were viewed with suspicion by the Bush administration—but for their unconditional loyalty to the president.

Many of the young know-nothings given positions of authority in Iraqi ministries were recruited by using résumés sent to the right-wing think tank, the Heritage Foundation. The fledgling Iraqi security forces were placed under the nominal tutelage of Bernard Kerik, the ex-bodyguard and scandal-plagued former police commissioner of New York City.

The overriding objective in Iraq was neither “reconstruction” nor “stabilization,” but the looting of the country’s economy and the establishment of firm US control over its strategic oil reserves.

This was to be carried out through the privatization of Iraq’s economic enterprises, services and, above all, a decisive share of its oil sector. The catastrophic deterioration of all major social indices cited in the recent report issued by the United Nations Development Programme (See “UN report finds US war in Iraq yields a social ‘tragedy’”) exposes the abject failure of the US authorities to reconstruct Iraq’s war-shattered infrastructure. But they proved adept in the looting and privatization departments.

Earlier this year, a special inspector general’s report revealed that the US occupation authority was unable to account for some $9 billion that was supposedly spent on reconstruction.

In a report Friday citing interviews with former US occupation officials and internal memos, the Los Angeles Times focused on the month of June 2004, when the Coalition Provisional Authority was formally dissolved and a puppet Iraqi regime installed.

“June 2004 has emerged as a month when both money and accountability were thrown out the window—something like a Barney’s warehouse sale in the Wild West, with the US playing the role of frenzied shopper and leaving Iraqis to pay the bill,” the article states.

The Times reports that the authority issued over 1,000 contracts that month, double the normal monthly amount. The money—wasted, embezzled and stolen—was siphoned out of accounts made up of Iraqi oil revenues and frozen assets of the Saddam Hussein regime. These funds were transferred largely to US military contractors, with some kickbacks going to corrupt members of the Iraqi puppet government.

So egregious is the theft of Iraqi and US funding that the government has found itself compelled to launch a criminal investigation into suspected embezzlement by US officials in connection with some $100 million of the funds designated for reconstruction projects that went missing.

Privatization has been secured, at least on paper. The single undeniable achievement of the occupation authority under US proconsul Paul Bremer was a revision of the Iraqi legal code that, for the first time anywhere in the Arab world, allows 100 percent foreign ownership of Iraqi enterprises. Some 200 state-owned enterprises are now targeted for privatization or liquidation by foreign capital, resulting in the elimination of hundreds of thousands of jobs.

Later this year, the Iraqi industry ministry is expected to begin placing sections of heavy industry, petrochemical plants, sugar refineries and other enterprises on the auction block. The problem, however, is that the US military’s inability to crush resistance to the occupation has left few foreign capitalists willing to invest in the country, no matter how favorable the terms.

Essentially, Bush’s new Office of Reconstruction and Stabilization (ORS) is designed to carry out this same process in other targeted countries, but more efficiently. By “stabilization,” the US government means primarily the suppression of any resistance to US domination. “Reconstruction,” on the other hand, is a code word for the demolishing of all impediments to the exploitation of the country’s resources by American capitalism.

This was spelled out by Carlos Pascual, the former US ambassador to Ukraine who has been tapped to head the ORS, in a speech delivered last October.

“The very time that you’re stabilizing, you have to be thinking about the next stage, which is in many cases tearing apart the old,” Pascual told an audience assembled by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. First on his list “old” structures that must be “torn apart” were “the state-owned enterprises that created a nonviable economy.” He reiterated, “We have to confront those issues and get into a process of tearing apart the old if we are to unleash the forces for openness and competition.”

Not surprisingly, the impetus for Bush’s new Office of Reconstruction and Stabilization comes from the Pentagon. The military believes it has paid a significant price for the abject corruption and criminality that pervades the Bush administration’s handling of the Iraqi occupation. These traits have helped cripple restoration of basic services, further fueling Iraqi fury against US forces. The generals see the need for a more professional setup not just in Iraq, but as an integral part of preparations for further preemptive wars aimed at asserting US hegemony in strategically important and resource-rich areas of the globe.

In a report released last summer, the Pentagon’s Defense Science Board counseled: “US military expeditions to Afghanistan and Iraq are unlikely to be the last such excursions. America’s armed forces are extremely capable of projecting force and achieving conventional military victory. Yet success in achieving US political goals involves not only military success but also success in the stabilization and reconstruction operations that follow hostilities.”

The report, titled “Transition to and from Hostilities,” continues: “For countries where the risk of US intervention is high—termed ‘ripe and important’ in this report—the president or National Security Council (NSC) would direct the initiation of a robust planning process.”

According to published reports, the Pentagon and US intelligence agencies have already drawn up a secret watch-list of 25 such “ripe and important” countries. The National Intelligence Council has been placed in charge of reviewing this list every six months, while the new Office of Reconstruction and Stabilization together with the Pentagon would be responsible for drawing up detailed plans for US invasion and occupation.

The identities of the countries on the list remain classified, but it is reported that they are heavily concentrated in the key oil-producing regions of the Middle East, the Caspian Basin and West Africa. Whether such Latin American producers as Mexico and Venezuela are also included is not known.

While providing advice on how to better prepare for the US takeover of targeted countries, the Pentagon study includes a cautionary note. It points out that, with US forces already involved in such operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and, to a lesser degree, the Balkans, and with the prospect for these deployments continuing for years to come, military manpower is stretched dangerously thin.

“History indicates that stabilization of societies that are relatively ordered, without ambitious goals, may require 5 troops per 1,000 indigenous people,” the study states, “while stabilization of disordered societies, with ambitious goals involving lasting cultural change, may require 20 troops per 1,000 indigenous people. That need, with the cumulative requirement to maintain human resources for three to five overlapping stabilization operations as noted above, presents a formidable challenge.”

Given the above mentioned ratio, the US should have nearly four times as many troops as are presently deployed in such a “disordered society” as Iraq.

“Today, much of our focus is on the broader Middle East,” Bush declared in his speech Wednesday, “because I understand that 60 years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in that region did nothing to make us safe.”

The choice of words is significant. Why 60 years? This encompasses the life span of nominally independent national states in most parts of the Middle East. Prior to the end of the Second World War, they were run by British imperialism—and, to a lesser extent, the other major European powers—as a collection of mandates, protectorates and puppet states.

In its second term, the Bush administration has begun to shift from justifying US militarism abroad in the name of the global war on terrorism to that of a supposed worldwide US crusade for “freedom” and against “tyranny.”

He sounded this theme in his speech in Washington, declaring that his administration has a “forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East.” In reality, what is involved here is a regressive drive to restore colonial domination, this time by US imperialism. The only “freedom” Washington is interested in promoting is that of the US financial oligarchy to seize control of wealth and markets anywhere in the world.

The real thinking of the Bush White House on this project was spelled out by one of its favorite columnists, Max Boot, in an opinion piece published last month. “In order to be better prepared the next time—and yes, there will be a next time—Washington must create a US government agency specifically tasked with rebuilding war-torn lands,” Boot wrote.

“The United States needs its own version of the British Colonial Office for the postimperial age.”

He continued, “The recent decision to set up an Office of Reconstruction and Stabilization within the State Department is a good start.”