People are fragile, countries are fragile and the peace of the world is fragile. And so are financial systems based on paper. Prosperity itself is fragile. All you need is a trigger mechanism, like a widening war, and the world itself can fall to pieces. Or maybe it's falling into pieces now and further disintegration is inevitable. Like a contagion, anger and hatred travel around the world. All totalitarian regimes are based on anger and hatred, and hatred begets violence. The vicious cycle takes hold and war follows. What chance does civilization have as weapons of mass destruction come into the hands of political madmen?
North Korea has nuclear weapons and Iran may have them soon. The Muslim world is growing impatient. It feels its new strength, its growing possibilities. God is great, they say. And nuclear technology cannot be contained in one or several countries. So much anger mixed with ambition. Mix wounded pride and vanity with religion. Think how exasperating the Americans can be. Should America's democratic values reign supreme throughout the world? Should American popular culture be permitted to annihilate all traditional values, in country after country, year after year, until nothing is left on planet earth but one grand democratic shopping mall (i.e., the "global village")? What is a true-believing Muslim to think?
Men cannot avoid offending one another. Today, for example, Arab financial leaders are taking steps to punish America for blocking a Dubai company from buying five U.S. ports. Central banks in some Arab countries are switching cash reserves from dollars into euros. The United Arab Emirates is talking about moving one tenth of its dollar reserves into euros. The United States clearly discriminates against Arab investors, though the discrimination is perfectly understandable. Many Arabs, however, do not understand. Why should Americans fear Arab involvement in U.S. ports? Why should Americans fear Muslim immigrants? Perhaps Americans are too busy shopping and having fun to fear anything, but they are nevertheless annoyed at the idea that strategic nodes and portals may be nominally "owned" by foreign Muslims who may or may not secretly sympathize with Osama bin Laden. President Bush, of course, tried to hold the line against America's economic "bigotry." But he only damaged himself in the process, since a collision of peoples and nations is now unavoidable. The democratic amelioration strategy of the United States is a fantastical project. It is an attempt to spread democracy to the undemocratic. In this process Humpty Dumpty loses his balance. As the children's nursery Rhyme says:
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the King's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again.
The world order is fragile. The fact that something has continued so long - that the dollar has reigned supreme for so many decades - is no guarantee to the future. The old order is crumbling before our eyes. The political games of the moment facilitate a process of disintegration instead of integration. Today the Arab central banks threaten the dollar. Tomorrow the Iranians close the Straits of Hormuz. The day after tomorrow the Chinese pull the plug and all the "value" drains out of the U.S. economy. Globalization is a dream that ends as the battle lines of the next world war take shape. The global bourgeoisie has accomplished many things, but it cannot bring about "the end of history." The unprecedented wealth and prosperity of the last few centuries is not a permanent state, guaranteed by the god of progress. Every action engenders a reaction, and what goes up must come down.
The Iranian bourgeoisie is unhappy with its extremist president. The religious extremists who dominate the Iranian government are bankrupting the country while preparing for a disastrous confrontation with the United States. The Iranian middle class doesn't want this. But the Iranian middle class has little power. Even the moderate clergy cannot stop the regime from doing its will. Iran's extremists have the power. They control the army and the police. The money of Iran's middle class cannot shoot down the radical clerics or raise armies to defeat them. The bourgeoisie has no arms, no munitions and no intelligence apparatus. The bourgeoisie has been disarmed. It is a process known to Russian and Chinese history. It is a process underway in Venezuela and South Africa. The poverty of Cuba and North Korea derives from this process.
Ira is a terror-sponsoring, terror-supporting state that has waged clandestine war against its declared enemies (the Great Satan and the Little Satan, America and Israel). The Iranian government has committed acts of war against the United States. But these acts have been tolerated because waging war is so very inconvenient and would prove so very costly. As it happens, Iranian-supported terrorists can kill and terrorize Americans without an American retaliatory attack because Iran has positioned missiles, boats and aircraft around the world's most critical waterway. Close to 90 percent of the oil supplied by the Persian Gulf is loaded on tankers that move through the Straits of Hormuz. If you shut off this strategic waterway the developed world loses power. Think of the financial consequences that would follow. The technical military question remains, of course, whether Iran can close the straits - and for how many days. (This is not an easy question to answer.)
In the present crisis, therefore, we shouldn't be surprised to see Iran threatening to close the Straits of Hormuz if the U.N. Security Council dares to impose sanctions over its nuclear program. "We are rich in energy resources," said Iranian Interior Minister Mustafa Pourmohammadi. "We have control over the biggest and most sensitive energy route in the world." The Iranian strategy is clear. If you don't let Iran develop a nuclear capability, then Iran will choke off your oil and leave you crippled and helpless. "We will not disregard any means," added Pourmohammadi. "If they want to try other options, they have to be sure that our potential is not less than theirs."
Given the Russian (and Chinese) veto in the U.N. Security Council, effective sanctions will never be passed against Iran. If the Americans, British and French want to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons then a military strike will have to occur. Some believe (and expect) that the United States will launch a preemptive attack against Iran's emerging nuclear industries. If only we had a crystal ball with which to observe the future. Is the Iranian leadership "crazy" enough to give nuclear weapons to terrorists? Would Iran use nuclear weapons against Israel in a future conflict? Is nuclear deterrence effective against people who believe that Allah will reward them in the next world? (Imagine Mohammed Atta with a nuclear device.)
Recent statements from the American president indicate his usual readiness to crush the ever-sneaking, obstinate and contemptuous enemy. On March 13 President Bush stated that Iran was helping to kill American soldiers in Iraq. "Tehran has been responsible for at least some of the increasing lethality of anti-coalition attacks by Shi'a militia," said the president. That is undoubtedly true. So how does one stop the violence in Iraq without bringing the war to Iran? The logic of the president's position is limited by the small size of the U.S. Army, and the eroded morale of the American people. This month's CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll indicates that 60 percent of Americans think the war in Iraq is going badly. What would they think if the fighting extended to Iran? Is America's mission in the Middle East to bring democracy, or to stop nuclear proliferation? According to President Bush, weapons of mass destruction are secondary. Bringing democracy comes first and foremost, because democratic nations do not threaten one another at all.
The declared National Security Strategy of the United States is to "seek and support democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world." Thus the United States has declared war on every autocratic regime in the world. "Achieving this goal is the work of generations," says President Bush. This grand plan, however, is beyond the means of the U.S. government and alien to the will of the American people. It cannot succeed in a thousand generations. This fantastic attempt to end tyranny "in our world" merely enshrines as policy the illusion that a consumer society can seriously wage war against nuclear-armed terror-supporting states whose people are hungry. A grave illusion of this kind presages the end of freedom, not the end of tyranny.
As Friedrich Nietzsche pointed out over 115 years ago, democracy is the declining form of authority. As such, it cannot win an open-ended war against the human condition. Besides, Americans don't really care if Arabs enjoy freedom through democratic institutions. If America is bankrupted and demoralized in a vain attempt to build Arab democracy, then what's the point? Americans don't want to keep paying billions of dollars building the infrastructure of countries that curse American generosity and accuse the U.S. of stealing Muslim oil. The public is growing tired, and the president's arguments no longer carry any weight. If he leveled whole towns and pacified Iraq the way Germany and Japan were pacified in 1945, he might have a chance. But he doesn't have a chance because he isn't as ruthless and bloody as Harry S. Truman. He won't incinerate people in large numbers, and so he cannot discipline their rebellion or reverse their refusal to accept the gift of democracy. Initially, the United States invaded Iraq to prevent the spread of WMDs. Now the United States must invade Iran for the same reason. By extension the U.S. must invade North Korea and so on. The same logic applies to the president's democratic crusade. Even China must eventually fall to democracy. But where will the United States find the manpower to fight such an ever-expanding war? Where will it find the money and allies to carry on in such a fashion?
The basis of the invasion of Iraq should have been more narrowly conceived. It should have been more seriously, more intelligently, more consistently self-interested. If only America's enemies and critics were right and Bush had invaded for the oil. What is wrong with protecting the developed world's oil supply? Must Western Civilization roll over and breathe its last because it is suddenly forbidden to impose its will on an ancient rival? At least a selfish motive would make sense. But sadly, the American invasion of Iraq has devolved into an altruistic adventure, and no good deed (especially in the Middle East) goes unpunished. If the invasion was meant to secure better military bases for protecting the flow of oil then we could at least understand Washington's motive.
Iraq is fragile and Iraqi democracy is even more fragile.
