Mozzaok, your article notes US tolerance of democratically-elected groups like Hamas:

"U.S. policymakers are not pleased with the rise of groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah, but President Bush's willingness to recognize the election results should silence skeptics of U.S. commitment to democratic reform. After the Hamas victory, regional critics would have difficulty maintaining the theory that democracy promotion is meant to install puppet regimes. That said, as with the case of Hamas, accepting the result of a democratic election does not signal U.S. endorsement of the resulting regime. "

However, "not being pleased" is an understatement. Bush refused to deal with Hezbollah, and was then reluctant to deal with Hamas, stating that the US would not deal with terrorists. It stood by and refused to comment while Israel first bombed Southern Lebanon (to erradicate Hezbollah), and then the West Bank in an effort to destroy Hamas.

Remember?

In other words, through its support of Israel, the US was able to carry out its war on terror, and undermine democratically-elected regimes in the Middle East.

Of course these groups aren't democratic, but that misses the point. The US wants democracy on its terms, and as such will only support its friends. This is not freedom or democracy if you happen to live in the Middle East. It can only be seen for what it is: the administration of US empire.

freediver wrote on Apr 28^th, 2010 at 7:40pm:


My point, FD, is that the US have systematically undermined the will of people and their elected governments. They supported the coup against Allende in Chile, the Contras against the Sandanistas in El Salvador, the Marcos regime in the Philippines, ignored Ho Chi Minh when he advocated a US-style liberal democracy against the French in Vietnam, and they even backed the National Party in Australia against the Whitlam government.

And on it goes.

But they support the Saudis, and they support a host of military regimes in the Middle East and elsewhere when it suits their needs, and they continue to do so.

The US have two roles: to support their own geopolitical needs, and to support the interests of global capital (based largely in New York). These needs sometimes intersect - as was the case in Iraq, where they believed Saddam was a threat to their national security, and where they wanted a new military foothold in the Middle East to counter Iran, but also to secure important global oil reserves.

And the US cements its power in organisations like the UN Security Council and NATO on the one hand, and in the World Bank, the IMF and WTO on the other. Global free trade is essential to understanding how US power works.

I do believe that the US were once a power that acted to promote democracy (although, again, in their interest), but that during the Cold War they had to match their rivals in the Soviet Union with policies they termed "realist." They moved away from promoting democracy, and this was what George Bush was referring to with his alleged foreign policy "moralism." The move to installing democracies - even before Sept 11 - came back on the agenda.

But, like Bush, it was shallow, and countered by the "realists" in his administration like Rumsfeld and Cheney. Bush talked the talk, and the Hawks carried on business as usual. The rise in Haliburton stock prices tells you much about how the two policies of regime change and assisting the multinationals worked together. Iraq was the first war in modern history that relied extensively on contractors to provide security and other services.

The will of the people counts for nothing - you should know this by now. The will of corporate Washington lobby groups and the "invisible hand" of the marketplace is what America is all about.

mozzaok wrote on Apr 29^th, 2010 at 11:45am:


Mozzaok, the Taliban exist largely because of the policies of two empires: the Soviet Union and the US.

The Khmer Rouge were also evil scum (created by the US carpet-bombing of Cambodia), but the US did nothing about them. It was left up to Vietnam to rid the world of Pol Pot.

What has changed, I guess, is information technology. These local regimes are now able to recruit - and act - globally. I've got no problem with the US intervening against the Taliban. How it does so is a different matter. Backing the Northern Alliance didn't do much good. I understand these are very tough decisions to make.

But Iran is a different story. The US have a beef with Iran because they deposed the US's puppet, the Shah, and then created the Iran hostage crisis. It's very tempting to view Iran through Western eyes. Sure, the religious police are tyrants, but no worse than many other US-backed states, such as Saudi Arabia. The US fear Iran becoming a regional power, and this is actually happening before their eyes - this, if you remember, is why they backed Saddam: to keep Iran in check.

Iran has been open to US diplomacy, but the US hasn't wanted to play. Obama signalled an end to this freeze, and it'll be interesting to see if this bears fruit. There is a big middle-class in Iran, and the oil dollars have ushered in a consumer economy. Persians in the cities are generally well-educated. It's a huge mistake to see Iran as some backward, militantly Islamic country.

What the US fears is Iran's traditional trading ties with Russia, and its new relationship with China. Iran could also capitalise on its proximity to ex-Soviet states, rich in gas and minerals, such as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, which separate Iran from China. Look at a map: Iran sits right between the Arab peninsular and the East.

This is the concern for Iran, not it's "evilness," but the relationships it could form to cut the US out of its trade hegemony in the middle east.

The US tried the nuclear ruse with Saddam and the nuclear fuel-rod truck that could have been anything. No one knows if Iran is developing nuclear weapons, or if they would represent a credible threat.

The US has no interest in the Iranian people. They don't want democracy (even if the recent demonstrations showed that democracy is Iran is now a real issue, and even a possibility). What the US want is a quiet and compliant buffer between China and the Middle East.

Once again, it's pure geopolitics, not any attempt to create democracy or "stability".

Stability means US hegemony, and nothing else.

mozzaok wrote on Apr 29^th, 2010 at 12:50pm:



Who does anything different? The US does have national interests and they are above the interests of thugocracies. Fancy that.

Except, of course, the US is the first to offer humnitarian aid when a disaster strikes anywhere - Iranian or Burmese earthquake, floods, landslides trunamis - and if permnitted, its always the US navy that there with the goods.