KARACHI, April 4: British scholar and peace activist Prof Michael Rustin said on Sunday that the US would soon realize that its position in Iraq was untenable and the only way out was elections.
He was responding to questions after delivering a lecture on the "Versions of American Empire", third in the series of Hamza Alvi distinguished lecture, organized jointly by the Irtiqa Institute of Social Sciences and Hamza Alvi Foundation.
The lecture was chaired by Prof Manzoor Ahmad, former vice-chancellor of the Hamdard University. Prof Rustin, who reviewed the evolution of American policies over the years, said the collapse of the communist system left the United States in an overwhelmingly dominant position.
It had no military competitors, spending 40 per cent of the world's military budget and growing. Its military spending was more than that of 24 countries combined, and as Michael Mann points out was more than 25 times the expenditure of the seven countries it has identified as "rogue states", said Prof Rustin.
He also drew attention to Bush Administration's rejection of 'multilateralism' through many decisions as well as by proclamation. It had withdrawn from the Kyoto Climate Control Treaty, it had refused to recognize the International Criminal Court, and had walked away from the arms control.
And above all, it went to war on Iraq having failed to achieve the endorsement of the UN Security Council, in the context of massive world-wide opposition. He pointed out that supporters of unilateralism cite security as the driving force.
"The 'need' is the possibility that a state, or sub-state organizations like Al Qaeda, might gain possession of weapons of mass destruction - this mainly means nuclear weapons, but perhaps also biological weapons, and engage in or threaten their use," he said quoting pro-unilateralism intellectuals.
But he pointed out that such hypothetical situations had no relationship to those in which the United States had in fact recently exercised its military power, notably in Afghanistan and Iraq. The world was not under threat of the exercise of weapons of mass destruction by either Afghanistan or Iraq, he said.
He referred to supporters of the new kind of hegemony, strong on military force, specially when it could be exercised from a distance through high-tech weapons, strong on the power for good of global market forces, and weak or abstaining so far as the direct rule of foreign territories was concerned.
He also referred to American justification for possible future action against other 'rogue states' - Iran, North Korea, Syria. Resentment of military interventions and occupations by the US, specially in the context of its continuing support for Israel's occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, would generate not diminish the terrorism, he said adding that it would probably turn out that the groups which had recently been initiating or preparing terrorism in Madrid, London and elsewhere, were formed of new recruits, radicalized by events, and that Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda had been their inspiration rather than their commanders.
"Sporadic terrorist outrages may do it political good rather than harm. But some will draw opposite conclusions from this, as the Spanish electorate have just done, if they conclude that military assertiveness is generating risks and dangers, not reducing them," said Prof Rustin.
He pointed out the incoherence of American policy when one takes into account the current conflict with North Korea. Here, whatever the US administration says, they have no choice, but to seek a negotiated solution with the North Koreans, who were simply too powerful to coerce. Such an inconsistent strategic doctrine does not inspire confidence, he added.
Having confronted a single powerful enemy for so many decades, and organized its public opinion in solidarity against it, what would the United States to do when the door on which it had been pushing for so long gave way, and the enemy disappeared? It has created fresh enemies, in part to maintain internal solidarity, and in particular support for its political right.
The Axis of Evil, the War on Terror, and a generalized antagonism towards the Muslim world, were three aspects of this apparently necessary enemy. The structure of feeling seemed veer towards paranoia, as one could see when one examines the wild and senseless terms in which the oppositions were put.
He nevertheless said that identification with Israel by significant sections of the governing elite in the US and their organized supporters was worrying. Israel seems to be almost an American colony, not only in terms of the economic, political and military support it receives from the US, but also in psycho-social terms.
Prof Rustin emphasized the need to explore and elaborate what a negotiated evolution towards a more consensual, legally regulated, and economically beneficial and equal world order might be, since it makes such an evolution more likely.
Earlier, tributes were paid to Hamza Alvi and one minute silence was observed to pay him homage. Mr Hamza Alvi who was Marxist thinker, was remembered for his path-breaking work on state in post colonial societies and even today.
