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Neo-cons campaigning for change in Iran, North Korea By Jim Lobe WASHINGTON: The interregnum between November's election and the formal launch in January of US President George W Bush's second term has a strange feel. Perhaps it is that Colin Powell, who until now stayed as close to Washington as he could to try to prevent Vice President Dick Cheney or Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld from pushing phoney intelligence and aggressive policy advice policies on the president in his absence, has been travelling virtually all over the world, assuring appropriately sceptical foreign leaders that Bush will really - really- be committed to multilateralism in his second term. Now that Powell has been informed his services will no longer be required, the least-travelled secretary of state in the last generation is finally getting out to see the sights, even if his credibility as a spokesman for future US foreign policy is less than it was for the past four years. Or perhaps it is the sense of anticipation in some quarters, dread in others, of what will actually happen in the coming term. The dread, of course, comes from Democrats, whose somewhat diminished presence in Congress will make them even more marginal in the second term than they were in the first. And it is felt by others who consider themselves on the "left" of the very one-sided US political spectrum, and by "realist" foreign-policy analysts who are just hoping against hope that the over-extension of the US military in Iraq and the rapid depletion of the US Treasury will force Bush to pursue a less ambitious international agenda, sooner rather than later. The eager anticipation, on the other hand, comes from the now-familiar coalition of nationalist, neo-conservatives and Christian Right hawks who still believe that Afghanistan and Iraq were just the 'hors d'oeuvres' to a repast of at least five or six courses. Beginning one month ago, when 'ueber-hawk' Frank Gaffney, the president of the Centre for Security Policy (CSP) and long-time protege of neo-conservative impresario Richard Perle, published what he called his "checklist of the work the world will demand of this president and his subordinates in a second term," prominent hawks have been pushing their own favourite targets for regime change or simple confrontation - from Caracas to North Korea - on what sometimes seems like an hourly basis. Add to that the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency, changes that are already in the works. These calls to action have appeared in all the usual places - the editorial pages of the 'Wall Street Journal' and the 'New York Post', the pages and websites of the 'Weekly Standard' and the 'National Review', on Fox News, and the 'Washington Times'. Somewhat ominously perhaps, they are also reprinted in the Pentagon's twice-daily 'Early Bird' editions - compilations of must reading for senior national-security officials. What is common to almost all of these effusions is the sense that, while Iraq might not have gone quite as well as anticipated, the "victory" in Fallujah marked a turning point in the US occupation and January's elections should permit Washington to begin drawing down its troop presence in Iraq not long afterwards. And, while the United States should still be committed to Iraq for the long haul, it is time that it came to act on the threats posed by other "evil" regimes - be it by military force, covert action, "support for the opposition", or simple intimidation. At the top of the list, as they have been for so long, of course, are Iran and North Korea, whose possession of nuclear weapons is simply "unacceptable", as the administration itself has said. But others - Syria, Venezuela, China, even Russia, and the latest target, the United Nations itself - are still seen as requiring policies of active containment, if not "regime change". Recent news reports that quote "intelligence" and sometimes "military" sources saying that Syria is now the financial, logistical and planning hub of the insurgency in Iraq have prompted right-wingers to resurrect their plans for Damascus, even as President Bashir Assad assures Washington and Israel he is ready for peace talks without conditions. Iran, of course, gets the most ink, with a constant drumbeat of columns underlining the duplicity/hypocrisy/ naiveté of Britain, France and Germany for negotiating a nuclear accord with Tehran and the necessity of an ultimate confrontation, if not because of its nuclear programme than because of the regime's alleged infiltration and subversion of Iraq. While the hawks concede that a full-scale invasion of Iran is not a viable option, at least for the moment, they insist not only that well-targeted air strikes (by Washington or Israel) could, at the least, significantly retard Tehran's acquisition of a nuclear weapon. Similarly, they seize on every report of discontent, such as this week's heckling by university students of President Mohammed Khatami, as evidence that, as in pre-war Iraq, Washington is wildly popular with theologically oppressed Iranian masses who will be eager, at the very least, to accept money and rhetorical support - already in the works, according to recent reports - from the Bush administration to put an end to the regime, perhaps as peacefully, even, as in Ukraine. North Korea is another top-ranking target, with, as in Iran, right-wingers seizing on even more dubious reports of widespread and growing discontent with the government to bolster their argument for regime change and at least the preparation for military strikes, despite the fact that US intelligence does not have the faintest idea where key nuclear facilities can be found. Concern about China, whose failure to "deliver" North Korea, along with its recent multi-billion-dollar energy contract with Iran and persistent tensions with Taiwan are seen as evidence of potential enmity, is also being spurred by the hawks, who appear to have resumed their campaign against "engagement" with Beijing after a three-year hiatus. -Dawn/The Inter Press News Service. Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)
