Wallerstein & Brecher v USA

Wallerstein & Brecher v USA 
 
Fernand Braudel Center, Binghamton University

http://fbc.binghamton.edu/commentr.htm

Commentary No. 108, Mar. 1, 2003

"The Aftershock"

If the attack on the Twin Towers on Sept. 11, 2001 can be considered to have
been a political earthquake for the American people, the U.S. is now
suffering from the aftershock. The most recent and most dramatic instance of
that aftershock has come from across the Atlantic and reveals the tectonic
shift that has gone on largely unnoticed in the last decade.

What was so unsettling about Sept. 11 was the fact that the U.S., for the
first time in its history, felt vulnerable. A direct assault of such
magnitude within the continental United States had been previously unknown
and unthinkable. The immediate response of most of the rest of the world -
all of whom had lived with such kinds of vulnerability for a long time - was
massively sympathetic. Remember the now classic editorial in Le Monde of
Paris the day after: "We are all Americans now."

In less than 18 months, the Bush administration has squandered all that
sympathy and now finds itself diplomatically isolated. This is the second
great shock, the aftershock of Sept. 11. Since 1945, the United States has
pursued its global policies with the assurance that it had secure allies -
western Europe, Canada, Japan and South Korea. However much one ally or
another had reservations about this or that policy, and however much the
fuss they may have made (a tactic for which France was particularly famous),
the United States always counted on the fact that, when the moment of
decision came, these allies would be behind the United States.

Up until February 2003, the U.S. government has been sure that such deferral
to their leadership in world affairs by the allies was a constant on which
they could rely. Suddenly this has changed. France and Germany are now
leading a "coalition of the unwilling," supported by Russia and China, and
overwhelmingly by world public opinion. When the massive peace
demonstrations occurred on Feb. 15 across the world, the largest
demonstrations were in the three countries that have most ostentatiously
supported the U.S. position on Iraq - Great Britain, Spain, and Italy. In
the beginning of March, the U.N. Security Council is going to vote on a
U.S.-British-Spanish resolution to legitimate military action against Iraq.
They are being met by a French-German-Russian "memorandum" which, in effect,
says that there is no justification yet for military action.

It is very doubtful that the U.S. resolution can get the nine votes it
needs, even if there is no actual veto.

The immediate result has been a shouting match between the U.S. (with Great
Britain) and France and Germany. It has been much more shrill on the U.S.
side than on the Franco-German side. Jacques Chirac, a conservative
politician who has spent time in the U.S. and who has long been considered
one of the French political leaders most friendly to the U.S., is being
vilified and even demonized. How has the relationship of Europe and America
deteriorated to the point that the press is asking whether it can ever be
repaired, whether we are in the midst of a divorce? To understand that, we
have to take the story from the beginning, that is, from 1945.

In 1945, the United States was all-powerful, and western Europe was
suffering badly from the economic destruction of the war. Furthermore, a
good 25 percent of western Europe's population was voting for Communist
parties, and most of the others genuinely feared that the combination of
their internal Communist parties plus the immense Red Army, stationed in the
middle of Europe, represented a real threat to their survival as
non-Communist states. The alliance of western Europe with the United States,
concretized in the creation of NATO in 1949, had the strong support of a
majority of the population which feared U.S. isolationism more than U.S.
imperialism. The U.S. encouraged and supported the establishment of European
transnational structures, primarily as a way of making acceptable to the
French an involvement of west Germany in the alliance structures.

By the late 1960s, the material and political base of European enthusiasm
for the Atlantic alliance began to fritter. Western Europe had revived
economically and was no longer dependent on the U.S.  Quite the contrary! It
was becoming an economic rival. The internal strength of the Communist
parties began to dissipate. A Soviet threat began to seem quite distant.
Meanwhile, U.S. enthusiasm for European institutions began to wane, as a
strong Europe began to seem a risk for the Atlantic alliance. The U.S.
encouraged British adhesion, in the hope of diluting Europe (as indeed de
Gaulle charged at the time). And later, the U.S. would press for rapid
expansion "eastwards" in a similar hope.

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989/1991 represented a disaster, from
the point of view of U.S. control over its allies. It undid the major
justification for U.S. leadership. Of whom was western Europe supposed to be
afraid now? The U.S. searched for a substitute for the Soviet Union to offer
western Europe as a reason for faithful adherence to U.S. leadership.
Basically, what the U.S. offered was the class interest of the "North"
against the "South" - the common interest of the U.S. and western Europe in
global order, neoliberal globalization, and military containment of the
countries of the "South" (that is, continued and intensified insistence on
no nuclear proliferation).

These were common interests, indeed, but none of them posed the urgency of
the erstwhile Soviet military threat. And western Europe felt that its
approach to particular problems was at least as intelligent and useful as
that of Washington. In the days of the first President Bush and of Clinton,
these differences led to serious arguments, but the arguments remained
civil. Along came the hawks of the second President Bush. They were not
interested in debating the fine points of what to do in Iraq, Palestine, or
North Korea. They felt they knew what to do and they were anxious to make
sure that western Europe accept, as it had once upon a time, the
unquestioned leadership of the U.S. They inherited an old American contempt
for the Europe the immigrants had left behind.

However, the geopolitical realities are quite different today. Western
Europe feels that Bush's policies in Iraq are as much aimed at them as at
Saddam Hussein. They see Bush trying to destroy the possibility of a strong
and politically independent Europe, at precisely a very delicate moment in
the constitutional construction of this Europe. Furthermore, the defeat of
the Socialists in France and the victory of the Social-Democrats in Germany
were both serious setbacks for Bush. The defeat of the Socialists in France
allowed France, with its curious constitution, to have a president who had
the authority to be decisive, because he didn't have to share power with a
prime minister of another party. Chirac saw France's interest in asserting
its Gaullism unreservedly. In this Chirac has the overwhelming support of
French public opinion and politicians, which a Socialist prime minister
would never have had.  In Germany, on the other hand, only a Social
Democratic-Green coalition could have taken the clear stand the government
has taken, and found it politically rewarding.

All the bluster of Rumsfeld about how "old Europe" was isolated has been
shown to be unfounded. There is not a single country in Europe, including
eastern Europe, where the polls are not against the U.S. position. The U.S.
that advocates preventive wars and would engage in them unilaterally is seen
as a far greater danger than an encircled and constrained Saddam Hussein.
Europe is not anti-American, but it is definitely anti-Bush. Meanwhile, the
same thing is happening in East Asia, where Japan, South Korea, and China
are aligned against the U.S. approach to handling North Korea.

We shall never go back to the old ways. What will happen now depends a lot
on the actual military process of the Iraq war. Europe may emerge much
strengthened or in tatters. But U.S. ability to count on automatic support
from western Europe and east Asia is probably gone forever.

Immanuel Wallerstein

First published in Yale On Line

[Copyright by Immanuel Wallerstein. All rights reserved. Permission is
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***

What Can the World Do if the US Attacks Iraq?
by Jeremy Brecher

If the US attacks Iraq without support of the UN Security Council, will the
world be powerless to stop it?  The answer is no.  Under a procedure called
"Uniting for Peace," the UN General Assembly can demand an immediate
ceasefire and withdrawal.  The global peace movement should consider
demanding such an action.

When Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal in 1956, Britain, France, and Israel
invaded Egypt and began advancing on the Suez Canal.  U.S. President Dwight
D. Eisenhower demanded that the invasion stop.  Resolutions in the UN
Security Council called for a cease-fire - but Britain and France vetoed
them.  Then the United States appealed to the General Assembly and proposed
a resolution calling for a cease-fire and a withdrawal of forces.  The
General Assembly held an emergency session and passed the resolution.
Britain and France withdrew from Egypt within a week.

The appeal to the General Assembly was made under a procedure called
"Uniting for Peace."  This procedure was adopted by the Security Council so
that the UN can act even if the Security Council is stalemated by vetoes.
Resolution 377 provides that, if there is a "threat to peace, breach of the
peace, or act of aggression" and the permanent members of the Security
Council do not agree on action, the General Assembly can meet immediately
and recommend collective measures to U.N. members to "maintain or restore
international peace and security."  The "Uniting for Peace" mechanism has
been used ten times, most frequently on the initiative of the United States.

The Bush Administration is currently promoting a Security Council resolution
that it claims will authorize it to attack Iraq.  However, huge opposition
from global public opinion and most of the world's governments make such a
resolution's passage unlikely.

What will happen if the US withdraws its resolution or the resolution is
defeated?  The US is currently indicating that it will attack Iraq even
without Security Council approval.  The US would undoubtedly use its veto
should the Security Council attempt to condemn and halt its aggression.  But
the US has no veto in the General Assembly.

Lawyers at the Center for Constitutional Rights (www.ccr-ny.org) have
drafted a proposed "Uniting for Peace" resolution that governments can
submit to the General Assembly.  It declares that military action without a
Security Council resolution authorizing such action is contrary to the UN
Charter and international law.

The global peace movement can begin right now to discuss the value of such a
resolution.  If we conclude it is worthwhile, we can make it a central
demand, for example in the next round of global anti-war demonstrations.
Then we can mobilize pressure on governments that claim to oppose the war --
the great majority of UN members -- to demand that they initiate and support
such a resolution.

Countries opposed to such a war can be asked to state now that, if there is
a Security Council deadlock and a US attack on Iraq is imminent or under
way, they will convene the General Assembly on an emergency basis to condemn
the attack and order the US to cease fire and withdraw.

The sooner global public discussion begins laying the groundwork for such
action the better.  Wide public advocacy will help governments overcome
their probable reluctance to take such a step.  Further, the threat of such
global condemnation may help deter the Bush administration - and to a much
greater extent deter its wobbling allies - from launching such an attack in
the first place.

[Prepared by Jeremy Brecher (jbrecher@igc.org).  Information on Uniting for
Peace based on "A U.N. Alternative to War: 'Uniting for Peace'" by Michael
Ratner, Center for Constitutional Rights and Jules Lobel, University of
Pittsburgh Law School

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www.ccr-ny.org ]