Is Instability the Goal of U.S. Mideast Policy?

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Is Instability the Goal of U.S. Mideast Policy?

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By Sheldon Richman
October 23, 2015 “Information Clearing House” – Donald Trump’s indictment of the Bush II administration for failing to prevent the 9/11 attacks presents an opportunity for more of a bird’s eye view of American foreign policy in the Middle East, a policy that has killed many hundreds of thousands, maimed countless more, and laid waste to entire societies.

As Peter Beinart reminds us, when George W. Bush took office in January 2001 he and his closest national-security staff showed little interest in al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, despite alarms set off by the CIA and National Security Council counterterrorism “czar” Richard Clarke. Al-Qaeda of course had attacked U.S. government assets in the decade before Bush became president. (Also see this.)

“But both Clarke and [CIA boss George] Tenet grew deeply frustrated by the way top Bush officials responded,” Beinart writes. “Clarke recounts that when he briefed [national security adviser Condoleezza] Rice about al-Qaeda, ‘her facial expression gave me the impression that she had never heard the term before.'”

Repeated attempts to get Bush’s attention were frustrated despite accelerating indications that “Bin Laden [was] Determined to Strike the US.” Even the prospect of aircraft hijackings was raised.

But Bush and his top national-security aides were interested in other things. What things? Ballistic-missile defense, which Bush had promised in his campaign, and Saddam Hussein, the dictator of Iraq. Let’s remember that the overthrow of Saddam, euphemistically dubbed “regime change,” was a U.S. goal at least since 1990. In 1991 Bush’s father, President George H. W. Bush, sent forces to expel the Iraqi army from Kuwait, but he didn’t go in for the kill and send the military to Baghdad to topple Saddam’s government. Instead Bush imposed a trade embargo on the Iraqi people, subjecting them to unspeakable hardship, a policy maintained by his successor, Bill Clinton. The deaths of half a million children — the result, among other things, of U.S. destruction of the sanitation and water infrastructure — constituted the price for regime change that Clinton’s UN ambassador, Madeleine Albright, infamously and coldly found “worth it.” (Clinton rewarded Albright by naming her secretary of state — something an enterprising reporter might want to ask Hillary Clinton about.) Bill Clinton also conducted regular bombing raids on Iraq in the name of maintaining no-fly zones. When will Clinton get his share of the responsibility for 9/11? (Another question for Hillary Clinton.)

So the Bush II administration had Iraq on its collective mind in the first eight months of its tenure not withstanding repeated warnings from its terrorism specialists that al-Qaeda was the likely immediate threat.

Beinart writes:
When that April [cabinet-level] meeting [demanded by Clarke] finally occurred, according to Clarke’s book, Against All Enemies, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz objected that “I just don’t understand why we are beginning by talking about this one man, bin Laden.” Clarke responded that, “We are talking about a network of terrorist organizations called al-Qaeda, that happens to be led by bin Laden, and we are talking about that network because it and it alone poses an immediate and serious threat to the United States.” To which Wolfowitz replied, “Well, there are others that do as well, at least as much. Iraqi terrorism for example.”
As soon as the 9/11 attacks occurred, the Bush administration’s eyes were on Iraq, and the intelligence agencies were ordered to get the proof. Detainees were even tortured to force them implicate Saddam Hussein, and false stories about contract between al-Qaeda and Saddam’s regime were floated.

Can we make any sense of this fixation on Iraq? I think we can. ….More Here

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Is Instability the Goal of U.S. Mideast Policy?