Bush's Mission May Yet Be Accomplished

By Marc Ash, Reader Supported News

18 November 15

he stated goals of George W. Bush’s “War on Terror” followed the traditional path of American war rhetoric. The old standby, market-tested themes of “defending America … fighting for freedom and democracy” were the cornerstones of every argument Bush administration officials presented to the American people in the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. That was the “made for television version.”

In fact the ideological basis for the War on Terror was set forth in policy statements by the The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) in the late 1990s.

PNAC was ostensibly, according to its founders William Kristol and Robert Kagan, a “non-profit educational organization.” To that extent PNAC’s early declarations proved true: an education of sorts was certainly in the offing.

The administration of George W. Bush would run deep with PNAC provocateurs. Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Scooter Libby, and Paul Wolfowitz were all original signatories to PNAC’s 1997 Statement of Principles and their subsequent 1998 Letters on Regime Change in Iraq, flat-out advocating a U.S. assault on Iraq to effect regime change nearly four years before the attacks of September 11th, 2001. In all, 10 (by some reports as many as 20) of PNAC’s original participants would serve in the Bush administration.

PNAC presented their rationale for overthrowing Saddam Hussein as a “blueprint for maintaining global US preeminence, precluding the rise of a great power rival, and shaping the international security order in line with American principles and interests.” That was a cornerstone philosophy of the PNAC gang.

“Benevolent Global Hegemony”

William Kristol’s personal brainchild was what he politely called “benevolent global hegemony.” Of American making, of course. Professor Gary Dorrien described the plan as one that “sought to prevent any nation or group of nations from challenging America’s global supremacy.” That was the ideology that formed the basis for the Iraq Regime Change Letters.

Presumably, the U.S. invasion of Iraq was an act of benevolence in the minds PNAC inhabitants of the Bush II-era White House. George H.W. Bush caught wind of the same thinking from Paul Wolfowitz in 1990 and wanted no part of it.

Additional acts of benevolence included a global torture program and the brutal assault on Fallujah to destroy resistance once and for all in the heart of the Sunni triangle. The same Sunni triangle that today is the hub of ISIS’s support and operations.

The Germans, the French, and Bush’s War on Terror

The Bush family’s sordid military history had its beginnings in World War II. That’s a story unto itself. But clearly George W. Bush viewed the military world through a World War II lens. To go to war, he believed, he had to have the support of the central World War II players, with the Germans this time joining the Allies.

Bush did succeed in unifying Germany and France, but not as he planned. Both Germany and France in 2002 and 2003 were dead set against the plan to invade Iraq. Both countries would flatly refuse to join Bush’s coalition or participate in what they viewed as a mistake of epic proportions.

Both German chancellor Gerhard Schröder and French president Jacques Chirac warned against an “adventure” that might lead to a “destruction of the coalition against terror.” Bush and Cheney reacted vindictively, tapping Schröder’s phone and threatening to ban French imports to the U.S.

Global Holy War

What would be most ironic at this well-removed juncture would be the belated joining of the War on Terror by France and perhaps Germany as well. ISIS is doing everything in its power to bait both nations into the conflict. In the wake of the murderously provocative attacks in Paris, France is already actively engaged in bombing missions against ISIS positions in Syria, and Germany is voicing its support.

Upping the ante, Russia has coordinated air strikes against ISIS with the French military since ISIS claimed responsibility for bringing down a Russian airliner over Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula with a bomb planted in a soda can.

While Russia cannot be viewed as a Western nation by any stretch, its decades-old battle with Islamic militants in Chechnya and elsewhere make it ripe for participation in the current conflict. 

All of this plays directly into a highly polarized conflict between Islamic and non-Islamic nations and their populations. If you are looking forward to “full global jihad/holy-war” that’s where that train ultimately goes.

Why ISIS Needs a War With the West

The attacks in Paris, the webcast beheadings, the brash public pronouncements of mayhem to come are all part of a carefully designed strategy by ISIS to draw the West into a broad conflict. Not Just a conflict with the Islamic State but with the entire Islamic world.

U.S. presidential candidate and Vermont senator Bernard Sanders is right: the best strategy to thwart ISIS’s momentum is one that necessarily includes participation of Islamic nations and factions that are also threatened by its aggression. ISIS well knows that.  

ISIS, like U.S. neocon war planners, understands that polarization can lead to broader conflict. If Islamic nations and factions join the West in the fight against ISIS, they are doomed. But if the West can be baited into a conflict against Islam itself, then full polarization is achieved and ISIS has a chance to unite Islam against what it defines as “the infidels.” Both U.S. neocons and ISIS would then have the broader global conflict they have long desired.

In that way, George W. Bush’s original neocon mission would be accomplished.

Take care.

Marc Ash was formerly the founder and Executive Director of Truthout, and is now founder and Editor of Reader Supported News.

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.