[casi] Terminating the Bush Juggernaut

["AS-ILAS" <AS-ILAS@DELETETHISgmx.de>]

http://www.foreignpolicy-infocus.org/papers/juggernaut/index.html

FPIF Discussion Paper
May 2003

Terminating the Bush Juggernaut

By Jeremy Brecher

Jeremy Brecher is a historian and the author of 12 books including Strike!
and Globalization from Below and a regular contributor to Foreign Policy in
Focus (online at www.fpif.org). The author thanks all those who have
commented on various drafts of this paper, and especially John Humphries. An
electronic version of this paper is available at
http://www.fpif.org/papers/juggernaut/index.html .



Foreign Policy In Focus www.fpif.org

Contents:

Introduction

Part I: Termination
>From Hegemony to Dictation
Global Self-Defense
Strengths of the Bush Juggernaut
Vulnerabilities of the Bush Juggernaut
The Mechanics of Termination

Part II: The Terminators
Global Public Opinion
The New Global Peace Movement
Governments
Coalition of the Unwilling
The Third World
The UN
Forces in the U.S.
Public Opinion
The U.S. Peace Movement
Popular Coalition
U.S. Elites
The Electoral Arena
The World Says No--And Yes

Conclusion: Putting It All Together

Endnotes



Introduction
The Bush administration is presenting itself to the world as a juggernaut--a
"massive inexorable force that advances irresistibly, crushing whatever is
in its path." Bush's National Security Strategy envisions its "war against
terrorism" as "a global enterprise of uncertain duration." It says the U.S.
will act against "emerging threats before they are fully formed." The Bush
administration envisions the coming decades as a continuation of recent U.S.
demands, threats, and wars. It intends to continue the aggressive behavior
already illustrated by war on Afghanistan and Iraq, armed intervention in
the Philippines and Columbia, and threats against Syria, Iran, and North
Korea. The Bush administration and its successors are likely to continue
this juggernaut until they are made to stop.

As the Bush administration sought global support for its attack on Iraq, the
New York Times wrote, "The fracturing of the Western alliance over Iraq and
the huge antiwar demonstrations around the world this weekend are reminders
that there may still be two superpowers on the planet: the U.S. and world
opinion." But is that "tenacious new adversary" with whom President Bush
appeared "eyeball to eyeball" really a superpower, or is it just a
well-intentioned but ineffective protest against the inexorable advance of
the Bush juggernaut?

This piece explores how Bush's "tenacious new adversary" can most
effectively terminate his juggernaut. It starts by looking at the Bush
administration's strengths and weaknesses and the ways it might be stopped
or removed. Then it looks at the various forces around the world and in the
U.S. that might want to contribute to doing so--the elements of the "other
superpower." Finally it reviews how these forces might utilize the Bush
team's weaknesses to force an end to its policies.

No single force is well positioned to halt the Bush juggernaut. An effective
strategy will therefore require cooperation among different forces that have
different views and interests. Such "collective security" has been necessary
in the past, and it is necessary now, to halt attempts at global domination.

If defined as a struggle of nation against nation--the U.S. against Iraq or
North Korea or France, for example--the Bush program is likely to prevail.
If defined as a struggle of Bush and his advisers against global values,
norms, and laws backed by the world's people, it can be defeated.

The first purpose of this piece is to help frame a dialogue on strategy
among the many people and forces worldwide that have an interest in or the
capacity to contribute to halting the Bush juggernaut. These proposals
surely have flaws and can be improved upon by others. In any case they will
soon need revision to meet a rapidly changing situation. This piece presents
a strategic framework in relation to which such criticism and revision can
proceed.

Part of the power of the Bush juggernaut is the image of invincibility it
claims and projects. A second purpose of this piece, therefore, is to
counter the hopelessness that the image induces by showing that there is at
least one realistic strategy by which the "other superpower" can foil Bush's
intentions. If other people can come up with a superior strategy, all the
better.

The Bush juggernaut presents a clear and present danger to the people of the
world and even to the health of our planet. But it is far from the world's
only problem. This piece seeks strategies to terminate the Bush juggernaut
that don't just restore the status quo but instead open the way for further
progress toward global peace and justice.



Part I: Termination
>From Hegemony to Dictation
No minority can long rule a majority by violence alone. Power depends on the
support of some, the acquiescence of many, and the division of opponents.
When supporters are alienated, the masses are opposed, and opponents are
unified, a ruling power's days are numbered.

For the second half of the 20th century, the U.S. was the world's dominant
superpower. It possessed military might and frequently used it against
isolated opponents. But its power always depended on a system of alliances
with other powers, worldwide respect for its system of government, and
division among those who would challenge it. Without direct rule, U.S.
hegemony reached into every nook and cranny at every level from local and
national governments to NATO, the World Bank, IMF, WTO, and UN.

Washington's power has been based on its ability to cultivate local elites
around the world. It has provided them support; they, in turn, have kept
their countries within the limits of what is acceptable to the United
States. The U.S. has limited its demands where they would undermine local
elites' ability to control their own people. And it has wrapped its
domination in a mantle of legality, democracy, and voluntary alliance.

This strategy was extended in the post-cold war era by what came to be known
as "globalization." Instead of sending armies to plunder the world, the U.S.
worked with others to construct a rules-based global economy through such
institutions as the WTO, IMF, and World Bank. The U.S. was somewhat bound by
the rules but used its influence to ensure that the rules provided U.S.
businesses with the lion's share of the benefits.

At the core of the Bush team's new policy is the replacement of such
hegemony by a world order based on direct U.S. dictation. Most of the
current Bush administration foreign policy team were leaders of the 1991
Gulf War, and they interpreted its outcome as revealing the dangers of
international interdependence. They concluded that the U.S. must instead put
down any independent challenger without depending on allies. Washington must
dominate through direct exercise of power rather than just controlling
through biased norms and negotiated hegemony. When George W. Bush became
president, this group filled most of the top foreign policy positions. They
immediately initiated a massive military buildup and began to undermine or
withdraw from existing arms control agreements.

In the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, President Bush's security
adviser Condoleezza Rice asked senior staff of the National Security Council
to think about "how do you capitalize on these opportunities" to change U.S.
doctrine and shape the world. The answer to her question can be seen in the
radical shift in U.S. policy enunciated in Bush's National Security Strategy
document. In place of self-determination and pluralism, it asserts that
there is "a single sustainable model for national success: freedom,
democracy, and free enterprise." In place of security through international
cooperation, it asserts that the U.S. "will not hesitate to act alone, if
necessary, to exercise our right of self-defense by acting preemptively" and
by "convincing or compelling states" to accept their "responsibilities."

The current administration's answer can also be seen in the attacks on
Afghanistan and Iraq; the threats against Syria, Iran, North Korea, Cuba,
and even Belgium and France; the scornful undermining of the UN; and the
contemptuous treatment of longtime U.S. allies. As Noam Chomsky remarked,
the U.S. invasion of Iraq was a "test case" to try to establish "a norm for
the use of military force," namely, "preventive war." As former U.S.
President Bill Clinton put it, "Our paradigm now seems to be: Something
terrible happened to us on 11 September, and that gives us the right to
interpret all future events in a way that everyone else in the world must
agree with. And if they don't, they can go straight to hell."

Although this policy shift is most pyrotechnical in the security arena,
there has been a parallel development in global economic policy as well.
While the Bush administration gives lip service to free trade, it has in
fact moved swiftly toward unilateral protectionism, for example in
protecting the U.S. steel industry, providing huge subsidies in its farm
legislation, and blocking the efforts of the rest of the world to allow poor
countries access to cheap AIDS drugs.

The Bush administration's fundamental shift was eloquently portrayed by
veteran U.S. diplomat and Political Counselor to the American Embassy in
Greece John Brady Kiesling in his letter of resignation. He warned that the
administration's pursuit of war with Iraq was

Driving us to squander the international legitimacy that has been America's
most potent weapon of both offense and defense since the days of Woodrow
Wilson. We have begun to dismantle the largest and most effective web of
international relationships the world has ever known... . We are straining
beyond its limits an international system we built with such toil and
treasure, a web of laws, treaties, organizations, and shared values that
sets limits on our foes far more effectively than it ever constrained
America's ability to defend its interests.

As the U.S. moved to attack Iraq, R.C. Longworth, senior correspondent of
the Chicago Tribune wrote, "This may be the week that the old world ends."
That world was "a world of alliances, of power wrapped in law and of an
American leadership of like-minded nations that accepted this leadership
because Washington treated them as allies, not as subjects."



Global Self-Defense
The U.S. policy of dictation contradicts widely shared values, norms, and
laws that protect self-determination and outlaw aggressive and preventive
war. It also contradicts a wide range of national, elite, and state
interests. Both aspects have provoked opposition.

At the local and national level, opposition is expressed in many kinds of
movements and coalitions seeking to resist U.S. dictation of policies and
institutions. Multinationally it is expressed in the emergence of a
"polycentrism" that asserts the legitimacy of multiple power centers and a
"coalition of the unwilling" composed of countries seeking to limit U.S.
domination. Globally it is represented by the emergence of a new global
peace movement and the effort to impose democratic influence on the UN and
other international institutions.

As the U.S. threatened to attack Iraq, public opinion in nearly every
country of the world joined in opposition. In historically unprecedented
protests, the world said "no" to war. States that had long been docilely
subservient to the U.S. refused to support or participate in the war--more
than sixty of them speaking in opposition to the U.S. at the UN. A coalition
of major powers actively collaborated to try to head off a U.S. attack. In
contrast to previous U.S. wars, the UN Security Council refused its support
and attempted unsuccessfully to construct an alternative to the attack. In
the U.S., an antiwar protest movement grew with unprecedented speed. A
majority of Democratic members of Congress voted against a resolution
supporting the war. Top institutional leaders from the military and foreign
policy elites either opposed the war or distanced themselves from it.

The Bush team attacked Iraq despite the opposition of these forces. In the
aftermath of the war, these forces have tended to fluctuate between
acquiescence to U.S. dictation and renewed resistance. All of these forces
have something to contribute to limiting U.S. aggression and domination if
they can be firmed up and combined.

The Bush administration's reckless threats, interventions, and wars show
every sign of continuing. But it is difficult to predict what targets they
will select, what strategies they will choose, and what the consequences
will be. Therefore, strategy for effective containment of U.S. aggression
must be based not on specific scenarios but rather on an analysis of the
players, their objectives, their strengths and weaknesses, and their
interactions.



Strengths of the Bush Juggernaut
No power in history has concentrated the power now possessed by the U.S.
regime. With only about 5% of the world's people, the U.S. controls about
20% of the world's production. Its military expenditures equal those of the
next 25 countries combined. The Bush administration controls not only the
executive branch of the U.S. government but, through the Republican Party,
the legislative branch and, through past appointments, much of the judicial
branch.

Any country that sees what the U.S. has done to Afghanistan and Iraq can
reasonably fear what would happen should the Bush administration's wrath
turn on it. The Bush team is uninhibited in utilizing this fear to force
countries to comply with its dictates.

The rest of the world depends on the U.S. economy for trade, aid,
technology, and finance. The promise of trade openings to Pakistan, the
offer of loans to Turkey, or the threat of a boycott against France is a
form of power that the Bush administration has not hesitated to apply.

>From the days of Ur and Babylon, nations and empires have been adept at
mobilizing their populations for war by fear and hatred of adversaries. The
terrorist attacks on New York and Washington increased exponentially the
vulnerability of the U.S. people to such manipulation. The Bush administrati
on has repeatedly succeeded in utilizing that fear and hatred to win public
support for its policies.

Even when it was making a travesty of international law, the United Nations,
and other embodiments of global norms, the Bush administration has justified
its actions through such globally legitimate objectives as fighting
terrorism, eliminating weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), protecting human
rights, liberating peoples from tyranny, and punishing war crimes. It
portrayed the conquest and occupation of Iraq as bringing freedom,
democracy, and human rights to the Iraqi people. This hijacking of global
norms has shielded U.S. citizens from a balanced moral evaluation of what is
done in their name and has provided cover for foreign apologists like Tony
Blair.

The Bush administration has constructed a powerful political base for its
policies. Supporters include the Christian Right, a major section of the
Jewish community, much of business, many high-income individuals, and
military-oriented companies, communities, and individuals as well as other
traditional Republican constituencies. The direct beneficiaries of Bush's
policies, such as military, oil, and international construction companies,
provide huge contributions to his electoral coffers. Major media
companies--many of which have received or hope for favors, share Bush's
political views, or fear retribution from federal media policy--have
provided extraordinary support to the Bush team's manipulation of the
public.



Vulnerabilities of the Bush Juggernaut
The Bush team suffers both from fundamental faults in its vision and from
poor adaptation to the realities of the world it seeks to dominate. Taking
advantage of these weaknesses is the key to disabling its unprecedented
might.

The basic contradiction in Bush's policy is that, under contemporary
conditions, 5% of the world's people can't rule the other 95% by
dictation--especially when the government of that 5% in turn represents only
the interests of 5% of its own people. Bush's attempt to revive the Age of
Empire would be as comical as Don Quixote's effort to revive the Age of
Chivalry, were he not so much more heavily armed than the don.

The Bush administration's war on Iraq comes in the context of a crisis of
world order. Both the state system and the economic system are widely
perceived to be drifting toward global chaos and self-destruction. The world
faces "problems of weapons of mass destruction, of the degradation of our
common environment, of contagious disease and chronic starvation, of human
rights and human wrongs, of mass illiteracy and massive displacement. These
are problems that no one country, however powerful, can solve on its own,
and which are yet the shared responsibility of humankind." Least of all can
these problems be solved by the domination of one country whose government
is bent on denying the problems and blocking the solutions.

These problems and the need for "shared responsibility" and cooperative
solutions are widely recognized around the world and even in the United
States. As a result there is broad support for multilateral solutions and
only the narrowest support for imperial solutions. "Much of the world,
including the other great powers, has entered a postnational understanding
of global governance on questions of world order. France, Germany, Russia,
China, and other world powers are now committed to international rules
forbidding the unilateral use of force and to a form of consensual global
governance."

There is also strong support for global norms that limit the freedom of
action of governments. This includes both their ability to oppress their own
people and their ability to dominate and attack others. This was manifested
in the popular movement against U.S. attack on Iraq. In contrast to the
Vietnam war, the movement offered little political support for the
government the U.S. opposed but rather aimed to implement global norms
limiting U.S. freedom to attack. By violating so many international norms so
severely, the Bush administration is repeatedly provoking global opposition.
The Bush administration's biggest deficit, indeed, is in the legitimacy of
its actions.

The Bush juggernaut is based on a highly vulnerable economy. The U.S.
currently must borrow more than $550 billion a year from abroad to pay for
imports. Bush's tax cuts and military spending will increase the need for
borrowing still further. As a historian of British imperialism recently
wrote: "President Bush's vision of a world recast by military force to suit
American tastes has a piquant corollary: the military effort involved will
be (unwittingly) financed by the Europeans ... and the Japanese. Does that
not give them just a little leverage over American policy, on the principle
that he who pays the piper calls the tune?" This American debt crisis is
even more threatening to economic stability, because it comes in the context
of a longstanding global debt crisis that has never been resolved.

The policies enunciated by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld represent the
essence of "imperial overstretch." With few mercenaries, few allies, and no
draft, the U.S. is critically short of military manpower. The Afghan and
Iraq Wars depended on military reserves, which are already overextended. The
U.S. military was severely strained in Iraq by the limits of transport,
bases, and permission to use territory and airspace to launch attacks. The
U.S. lacks the cadre of colonial administrators, so important for previous
imperialisms, who are willing to make their careers in imperial outposts.

Bush's policy undermines the bases of U.S. hegemony abroad, violating the
first rule of politics: don't destroy your own base. Denial of the need for
compromise with subordinates undermines support and breeds resentment in
both elites and common peoples. This is particularly true when the Bush
administration makes demands that put local elites' political control at
risk, as it has done repeatedly, notably in the Arab world. Bush has scraped
off the veneer of consent, revealing the bribery and bullying that always
underlay U.S. hegemony.

Bush has also violated the second rule of politics: don't unify your
opponents against you. Bush policies have propelled a convergence of
opposing forces to develop with surprising speed and breadth. This
convergence includes both people outraged at the violation of global norms
and governments and elites who feel that Bush policies threaten their
interests or even their security. The Bush administration managed to do in a
few months what the Soviet Union and the political left was unable to do
over several generations: split Western Europe from the U.S., divide NATO,
and unify a global alliance of peoples and states against the United States.

Although domestic support for U.S. global hegemony is fairly wide,
especially among elites, support for the Bush policy of unilateral dictation
is not. As Michael Lind recently wrote, U.S. foreign policy is being made by
"a small clique that is unrepresentative of either the U.S. population or
the mainstream foreign policy establishment." Though some oil, military,
construction, and other corporations hope to benefit from this policy, it is
promoted by a small group of neoconservative ideologues, not by the
mainstream of the U.S. business community or the Republican Party.

Moreover, the Bush administration's foreign policy is linked to a domestic
policy that is undermining the bases of consent at home. Its massive tax cut
and the resulting deficits have little support either in the business
community or in the population at large. The New York Times recently
described Bush's domestic agenda as "a disaster, a national train wreck."
The administration's destruction of public services and jobs, initially at
the state level but inevitably to follow (from budget deficits) at the
national level, attack the security and well-being of the middle class as
well as of the underprivileged. Its systematic attacks on established rights
and protections for women, minorities, and labor could lead to its political
isolation. Its incursions against constitutional human rights protections
won support during the terrorism panic but may hurt with conservative as
well as liberal sectors in the long run.



The Mechanics of Termination
There are several ways that the Bush policy of dictation and aggression
might come to an end. Shifts within the Bush administration itself, while
unlikely, are possible. For pragmatic and political reasons, the Bush
administration might adopt a policy of "phony war," continuing its
aggressive rhetoric but avoiding actual conflict. Power shifts within the
administration might increase the authority of Colin Powell relative to the
neoconservatives. An emergency, such as an economic, medical, or
environmental catastrophe, might distract from current international
objectives. Without more profound power shifts, however, such events are
more likely to evoke tactical pauses than genuine policy reorientations.

"Regime change"--a power shift through the political process--is more
likely. Electoral repudiation of Bush would probably lead to policy change,
unless the Democratic candidate--e.g., someone like Sen. Joseph
Lieberman--was an advocate of similar policies. Election of Bush with a
Democratic Congress would add some constraints to Bush's policy and lead to
a running political battle over it. Electoral defeat may terminate the Bush
dictation policy but is likely to leave longstanding U.S. hegemonic
objectives in place. The Bush team is likely to remain in the wings trying
to sabotage any alternative policy and preparing to resume power in the next
election. The extent of change is likely to depend not just on who wins an
election but on other shifts in the balance of political forces as well.

Extraconstitutional action by elites has had profound effects on U.S.
history. Such events frequently take the form of leaking damaging
information; prime examples include Daniel Ellsberg's leaking of the
Pentagon Papers and Deep Throat's leaking of the Watergate story. Many leaks
from military and intelligence sources have already embarrassed the Bush
inner circle; more serious revelations could do critical damage. Other types
of elite extraconstitutional action, such as politically motivated capital
shifts and "investment strikes," seem unlikely.

Extraconstitutional popular interventions have also played a role in
changing U.S. policy. The most notable instance was opposition to the U.S.
war in Vietnam, including mass nonviolent confrontations and such forms of
violence as bombings and the "fragging" of military officers by their
subordinates. Fear of growing social disruption and demoralization of the
military were among the factors that led to elite disaffection from the war.
Peace advocates need to be wary of imitating the proverbial tendency of
generals to fight the last war, however. It took years of massive draft
calls, economic disruption, and body bags to raise extraconstitutional
action to a pitch that had an impact on events. In the absence of an
opponent capable of the kind of military resistance put up by the
Vietnamese, a repetition of this scenario seems unlikely. Today, targeted
civil disobedience may play a role in mobilizing opposition in connection
with other means. Extraconstitutional measures may come to be regarded as
more legitimate to the extent that other channels for dissent are
suppressed.

Sooner or later, the Bush program may well be terminated by the catastrophic
effects of its own failures and unintended consequences. The damage that
will be done in the meantime, however, is incalculable, and conditions after
its defeat may ensure still further disaster. A reasonable goal would be to
terminate Bush's policies by deliberate action before they die a natural
death and to do so in a way that lays the groundwork for further progress
toward global peace and justice.

The previous scenarios are all based on events that would result from
underlying power shifts. We turn now to examining who might have the power
to terminate the Bush juggernaut and how they might use it.



Part II: The Terminators
A wide range of forces have the interest and/or the capacity to contribute
to terminating the Bush juggernaut. There is no way to know for sure what
forces will be sufficient, but the deed will surely be done more quickly and
effectively if these forces work together.



Global Public Opinion
The U.S. plan to attack Iraq was opposed by the public in almost every
country in the world. A massive January 2003 poll in 30 European countries
found the citizens of 29 opposed to a U.S. invasion of Iraq without UN
backing, in most cases by dramatic margins. That poll included countries
like Great Britain and Italy, whose governments supported the war. Public
opinion in the U.S. was more divided, but a majority opposed war on Iraq
without UN approval--until the U.S. actually launched its attack. After the
start of the war, opinion in the U.S. and Britain swung in support, but
there is little evidence that the rest of the world changed its mind.

Public opinion appears to have generally been grounded in global norms: an
unprovoked U.S. attack on Iraq without UN approval was seen as an aggressive
war violating international law. And the U.S. war appears to be perceived as
part of a pattern of threat and aggression on the part of the Bush
administration. The U.S. claim to possess the right to such action received
little echo. There appears to have been strong support for international
efforts to use the UN to prevent the U.S. attack and to provide an
alternative. Global public opinion played an important role in pressuring
governments to oppose the second UN Security Council resolution, which the
U.S. hoped would legitimate its attack.

Although global public opinion will no doubt continue to oppose additional
U.S. acts of aggression and dictation, such acts will not always provide
such a clear focus as the threats to attack Iraq. Nor will it always be
self-evident how public opinion can be translated into an impact on events.
But those attempting to resist U.S. dictation and aggression can
legitimately claim that the overwhelming majority of the world's people
support them. And the people of the world will continue to provide
supportive forces that can be mobilized for specific campaigns.



The New Global Peace Movement
When the U.S. attacked Afghanistan, there was barely a ripple of protest
anywhere in the world outside narrow circles of left-wing anti-imperialists
and those sympathetic to the Taliban. As the U.S. began its buildup for war
against Iraq, opposition grew in six months from a ripple to the largest
global wave of protest in history. This was possible largely because of the
convergence of social movements that has occurred over the past decade to
oppose corporate-led globalization. Variously known as the
"antiglobalization" movement, the "global justice" movement, and
"globalization from below," this "movement of movements" provided a base
from which the war could be challenged in a globally coordinated way.

The leap from a primarily economic-oriented movement to one challenging
military aggression was impressively graceful. It helped that the Bush
administration's program combined economic and geopolitical dictation. The
European Social Forum, a gathering of those opposed to corporate-led
globalization, led nearly a million people in a November 2002 march
protesting the threat of war against Iraq. The annual World Social Forum, a
similar global gathering held in January 2003 in Porto Alegre, Brazil,
featured huge rallies against the impending U.S. war on Iraq. The
international links created by the global justice movement became channels
through which the antiwar campaign quickly spread, and in scores of
countries it provided much of the organizing base for the huge
demonstrations of February and March 2003.

This easy assimilation of the "war issue" was facilitated by the fact that
what the media calls the "antiglobalization movement" is itself a
convergence of environmental, labor, farm, women's, and many other kinds of
movements. The antiwar movement, and issue, has simply become one more
element of the convergence.

Many mass constituencies and organizations also participated in the big
demonstrations and related campaigns. In many countries, participation by
both Christian and Islamic elements was widespread, as was labor movement
participation. In the U.S., where the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the
subsequent war on Afghanistan had somewhat divided the labor movement from
its antiglobalization allies, an extensive Labor Against the War
organization quickly emerged, and even the head of the AFL-CIO was critical
of an attack on Iraq without UN approval.

This movement was driven first of all by a shared abhorrence of U.S. war
plans. The movement was often largest in countries whose national leaders
appeared to be supporting and aiding the United States. Opposition was
almost never justified by support of Saddam Hussein's regime; instead it was
grounded in the defense of international law and norms and of United Nations
authority over the use of military force. Though the so-called
antiglobalization movement has often (usually falsely) been criticized as
inward-looking or nationalist, this movement was unmistakably
internationalist.

The mobilization emerged from "free-wheeling amorphous groups rather than
top-down hierarchical ones" with "no single identifiable leader and no
central headquarters." It depended on the new forms of electronic
communication and independent media, which allow millions of people around
the globe to communicate, share understandings, and plan. Indeed, the global
sharing of a demonstration date and the brilliant title "The World Says No
to War" were enough to ensure a historic impact.

It was relatively easy to organize and unite around "No war on Iraq." But in
the postwar period, the movement can only survive and grow if it can move on
from stopping the Iraq War to the broader and longer-term goal of resisting
and ultimately terminating the Bush team's entire program.

The war on Iraq was just part of a bigger problem: the Bush administration's
policy of dictation, threat, and aggression. That policy is generating an
endless stream of outrages that can provide targets for movement action, and
plenty of positive global initiatives are available for support as well.
Just to take a few examples from mid-April 2003, global campaigns might have
been appropriate in support of: the Syrian proposal for a WMD-free Middle
East, the return of UN inspectors to Iraq, the withdrawal of U.S. troops
from Iraq, the defense of France against U.S. attacks, or the elimination of
U.S. foreign military bases. Such campaigns, however, require the ability to
act quickly and proactively.

The movement needs to develop its ability to influence governments, since
they provide one of the primary levers for ultimately changing U.S. policy.
Such influence requires different modes of action in different countries,
ranging from lobbying to mass action and from electoral participation to
revolution. It also requires a global strategy and program of objectives
that efforts in individual countries can pursue. Isolated acts of resistance
in one or another country are likely only to provoke devastating U.S.
retaliation; the movement must aim to bring about concerted action by many
countries in order to stop Bush's dictation and aggression in their tracks.

Within such a broad movement, political disagreements are inevitable.
Although virtually no war opponents supported Saddam Hussein's regime, they
differed on whether and how much to criticize it. There has been a lively
debate among opponents of U.S. threats against Cuba over the appropriate
attitude toward arrests and executions of dissidents and hijackers. Though
there is likely to be general movement opposition to U.S. support for
Israeli violence, disagreement can be expected regarding Palestinian suicide
bombings. There is also likely to be disagreement about alliances, for
example with national elites and with those leaders who oppose Bush's
aggression but not other forms of imperialism. And whereas most of the
movement has expressed strong support for the principles underlying the
United Nations and has campaigned for governments to support those ideals, a
significant minority views the UN as itself little more than an agent of
imperialism, something to be disempowered rather than reformed. Some of
those in India and Pakistan who gladly participate in demonstrations against
Bush policies may not see eye to eye about the policies of their own
countries.

Practical cooperation will require "agreeing to disagree" and seeking only
the level of agreement that is realistically feasible. The movement against
corporate-led globalization has ample experience in forging this kind of
cooperation.

For many purposes the present decentralized structure of the movement is
excellent, but it has revealed gaps that need to be filled. Many
opportunities for globally coordinated action have occurred just since the
end of the Iraq War that have not been utilized, because there is no
infrastructure through which movements in different countries and sectors
can learn of them, focus on them, and decide to act on them in concert.

To accomplish its tasks, the movement does not need a centralized
decisionmaking authority, but it does need "linking organizations" that help
with certain key tasks. It needs to monitor U.S. activities and disseminate
information about them rapidly--some sort of "USA Watch." It needs to
coordinate rapid global responses to both outrages and opportunities. It
needs to maintain a proactive dialogue on strategy and objectives to guide
day-to-day activities. A start in this direction is being made by a series
of international peace movement conferences, such as one held in late May in
Jakarta.



Governments
Since the end of the cold war, the U.S. has exercised hegemony over most of
the world's governments. It persuaded most of them to support both the first
Gulf War and the attack on Afghanistan. But the Bush administration found a
very different result when it went to attack Iraq. Despite bullying and
bribing on a massive scale, the administration was unable in February 2003
to win Security Council support for its war against Iraq. In the end, only
Britain and Australia provided significant numbers of troops for the attack.

In scores of countries around the world, the Iraq War generated a struggle
between those willing to be tools of American influence and those resisting
it. Important elections in Germany, South Korea, and elsewhere turned on the
question of U.S. military aggressiveness. In several cases, notably Turkey
and South Korea, street confrontations and political struggles in Parliament
forced governments to reverse course on support for the war. Many countries
refused to participate in the war effort or severely limited their
contribution, despite immense U.S. pressure. Canada refused to participate
in the war, despite the U.S. ambassador's veiled threat that, for the U.S.,
"security trumps trade." Belgium refused to allow Iraq War traffic to cross
its territory. Such resistance reflects the breakdown of hegemony.

This struggle has continued in the wake of the war. Most governments are
undecided about how much to resist American power and commands. Each country
is now an arena, and the outcome is in most cases an open question.

Governments' motivations for opposing the U.S. are mixed. In most cases
public opinion, organized popular pressure, and fear of popular upheaval are
important factors. States fear loss of sovereignty to U.S. domination;
elites fear the sacrifice of their own interests to U.S. interests. For
example, in China, according to one expert, "Until last year, Beijing
believed a confrontation with the U.S. could be delayed" and China could
concentrate almost exclusively on economic development. But now many
political cadres and think-tank members believe Beijing should adopt a more
proactive, aggressive stance to thwart perceived American aggression. Many
states accept the basic proposition that international relations should be
conducted under international law and global norms, even if they sometimes
violate those laws and norms themselves.

Some countries, notably France, Germany, Belgium, and Russia, have made it
clear since the Iraq War that they consider countering U.S. dictation and
aggression a policy objective. Their motives are undoubtedly mixed,
including desire for national prestige, protection of specific national and
elite interests, and response to popular pressure. Their own record of
commitment to international norms is also mixed: Russia, for example, is a
major human rights violator in Chechnya, and the same French government that
is standing up to the Bush administration in the name of international law
has conducted interventions in Africa whose international legality is highly
suspect.

Such countries remain under pressure to return to the U.S. fold: some French
business leaders are openly campaigning against Chirac's policies, and
German opposition parties, if elected, would most likely bring Germany back
into line. Some governments might return to the U.S. orbit in exchange for
merely cosmetic concessions. But at present the Bush administration wishes
to punish more than to forgive, making such a reconciliation difficult.

The global peace movement can make every government an arena of struggle
over resistance to U.S. dictation. People can tell their governments that
they want them to resist U.S. demands and selectively withdraw from
cooperation with Washington. They can also demand that their governments
actively cooperate with other countries to contain U.S. power, as discussed
in the next section.

The Bush administration has systematically opposed resistance to its
dictation. An attempt to override democracy and public opinion in countries
around the world was manifested in the U.S. campaign for Security Council
endorsement of the war. In countries (or regions) like Spain, Britain,
Italy, Eastern Europe, Turkey, and Japan, where the overwhelming majority of
the population opposed the war while national governments and elites were
still in bed with the U.S., the struggle against both the war and U.S.
domination became a struggle for democratic self-government.

This continues to be the case after the war. For example, the Bush
administration held a special White House meeting on what to do about
France, after which officials publicly threatened "consequences," if France
continued to oppose U.S. plans for post-war Iraq. It similarly threatened
diplomatic consequences against Belgium, if Brussels allowed war crimes
charges to be brought in its courts against General Tommy Franks. In such
cases, the question is whether French and Belgian policy will be determined
by the French and Belgians or by the United States.

In many instances, national governments have caved in to U.S. pressure. For
example, many countries were pressured to tone down their criticisms of
Washington's Iraq policy. The majority of countries in the Non-Aligned
Movement were successfully "persuaded" not to support action against the
Iraq War in the UN General Assembly.

But such pressures can be redefined to make the issue of peace an issue of
democracy and self-determination. Opposition to the Bush program can be used
everywhere as a basis to struggle for democratization. In some cases--as in
Turkey on the eve of the Iraq War--governments can become more afraid of
their own people than they are of the Americans. If they are not, that
outlook in itself provides a strong case for a regime change to more
democracy and self-government. Democratic pressures can erode Bush's
"coalition of the willing."

Nowhere is this more important than in the Middle East. Here several
autocratic regimes oppress their own people and deny human rights with
political support, funding, and military assistance from Washington while
they cooperate with U.S. policies, despite the overwhelming opposition of
their own people. In such a setting, the fight for democracy and human
rights can go hand in hand with the fight against U.S. domination. A fight
for democratization without U.S. domination would be supported by a large
portion of the population of most Middle Eastern countries, isolating and
providing an alternative to those who wish to replace existing authoritarian
regimes with new nationalistic and/or theocratic ones.

The new global peace movement can do a great deal to promote government
resistance to U.S. domination. This can include political pressure, formal
or tacit support for politicians willing to resist, persuading various
groups that resistance is in their own interest, and threatening the
legitimacy of those who pursue a course of submission to Washington.

There are fundamental differences in goals between the new peace movement
(global norms serving people and planet) and various states (which primarily
serve elite interests). The challenge is to simultaneously encourage
governments to resist U.S. dictation--recognizing the limited interests that
motivate them--while continuing to pursue the movement's broader, more
universal goals. At the same time, the governments of countries like France
and Russia should be told that if they want the support of the world's
people and the peace movement for their efforts, they need to clean up their
own acts.

The movement shouldn't let its agenda be set by nation-states. It needs to
maintain its own independent analysis and initiative. But it should
recognize the importance of governments both as targets and as allies.



Coalition of the Unwilling
As the U.S. demanded international support for its campaign against Iraq,
reports of phone calls between the leaders of France and Germany, then
Russia, then China began to appear in the press. Soon these leaders began to
meet. Gradually a tacit alliance emerged. These "less great powers," joined
by others, eventually outmaneuvered Bush administration attempts to win a
Security Council blessing for its war on Iraq. Bush administration officials
sarcastically dubbed them "the coalition of the unwilling."

Despite many predictions that after the war the members of this alliance
would simply return to the U.S. fold, in fact this alliance has become more
explicit, albeit ambiguous in its direction. Its frequent consultation has
continued. For a time the alliance blocked UN endorsement of U.S. plans for
postwar Iraq--then ignominiously accepted a compromise resolution in the
Security Council that sought to legitimate the U.S. occupation. It has
demanded the reintroduction of UN arms inspectors. France, Germany, Belgium,
and Luxembourg went so far as to set up their own military headquarters
independent of NATO--headlined by United Press International (UPI) as "Four
Anti-war States to Create EU Army."

What is emerging was described by New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, as
she journeyed to meet with French President Jacques Chirac, as "a
Franco/German/Russian linkup with good links through to the Chinese against
what we have, which looks like a small Anglo/American group." She added, "It
shifts the whole dynamic."

The emergence of such a "linkup" should have come as no surprise to U.S.
policy intellectuals. Under the "balance of power" theories so beloved of
political scientists, the emergence of a dominant or expanding power almost
invariably gives birth to a countering bloc. Nor should anyone be surprised
that this alliance takes the form of support for international law and the
United Nations. "It has historically been the case that weaker powers have
sought to constrain stronger powers through the mechanism of international
legal structures."

This "coalition of the unwilling" has a crucial role to play in containing
and eventually terminating Bush's policy of dictation and aggression. It can
block the U.S. from offloading the costs and consequences of its actions
onto others. It can cooperate in the UN to foil U.S. plans and eventually,
as we explore below, to allow the UN to circumvent the U.S. veto. Nothing is
more likely to cause powerful U.S. elites to halt the Bush juggernaut than
their fear of a concerted global coalition against them.

At the same time, the coalition's strategy should not be to alienate the
American people and elites but rather to appeal to them to rise up and force
their government from its current disastrous course. This requires firmness
without either appeasement or unnecessary provocation. To be effective, the
coalition needs to reach out to form a broader front with the rest of the
world. Third world countries are much more likely to stand up to the U.S.,
if they have economic and political support from the less great powers.

An effective coalition of the unwilling requires consultation and
coordination. The Bush administration has used its characteristic strategy
of stigma and abuse to blame global opposition on France. But the
effectiveness and legitimacy of the "unwilling" depends on their acting
together and protecting each other from U.S. reprisal. There has been
considerable advance in this direction, for example through frequent
meetings of the leaders of Russia, France, Germany, and other countries and
by their visits at crucial points to Turkey, Syria, and other countries
under U.S. pressure. This tacit collaboration needs to be built into a more
formal alliance--not a military alliance but rather an antimilitary alliance
that will consult regularly on nonviolent means to protect its members and
the world from threats and aggression.

The coalition of less great powers should not aim for a conventional balance
of power based on military force. The ability to rapidly deliver food,
medical care, economic assistance, human rights and election monitors, and
peacekeeping forces around the world--a sort of "nonviolent power
projection"--would do more than tanks and bombs to strengthen its hand
against the United States. Proactive use of "state-sponsored
nonviolence"--such as official support for the Internationals in Palestine
and the voluntary "human shields" in Iraq--would generally be more effective
than armed interventions. A center for nonviolence would be more useful than
a new European military headquarters. Preventive peacemaking--the ability to
project outside forces into conflict situations before war breaks out--is a
creative alternative to the Bush doctrine of preventive war, and it can go
far to increase prestige and challenge U.S. dominance.

An effective coalition must be defined primarily by global goals and norms
rather than by narrow national self-interest. There are two reasons for
this. First, as in the prisoner's dilemma game, there is always an incentive
for members of a coalition to betray the others; that temptation must be
countered by an understanding that all will lose if some defect. Second,
much of the coalition's strength lies in its appeal to global public
opinion. If all they are really fighting for is a share of oil income or
reconstruction contracts, few nations will back them. If they actually fight
for global norms and interests, many will. A policy in line with global
norms is the key to their success.

The coalition of the unwilling is composed of governments with their own
imperialist policies and their own abuses of human rights. The new global
peace movement should support coalition efforts to forge collective security
vis-ŕ-vis the U.S. and should challenge the coalition to pursue that goal
effectively. It also needs to challenge the coalition members' own abuses of
democracy and human rights. For both tasks the movement must retain its
independence.

The less great powers' moral cleanliness is one question; their intentions
to resist or collaborate with the U.S. is another. If only morally pure
anti-imperialist powers had been welcome to oppose Nazism, we can well
imagine where the world would be today. The peace movement can and should
strive to extend coalition efforts to limit U.S. power, even while remaining
critical of its members' more dubious policies. And it should point out that
correcting those dubious policies is necessary for the coalition to
effectively contest the Bush juggernaut.

States may hope to find a middle way between submission and resistance that
is based on a "multipolar" or "polycentric" system of independent but
cooperating powers. But the Bush administration does not want polycentrism
and will try to isolate and crush those who practice it. Indeed, its
National Security Strategy specifically warns of "the renewal of old
patterns of great power competition." So some sort of collective security
will ultimately prove the only alternative to vassalage.

The goal of such collective security should not be to create a permanent
system of rival blocs, something that has often proven destructive in the
past. Rather, its purpose is to foil U.S. dictation and aggression and to
draw the U.S. instead into cooperative efforts to solve the world's
problems.

The less great powers took a significant step away from collective security
and toward appeasement when they approved a U.S.-sponsored Security Council
resolution essentially legitimating U.S. rule in Iraq. This capitulation was
due not only to the pusillanimous inclination of the Security Council
members but also to the inability of the global peace movement to mount an
effective campaign to influence them.

Security Council members may have tried to appease the U.S. in an attempt to
draw the Bush administration back into a more cooperative and lawful
relation with the rest of the world. Unfortunately, the Bush administration
is more likely to take such appeasement as a sign that it can indeed do
anything it wants, and the world will eventually accept it. As with the
powers that claimed to have established "peace in our time" at Munich,
today's less great powers have only postponed the point at which they will
have to choose between collective security and vassalage.



The Third World
Third world countries were important players in the drama that unfolded as
the U.S. sought legitimacy and support for its attack on Iraq. Washington
certainly applied threats and bribes to induce them to provide such support.
Nonetheless, about 60 of them spoke against U.S. policy at a critical point
in the Security Council debate that followed President Bush's UN speech. And
despite the most intense pressure, a majority of those on the Security
Council refused to support a second resolution authorizing the war.

The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), made up of about 115 developing country
members, debated the idea of taking the Iraq question to the UN General
Assembly under the Uniting for Peace procedure, which had been used to
circumvent Security Council vetoes in such situations as the Korean War and
the French-British-Israeli invasion of Egypt. A few countries, notably
Indonesia, strongly backed the idea. The U.S. campaigned aggressively
against such a move and ultimately the NAM did not pursue it. There was no
public indication that the coalition of the less great powers offered the
NAM any support.

More effective third world resistance to U.S. pressure requires a longer-run
strategy. For example, in a significant initiative, the new government of
Brazil has defined the building of relations across the global South as a
key element of its foreign policy. It is focusing on three major countries:
South Africa, India, and China. It also focuses on Latin America, where it
has initiated the merger of the two main "free trade" areas in preparation
for trade negotiations with the United States. In spring 2003, most Latin
countries also resisted U.S. pressure to condemn Cuba in the Organization of
American States (OAS).

The relationship between the third world coalition and the coalition of less
great powers will be critical in the future. Developing countries will be
far better able to resist U.S. threats and bribes if they have backing from
the lesser powers. Third world countries bring major voting power in both
regional organizations and the UN General Assembly to such an alliance. To
achieve any depth, however, such an alliance will have to explore forms of
economic cooperation that can both protect against U.S. reprisals and
challenge the interests of U.S. elites.



The UN
>From its foundation, the UN was a creation and largely a creature of U.S.
global dominance. At the same time, it has embodied worldwide aspirations
for rules and practices that would force nations to operate within the
framework of global norms and needs.

The UN served as the vehicle to administer the sanctions that devastated
Iraq in the aftermath of the Gulf War. The Bush administration clearly
expected it to provide legitimation for its 2003 attack on Iraq. To its
outrage, the UN refused to do so. This marked the potential beginning for
breaking U.S. hegemony over the UN. As Phyllis Bennis points out: "The
refusal of the six non-aligned Security Council members to cave in to
Washington's extraordinary pressure to endorse the U.S. war was amazing. But
it remains insufficiently appreciated in many quarters."

The UN was unable to take the next steps to condemn the U.S. attack and then
act to prevent or halt it. The U.S. veto of course made it impossible for
the Security Council to take such action. There were several initiatives to
take the Iraq attack to the General Assembly, as has been done in the past
under a procedure known as Uniting for Peace. The U.S., however, exerted
heavy pressure against such a move. The Arab countries actually got as far
as asking for such a meeting, only to withdraw their request almost
immediately, presumably fearing that they didn't have the votes to pass a
resolution opposed by Washington.

In the period immediately after the Iraq War, the future role of the UN
seemed very much up in the air. Though U.S. officials heaped scorn on the
UN, they rapidly discovered as they occupied Iraq that only the UN could
confer international legitimacy on their actions and on the new regime they
hoped to establish. They were forced to accept a greater role for the UN
than they had wished, but they won the far greater prize of Security Council
legitimation for their occupation of Iraq.

According to the Washington Post, there is "concern among some U.S.
officials that the United Nations may emerge as a major platform against
U.S. foreign policy at a time when the U.S. is expanding its global military
reach." Richard Falk has suggested the possibility that "as the U.S. grows
disillusioned with its capacity to control the UN, an institutional vacuum
will emerge," making the UN "more available for moderate states and their
allies in civil society."

Just as the U.S. has constructed its "coalition of the willing," which can
either act on its own or seek UN endorsement for its actions, "moderate
states and their allies in civil society" need to start constructing a sort
of "shadow UN" that acts to meet the responsibilities of the world community
that the U.S. is blocking the UN from addressing. A shadow UN might well
follow the same developmental track as the movement to ban landmines: Start
with an international movement of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs),
recruit smaller countries, and then draw in the "less great powers." The
peace movement should campaign for national governments and groups such as
the coalition of the unwilling, the Non-Aligned Movement, and regional
organizations to support such a shadow UN.

This shadow UN could circumvent a U.S. veto in the Security Council by
activating the General Assembly. For example, an international group of NGOs
has organized a campaign for an "Emergency United Nations Resolution on
Iraq," calling for a General Assembly emergency session under the Uniting
for Peace procedure to impose an alternative to U.S. occupation. Although
the General Assembly has only modest enforcement powers, it can authorize
nations and civil society to implement its resolutions. This could
legitimate action by an emerging shadow UN that includes those willing to
act without U.S. approval.

In April 2003, General Assembly President and Iraq War opponent Jan Kavan
began trying to establish a General Assembly-based forum to openly debate
current foreign policy issues, providing critics of the U.S. an opportunity
to address U.S. actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. moved rapidly to
derail the initiative, sending a confidential note to several foreign
capitals saying that Kavan's proposal would degenerate into a "politically
divisive" talk shop that would "infringe upon" the Security Council's
exclusive right to deal with threats to global peace and security. "This
represents a backdoor amendment to the U.N. Charter," the note added.

A backdoor amendment to the UN Charter, based on expanding the role of the
General Assembly and using it to legitimate new, more democratic structures,
may indeed be the most viable road to UN reform. It is widely noted that the
present membership and powers of the Security Council and the General
Assembly are based on international power relations when the UN was founded
more than 50 years ago and that these structures are in need of reforms that
reflect changes since then. But the U.S. veto (as well as that of the other
permanent members of the Security Council) makes any revision that would
reduce U.S. veto power almost inconceivable.

An effort to counter U.S. dictation and aggression needs to accomplish two
goals at the UN. Washington's hegemonic control, already weakened in the
struggle over Iraq, needs to be further eroded. At the same time, the
legitimacy of UN constraint on violent and destructive acts by national
governments needs to be strengthened.

These struggles take place not only in assembly halls and office buildings
in New York City but even more in the political arenas of member countries.
The global peace movement should make every national political system an
arena for debating whether the UN will be a pawn of the U.S. or whether it
will be a global organization able to limit the warmaking of nations. And
since such debates will require combating the power of the U.S. and its
allies among local elites, the struggle to democratize the UN goes hand in
hand with the struggle to democratize its member nations.

This struggle requires a series of specific targets. These are rapidly
emerging, and new examples no doubt will continue to emerge as the Bush
juggernaut proceeds. Right now examples might include support for the Syrian
proposal for a WMD-free Middle East, support for return of weapons
inspectors to Iraq, UN investigation of human rights violations in wartime
and postwar Iraq, and support for the forums proposed by Jan Kavan.

Without support, the UN cannot simply tell the U.S. what to do and expect to
be obeyed. But the UN can become an arena in which to construct a front to
help contain U.S. power and to force the U.S. to abide by global laws and
norms.



Forces in the U.S.
Public Opinion
For the past 30 years, about one-quarter of the U.S. public has rarely met a
war it doesn't like; about one-quarter has rarely met one that it does. The
remaining half fluctuates.

The 9/11 terrorist attacks created fear and anger among the people of the
United States. This was skillfully channeled by the Bush administration into
what it defined as the "war on terror." The U.S. attack on Afghanistan,
justified as an attack on the 9/11 perpetrators, won overwhelming popular
support.

As the Bush administration began the buildup for the attack on Iraq,
however, the public became far more skeptical. A month before the U.S.
attack on Iraq, more than 60% of those polled opposed an attack without the
support of U.S. allies and UN endorsement. By the end of the war, however,
three-quarters said they believed the war was right.

Given the ultimate support for war, it comes as a shock to learn that, even
after the conquest of Iraq, U.S. public opinion strongly rejects the vision
propounded by the Bush administration. In an April 2003 poll, 88% said that
the administration should have tried to get Security Council authorization
for taking military action against Iraq. Almost two-thirds agreed that "The
U.S. plays the role of world policeman more than it should." Only 12% agreed
that "The U.S. should continue to be the pre-eminent world leader in solving
international problems." Seventy-six percent said "The U.S. should do its
share in efforts to solve international problems with other countries" while
11% said America should "withdraw from most efforts to solve international
problems."

Nearly two-thirds said the U.S. should not consider itself "more free to use
force without UN authorization in the future." As the Bush administration
was scornfully bashing the UN, a majority of those polled preferred a UN
police force to U.S. military forces for maintaining civil order in postwar
Iraq and preferred the UN to lead relief and reconstruction efforts. As the
Bush administration was warning Syria to learn the lessons of Iraq, 71% of
the public said that the U.S. should deal with Syria primarily by "diplomacy
and dialogue" rather than by "pressuring it with implied threats of military
force."

Several elements help explain the discrepancy between popular support for
particular wars and popular aversion to an imperialist role. The U.S. public
is so ill-informed about the world and so little able to "see ourselves as
others see us" that attacks on countries like Afghanistan and Iraq are not
perceived as unilateral aggression. When people are driven by fear, they
tend to accept the views of leaders who offer to provide them protection.
The emotions stirred up by war and promoted by war leaders often supercede
any rational evaluation--a phenomenon by no means the exclusive domain of
Americans. The Bush administration, while promoting its broad global
domination agenda among policy elites, sells its military attacks to the
public not as part of such a policy but rather as responses to the horrible
threats and evils of the regimes it attacks.

Countering this situation requires several elements that should be part of
the strategy of both domestic and international opponents of the Bush
juggernaut. The U.S. public needs to be educated about the reality of the
U.S. role rather than morally condemned for actions whose import they do not
even perceive. The deep fear of threat from the outside world, long present
but greatly intensified by the 9/11 attacks, needs to be met with
alternative ways to provide personal and national security.

Above all, the U.S. people need to understand that Bush's rationalizations
for specific actions conceal an agenda that fosters exactly the U.S. role as
"preeminent world leader" that they oppose. The central issue needs to be
shifted from opposition to individual Bush threats or attacks to a rejection
of his entire project of global domination. If threats and war are seen as
the actions of a power-hungry clique seeking global domination rather than
as efforts to protect Americans against specific foreign threats, war will
be a hard sell. If the choice is seen as global cooperation vs. U.S. global
domination, the great majority of the U.S. people will normally opt for
global cooperation.



The U.S. Peace Movement
There was barely a ripple of opposition in the U.S. to the attack on
Afghanistan, except from small circles of pacifists and anti-imperialists
who oppose all U.S. military actions. And only a small band of dedicated
activists maintained a continuing campaign against Iraqi sanctions. But as
the Bush administration began publicly beating the drums against Iraq in the
summer of 2003, MoveOn, an organization specializing in Internet-based
campaigns on hot current issues, began organizing congressional visits
against an Iraq War. A variety of left groups soon began organizing
demonstrations against an Iraq invasion, with numbers that grew from
hundreds to tens of thousands over the course of a few months. Petitions
against the war, circulated on the Internet, drew hundreds of thousands of
signatures. Peace activists pulled together an organization of mainstream
critics and high-visibility celebrities under the slogan Win Without War.
One hundred sixty-four U.S. cities and counties with a combined population
of 36 million passed "Cities for Peace" resolutions opposing a unilateral
attack on Iraq. Finally, a broad coalition of peace, labor, women's,
student, and other groups formed under the name United for Peace and
Justice.

The movement reached a crescendo in February 2003, when an estimated 1
million people in the U.S. joined with millions around the world in "The
World Says No to War" demonstrations. Even after the war began, substantial
demonstrations and civil disobedience actions continued throughout the
country.

As the U.S. conquest of Iraq concluded, discussion began on the future of
this movement. Although this discussion is still in its early stages,
frequent foci include expansion from Iraq to broader issues of U.S. foreign
policy; outreach to domestic social groups affected by the war agenda;
defense of human rights and civil liberties for dissenters, Arabs, Muslims,
immigrants, and other threatened groups; and mechanisms to strengthen
international connections.

The movement has continued its demonstrations and other mobilizations
against the manifestations of U.S. aggression and domination. A substantial
part of the movement will undoubtedly focus on the upcoming elections:
MoveOn has already declared that it will mobilize its 1.25 million antiwar
contacts for that purpose. Public education on foreign policy issues is also
bound to be important: United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ) and a coalition
of religious groups have already launched postwar teach-ins and educational
forums on issues of war and peace.

The new peace movement started as an effort to prevent a U.S. attack on
Iraq, so obviously it has to redefine itself in the post-Iraq War period. It
needs to become a movement against the whole policy of dictation and
aggression of which the Iraq War was merely one expression. It needs to
become a movement for international cooperation and for global norms, rules,
and institutions that restrict the actions of states. And it needs to become
a movement for U.S. policies that contribute to cooperative problem solving
and limits on aggressiveness.

Individuals as disparate as Jonathan Schell and Tariq Ali have called for
the formation of an organization modeled on the U.S. Anti-Imperialist
League, formed a little over a century ago to oppose U.S. conquest and
colonization of the Philippines. Its leaders included intellectuals like
William James, business figures like Andrew Carnegie, some trade unionists,
African-American writer W.E.B. DuBois, and Mark Twain. It held mass rallies,
lobbied politicians, exposed the abuses of the U.S. occupation, and
attracted half-a-million members. Such an effort, perhaps growing out of the
more mainstream antiwar sector represented by Win Without War, could utilize
prominent spokespeople to break through the media blockade and focus
attention on the Bush juggernaut as a whole and its conflict with the views
and values of the public.

The U.S. movement needs to see itself--and present itself--as part of a
global movement. People need to feel that by joining the peace movement or
promoting its ideas they are cooperating with people all over the world who
are working for the same objectives. This magnifies the sense of power and
demonstrates the kind of international cooperation that can build a
genuinely secure world.

The new peace movement needs to perform some of the functions of a political
opposition, albeit from outside the governmental arena. The movement needs
to develop the capacity to respond rapidly to new actions by the Bush
leadership, providing counterframing that portrays each Bush initiative as
one more part of its ill-advised, immoral, and illegal scheming for global
domination. And it needs to project specific alternatives as part of a
broader alternative strategy for providing security for individuals, the
U.S., and the world.

Nowhere is the identity between the peace movement and the struggle for
democracy and human rights clearer than in the United States. The Bush
team's control of the levers of national power had its origin in an election
in which minority voters' rights were systematically violated. It may use
similar violations of democracy to win reelection. The scapegoating and
persecution of Arabs, Muslims, and immigrants has been a central vehicle for
the mobilization of fear and hatred. The stigmatization of dissent as
unpatriotic or "helping the terrorists" has undermined rational discourse
and excluded critical voices from the media. Efforts to nullify or repeal
the Patriot Act and to defend the rights of immigrants and dissenters have
been part of the movement from the beginning. Redemocratization at home is
integral to the struggle against a policy of global domination.

There are some who would direct the new peace movement into the old peace
movement's traditional disarmament agenda or into the left's traditional
framework of anti-imperialist class struggle. Both of these tendencies have
a constructive role to play within the movement because of their members'
dedicated efforts and the education on fundamental issues that they can
provide.

In the current situation, however, the movement that emerged to stop the
U.S. attack on Iraq ought to focus on reversing the new policies of direct
domination and unilateral aggression adopted by the Bush administration.
These policies represent a huge and immediate danger to the world, making
efforts to block them imperative. They conflict with a wide range of
interests, facilitating broad and effective action. Such a struggle has the
potential to mobilize and unify the broad mass movement that opposed the
Iraq War.

This framing can open the way toward broader and deeper issues. It is, after
all, a struggle to implement global norms against an out-of-control power
center. This is a form of struggle that can be extended in the future to
rogue actors in other areas, such as the global economy and environment.



Popular Coalition
The U.S. has long had a tacit coalition of progressive religious, labor,
women's, civil rights, and other groups that have repeatedly come together
around specific issues. However, issues of war and imperialism have often
divided this coalition. This was particularly true after 9/11, when
opponents of the Afghanistan bombing were quite isolated from their
erstwhile allies. In particular, the Afghan invasion split the coalition
that had developed between labor and other groups to oppose corporate-led
globalization and the free trade agenda.

The response to the Iraq War was different. The Catholic and mainstream
Protestant churches almost uniformly opposed the war. So did most of the
African-American community and its organizations. The women's movement, part
of which had been temporarily beguiled by the Bush administration's claim to
be liberating the women of Afghanistan, opposed the Iraq invasion. A
substantial part of the labor movement opposed the war and formed an active
Labor Against the War organization; the AFL-CIO criticized a unilateral
attack on Iraq, though it expressed a degree of support once the war began.

As the divisions on international perspectives among these groups recede, a
more intense convergence is being prompted by the Bush administration's
domestic policies. The administration's abandonment of compromise and
accommodation abroad is mirrored in its policies at home. As the New York
Times editorialized, the Bush domestic agenda is "a disaster, a national
train wreck" on almost every front. At its core lie huge tax cuts that the
Times described "both as a reward to the well-heeled and a key to starving
the government of money that might be spent on programs like health care or
housing." This is combined with more specific policies that attack the
security and well-being of women, families, minorities, workers, and other
groups that form the overwhelming majority of the population. These policies
embody the Christian Right's whole program to "repeal the twentieth century"
by rolling back challenges to race, ethnic, gender, class, and other forms
of hierarchy.

The Bush policies are creating the basis for a broad popular social movement
that can challenge the whole rightward tilt of U.S. politics. Such a
movement would represent the interests of the great majority of Americans
and would have at least some institutional means of reaching and mobilizing
that majority. It represents a base far larger than that of the Bush right,
and, as we will see below, it is positioned to play a significant role in
the political process. The peace movement should actively contribute to the
construction of such a coalition.



U.S. Elites
Bush policies have led to a surprising and potentially significant defection
among U.S. elites. This first emerged during the buildup for the attack on
Iraq. Provoked by the emergence of popular skepticism about the war, by an
apparent split between Colin Powell and the neoconservative hawks within the
Bush administration, and by the obvious recklessness of Bush administration
policymaking, a wave of elite challenges began in August and September 2002.
Brent Scowcroft and other top advisers to and cronies of former President
George Bush, Sr. spoke out against a unilateral U.S. attack. So did
ultraright House Majority Leader Dick Armey.

These fissures were followed during and after the war by further signs of
establishment dissent. Top professional military officers, present and
retired, represent a hotbed of skepticism about Bush administration
policies. Their opposition was first focused on Pentagon procurement policy
and then on the scale of troop commitment required for the Iraq attack. But
beyond such technical issues there is continuing, deep unease about the type
and scale of military commitments that the Bush administration has taken on.
Though military officials no doubt like Bush's large budgets, they have both
institutional and patriotic reasons to be deeply dubious about the Bush
juggernaut as a whole.

There is also significant opposition within the intelligence community.
Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld demanded that the CIA and other intelligence
agencies come up with the answers he wanted on Iraq. When they didn't, he
created his own more compliant intelligence unit in the Pentagon. The
intelligence community retaliated with a series of leaks exposing Rumsfeld's
deceptions. As intelligence failures regarding Iraqi weapons programs and
political inclinations become more apparent in the postwar period, the
intelligence agencies will have further incentive to oppose and expose the
Bush "politicization" of intelligence.

The mainstream U.S. foreign policy establishment generally supported the
pre-Bush policy of pursuing U.S. hegemony via global rules and cooperation.
This establishment's opposition to the Bush policy has been widely expressed
by former diplomats. This elite sector initially rallied around Secretary of
State Colin Powell. As Powell has become less and less of an independent
force in the Bush administration, this sector has generally not propounded a
clear critique of the Bush policy as a whole, but it is likely to do so in
the coming months.

In the past, a corporate elite played a major role in shaping U.S. foreign
policy and specifically promoting a multilateral rather than a unilateral
approach. It was the corporate establishment that first persuaded Lyndon
Johnson to begin deescalating the Vietnam War. It was the Trilateral
Commission that promoted great power cooperation rather than U.S.
nationalist assertion. Starting in the Reagan era, when it allied with the
ideological right, this sector played less of an independent role. Although
corporate elites have reasons to fear the consequences of Bush policies,
they are unlikely to step out in opposition unless they anticipate
catastrophic results for the U.S. and more particularly for their own
fortunes and institutions.

All of these groups, of course, support their own version of a hegemonic
U.S. policy. But they can play an important role in bringing down the Bush
juggernaut. Their legitimacy within and access to the media and the
political system can provide openings for dissent. Their access to
information can provide leaks that can at times be regime-shaking--witness
Watergate and the Pentagon Papers. Since they provide the principal funding
of elections, their disaffection from Bush and/or Republican members of
Congress can play a crucial political role. A key goal of opponents of Bush
policies both at home and globally should be to bring such forces out into
open dissent.

The greatest fear of the elites is probably of global isolation. They need
to take to heart the warning of U.S. diplomat John H. Brown: "Throughout the
globe the United States is becoming associated with the unjustified use of
force... giving birth to an anti-American century." Escalating the threat of
an "anti-American century" to a clear and present danger rather than merely
a theoretical one is a key lever for bringing these elites into open
dissent. Foreign opponents of Bush unilateral aggression: take note.



The Electoral Arena
The Bush administration and the Republican Party control the executive,
legislative, and, through past appointments, the judicial branches of the
U.S. government. Their institutional power gives them huge influence in the
electoral system both directly and through their ability to utilize the
instruments of government to provide favors or punishments to those able to
affect the electoral process, such as corporations and the media. As a
result, they are able to pursue policies that damage the interests of the
majority of U.S. citizens while still retaining substantial political
support.

The Democratic Party is very much divided on war issues. Some powerful
Democratic senators opposed the war buildup. Former Democratic presidential
candidate Al Gore and leading party elder Ted Kennedy made strong, if
belated, statements criticizing Bush's Iraq policy. Slightly more than half
of Democratic House members voted against the bill authorizing the war on
Iraq. Many, however, rallied to the flag once the attack was launched.

Only a small minority of Democratic leaders, whose most visible spokesperson
is Rep. Dennis Kucinich, consistently oppose the Bush juggernaut and propose
genuine alternatives. Most, however, have serious doubts. The Democratic
Party is thus itself an arena of struggle rather than either a consistent
supporter or opponent of the Bush juggernaut.

Despite its institutional strength, the Bush administration is electorally
vulnerable for a number of reasons. It presides over an ongoing economic
catastrophe and follows policies that only make it worse. Its subservience
to the Christian Right agenda isolates it from most of the rest of the
population. Its continuous outrageous lying regarding Iraq and other foreign
policy matters is likely eventually to bring a credibility gap or "Pinocchio
factor" into play.

Simply defeating Bush at the next election would be a significant but not
decisive blow to the juggernaut. The forces that back Bush policies will, if
defeated at the polls, try to force a Democratic administration to follow
similar policies and will threaten it with charges of being "soft on
terrorism" and leaving the U.S. at the mercy of its enemies if it doesn't.
They will lie in wait, as they have before, setting traps for their
opponents that they can spring in the next election. Their ability to do so
will be much less if the Bush administration meets not just defeat but a
genuine electoral repudiation based on a widespread rejection of its
policies.

One way to pursue such repudiation is for the peace movement and its allies
to prepare a "litmus test" statement that candidates must endorse in order
to win the movement's support. Though the exact wording of such a statement
will require negotiation among various groups, its core should be a
repudiation of the principle of preventive war and a return to the doctrine
that the U.S. should never resort to war except in defense against an
imminent or actual attack. This position is probably supported by a large
majority of U.S. citizens and an overwhelming majority of those who might
vote for a Democratic candidate.

Much of the new peace movement, such as MoveOn, is already mobilizing for
the 2004 elections. But the ambiguity of Democratic opposition to Bush
policies presents it with a familiar dilemma: support Democratic candidates
who eventually support further warmaking or fail to support Democrats and
fail to defeat Bush.

One possible solution to this dilemma for peace activists engaging in
electoral politics has been suggested by Carl Davidson and Marilyn Katz.
They propose independent Peace and Justice Voter committees that would
register voters, develop supporter lists, sponsor candidate forums, and
develop the other elements of an independent political organization. They
would ally with the coalition of other progressive groups opposing Bush
domestic policies and focus on constituencies currently excluded from
effective political involvement. They would then participate in primary and
general elections from this independent base. As the organized expression of
the widespread peace sentiment in the Democratic Party, these committees
would have some clout regarding party program and candidate selection. They
would seek to promote an alternative strategy for international, national,
and homeland security.

In the Democratic primary campaigns, such activists could support the more
pro-peace candidates like Howard Dean, Dennis Kucinich, Rev. Al Sharpton,
and Carol Mosley Brown and could oppose the obvious warmongers like Joe
Lieberman and Bob Graham. After someone is chosen as the Democratic
presidential candidate, activists would work to get the largest possible
number of anti-Bush voters to the polls on election day, working through the
Democratic Party, third parties, and independent committees.

Such a strategy may face questions from those who see the building of third
party alternatives to the Democratic Party as a central political task. This
inevitable tension can be eased if third parties focus primarily on local
and state elections, urge people first and foremost to vote against Bush,
and use any presidential campaign primarily to present a more forthright
critique of Bush policies and, especially, to offer positive alternatives.
Third parties need to consider that they are likely to isolate themselves
from their own constituencies if they do anything to make Bush's reelection
more likely.

To the extent that electoral activities are conducted through independent
local committees rather than through Democratic Party and candidate campaign
organizations, they could continue as an organized base for both electoral
and non-electoral action after the election. They could also continue to
impose some degree of accountability on those they elect.



The World Says No--And Yes
The rest of the world does not vote in U.S. elections. But as Mother Jones
proclaimed long ago, "You don't need a vote to raise hell." The actions of
people, governments, and institutions in the rest of the world can play a
critical role in shaping developments in the United States.

The rest of the world needs to present the U.S. with a consistent, unified,
and principled opposition to the Bush policy of dictation and aggression.
This opposition needs to be expressed in nonviolent sanctions that show U.S.
elites and ordinary citizens that a policy of global domination comes at an
unacceptable cost to them. At the same time, the world needs to offer a
positive alternative of cooperation to provide security and solve global
problems that is designed to appeal to the American people.

In its broadest definition, a sanction is simply "that which induces
observance of law or custom." But we have all too often seen sanctions
used--notably by the U.S. against Iraq--as the continuation of war by other
means. Nonviolent sanctions, in contrast, do not directly kill, injure, or
destroy; "they aim to undermine the opponent's social, economic, political,
and military power." They do this by "withholding or withdrawing the sources
of support needed by the opponent to maintain power and to achieve goals."

The purpose of nonviolent sanctions against the U.S. should not be to punish
Americans but rather to encourage the American people, government, and
institutions to repudiate the Bush administration's pursuit of global
domination and aggressive war and instead to embrace international law and
widely shared global values. Sanctions should express not anti-Americanism
but rather a commitment to global norms.

Sanctions need to target the vulnerabilities of those they are intended to
affect. For example, the Bush administration juggernaut exists in the
context of a weak U.S. economy suffering from excess military spending,
imperial overreach, and severe dependence on the inflow of foreign capital.
The dollar has already fallen 25% against the euro in the past year, and
fears are widespread that the U.S. government's budget deficit may provoke a
further run on the dollar.

Few things could do more to scare U.S. elites than threats to move capital
from dollars into euros or other currencies. And this indeed is already
happening. According to the New York Times, central banks are beginning to
"diversify" their reserves to reduce dependence on the dollar, particularly
in Islamic countries: "The American-led war on Iraq was fiercely opposed by
Indonesia. Vice President Hamzah Haz, an Islamic leader, has encouraged
local investors to switch from dollars to euros. A similar switch has
occurred in Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries."

A decision by oil exporting countries to invoice oil in euros instead of
dollars would cost the U.S. up to an estimated 1% of GNP annually. Iraq made
such a switch in November 2000, and Iran has considered doing so. Prime
Minister Mahathir Mohamad, an outspoken opponent of the U.S. attack on Iraq,
recently suggested that the Malaysian state oil company switch from dollars
to euros for its trading. His rationale, he said, was "purely economic."

Although just the threat of more such moves could shake the U.S. business
community, such a currency shift could also blow back to devastate the rest
of the global economy, Europe and the third world included. So the key to
making such a threat credible is having adequate preparations to deal with
any financial crisis independently of the United States. That requires
either ending U.S. domination of the IMF or developing alternative
institutions for financial stabilization that do not depend on the United
States. The creation of the euro has already reduced Europe's economic
dependence on the U.S.; now Europe and the rest of the world need to prepare
to deal independently with a U.S. or global economic crisis, particularly a
global financial meltdown. Such preparations in themselves might persuade
many U.S. businesses that the Bush administration's policies are a disaster
for them.

Some nonviolent sanctions can be imposed directly by people and movements,
whether or not governments are prepared to support them. There is already a
wide range of proposals for boycotts of U.S. products. One scenario might
include a campaign of divestment from U.S. Treasury securities, modeled on
the divestment campaign that pressured the apartheid regime in South Africa
to release Nelson Mandela from prison and come to the bargaining table. Such
a campaign could target local and national governments and any institutions,
such as churches and trade unions, which have investments. Individuals could
also threaten to shift their own personal investments out of mutual funds
that invest in U.S. government securities--or even in U.S. corporations. In
today's precarious economic climate, with foreigners already dumping the
dollar, the results could be devastating.

Other nonviolent sanctions may result from pressure by people and movements,
but they require government action to implement. One obvious example is the
expulsion of U.S. military bases and the ending of other forms of military
cooperation. In many countries this is a potent political issue. It directly
restricts Washington's capacity to impose its will by force. It also brings
home to the American people and elites one of the costs of their global
unpopularity. The Saudi decision to close the popularly detested U.S. bases,
announced on the eve of the U.S. attack on Iraq and implemented immediately
after the war, shows that this can be done.

Refusing to cooperate in other areas of importance to the U.S. can also
provide a sanction. The Russian Duma, along with condemning the attack on
Iraq, voted to protest the war by holding up ratification of a nuclear
weapons agreement pushed by the United States. On the eve of the Iraq War,
Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov warned that "The majority of the world
community" rejects "the use of military force" in Iraq. Therefore, "The
unity of the antiterrorism coalition is under threat." Those aspects of the
"war on terrorism" (and the "war on drugs") that involve denial of human
rights would be particularly appropriate targets for non-cooperation since
they are inherently illegitimate.

International organizations provide another arena for sanctions. WTO
officials are already "worried that the Bush administration's go-it-alone
policy is threatening international trade policy" and are afraid that war
against Iraq "would weaken respect for international rules and lead to
serious international consequences." As the U.S. made final preparations to
attack Iraq, European officials threatened to impose $4 billion in trade
sanctions, authorized by the WTO, against U.S. products. U.S. efforts to
utilize the IMF and World Bank to reward and punish countries for their
positions on the Iraq War are surely vulnerable to resistance from the
coalition of the unwilling. So are international agreements like the Hague
Conventions on Private International Law and the FTAA, which the U.S. is
negotiating for the benefit of its corporations.

Criminal accountability can provide another form of sanction. Many countries
and legal authorities assert that the Bush administration's attack on Iraq
was an illegal war of aggression--a crime against peace. Shortly before the
attack, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan warned that, "If the U.S. and others
were to go outside the [Security] Council and take military action, it would
not be in conformity with the [UN] charter." The conduct of the war and
subsequent occupation, including "collateral damage" to civilians and the
failure to protect them from starvation, contaminated water, and other
threats, may well involve war crimes as well. So does planning additional
aggressive wars.

There are a number of courts where war crimes charges can be brought. U.S.
support for the Contra war in Nicaragua was condemned as illegal by the
International Court of Justice--the World Court--in The Hague. Stephen
Solley QC, a British international human rights lawyer, has warned that
British troops could be the first defendants to face war crimes charges at
the newly constituted International Criminal Court.

The Nuremberg and more recently the Yugoslavia war crimes tribunals
recognized "universal jurisdiction" over international crimes, meaning that
courts in any country have jurisdiction for human rights violations
anywhere. (That's the basis on which Spanish courts investigating human
rights violations recently issued subpoenas for Henry Kissinger.) A British
group has gone to a magistrates court and charged Tony Blair with conspiring
to incite murder, based on the international law crime of planning an
aggressive war. The District Judge indicated he may hold a further hearing,
possibly with the defendants or the Attorney General represented. Under the
principle of "universal jurisdiction," such cases can be brought anywhere in
the world that national law permits. Lawyers are currently bringing a war
crimes case in Belgium on behalf of Iraqi individuals personally harmed by
the illegal U.S. attack.

Where courts refuse to hear such cases, people can still force the issue
through civil disobedience based on the duty of individuals to halt
violations of international law. As the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal declared,
"Anyone with knowledge of illegal activity and an opportunity to do
something is a potential criminal under international law unless the person
takes affirmative measures to prevent the commission of the crimes." So
blocking a U.S. base or military corporation, or even the offices of a
government that is helping the U.S. commit war crimes, can be not a crime
but rather a necessary act of law enforcement. Such acts are likely to have
wide public support and, if occurring all over the world, significantly
delegitimate U.S. behavior.

Sanctions provide a sort of "tough love." They are a way the world can say
to Washington, "we want to engage with you in a constructive and mutually
beneficial way. But we cannot do so when you claim the right to attack us
any time you choose to; when you show in practice that you will act on that
claim; and when you continue to expand your capacity for such attacks. Until
you are willing to change these practices, you can expect us to continue
applying sanctions designed to change your mind."

Such an approach is unlikely to change the minds of the small clique around
President Bush that promoted the war against Iraq; at best it will make them
more cautious in the militancy with which they pursue their other goals. It
is likely to have a profound effect, however, on the American people and on
many leaders of institutions that sanctions are likely to affect adversely.

The Bush administration's drive for world domination does not represent the
interests of the American people. Even within the American elites, it
represents only a narrow minority. An international coalition can appeal to
the common sense and the better nature of the American people, who are
entirely capable of understanding that 5% of the world's people would be
crazy to try to rule the rest of the world.

Poll after poll has shown that the American people want international
cooperation, and that the broad public is more multilateralist than the
elite. Even among those Americans who supported the Iraq War, there is deep
concern about U.S. isolation in the world, violation of prohibitions on wars
of aggression, the costs of unending military intervention, and the risk of
provoking terrorism. Sanctions should aim to encourage people to act on
those concerns in whatever way is open to them. The withdrawal of
institutional and electoral support from the advocates of dictation and
aggression can ultimately shift the U.S. to a different course.

Finally, sanctions need to define what the world wants from the United
States. This includes immediate demands like an end to the U.S. occupation
of Iraq. It also involves a longer term renunciation of the right to
aggressive war ; a repudiation of the intention of attacking such
often-named future targets as Iran, North Korea, and Syria; a restructuring
of military forces for defensive purposes; and a return to active
participation in global problem-solving around such issues as environment,
disarmament, and human rights. Such a program can provide an exit strategy,
if not for the Bush administration, at least for the American people.

Nonviolent sanctions will generally be most effective if they are
implemented by transnational movements and coalitions of governments. They
will be far more effective if they are imposed as a means of implementing UN
decisions. Since the U.S. can veto any actions in the Security Council, this
ultimately means winning support for them in the General Assembly.

To make sure the right message gets through, sanctions need to be
accompanied by efforts to communicate directly with the American people
about how the rest of the world sees U.S. policy. This should involve
person-to-person, community-to-community, and institution-to-institution
contacts: tours, conferences, and lots of personal letter writing and
dialogue.

Other countries, perhaps led by the EU, need to develop a media strategy
through which the rest of the world counters U.S. media manipulation. This
involves establishing TV equivalents of Radio Free Europe and the Voice of
America--or of Al-Jazeera!

Other countries need to pursue concerted efforts to influence the American
political process like those used so effectively by Israel and by the
Central American movements in the 1980s, and as urged by Edward Said for the
Palestinians. (The U.S. routinely uses these techniques, as well as more
legally dubious ones, to influence countries all over the world.) In this
case such initiatives can promote not just the interests of one or another
country but the views of the entire world. They should aim to influence U.S.
public opinion, encourage the peace movement, activate potential opposition
elites, and ultimately transform the U.S. public and government.



Conclusion: Putting It All Together
The Bush juggernaut violates global norms and threatens a huge range of
interests both within the U.S. and around the world. Sooner or later, the
world will have to adopt collective security against the U.S. or face
unending domination. As with previous attempts at global domination, the
longer such collective security is delayed, the higher the cost is likely to
be.

U.S. dictation and aggression are unlikely to be defeated by military force.
Fortunately, they can be effectively countered by a combination of
democratic struggle and nonviolent sanctions. Such a strategy aims to render
the U.S.'s unsurpassable military force useless and therefore irrelevant.

There are a variety of scenarios, constitutional and extra-constitutional,
through which the Bush juggernaut might be terminated. Both forces within
the U.S. and in the rest of the world can play a role in them.

Collective security requires cooperation in pursuit of common interests
despite conflicting interests. In this case there are conflicting interests
not just among different countries, but also among different social groups,
institutions, and forces. They must nonetheless cooperate against the common
threat or submit to unlimited domination. For that reason, an effective
strategy depends ultimately on the relations among those pursuing collective
security.

The overwhelming opposition of the world's people to U.S. dictation and
aggression is the starting point for the effort to terminate it. This gives
the new global peace movement a fundamental legitimacy. It gives the
movement a huge potential power to draw on. The global peace movement must
preserve, educate, and develop that global popular opposition.

Most of the world's governments have strong reason to fear U.S. power and
wish to constrain it. The new global peace movement, backed by public
opinion, is in a position to put considerable pressure on governments to
resist the U.S. threat. Where governments represent U.S. policy instead of
the interests of their own people, they can be made the target of
democratization.

Action will be most effective, and counter-threats from the U.S. most easily
resisted, if governments act together. A central goal of the new global
peace movement should be to persuade governments to act on the basis of
collective security. This initially means coalitions of governments and
alliances of those coalitions, particularly between the tacit alliance of
"less great powers" like France, Germany, Russia, and China and the third
world countries belonging to the Non-Aligned Movement.

This coalition of most of the world's countries can form, in effect, a
"shadow UN" as a counter to Bush's "coalition of the willing." Ultimately it
should aim to make the UN an instrument for restraining U.S. violations of
world law and global norms. Since such efforts will be vetoed by the U.S. in
the Security Council, this means taking such issues to the General Assembly.
The General Assembly can provide the legitimation that will give the shadow
UN the authority to act.

In this strategy, the struggle for democratization at the national level and
at the global level go hand in hand. Both are struggles against U.S.
dictation and for the implementation of global norms of peace, democracy,
and human rights.

Much of the U.S. public and elites fear the Bush juggernaut will isolate the
U.S. from the rest of the world. The rest of the world can heighten this
concern by means of nonviolent sanctions that demonstrate that such fears
are indeed appropriate. It can also promote alternate ways that the
legitimate concerns of the American people for peace and security can be
better met.

Such actions by the rest of the world can support those in the U.S. who are
trying to change U.S. policy. A combination of internal and external efforts
can generate a power shift that will lead to such a change.

As Phyllis Bennis recently pointed out, "We are engaged now in building a
global movement for peace and justice." That movement for social
transformation will benefit immensely from a successful campaign against the
Bush juggernaut. Success in that campaign is unlikely just to restore the
status quo ante. Bush administration policies will have undermined the
traditional bases of U.S. hegemony while unifying a broad global movement
for peace, justice, and democracy. That will open a wide range of new
possibilities in which the global movement for peace and justice can have
much of the initiative.

http://www.foreignpolicy-infocus.org/papers/juggernaut/notes.html



Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary (Springfield, MA: Merriam, 1956).
The National Security Strategy of the United States, September 20, 2002.
Patrick E. Tyler, "A New Power in the Streets," New York Times, February 16,
2003.
For a succinct overview of modern U.S. foreign policy see Gabriel Kolko,
Another Century of War (New York: The New Press, 2002).
In 1992, then Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney had the Pentagon prepare a
report envisioning a future in which the U.S. could, and should, prevent any
other nation or alliance from becoming a great power. The document was
leaked and then disavowed. Zalmay Khalilzad, a member of Cheney's team and
now President Bush's envoy to the Iraqi opposition, subsequently wrote that
it is a "vital U.S. interest" to "preclude the rise of another global rival
for the indefinite future"--meaning the U.S. should be "willing to use force
if necessary for the purpose." Nicholas Lemann, "The Next World Order," The
New Yorker, April 1, 2002. The pressure toward unilateralism was influencing
U.S. policy even in the Clinton era.
Lemann.
The National Security Strategy of the United States.
Noam Chomsky, "Imperial Ambition, an interview with Noam Chomsky," Monthly
Review, May, 2003.
quoted in Paul Reynolds, "New reality of American power," BBC News online,
April 19, 2003.
U.S. Diplomat John Brady Kiesling Letter of Resignation to Secretary of
State Colin L. Powell, February 27, 2003, on http://truthout.org/.
Quoted in Jim Lobe, "Costs of war by far outweigh benefits," Asia Times,
March 21, 2003.
For U.S. bribing and bullying for support of the attack on Iraq, see Sarah
Anderson, Phyllis Bennis, and John Cavanagh, Coalition of the Willing or
Coalition of the Coerced? (Washington, DC: Institute for Policy Studies,
February 26, 2003).
Shashi Tharoor, UN Under Secretary General for Communications and Public
Information, quoted in "The UN's Relevance," The Nation, March 31, 2003, p.
3.
"The UN's Relevance," The Nation, March 31, 2003, p. 3. As Columbia
University historian Anders Stephanson wrote, in the 1990s "there was an
enormous expansion of law or lawlike procedure on an international scale."
Anders Stephanson, "Messianic unilateralism threatens all," Newsday, March
26, 2003.
Dean Baker, "Bursting Bubbles," In These Times, May 9, 2003.
Niall Ferguson, "True Cost of Hegemony: Huge Debt," New York Times, Week in
Review, April 20, 2003. Ferguson is the author of Empire: The Rise and
Demise of the British World Order and The Lessons for Global Power. Those
holding large amounts of U.S. debt also include wealthy investors from Asia
and the Middle East.
For the split in NATO, see Gabriel Kolko, "The Age of Unilateral War: Iraq,
the United States and the End of the European Coalition,"
http://www.commondreams.org/.
Michael Lind, "The Weird Men Behind George W. Bush's War," New Statesman,
April 7, 2003. Lind is the author of Made in Texas: George W. Bush and the
Southern Takeover of American Politics.
Editorial, "The War at Home," New York Times, April 20, 2003.
This possibility has led to considerable wishful thinking on the part of
"Old Europe." Newt Gingrich's April 2003 attack on the U.S. State Department
appeared to be aimed at eliminating even the future possibility of such a
shift.
Michael Lind, "The Weird Men." Israel and Slovakia were the principal
exceptions.
Steve Sailer, "Questions for postwar polls," UPI, April 8, 2003.
Vast amounts of material from the movement have appeared on the Internet.
For a report on the movement in several countries see The Nation, April 14,
2003. The various Independent Media Centers provided extensive coverage in
countries around the world.
An editorial in the New Left Review asserted that the protesters "were
united only by the desire to prevent the imperialist invasion," but the
great majority appear also to have based this desire at least in part on a
commitment to global norms and international law and to have shared a desire
that the UN and the international community, however vaguely defined, act in
concert to stop the invasion. See Tariq Ali, "Re-Colonizing Iraq," New Left
Review 21, May June 2003, p. 7.
Jennifer Lee, "How Protesters Mobilized So Many and So Nimbly," New York
Times, February 23, 2003.
An example of such an initiative is the Focus on the Global South sign-on
statement, "International Demands Regarding the Invasion, Occupation, and
'Reconstruction' of Iraq," http://www.focusweb.org/.
See next section.
See Jeremy Brecher and Tim Costello, Globalization from Below (Cambridge,
MA: South End Press, 2000), especially Chapter 4, "Handling Contradictions
in the Movement."
A worthwhile contribution is the new "News Without Borders Empire Watch"
news service. Visit http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/newswithoutborders
See "'World's Other Superpower' Plots Its Next Moves,"
http://www.focusweb.org/.
Sarah Anderson, Phyllis Bennis, and John Cavanagh, Coalition of the Willing
or Coalition of the Coerced? (Washington, DC: Institute for Policy Studies,
February 26, 2003).
For a devastating critique of ways that countries failed to oppose the U.S.
attack on Iraq, see Tariq Ali, "Re-Colonizing Iraq." In contrast to the
present piece, he concludes "it is futile to look to the United Nations or
Euroland, let alone Russia or China, for any serious obstacle to American
designs in the Middle East." p. 17. See also Tariq Ali's later article
"Business as usual," The Guardian, May 24, 2003, which includes the same
passage but adds a biting commentary on the Security Council resolution on
post-war Iraq.
Gloria Galloway, "U.S. ambassador chides Canada," Globe and Mail, March 25,
2003.
Al Santoli, editor of the China Reform Monitor, published by the American
Foreign Policy Council, quoted in Jason P. Taverner, "International Opinion;
Iraq War Has Devastated U.S. Standing," Republicons.org, April 9, 2003.
Gareth Harding, "Four anti-war states to create EU army," UPI, April 29,
2003. The primary significance of this act is to reduce EU dependence on the
United States. No one imagines that containment of the U.S. can take a
military form. On the contrary, a policy of and capacity for
"state-supported nonviolence" would do much more to help the EU achieve its
goals than any form of military power projection.
The complexities of inter-European relations regarding policy toward the
U.S., such as the disagreement between Britain and the Continental powers,
the alleged divisions between "Old Europe" and "New Europe," and the genuine
concern of Eastern European countries about the dominance of Germany and
France within the EU, are beyond the scope of this paper.
Fran O'Sullivan, "Coalition of the Unwilling as Clark meets Chirac," New
Zealand Herald, April 30, 2003.
Robert Kagan, author of Of Paradise and Power, quoted in Richard Bernstein,
"Nations Seek World Order Centered on U.N., Not U.S.," New York Times,
February 19, 2003.
An example of planning for nonviolent intervention, in this case in Sri
Lanka, is provided at http://www.nonviolentpeaceforce.org/.
For example, France announced at the Security Council on April 22, 2003 that
it would accept suspension of Iraq sanctions, apparently without prior
consultation with Russia and Germany. The strategy of suspension may have
been correct, but it looked at first like a break in the united front and a
submission to U.S. demands. This could have been avoided if the question had
been discussed first and a joint position developed. Too much going-it-alone
will break up the coalition.
The military alliance that defeated the Nazis was an alliance of imperialist
powers. The popular political and civil society groups that participated in
the struggle against fascism in the 1930s and 1940s often subordinated
themselves to one or another government that had its own imperialist agenda.
This led to periodic divisions in the opposition to fascism and eventually
in the subsumption of most anti-fascist forces under the domination of one
or the other of the "sides" in the cold war. Today's global peace movement
needs to avoid this mistake by maintaining its own internationalism and its
independence from governments, even while it is encouraging governments to
cooperate with each other for collective security.
The National Security Strategy of the United States.
Simon Tisdall argues that other countries must "change themselves" to "avoid
the vassalage that lies implicit in Iraq's cautionary tale." For the EU and
the other main regional groupings this means "far greater integration
through pooled sovereignty, common defence, economic, monetary and foreign
policy, and supernational elected presidents... the prospective end of the
nation state as the prime political entity, at least for all but symbolic
and cultural purposes." Simon Tisdall, "What Europe has to do to avoid
becoming a U.S. vassal: A multipolar world is the third way between
resistance and domination." The Guardian, May 5, 2003. Tisdall's advocacy of
greater independence through greater integration is valuable. But the Bush
administration is likely to oppose any moves that increase the independence
of less great powers, so that such a "multipolar" strategy is bound
eventually to require collective forms of resistance as the alternative to
vassalage.
"Evincing or arising from weakness of spirit and want of courage." Webster's
New Collegiate Dictionary. In the build-up to World War II, President Frankl
in D. Roosevelt is said to have urged his interventionist critics to attack
his ambiguous policy more forthrightly, telling one of them, "Why don't you
call it pusillanimous--that's a good word!"
Coalition of the Willing or Coalition of the Coerced?
See Gabriel Kolko, The Politics of War (New York: Random House, 1968)
pp.267ff. Franklin D. Roosevelt envisioned "a world built around the United
States as the nation with a special position among the great nations." p.
267.
Phyllis Bennis, "Going global: Building a movement against empire,"
Transnational Institute Fellows' Meeting, May 16-17, 2003.
http://www.ips-dc.org/
Colum Lynch, "U.S. Blocking Criticism at U.N. Officials Fear Debate Provides
Platform for Policy Foes," Washington Post, May 1, 2003.
"Resisting the Global Domination Project: An Interview with Prof. Richard
Falk," April 18, 2003, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation website
http://www.wagingpeace.org/.
"Petition for an Emergency United Nations Resolution on Iraq,"
http://www.uniting-for-peace.net/.
Colum Lynch.
This will require that the permanent Security Council members France,
Russia, and China accept the strengthening of an arena in which they do not
have veto power. The peace movement should demand that they do so if they
wish to prove that they are not simply acting on their own imperial
self-interest.
This involves differentiating sovereignty as self-government from national
sovereignty as the right of any nation to be the arbiter of its right to
attack another. Global opinion and the growth of international law have
increasingly supported the authority of the UN to forbid aggression, but
some countries, notably the U.S., have refused to accept that
interpretation.
For additional proposals see the "Jakarta Peace Consensus" conference report
at http://www.focusweb.org/.
Jim Lobe, "Poll Shows Public Supports Iraq War But Rejects Unilateralism and
an Imperial Role for the U.S.," Foreign Policy in Focus, May 1, 2003.
http://www.fpif.org/. The survey, on which all poll data in the following
section is based unless otherwise indicated, was conducted April 18-22 with
865 randomly selected respondents by the Program on International Policy
Attitudes at the University of Maryland.
Other polls give a similar picture. In an ABC/Washington Post poll released
April 17, 2003, nearly 9 out of 10 Americans favored using diplomatic or
economic pressure to resolve issues with Syria and North Korea. Barely over
one-third said they would support going to war to remove either country's
government. "Poll: Iraq Peacekeeping Worries Americans," Associated Press,
April 18, 2003.
No doubt the common human tendency to modify perceptions to fit established
preconceptions--to counter "cognitive dissonance"--also plays a role. If
one's innocence is taken for granted, one's acts must be something other
than crimes, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding.
http://www.citiesforpeace.org/
See, for example, David Cortright, "What do we do now: a peace agenda" and
responses by Phyllis Bennis and John Cavanagh, Bill Fletcher Jr., and Medea
Benjamin in The Nation, April 21, 2003.
There are ironies in taking the Anti-Imperialist League as a model. The
League included many who accepted economic imperialism and only opposed its
colonial form. Such an organization today might play a similar role in
activating mainstream opponents of the Bush program who are not necessarily
opposed to other forms of U.S. hegemony. Tariq Ali says an Anti-Imperialist
League today should be global, but that "it is the U.S. component of such a
front that would be crucial." "Re-Colonizing Iraq," New Left Review 21, May
June 2003.
In 2003 the state legislature of Hawaii became the first to call for the
repeal of the most egregious provisions of the USA Patriot Act.
http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/sessioncurrent/bills/.
Jeremy Brecher and Tim Costello, Building Bridges: The Emerging Grassroots
Coalition of Labor and Community (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1990).
"The War at Home," New York Times, April 20, 2003.
"At no point in modern American history has the civilian leadership of the
nation's military establishment come under as much criticism from serving
military officers as is the case now regarding the war in Iraq." Michael T.
Klare, "The General's Revolt," http://www.thenation.com/.
Afshin Molavi, "Unilateralism has trumped diplomacy in U.S. administration,"
Al-Jazeera, April 19, 2003.
Such a "litmus test" could be backed by a candidate questionnaire or a
petition in which signers pledge to support and work only for candidates who
met the test.
Carl Davidson and Marilyn Katz, "Moving From Protest to Politics: Dumping
Bush's Regime in 2004," posted at http://www.cofc.org/discussions/.
Steve Bloom, "Call for a Paradigm Shift on (and to) the Left Responding to
Davidson and Katz on the 2004 Elections," Portside, May 7, 2003.
Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary (Springfield, MA: Merriam, 1956.)
Nonviolent Sanctions, vol. 1, no. 1, Summer 1989, published by The Albert
Einstein Institution. See also Gene Sharp, The Politics of Nonviolent Action
(Boston: Porter Sargent, 1973).
Charlotte Denny, "Britain backs U.S. in G7 row over kickstarting global
economy," Guardian, February 24, 2003.
Mark Landler, "Euro Beginning to Flex Its Economic Muscles," New York Times,
May 18, 2003.
Robert A. Pape, "The World Pushes Back," Boston Globe, March 23, 2003.
See "The Dollar, the Euro and War in Iraq," SANE Views, vol. 3, no. 3,
January 30, 2003.
Mark Landler, "Euro Beginning to Flex Its Economic Muscles."
Examples of preparations to explore might include a joint float of
currencies against the dollar; shifts of central bank reserves from dollars
to euros; shift of trade invoices to euros; and regional alternatives to the
IMF, as the Japanese proposed in the global financial crisis of the late
1990s. Effective defense measures may require changes in the policies
governing the European central bank to allow more flexible response to the
decline of the dollar and the U.S.' turn to a policy of competitive
devaluation, aka "beggar thy neighbor."
See http://www.bethecause.org/boycott/. Under current conditions, the
financial sanctions discussed below may have more economic impact than
boycotts of goods, although the symbolic impact of the latter may be
significant.
U.S. Treasury securities are held by individuals, mutual funds, money market
funds, close-end funds, bank personal trusts and estates, banking
institutions, insurance companies, and governments in the U.S. and abroad.
See "Holders of Treasury Securities," The Bond Market Association.
Such a campaign raises the question of whether sanctions hurt ordinary
people as well as policymakers. As Patrick Bond, a veteran of the South
African anti-apartheid sanction campaign, commented, "The principle of
solidarity always requires that there be some reflection of mass democratic
discussion on an issue like sanctions whereby people who would be adversely
affected get to make their opinions heard, so that you can go to the rest of
the world (as did black South Africa) and say, hey, we've considered the
short-term pain your sanctions against us will cause, but we want it anyhow
so we can get long-term gain." (Personal communication, March 27, 2003)
Those planning sanctions should confer with U.S. organizations regarding the
effects of their actions on vulnerable people. While sanctions may have
adverse impacts, current Bush administration domestic and foreign policies
are having devastating impacts on the most vulnerable Americans that might
justify considerable "short-term pain."
More narrowly targeted economic sanctions might circumvent this issue. For
example, corporations like Bechtel and Halliburton, which are closely tied
to the Bush team and profit directly from its Iraq policy, can be targeted
for divestment and for boycott of their "services" by local and national
governments.
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld put the best possible face on this
action, portraying it as part of a regional restructuring of U.S. forces,
but it is implausible that the U.S. would have abandoned its Sultan air base
and other facilities on its own initiative.
Andrew F. Tully, "U.S.: Analysts Say War in Iraq Could Complicate War On
Terrorism," Radio Free Europe, March 19, 2003.
Elizabeth Becker, "U.S. Unilateralism Worries Trade Officials," New York
Times, March 17, 2003.
Elizabeth Becker.
Patrick E. Tyler and Felicity Barringer, "Annan Says U.S. Will Violate
Charter if It Acts Without Approval," New York Times, March 11, 2003, p.
A10.
Robert Verkaik, "UK troops may face war crimes charges," The Star, March 12,
2003.
Personal communication from Mike Davies <mfdavies@ntlworld.com>.
The strict limitations on self-defense as a justification for war were well
established in international law long before the UN Charter. As Michael
Byers, Associate Professor at Duke University Law School has explained,
"customary law traditionally recognized a limited right of pre-emptive
self-defense according to what are known as the 'Caroline criteria'. These
date back to an incident in 1837, during a rebellion against British rule in
Canada, when British troops attacked a ship (the Caroline) that was being
used by private citizens in the U.S. to ferry supplies to the rebels. After
a long diplomatic correspondence between the U.S. Secretary of State, Daniel
Webster, and the British Foreign Office minister Lord Ashburton, a form of
words was agreed to govern acts of anticipatory self-defense: there must be
"a necessity of self-defense, instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of
means and no moment for deliberation" and the action taken must not be
"unreasonable or excessive." "Iraq and the Bush Doctrine of Pre-Emptive
Self-Defense," Crimes of War Project,
http://www.crimesofwar.org/expert/bush-intro.html.
Phyllis Bennis, "Going global: Building a movement against empire,"
Transnational Institute Fellows' Meeting, May 16-17, 2003


Published by Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF), a joint project of the
Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC, online at www.irc-online.org) and the
Institute for Policy Studies (IPS, online at www.ips-dc.org). ©2003. All
rights reserved.

Recommended Citation
Jeremy Brecher, “Terminating the Bush Juggernaut,” (Silver City, NM &
Washington, DC: Foreign Policy In Focus, May 2003).

Web location:
http://www.fpif.org/papers/juggernaut/index.html

Production Information
Writer: Jeremy Brecher
Editor: John Gershman, IRC
Layout: Tonya Cannariato, IRC






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