BUSH VICTORY ONLY HASTENS END OF AMERICAN EMPIRE

By Mark Sommer and - - Reprint | | Print |

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ARCATA, California, Nov 1 2004 (IPS) - In the near term, the re-selection of Team Bush would seem to give neoconservatives free rein to pursue their imperial dreams. But a host of factors beyond their control threatens not only to slow their momentum but to bring the empire to an earlier end than even its opponents assume, writes Mark Sommer, who directs the US-based Mainstream Media Project and hosts an award-winning syndicated radio programme, \’\’A World of Possibilities.\’\’ The crux of the American empire\’s vulnerability is its a wilful and increasingly desperate denial of facts and a blindness to the limits to its own power. Some US analysts already doubt that the world will tolerate another \’\’American century\’\’ and see a gradual waning of American power over the next thirty years as other great powers like the EU, China, and India challenge US dominance. But the American imperial project may not even last that long. The pace at which negative trends are moving both within and towards the American empire could greatly accelerate this time-line. Wealthy and powerful as it still appears, the Bush regime is pursuing self-destructive policies that together could create \’\’the perfect storm\’\’ in a dynamic not unlike the collapse of the Soviet empire.

In the near term, the re-selection of Team Bush would seem to give neoconservatives free rein to pursue their imperial dreams. But a host of factors beyond their control threatens not only to slow their momentum but to bring the empire to an earlier end than even its opponents assume.

The November elections only deepened the profound divisions that now run through American politics. These contradictions could fatally weaken US resolve to prosecute its plans, as they ultimately did in Vietnam. The Iraqi insurgency is only intensifying the determination of the opponents of empire, who this time come equally from the US right and left as well as from abroad, to bring a halt to what they see as a self-destructive pursuit of unattainable dreams of permanent global dominance.

In its second term the Bush regime is likely to experience still more intense isolation from the rest of the world, becoming a superpariah among nations. And with its ever-growing financial costs, the accelerated pursuit of empire will devastate a US economy that has already sabotaged its future by funnelling the lion’s share of its resources — human, financial, and material — into non-productive military spending, unsustainable consumption, regressive tax cuts, and unprecedented corporate and state corruption. Unlike their more restrained conservative predecessors, the tiny coterie of neoconservatives who currently hold sway in the White House speak without embarrassment of their imperial ambitions.

Manifestos of ”manifest destiny”, updated to ”benign hegemony”, flow from the American Enterprise Institute, Wall Street Journal, and Fox TV. Some openly court comparisons with imperial rome, ignoring the inevitable tag-line ”decline and fall”. In the article ”In praise of American Empire”, Dinesh D’Souza asserts that US is ”the most magnanimous imperial power ever”. and Robert Kagan of the Carnegie Endowment rejoices that ”the benevolent hegemony exercised by the US is good for a vast portion of the world’s population,” a premise not likely endorsed by a vast portion of that populace.

The crux of the American empire’s vulnerability is a wilful and increasingly desperate denial of facts and a blindness to the limits to its own power. Some US analysts already doubt that the world will tolerate another ”American century” and see a gradual waning of American power over the next thirty years as other great powers like the EU, China, and India challenge US dominance.

But the American imperial project may not even last that long. The pace at which negative trends are moving both within and towards the American empire could greatly accelerate this time-line. Wealthy and powerful as it still appears, the Bush regime is pursuing self-destructive policies that together could create ”the perfect storm” in a dynamic not unlike the collapse of the Soviet empire:

– Compulsively lying to itself, its own people, and the world: Deliberate deception not only blinds the regime to the consequences of its actions but erodes the credibility of its professed intentions, fatally undermining confidence in its leadership among its own people and the world.

– Dividing its own people against one another: Bush strategist Karl Rove has proven devastatingly effective at inciting the partisan rancour that wins or steals elections but in the process also devastates national unity. These divisions extend deep into the conservative Republican base. As the empire attenuates in Iraq and beyond, potent opposition builds from within the US military and among traditional conservatives wary of foreign entanglements and intrusive state power.

– Betraying the values and preferences of the American people: Contrary to what most Americans and foreign observers assume, in-depth polling by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations and the University of Maryland Programme on International Policy Attitudes reveals that a majority of Americans, including many traditional conservatives, supports international treaties and institutions and multilateral approaches to foreign policy in much the same proportions as Western Europeans. Curiously, most erroneously believe that the Bush regime currently pursues such policies. Most also erroneously believe that most of their compatriots don’t support such enlightened policies.

– Bankrupting the US economy: Even the wealthiest nation on earth can’t long sustain an economy based on haemorrhaging national, corporate and personal debt and soaring trade deficits. One of the first casualties may be the dollar itself. As debt suppresses demand and stalls economic recovery, the US dollar may lose its premier status as the world’s reserve currency to the rapidly rising euro.

– Destroying US ”soft power”: While the cultural influence of ”Brand America” remains formidable, anti-American sentiment is already reducing US corporate profits abroad. It’s becoming as fashionable to be anti-American as it once was to be an American look-alike. Journalist Seymour Hersh predicts, ”It’s going to be a mantra not to buy American.” Having defied world opinion in Iraq and elsewhere, the Bush regime now finds that foreign leaders and peoples less intimidated by its words and actions. They are starting to implement global accords like the Kyoto Treaty even without US participation.

Like many Americans, I view the decline of American empire not as a defeat but as a prospective victory for the great democratic tradition that originated on American soil. The urgent question for the rest of us is how to manage this implosion as a process of deliberate devolution so that its reversion to a democratic republic does the least harm to all concerned. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)