by Eric Margolis
President George Bush delivered a philippic last week at the NATO summit in Prague, comparing Saddam Hussein to Adolf Hitler and calling on America's allies to join his crusade against Iraq.
Who says history doesn't repeat itself?
Flashback to 480 BCE. Ultimatum from Persia to Athens: `Emperor Xerxes orders you to surrender your weapons and become an ally.' Message from Xerxes to his satraps - subordinate rulers within the mighty Persian Empire: `I intend to...march against Greece, and thereby gain vengeance on the Athenians who have wronged Persia and dared to injure me and my father!'
Ten years earlier, Xerxes' father, Darius, had attacked Athens but failed to crush the defiant little state. Now Xerxes was summoning his satraps to finish the job, warning that Athens was a threat to the entire civilized world. Contingents (modern terminology: coalition) from Parthia, Egypt, Media, Pontus, Scythia, Phoenicia, Assyria, and a score of other satrap kingdoms rallied under Xerxes' banner.
Flash forward 2482 years to Prague. `He's the guy who tried to kill my dad!' says Bush Jr. of Saddam, echoing Xerxes' filial anger. Bush's cartoon characterization of Saddam Hussein as a second Hitler plays well in unworldly Peoria and the US Bible Belt, but it produced derision or dismay among sophisticated continental Europeans, many of whom regard the saber-rattling, imperial-minded Bush Administration as more alarming than Iraq or Osama bin Laden.
Undaunted by such concerns, President Bush forged ahead with plans, first presented last September, to press NATO to deploy a 20,000-man rapid reaction force composed of European, Turkish, and Canadian troops whose prime mission would be to attack `rogue states,' Islamic militants, and any other violators of the `Pax Americana.'
In keeping with the Bush Administration's ever closer identification with the ethos and methods of the former British Empire, Europeans, Canadians, Turks, and, most lately, Australians, are to become the `sepoys'- native infantry - of America's new imperial forces, providing a diplomatic fig leaf and cannon fodder for aggressive missions. Washington is demanding its subordinate `allies' contribute troops whenever it so orders, just like Darius, Xerxes, and every feudal system and empire in history.
The British, ever the moon to America's sun, and the seven, small former Soviet-ruled East European states just invited to join NATO, eagerly volunteered token troop contributions, but the rest of Europe was deeply troubled by the prospect of what the late West German defense minister Franz Josef Strauss aptly called `playing foot soldier to America's atomic knights.'
After half a century of being an obedient junior partner to the US (France excepted), a now united Europe is timidly asserting its independence, the most recent example being Germany's refusal to obey Bush's imperial command to join his anti-Iraq jihad.
The EU is struggling to form a 50,000-man European intervention force that America clearly sees as a rival to its own plan for a US-directed Euro `rogue state' swat team. Europe's reaction force is designed for peace-keeping; the Bush Administration wants its Euro-force to fight America's enemies.
The White House pushed hard for admission to NATO of militarily feeble Bulgaria, Romania, Slovenia and Slovakia. This was primarily because the US needs their air bases as refueling and logistical waypoints on an air bridge that extends from North America to new, permanent US bases in the Mideast and Afghanistan, the 21st century version of the British Empire's old `imperial lifeline' that ran through Gibraltar and Suez to India and beyond.
These economically weak nations are quickly becoming US dependencies, replacing increasingly `undependable' European allies like France and Germany. Even so, few noticed that the admission of these four states, plus Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, would likely weaken instead of strengthening NATO by draining rather than adding to its military resources, and making its least capable members vulnerable to an inevitably resurgent Russia. As Frederick the Great observed, `He who defends everything, defends nothing.' No matter how gratifying it is to see these seven states - particularly the long-suffering Baltic peoples - back in the arms of Europe - NATO has effectively diluted its military power.
Equally interesting, was the dog that didn't bark: Russia. After Prague, Bush hurried off to see `my friend Vladimir Putin' to assure him that a western military alliance smack on Russia's western border and St Petersburg was no threat at all, but somehow a benefit.
The reason the Russian dog didn't bark was twofold: Russia's military remains weak and absorbed by the bloody war in Chechnya; Putin and his supporters are heavily dependent on discreet US funding to maintain their power and keep their cash-strapped government running. Putin needs Bush's support to prevent Chechen independence. In exchange, Bush has allowed Russia to re-occupy half of Afghanistan via its proxy Northern Alliance.
At their meeting, the two leaders also discussed plans for Iraq: Putin might not stand in the way of an American invasion in exchange for Russian oil firms retaining their large drilling concessions in northern Iraq, and an honorarium from Uncle Sam of at least US $12 billion.
Flashback 480 BC: Xerxes: `Éat last I have found a way whereby we may at once win gloryÉget possession of a rich landÉ.and obtain satisfaction and revenge.'
Epilogue: To everyone's surprise, the irksome Greeks (`Grecians' to George W. Bush) won. The irksome Iraqis are unlikely to be so lucky.
[Eric Margolis is a syndicated foreign affairs columnist and broadcaster, and
author of War at the Top of
the World - The Struggle for Afghanistan, Kashmir, and Tibet which was reviewed in
The Economist, May 13, 2000]
Copyright © 2002 Eric Margolis - All Rights
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