Yesterday, while channel-surfing, I saw a pundit on one of the news channels’ talking head shows pontificating on the internal contradictions inherent in U.S. government policy toward the new “Twitter Revolutions” in Tunisia and Egypt.
He said that, no matter how unpopular and authoritarian autocratic regimes like Mubarak’s are at home, the United States unfortunately has an interest in preserving their stability because such regimes “support our interests” in the Middle East.
Note the unintended irony there. When I hear a reference to “our interests,” or what “we” are doing in Iraq or Afghanistan, my automatic response is “Are you carrying a friend in your pocket?”
The clear assumption is that there is some commonality of interest between the American people and the state that claims to represent them. But in reality, we’ve got about as many interests in common with “our” government as the Egyptian people have in common with Hosni Mubarak.
The U.S. government may pursue “interests” in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world, but they’re the interests of the coalition of class forces that controls the American state. The interests promoted by the U.S. government are those at the commanding heights of the corporate economy.
U.S. copyright policy is written by the RIAA, MPAA and Microsoft — Joe Biden’s “IP task force” actually operated out of Disney headquarters. Agricultural policy is made by ADM, Cargill and Monsanto, as indicated by the revolving door through which vice presidents and CEOs of those companies walk to become deputy and assistant secretaries at USDA or vice versa.
If the U.S. government is an executive committee of the corporate ruling class when it comes to domestic affairs, and policy reflects the interests of the corporations that control the state, why would we expect it to be any different when it comes to foreign policy? What — because “politics stops at the water’s edge?” Come on, pull the other one! Show me the special race of angels — so different from the regular mortal ward-heeling hacks who make domestic policy — from which the foreign policy establishment is recruited. Or show me the magic potion which effects the Jekyll-and-Hyde transformation that takes place every time those ward-heelers put on or take off their foreign policy hats.
American foreign policy is aimed at guaranteeing American corporations a supply of “safe, reliable and affordable” fuel from the Persian Gulf and Caspian Sea oil basins.
It’s aimed at making sure foreign governments recognize and enforce the “intellectual property rights” of the proprietary content companies who make up the bulk of the corporate global economy (“rights” which also comprise the primary means by which American corporate headquarters retain control of outsourced job-shops all over the Pacific Rim and charge a 1000% brand-name markup to American consumers).
It’s aimed at preventing peasants from regaining control of expropriated land which landed elites use to grow cash crops for the export market, in collusion with Western agribusiness corporations and domestic authoritarian governments.
American foreign policy, in short, is a continuation of the old-style gunboat diplomacy of the colonial powers, aimed at keeping the world safe for corporate power.
About the only time American policy doesn’t reflect such corporate interests is when it irrationally deviates from them to pander to the Zionist colonial project in Israel. The one case in which American foreign policy seems to reflect some principled ideological imperative, even at the expense of promoting energy policy through stable relations with autocratic regional regimes, is America’s “special relationship.” Not that that’s got anything more to do with “our interests” than the rest of it.
So when you hear a pundit talk about “our interests,” ask yourself who he’s got riding along in his pocket — or rather, whose pocket he’s riding in.
Citations to this article:
- Kevin Carson, American Foreign Policy Promotes ‘Our Interests?’, St. Joseph, Missouri Telegraph, p.10, 02/03/11
- Kevin Carson, American Foreign Policy Promotes ‘Our Interests?’, Antiwar.com, 02/03/11
However, the "change" that Obama promised back in 2008 is starting to take place, as the Internet aids in freeing the peoples of those foreign territories that "our" government has spent so much time and energy (and wealth confiscated from the American workers and producers) helping their dictators to oppress, and the "hope" that Obama inspired is coming alive here in the USA as people are waking up to the various tyrannies, TSA, ObamaCare, Bernanke's steal-from-the-poor-and-give-to-the-rich schemes, etc.
More and more, the true nature of Washington's bureaucrats is being exposed, we're seeing the ignoramuses, thieves and gangsters for who they are, and we will find our "common interest," of being FREE, which is our God-given right, become a reality. And that will include the necessary perestroika of decentralization – getting rid of the federal government completely! – and thus the very idea of a "foreign policy" will be thrown into the dustbin of history.
Yup.
Excellent as ever. I agree completely, but I'm not sure US support of Israel does not at least in part further "our" interests. While it does antagonize countries that provide us with oil, it gives the US another, seemingly better reason to stay in the region. Oil interests have less appeal to people than protecting a "Jewish homeland"-even or especially at the expense of a Palestinian homeland. Even better is defending the "only democracy in the Middle East." It may also help delay alternative energy sources, as we have another reason to stay there. Its "our" beachhead in the Mid East, if you will. I may be wrong, but it's a possible reasoning.
Michael: Israel's also a useful proxy for stuff like attacking Iran (although even in that regard it may just as often be a loose cannon for dragging the U.S. into unwanted wars). But on the whole, I think the Arab-Israeli conflict destabilizes what would otherwise be a fairly satisfactory relationship between the U.S. and "moderate Arab" authoritarian states comparable to the American relationship with Latin American dictatorships a generation ago. That was especially true back in the days of a bipolar superpower relationship, when messy little wars in the Mideast threatened to escalate and destabilize our condominum with the Russians.
My recent post Hard Copy Books Now Available
I personally think that the zealous support for Israel comes from the power and dominance of the Zionist lobbying apparatus in Washington. There's been a lot of exposure of this, former Congress people like Paul Findley and Cynthia McKinney who have personally been harassed and intimidated by the lobby have spoken out about it. & academics have written about it, Mearsheimer and Walt who a lot of people are familiar with and also James Petras who has gone into even greater depth on the topic.
Anyway, great article! I completely agree w/it
The importance of Israel (and Egypt) was/is to preserve Western access to the Suez Canal. It was critical for the British during their reign and remains an important shipping lane today. Learn the history of the Suez and you’ll better understand zionism.