In what is fast becoming a trend for publishing pre-war documents from the UK, you may like to see a piece I posted on another board on February 24, 2003:
Or perhaps the beginning of the end.
While many in the US will deny it, the USA has adopted a quasi-imperial role for at least the last 50 years. If you think about it, the corollary to Regans “Empire of Evil” was to suggest that the USA is an “Empire of Good”.
The difference between the “old” empires and the USA is the way in which the acquisition of territory was for the most part internal to north america rather than external as was the case with most others from Rome to the USSR. For the most part the territorial ambitions were not as important as the desire to increase the “home” nation’s wealth by first exploiting the natural resources and setting up an administration. Imperial wars were fought to keep the unruly natives in order so that trade was not interfered with. Direct administration could be reduced (and) dispensed with once a friendly government was installed that could be relied on to be facourable to continued trade relations with the empire. That route was preferable to direct involvement and the associated costs that implies.
Now the US certainly has an imperative to secure trade relations. In particular its dependence on imported oil means that one of its ambitions is to secure continued access to outside supplies. This is why some see the current adventure in Iraq as a putative war for oil. It’s a little more subtle than that. The intended lesson is that if you mess with the US you are going to get a bloody nose. While getting rid of Saddam may not be overtly to seize the oil fields, the intention is to “encourager les autres” in the region to comply with Bush’s wishes.
What should be instructive for Bush is to know how empires end. Almost invariably in history this started when the cost of maintaing the empire became too expensive for the imperial power to maintain. Quite simply if you don’t make a profit from your empire, it invariably shrinks.
The British Empire collapsed because of the costs of WWI and WWII. Indeed the rot started in Iraq during the inter-war years when the UK took over Iraq from the Ottoman empire.
(I then quoted the following extract from the BBC History site. I have added some bold to parts that you may feel bear some relevance to the current situation)
In India a substantial Anglo-Indian army was raised, which landed in Basra in November 1914. The local defending forces soon fled, and the British decided to push on towards Baghdad. They totally miscalculated the strength and determination of the Turkish (Ottoman) forces, however, who trapped them in a terrible siege in Kut al-Amara on the Tigris. The Anglo-Indian force surrendered in April 1916 and many of the soldiers perished in prisoner-of-war camps. New British forces eventually arrived in Basra in greater numbers, and by March 1917 were able to capture Baghdad.
By the end of World War One, British forces were more or less in control of the three provinces and a shaky British administration in Baghdad had to decide on their future. The Ottoman Empire had collapsed, leaving the former Arab provinces in limbo, and the colonial powers of Britain and France aimed to absorb them into their empires; however, the Arab and other inhabitants felt strongly that they had been promised independence.
Under strong pressure from the United States, a sort of compromise was evolved whereby Britain and France were given mandates for the administration of these provinces, under international supervision, by the League of Nations. The Arabs claimed this was a veiled colonialism, because there was only an indefinite promise of independence.
Iraq (the old Arabic name for part of the region) was to become a British mandate, carved out of the three former Ottoman provinces. France took control of Syria and Lebanon. There was immediate resentment amongst Iraq’s inhabitants at what they saw as a charade, and in 1920 a strong revolt spread through the country – a revolt that was put down only with great difficulty and by methods that do not bear close scrutiny. The situation was so bad that the British commander, General Sir Aylmer Haldane, at one time called for supplies of poisonous gas.
Indiscriminate air power was used to quell the revolt of the region’s tribesmen, methods the British admitted did not win them friends and, as one of them said, implanted undying hatred of the British among the people of the area, and a desire for revenge.
The mandate united the three disparate provinces under the imported Hashimite King Faisal, from the Hijaz region of Arabia. Apart from its natural geographical differences, the new Iraq was a complex mix of ethnic and religious groups. In particular the rebellious Kurds in the north had little wish to be ruled from Baghdad, while in the south the tribesmen and Shi’s had a similar abhorrence of central control. In implementing their mandate, the British had certainly sown the seeds of future unrest.There were other contentious issues. The Iraqis deeply resented the borders imposed on them that cut them off from Kuwait, a mini-state that they believed to be a part of their country. These borders also meant that Iraq had only limited access to the waters of the Gulf. The British imposed a monarchy and a form of democracy but, even after the grant of formal independence in 1930, most Iraqis believed that the British really ruled the country.
In fact Iraq remained a satellite of Britain for the next three decades, under the terms of a treaty signed the same year (1930), which included the retention of British military bases and an agreement to train the Iraqi army. Ironically, this army became a breeding ground of resentment against the British presence, particularly amongst new nationalist officers. They deeply resented both the British policies in Palestine and the local civilian politicians, who were seen as British puppets. After the death of King Faisal in 1933 the country was virtually ruled by a group of colonels who saw themselves as the future liberators of an oppressed Iraq.
After WWII Britain was bankrupt (and indeed offered the US its remaining imperial possessions in repayment of war loans). Despite the huge war effort from the Empire in terms of troups during the two Wars (in far greater numbers of fighters and casualties than that of the USA by the way), the cost of maintaining the structure was too high.
A very similar scenario but more rapid happened to Portugal. At one stage the refugee camps for the ex-colonials around Lisbon were reminiscent of the favellas of modern Brazil.
There is no reason to believe that the experience of the USA in Iraq if they invade will be any different from what happened to the British in the inter-war years. Even more worrying must be the cost of a war and its aftermath to the US. Estimates range from around 100 billion to half a trillion if the US decides to stay in Iraq for anything over a year. Now much of the costs of Bush War I were met by other countries (it is sometimes argued that the US made a small cash profit from the donations compared to the actual cost) This time the vast majority of the financial cost is going to fall on the US. With an already declining economy will a war produce a negative yield in both terms of cost/benefit and future security?
Outside the White House it is generally agreed that short term there will be an increase in terrorist attacks on the US or its citizens. By taking up his “Crusade” Bush is Bin Laden’s best recruiting sargeant. The logic of terrorism is to outrage and provoke retaliation.
Longer term the economic interests of the USA are likely to be damaged. Already an islamic group in France has produced a hugely successful “Mecca Cola” as an islamic altermative to Coke. The US has very few industrial products that are not manufactured elsewhere. How much are informal boycots of US products going to further affect te US economy?
With these sorts of pressure on the US taxpaayer, how long is it going to be before there are calls to claw back involvement in the “war against terror”