From Dangerous Allies (Malcolm Fraser, 2014) pp 20-3
I have heard many Americans, active in public life, say that the United States has never gone to war except to fight for the freedom of others. How many Americans are aware that there are many examples of American aggression throughout history? As long-time editor of The National Interest Owen Harries points out, hardheaded realism is also very much part of the American character, Throughout American history, this realism has led to the use of force against the American Indians, the Mexicans in Texas and California and the Spanish in the Philippines.’? Harries could also have suggested the African Americans, many of whom had joined the fight to end slavery. American leaders need to reflect on this past when deciding to militarise an argument in the present and ask whether they are making the same mistakes they made previously.
Perhaps the American campaign in relation to the Philippines had a touch both of realism and of American exceptionalism. ‘President McKinley said that the decision to take the Philippines came to him one night when he got down on his knees and prayed, and God told him to take the Philippines.’ None of this sits well with the idea of going to war only to fight for the freedom of others. We need to be suspicious of those who claim to have advice from God. To claim God is on your side is no guarantee of virtue.
The idea of American exceptionalism, which has, in one form or another, existed since the birth of America with Jefferson, through Woodrow Wilson to the present, has never excluded the most ruthless acts. Those ordering and involved in these ruthless acts have not seen any contradiction in their actions, even if they mimic the actions of an enemy that American finds immoral or bellicose. Just as past great powers have done before it, America has convinced itself that it is different and better than the rest. It is allowed to operate using a different set of rules from the rest of the world. Yet, ultimately, ‘the United States has behaved like all the rest, pursuing its own self-interest first and foremost, seeking to improve its relative position overtime, and devoting relatively little blood or treasure to purely idealistic pursuits’.’°
The notion of exceptionalism through this history is also tied to a sense of justice and how to achieve it. A noticeable example of the difference between Americans and other nations is found in comparing the acceptability of the use of force to obtain justice. In repeated surveys, the German Marshall Fund has found a divergence between American and European Union citizens on this measure, with the latest survey indicating that 74 per cent of Americans thought it acceptable to use force, as opposed to 34 per cent of European Union citizens.’ This is a stark comparison.
Understanding American exceptionalism, which goes to the heart, to the belief, to the spirit of America as a nation, is essential to the management of Australia’s own affairs, about which I will write more later.
Against the background of that sense of superiority and of perfection, what chance is there of an American president and a governing class emerging, which really believes that the world must be a cooperative multilateral place—that the most powerful nation cannot merely dictate, that it must work with and understand other nations? President Bush Snr did understand the need for a cooperative world. He was an avowed internationalist; he wanted to work with, and strengthen the United Nations. He wanted to work with and through coalitions, to a much greater extent than many presidents were prepared to accept. He would never have said,‘ You’re either with us or against us’.’” To a significant extent, he might have been an exception from the generality of United States presidents, who have, in most cases, been notoriously difficult to influence or to persuade to modify policy. In this age of unchecked exceptionalism, can we realistically expect an avid internationalist in the White House again?
On a purely pragmatic basis, there is an argument at the end of George F Kennan’s ‘Long Telegram’ from Moscow that said that the Soviet leaders believed that their systems would be safe only whey democracy had been destroyed.’® This was one of the motivating factors that caused the non-communist world to be most concerned about communist expansion and communist aggression. Ironically the neo-conservatives at the end of the twentieth century turned that argument on its head and virtually proclaimed that America would be secure only when the world was a democracy in America’ image. Belief in such an argument provides America with a worldwide mission, to be accomplished if possible by persuasion, if not, then by force of arms. This might well have been, apart from the desire to secure Iraqi oil supplies, the main motivating force of the second Gulf War.
The neo-conservative movement goes hand in hand with sentiments of American exceptionalism. In 1997 the Project for the New American Century wrote of the philosophy and the motivation that was to guide neo-conservatives and their formulation of foreign policy. They issued a Statement of Principles, in which the signatories had this to say: ‘Having led the West to victory in the Cold War, America faces an opportunity and a challenge: does the United States have the vision to build upon the achievements of past decades? Does the United States have the resolve to shape a new century favourable to American principles and interests?’!?
The statement talks of America’s vital role in maintaining peace and security, virtually worldwide. If America does not do that, America will attract challengers to its fundamental interests. America’s purpose was to work with democratic allies and to challenge regimes hostile to American interests and values. That in one sentence is really saying that if you are not a democracy, you must be hostile to America. It is value laden foreign policy writ large. It conveniently ignores the fact that the United States has often made allies of the most barbarous dictators. It, once again, paints the world as black and white, good and bad.
The actions of President Bush Jnr in particular have been reinforced by belief in the idea of American exceptionalism, by the God-given duty to advance democracy, if necessary by force. His action over Iraq speaks to this argument. The misguided belief that America could successfully establish a benign democracy in Iraq and that democracy would spread throughout the Middle East was due to confidence in America’s democratic example and the pervasiveness of its influence, a belief that the American system had universal applicability and it was his duty to apply it. That is, philosophically, a consistent reason, founded in American exceptionalism and neoconservative philosophy. It provides the most coherent explanation for the war in Iraq: self-belief bordering on complete self-delusion.
Weapons of mass destruction were publicly mooted as the main reasons for going to war because, as Wolfowitz said, “The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the US government bureaucracy we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on, which was weapons of mass destruction, as the core reason.” This is duplicitous not only to the American public that funded a war to rid the world of supposed weapons of mass destruction but also to the international community that put faith in what Washington was claiming.
Deceit aside, the extraordinary thing about the war is that a number of highly educated and talented people could go to war and for some, endorse a war, with such a dismal and obvious ignorance of the country they were attacking. How could you have believed that the Kurds, the Sunnis and the Shias would enable one all-embracing democratic government to be established? How could you believe that the religious jealousies and rivalries, spanning centuries, would hot arise once Saddam Hussein’s iron fist had been removed?
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