Regime Change In The USA
by Jack A Smith
In recent months, the U.S. antiwar movement has
inevitably and correctly
translated the Bush administration's preoccupation with
"regime change"
abroad into the demand for "regime change" at home. The
peace forces,
however, have not had much success with domestic regime
change in recent
decades.
|
Given the basic similarities of the two political parties
that control
the American state, regime change rarely produces
significant
alterations in governing objectives. Granted there are
certain
differences in domestic policy between the Republican and
Democratic
Parties. But in the post World War II realm of
international affairs,
any differences have been very narrow indeed - so much
so that regime
change frequently results in no change at all or an
exacerbation of the
very situation that brought about demands for regime
change in the first
place.
Throughout the Cold War, for example, proposals to reduce
international
tensions, to engage in forms of disarmament, and various
constructive
treaties were invariably introduced from the Kremlin, not
the changing
regimes in the White House, which pursued an identical
hard line from
start to finish.
The regime change in the elections of 1960 that replaced
eight years of
conservative Republican governance (Eisenhower) with
eight years of
liberal Democratic rule (Kennedy, Johnson), also brought
with it the
U.S.-backed invasion of Cuba, dozens of other
interventions in support
of reactionary objectives (Dominican Republic, Indonesia,
Ghana, etc.)
and, of course, Vietnam.
The regime change which saw voters bring back the
Republicans (Nixon)
on a "peace platform" in the 1968 contest resulted in
U.S. support for
anti-democratic and counter-revolutionary right-wing
forces throughout
the world, producing numerous interventions such as that
which led to
the downfall of the elected progressive government in
Chile, not to
mention the widening of the war in Vietnam and the
invasion of Cambodia.
After the Watergate scandal brought about the interregnum
years of Ford
and Carter, regime change ushered in 12 years of
Republican rule
(Reagan, Bush I) and an intensification of the Cold War,
scores of
direct (Granada, Panama) and indirect (Afghanistan,
Nicaragua, El
Salvador, Honduras, Angola, etc.) interventions against
various
governments and revolutionary forces, leading up to Gulf
War I against
Iraq.
The regime change of the 1992 elections replaced the
conservative
Republicans with eight years of control by the centrist
Democrats
(Clinton), resulting in the killer sanctions and
continued bombings
against a prostrate Iraq, a sharp tightening in the
sanctions against
Cuba, interventions in Somalia, Colombia, etc., missile
attacks on
Afghanistan and Sudan, and, of course the unjust
terror-bombing war
against Yugoslavia. By circumnavigating the United
Nations in attacking
Yugoslavia, the Clinton administration provided today's
Bush government
with a flagrant precedent for violating the most
important international
law of all - the UN Charter. And it was during the
Clinton years that
the U.S. adopted the very policy of regime change in
Iraq.
The last regime change in the United States took place in
the 2000
elections which brought Bush II to power on a fairly
nonbelligerent
public platform in terms of war and peace. The Sept. 11,
2001, attack on
the Pentagon and Twin Towers, however, provided the Bush
administration
with carte blanche to implement its hidden strategy of
aggression and
war for resources and hegemony. At this stage, the 21st
century's one
and only superpower is engaged in building an empire of a
new type -
"democratic" corporate/military imperialism, based on
"humanitarian"
intervention to "liberate" countries that have incurred
Washington's
displeasure. This military colossus possesses weapons of
mass of
destruction that dwarf all previous empires combined -
from the
Persian, Roman and Mongol Legions, to British and French
Colonialism,
to the Axis Powers of World War II. Yesterday
Afghanistan. Today Iraq.
Tomorrow, who knows - Iran, North Korea, Syria, Cuba,
the world
perhaps?
The next "regime change" moment in the U.S. will be in
November 2004.
Since the American political system is controlled by two
essentially
pro-business entities, the only alternative to
Tweedle-dee in terms of
peace and war is Tweedle-dum. And any examination of the
leading
Democratic contenders for the presidency in next year's
election reveals
that they all support Bush's preemptive war against Iraq.
None of them
has publicly criticized the Bush administration's policy
of first-strike
nuclear war against non-nuclear nations. None of them
calls for
reductions in the absurdly bloated militarist budget.
None of them
indicates the slightest interest in overturning the
erosion in domestic
civil liberties that accompanied passage of the USA
Patriot Act and
subsequent measures to abrogate constitutional rights.
It is entirely correct to promote regime change in the
United States.
We certainly need it. But in terms of peace and war, the
realistic
options available to the American people are
extraordinarily limited.
The U.S. has become a superpower on a world-girding
trajectory of
hegemony. What force within the two-party system can be
deployed to
reverse Washington's intention to convert the smaller
nations of the
world into "democracies" utterly subservient to U.S.
interests and to
bully the larger nations into line by rattling its
formidable
militaristic and economic saber?
At this stage, the Republican Party is in the hands of
far-right
fanatics. And the main trend within the "opposition"
Democratic Party
is continuing its quick-march to the political center,
evidently
oblivious to the fact that it passed the center some time
ago and now in
effect constitutes a center-right formation.
The United States needs a regime change all right - but
until we create
a powerful left political force capable of providing a
genuine option
for world peace and serious social-economic
transformation, recent
history suggests that change, when it comes every four
years, we be
cosmetic in nature.
Genuine change is not impossible. It is as much "blowin'
in the wind"
today as it was in the 1960s, But it will be more
difficult to achieve
in the era of the single superpower on a self-righteous
mission to
convert the nations of the world into subsidiaries of the
Great American
Corporate Empire.
At the same time, the phenomenal enlargement of the U.S.
peace movement,
augmented by the unprecedented growth of international
public opinion in
opposition to Washington's global ambitions -- combined
with the
fracture over Iraq developing within America's alliance
of traditional
allies - is a highly positive sign.
The missing ingredient is a resurgence of the left in an
American
political system that has drifted entirely toward the
right. When this
ingredient materializes as a result of independent
political action
combined with mass movements in the streets of our towns
and cities,
then regime change in the U.S. may be able to contribute
toward a world
of peace and social harmony. Until then, the struggle
must continue -
against one warmaking regime in Washington after another.
-
– Jack A Smith
|
This article has also appeared in the Mid-Hudson Activist
Newsletter, published in New Paltz, NY, by the Mid-Hudson
National People's Campaign/IAC.
|
|
