alternative hippopotamus

progressive cyberdadaism from our nation’s capital

June 29, 2006

Iraq and the “One Percent Doctrine”

by AltHippo @ 10:49 am. Filed under Iraq, Wilson/Plame

I noticed this post by Anonymous Liberal linking Suskind’s One Percent Doctrine with Cheney’s rationale for invading Iraq. Unfortunately, that’s not what Suskind says.

The One Percent Doctrine is a general rhetorical framework for justifying a broad range of (IMO Orwellian) Executive branch activities.

Suskind gives a more specific reason for the Iraq invasion: (p. 123)

“The primary impetus for invading Iraq, according to those attending NSC briefings on the Gulf in this period, was to make an example of Hussein, to create a demonstration model to guide the behavior of anyone with the temerity to acquire destructive weapons or, in any way, flout the authority of the United States.

“In Oval Office meetings, the President would often call Iraq a “game changer.” More specifically, the theory was the United States- with a forceful action against Hussein- would change the rules of geopolitical analysis and action for countless other countries.”

This is the first text (at least that I’m aware of) that expresses the view that Iraq was primarily about a show of power. Reminiscent, I would say, of Cheney’s role in the Plame affair. By that I mean that the response to Wilson’s article was out of proportion not because Scooter was hot around the collar, it was out of proportionby intent. It was a demonstration to administration critics that if they go public their lives and careers will be ruined. It was a show of power.

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5 Responses to “Iraq and the “One Percent Doctrine””

  1. eRobin Says:
    June 29th, 2006 at 11:38 am

    Ah, so the jackass Tom Friedman was right way back in 2003.

    Rob Newman has a very funny bit on that in his History of Oil. He called it a public punishment.

  2. KCinDC Says:
    June 29th, 2006 at 1:03 pm

    It’s an extension of the Ledeen Doctrine:

    Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.

    (Apologies for linking to an article by someone unmentionable.)

  3. AltHippo Says:
    June 29th, 2006 at 1:41 pm

    What both of you say. Here’s the lede from the Tom “My Head is Flat” Friedman piece:

    Why? Because there were actually four reasons for this war: the real reason, the right reason, the moral reason and the stated reason.

    The “real reason” for this war, which was never stated, was that after 9/11 America needed to hit someone in the Arab-Muslim world. Afghanistan wasn’t enough because a terrorism bubble had built up over there — a bubble that posed a real threat to the open societies of the West and needed to be punctured. This terrorism bubble said that plowing airplanes into the World Trade Center was O.K., having Muslim preachers say it was O.K. was O.K., having state-run newspapers call people who did such things “martyrs” was O.K. and allowing Muslim charities to raise money for such “martyrs” was O.K. Not only was all this seen as O.K., there was a feeling among radical Muslims that suicide bombing would level the balance of power between the Arab world and the West, because we had gone soft and their activists were ready to die.

    The only way to puncture that bubble was for American soldiers, men and women, to go into the heart of the Arab-Muslim world, house to house, and make clear that we are ready to kill, and to die, to prevent our open society from being undermined by this terrorism bubble.

    While Friedman’s hypothesis is virtually the same as Suskind’s sources, he tends to be annoying, and thus easy to ignore. To put it a different way, by labeling things “the real reason, the right reason, the moral reason and the stated reason” he leaves the reality-based world, venturing into A Couple of Neocons Sitting Around Talking territory.

  4. Bulworth Says:
    June 29th, 2006 at 2:09 pm

    It seems odd to me that of the thousands of words that have been written about the Iraq war
    and its justification, very few point to the role of the Project for the New American Century,
    where the neocons in exile resided and from which they sent Clinton an open-letter
    calling for “regime change” in 1997.

    I don’t think Friedman has ever mentioned it, and I don’t think it was a regular item of the MSM’s
    prewar coverage. Not sure even if Cobra II or the One Percent Doctrine mention it.

  5. AltHippo Says:
    June 29th, 2006 at 3:03 pm

    This is from memory, but the sort of language I recall from the PNAC document are things like projecting American power abroad, refusing to be bound by international treaties, creating a benevolent global hegemony, the use of preemptive force, and similarly creepy concepts.

    So, I’d say the ends of Iraq is very much in the means of the PNAC document. In movie terms, PNAC was the treatment for the Gulf War II screenplay.

    Then, why hasn’t this been a key part of the Iraq discussion? Particularly when the signatories were either in the government or on the Defense Policy Board.

    It seems kind of obvious, doesn’t it?

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