Under Madeleine Albright, US foreign policy has become very exciting. You see, she's a great professor and was a very popular teacher at Washington's Georgetown University. Since the late eighties, America has had to deal with an unusual problem. The collapse of the Soviet Union gave the US complete world hegemony. There is now no super power but the USA. This of course, has been problematic domestically in the USA. Even in the Regan presidency, the "communist threat" was used as a uniting call for the American people. The threat from some "unseen but everpresent" force is a very powerful tool of unification and exerting state influence (if there was no threat to a state, why have them in the first place?). However, now that America is the world boss, its actions in foreign areas has the risk of coming under increasing scrutiny. Why does it interfere in so many nations? Now that communism is dead, why keep such a strong over eas military presence? No nation can possibly attack the USA successfuly, why spend 250 billion on defence? One needs an enemy so powerful so it can sustain the unifying force of the nation and convince the world to allow it to continue meddling in foreign policy around the world. So, what were the options for the USA as it had to deal with the unfortunate and unexpected death of Communism (in many ways, its greatest friend)?

China, with its vast population could well be the next superpower. That however, is highly unlikely in the foreseeable future. US domination of the world includes something called "market forces", and China hasn't got the resources to quell its own people, let alone build up too much of a soviet like force. The USA also has extensive trade interests, and to make China the enemy would be counterproductive in the best way America is successful... cultural hegemony. The USA's multitude of cultural exports, including software, movies, CDs, etc. makes it unlikely that China could possibly be seen as a "threat" in the same way communism was seen to be a threat to the very basis of American society. So, out goest that theory.

Unfortunately for the USA, Iranians voted in a moderate left leaning Prime Minister. You see, even Moslems want to be more like Americans (although they'll never admit it). But, for a while in the early nineties, it was clear enough that US foreign policy was headed in that religious area. However, the third option will show that the next step up, is Islamic fundamentalists. And this is where the USA's new threat is coming. Also, picking on Islam would be paticularly unwise given the "freedom of religion" provisions in the rights based US.

The movies have confirmed since the early nineties that Terrorism will be the next threat. Remember how many action films involving world politics had been sustained by the fear of the Soviets. But not only in movies such as "true lies" or more recently, "the peacemaker" do we see this expressly stated as part of pop culture. Tom Clancy's last few novels in the Jack Ryan series also makes it clear that a potentially more dangerous threat than the Soviet threat could come from well organised terrorist groups, paticularly the Islamic fundamentalist cry.

"DOWN WITH AMERICA"

The impassioned chanting of the Islamic fundamentalist is very similar to the evangelistic US heartland. Instead of "praise be Jesus", Islam has"Alla u Akbar". With ultra fundamentalism comes the talk of annihilation for the American people. The islamic religion is very complicated and not monolithic. Some see Islam spreading in the same way Mohammed spread it; by marrying within non-Islamic families, and building numbers up that way (hence Al-Fayed's total and utter heartbreak at the death of Diana). But fundamentalisms aim seems to be through terrorist actions punishing the infidels. Funnily enough, there haven't been that many. Compared to the extreme right wing threat within the USA, Islamic fundamentalism has been far quieter in its operation on US soil. Interestingly, Madeleing Albright refers to "terror within" the USA. This seems to indicate that even internal terrorism from the extreme right is a part of the new "terrorist threat". This is why, I don't say its an Islamic thing. Quite clearly though, many US citizens would have been sympathetic towards the all- american terrorist Timothy McVeigh. They'd rather believe in Government conspiracies (ironically, that's what these terrorists believe in) than to see these Americans put on trial. It's much easier to look down on the Islamic terrorist. Seeing the images of screaming Islamic fundamentalists and bearded leaders calling for the death of every US citizen would send a chill through the dpine of every decent and hard working US patriot. And with 'all those ex soviet nuclear weapons up for sale', the threat is all that more real in US foreign policy discourse.

The recent bombings of suspected terrorist plants factories in Afghanistan, and the US rhetoric therein served two purposes:

a) to get Clinton a reprieve from the lurid sex scandal (the subject of the second part)

b) more importantly, to explicitly confirm and bring the USA into a new cold war... against terrorism. I don't think people will be as scared as the communist problem was in the early part of the latter half of the century. But the idea that a measley bunch of radicals can subvert national sovereignty and launch their attacks more viciously than any other nation can hope to do so, will keep that unifying force behind the US military and even better for the USA, behind its meddling hand in its foreign policy practices.

Anyway, there's always Sadam Hussein and his lovely bunch of Iraqi's to fall on if that fails... but Alas, Sadam is getting old, and frankly, painting Sadam to be as some sort of world monster is laughable at best.

I'm sure I've been boring you endlessly since George Bush was president, with what I thought was my original theory (when I tried to convince my billets in Germany during the choir tour that the Gulf War was among other things, a conspiracy to protect oil prices, they just looked at me in stunned disbelief. Obviously, I had a mental deficiency to question the role of the allies. It didn't help that I was in year seven, talking politics and also had that terrorist look going. I think they were frightened of me) that the best way to get rid of a scandal or domestic problems was (in order of preference) to:

a) Go to war with an enemy you can't lose against

b) Strike Iraq when Saddam is being bad

c) Build up a threat to strike Iraq whenever Saddam is being bad (combining c and d can get rid of bad press for weeks)

After the afghanistan bombings, we have a new addition which will probably be the methos of choice in the new millenium:

d) Bomb Islamic terrorists*

Clinton has been doing this consistently at every major outbreak of the Lewinsky/Paula Jones scandal. The funny thing is, in the USA not many people could publicly say such things, but since the Lewinsky scandal, it has dawned on them that perhaps there is an ongoing pattern of attacks on foreign targets straight after scandals. The consistency of bringing Iraq into the spotlight at every twist of the sex scandal is nothing short of amazing. This consistency, with some simple research at the archives of any of the major web sources, is no doubt one huge coincidence. As early as August, the Iraq issue came up again to almost overtake news of the Lewinsky deposition (CNN August 6). But I need not take your memories back too far to highlight another example. You may recall on January 22 (1998), the Lewinsky thing broke out. That story dominated news bulletins right across the USA. Well, funnily enough, Iraq came up as an increasing problem for the US in the days after that, and in the following months. Clinton of course, had been laying the groudwork for the "clash" with Iraq from late last year. This would be "evidence" that there was "no alterior motive for the President in sending a strong message to Saddam Hussein" (ie. to make it look as though Clinton was not going on the attack for political reasons). So, on January 23 what do we have:

Obviously, it wasn't enough yet to take away from the scandal. But, the story began building. By Januwary 24, the headline was:

Then January 25:

Now, I am not for a minute suggesting that the Iraqi issue blowed away the Lewinsky scandal. That is an over simplification. THe Iraqi issue helped Clinton far more effectively. It showed the American people that here was a President who could do his job effectively, even with a sex scandal. He would not be intimidated or slow down in doing his job for the American people by some sort of petty ("I deny having sexual relations with that woman") right wing conspiracy to have him removed from office. It showed that private issues were not clouding his public judgements (as we have now seen, he made it clear that the whole affair was a 'private issue')

The thing that made Clinton's motives even more funny (to me anyway), was the release of the film "Wag the Dog" in select cinemas across the east coast of the United States in December. One just couldn't help but laugh at the similarities in story line. I for one, couldn't believe that a film like this was released in the USA. THat it was released just before Lewinsky broke out was even more amazing, because some scenes are unbelievably similar to the "Clinton Hugging Lewinsky in crowd" scenes that we have seen replayed across our televisions (wag the dog is even more relevant now in light of the Afghanistan missile attacks). However, Clinton is not the first President to use the foreign war threat to gain popularity. It's almost a sure bet as long as US troops are sure not to be killed. In the Iraq case, that's a certainty. Far from being a threat, Saddam is a great "bad guy". His bark is louder than his bite. And it was President Bush that after all, started the whole anti Iraq thing. But Clinton has made a far more effective use out of the Iraq issue than is humanly possible. I am not being cynical here. The truth is, he has used Saddam's stupidity to his own advantage. In summary, there are two reasons why it's so good for him:

1. TO detract from Sex scandals

As I've said before, look at any outbreak of sex scandals, whether it be Paula Jones or Monica Lewinsky. I guarantee that within one week of any major scandal taking over American headlines, the Iraqi threat will magically become realer than it was before the scandal.

2. The "draft dodger thing" and "Look at me, I'm a President"

Clinton was seen as not a 'real' President by many, because he seemed to be a real softy. He even was going to let gays into the military. Thankfully, the republican party and decent americans put a stop to such left wing ideology. The slump in the Democratic vote in the congress elections of 1994 served a warning to Clinton... "the left wing agenda is dead. Go to the centre or lose". By moving to the centre, and reinventing himself on issues that mattered for his constituency, Clinton made an amazing recovery in the Polls. When the election period came along, Clinton had to show he was a true President. Not only was he going to balance the budget, he was going to be a "world leader". As you may recall, Clinton called a strike on Iraq during the 1996 election campaign. That is a guaranteed five points in popularity. Bob Dole was a lost cause. Here was Clinton, a great domesticc politician, and unafraid of facing up to the threat of truly evil people like Saddam Hussein.

To conclude, this is quite obviously, a cynical look at US politics. But don't we deserve it. As Chomsky points out, the news services very rarely do their own work. All they do is copy what the government agencies (the official sources) tell them. The US military employs enough people in the communications caper to rival any US television network. WHy the networks would do their own research and own investigations becomes redundant when they have hundreds of pages to sift through of neatly organised government material. Why should they question the ethics of bombing a nation that poses no real threat to any of its neighbours anymore? Amazingly, after 6 years, they are becoming more cynical of the President's motives. As the US turns away from Saddam (I mean, it's becoming ridiculous... the country is near bankruptcy and they're supposed to beable to destroy the world?) and bombs terrorist targets circumventing the sovereignty of other nations, the media is quietly cynical. Admittedly, these bombings look justified, especially since Bin Laden was supposed to have been where the missiles struck. That doesn't hide the fact that innocent lives were lost (probably just as many deaths of innocent people as the terrorist bomb the US was retaliating against). Nevertheless, it did keep the Monica Lewinsky re testifying thing well and truly out of the top stories on news bulletins across the states.

* The only problem that bombing terrorist provides is that you just can't do it whenever you have a scandal. You have to hope that they attack you during your domestic problems. Clinton could effectively use Saddam, because he'd lay the groundwork for an increase in hostilities months before he'd need to strike or threaten to strike (the administration says : "but saddam has been naughty for months... this is not out of the blue, we've been trying for months, irrespective of the scandal we would be in this position"). The thing about terrorists is that they are stupid. They see an ideal time to strike at the US is when the President is having domestic problems. A weakened President, so they think, will not be effective. The opposite is true. A weakened President will be even more determined to show he has what it takes to rule decicively. So, the use of attacking terrorists as a way of diminishing domestic problems is in itself problematic. As long as Saddam is alive, there'll always be a willing participant in helping save the US Presidents through rough patches.