Behind the scenes of the US presidential election, special interests are locked in struggle to further or else contain the legacy of Bush, writes Gamil Mattar* The closer elections day in the US approaches, the more closely we tend to keep track of presidential campaign developments. There are many reasons why we should be interested. Above all, we happen to occupy a prime location on the map of US influence, and one that will remain so. Otherwise put, our region is of the utmost strategic importance to US interests, and these are items that are passed on from one administration to the next. But while the strategic interests themselves may be automatically bequeathed, the same does not necessarily apply to the ways of dealing with them. Every president has his own touch and this touch can differ radically from one president to the next. So, what kind of "touch" would each of the current candidates apply should he or she come to power? Would Arab rights and interests fare any better under any of these prospective presidents than they have under Bush? Of course, Washington's Middle East policy has been essentially the same for decades, but most Arabs -- and even non- Arabs -- would agree that the touch the Bush administration had given this policy has been notoriously brutal, and that this will leave deep scars, long-lasting pain and gaping wounds in the fabric and mentality of Arab and Islamic nations. It is hard to imagine any successor to Bush capable of quite such a lethal hand. None of the candidates are former alcoholics or drug addicts, or incompetent or failed business executives, or closer to provincial rednecks and rural mayors than to statesmen. Nor are any of them driven by religious fanaticism to flagellate themselves or to expiate their sense of guilt by entering into a confrontation with other religions, notably Islam and the Muslim people. None of the three most hopefuls would sit in the Oval Office without the slightest compassion for the poor and disadvantaged in the US or anywhere else in the world (a high-profile jaunt to Africa only throws into relief the cold-heartedness of the incumbent). The foremost duty of the next president, as it is of every president, will be to safeguard higher American interests. These interests do not change considerably within years or even decades. He or she will have to continue to expand the sphere of American influence abroad; empire is still the unofficial dream, if spoken of with embarrassment and discomfort in some academic and cultural circles and though boundless ingenuity is brought to bear in inventing new names for imperial practices. They are obsessed by the dream while the parts of it that have come true make their conscience ache. They introduce their actions with lofty preambles on global values, and then hit the ground with an onslaught of barbarism. At best they claim that such inhuman practices are needed to pave the way for a civilised world in which humanitarian values prevail. Thus, the war against terrorism, torturing suspects, restricting civil liberties, invading people's privacy, marginalising some peoples, and starving others are apparently what it takes to make a civilised world in which respect for people's rights and freedoms prevails. I'm speaking here of the ruling class in the US, and specifically the most influential members of this class who will make up the retinues of the presidential candidates. Take, for example, the Democratic Senator Lieberman, one of the Senate opposition leaders. Now, almost everywhere McCain is, there is Lieberman standing to his right and slightly behind so as to whisper a cue into the candidate's ear, or a correction to a piece of faulty information he had just imparted (and such mistakes are many), or an additional piece of information (the lack of which, we are beginning to discover, is even greater). Lieberman was with McCain in the Middle East, creating the McCain touch that, if this candidate wins, will colour the political performance of the next Republican administration. Lieberman is to McCain what Dick Cheney, Bernard Lewis, Daniel Pipes and Richard Pearle were to Bush, with the exception that here we have a seasoned Democrat laying down the rules and guidelines for his candidate should he be so fortunate to move into the Oval Office for the next four or eight years. Foremost among those guidelines are: Do not stray an inch from what Israel and the Zionist movement want. It is no secret that the near future will be one of crucial and hectic activity for Jewish and pro-Zionist lobbyists not only in the US but also everywhere in the West. Obama and Hillary, whichever wins the Democratic nomination, will each bring their own distinct touch to US policy on Iraq. It will be interesting to watch their subtle shifts in stance and their verbal gymnastics over the coming days, but I do not hold out hopes for a change in essence. The American Empire is not about to leave Iraq, even if it withdraws its forces; it will not leave Iraq, just as it has never really left Germany, Britain, Japan and South Korea. The US will not leave Iraq because Iraq is sitting on top of a sea of oil that will not deplete soon and that has lured new rivals to its shores, because Iraq is next door to Iran and shares a very long border with that country, and because the tide of Islam and Islamism in Iraq and the region as a whole is not about to ebb, no matter how strenuously others try to sew divisions and strife. The US will not leave Iraq because Israel does not want to live with the Palestinians and because the resistance against the Israeli occupation will not die and will not leave because the circles in which China, India and Russia move are getting smaller with each passing year, and are moving ever closer to that most crucial circle, the Middle East. None of the three candidates admits that the parties with a vested interest in a protracted US presence in Iraq are nudging them not to come out with a clear statement on an exit date and strategy from Iraq. Neither Obama nor Clinton could break with the pillars of the American political order. Both are an integral part of that order and both would come to power in order to serve the interests of that order and the powers behind those interests. None of the candidates, indeed, no new president whatsoever, would have it in their power to alter the fixed course of American policy, and if they tried they would most likely pay the type of prices exacted from John F Kennedy and Jimmy Carter. The most any new president can do is to use his power and influence to make implementing this policy more difficult and costly than Bush did during his two terms of office -- eight full years of incalculable loss in human life, in the reputation of the US army, in the prestige and honour of the nation, in the national economy and the standards of living of the American people. Judging by the statements and writings of the candidates and their advisors, there is no consensus on the future of the Bush administration's policy of confronting other nations on the matters of democratisation and civil liberties. One view holds that this drive is a marginal issue that should not be allowed to divert America's attention from the more crucial material aspects of its interests. One factor that might help this view prevail is that none of the candidates see themselves as divinely inspired emissaries sent to save mankind from dictatorship. Another opinion holds that the way the balance of powers is evolving will propel the democratisation issue to the fore. Its proponents argue that the international competition between China and Russia, on the one hand, and the US and other Western nations, on the other, has no other ideological battleground to fight on but liberal democracy as championed by the West versus Russian President Putin-styled "sovereign democracy". On this issue, as with others, certain forces will step in to push towards a facedown with Russia, China and their allies that advocate "sovereign democracy" or to push in the opposite direction, away from escalation. Which type of engagement, for non-action is an action, prevails depends on which these forces feel best serve their own interests and objectives. Heading the list of these forces are the military-technological-industrial complex, the Jewish lobbies, the neo-conservative movement, and oil interests, all of which are working very hard to set the basic tune around which the candidates might introduce some variations on a theme. Therefore, so far, at least, there are no signs that might encourage the people of the world to hold out hope for their future and the future of world peace under a new American leadership. The current administration is working overtime to ensure that not only the Bush policies but also the Bush touch, will carry over into the next administration so that that administration will have little choice but to consolidate and follow through on Bush's "achievements" in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Israel, the war on terrorism and the fuelling of Western hostility towards China and Russia. On the other hand, some forces are working hard to eliminate the Bush touch and its effects. In this month's edition of the New York Review of Books, the Pulitzer Prize winning commentator Anthony Lewis observes that a whole generation of Americans had grown up on the belief that Nazi-style torture would never happen again. But, he writes, beneath the headline "The terror president," it is happening again -- in the US. Worse yet, under Bush torture has become "state policy". Other commentators point out that the circumstances that brought Bush and his malevolent touch to power have changed for good. As we read in Fukuyama's apology and Robert Kagan's latest article in New Republic, history, which was supposed to have ended with the victory of liberalism and the market economy, has come to life again and resumed its course. * The writer is director of the Arab Centre for Development and Futuristic Research.
