Changes

On August 2, [[France]], [[Britain]] and [[Germany]] announced that they might cut off negotiations with [[Iran]] and pursue punitive sanctions if the country followed through on its [[threats ]] to resume its uranium enrichment program. The announcement came a day after the <i>Washington Post</i> reported that American intelligence [[agencies ]] believe the country is a decade away from producing a [[nuclear weapon]] - an assessment that differs with earlier timetables cited by Bush administration officials, who estimated that Iran was only five years away from such a weapon. Responding to the <i>Post</i> story, State Department spokesman Tom Casey dismissed the divergent timetables, noting that both the [[United States]] and [[Europe]] have concluded that Iran’s nuclear ambitions pose "a [[threat ]] for the entire [[international community]]."

Every [[power structure]] has to rely on an underlying [[implicit threat]], i.e. whatever the oficial [[democracy|democratic]] rules and [[law|legal]] constraints may be, we can ultimately do <i>whatever we [[want]]</i> to you. In the 20th century, however, the [[nature ]] of this link between [[power]] and the [[invisible threat]] that sustains it changed. Existing power [[structures ]] no longer relied on their own [[fantasy|fantasmatic]] [[projection]] of a potential, invisible threat in [[order ]] to secure the hold over their [[subjects]]. Rather, the threat was externalized, [[displaced ]] onto an [[Outside ]] [[Enemy]]. It became the invisible (and, for that [[reason]], all-powerful and omni-[[present]]) threat of this enemy that legitimized the existing power structure’s permanent [[state of emergency]]. [[Fascism|Fascists]] invoked the threat of the [[Jewish conspiracy]], [[Stalinism|Stalinists]] the threat of the [[class]] enemy, [[United States|Americans]] the threat of [[Communism]] - all the way up to today’s "[[war on terror]]." The threats posed by such an invisible enemy legitimizes the [[logic ]] of the [[preemptive strike]]. Precisely because the threat is [[virtual]], one cannot afford to wait for it to come. Rather, one must strike in advance, before it is too late. In other [[words]], the omni-present <i>invisible</i> threat of [[Terror ]] legitimizes the all too <i>[[visible]]</i> protective measures of defense - which, of course, are what pose the <i>[[true]]</i> threat to [[democracy]] and [[human rights]] (e.g., the [[London ]] police’s [[recent ]] execution of the innocent [[Brazil]]ian electrician, Jean Charles de Menezes).

Classic power functioned as a threat that operated precisely by never actualizing itself, by always remaining a threatening <i>gesture. </i> Such functioning reached its climax in the [[Cold War]], when the threat of [[Mutually Assured Destruction|mutual nuclear destruction]] <i>had</i> to remain a threat. With the "[[war on terror]]", the [[invisible threat]] causes the incessant actualization, not of the threat itself, but, of the measures against the threat. The nuclear strike had to remain the threat of a strike, while the threat of the terrorist strike triggers the endless series of <i>preemptive</i> strikes against potential [[terrorism|terrorists]]. We are thus passing from the logic of [[Mutually Assured Destruction|MAD]] ([[Mutually Assured Destruction]]) to a logic in which ONE SOLE MADMAN runs the entire show and is allowed to enact its [[paranoia]]. The power that presents itself as always [[being ]] under threat, [[living ]] in [[mortality|mortal]] [[danger]], and thus merely defending itself, is the most dangerous kind of power - the very [[model ]] of the [[Nietzsche]]an <i>[[ressentiment]]</i> and [[morality|moralistic]] [[hypocrisy]]. And indeed, it was Nietzsche himself who, more than a century ago, in <i>Daybreak,</i> provided the best [[analysis ]] of the [[false ]] [[moral ]] premises of today’s "[[war on terror]]":

<blockquote> No [[government]] admits any more that it keeps an [[army]] to [[satisfy ]] occasionally the [[desire]] for conquest. Rather, the army is supposed to serve for [[defense]], and one invokes the [[morality]] that approves of [[self]]-defense. But this implies one’s own morality and the [[neighbor]]’s [[immorality]]; for the neighbor must be [[thought ]] of as eager to attack and conquer if our [[state]] must [[think ]] of means of [[self-defense]]. Moreover, the reasons we give for requiring an army imply that our neighbor, who denies the desire for conquest just as much as our own state, and who, for his part, also keeps an army only for reasons of self-defense, is a hypocrite and a cunning criminal who would like [[nothing ]] better than to overpower a harmless and awkward [[victim]] without any fight. Thus all states are now ranged against each other: they presuppose their neighbor’s bad disposition and their own [[good ]] disposition. This presupposition, however, is inhumane, as bad as [[war]] and worse. At bottom, indeed, it is itself the challenge and the [[cause ]] of wars, because as I have said, it attributes immorality to the neighbor and thus provokes a hostile disposition and act. We must abjure the [[doctrine ]] of the army as a means of self-defense just as completely as the desire for conquests.</blockquote>

Is not the ongoing "[[war on terror]]" proof that "[[terror"]] is the [[antagonism|antagonistic]] [[Other]] of [[democracy]] - the point at which democracy's [[plurality|plural]] options turn into a [[singular]] [[antagonism]]? Or, as we so often hear, "In the face of the terrorist threat, we must all come together and forget our petty differences." More pointedly, the [[difference ]] between the “war on terror” with previous 20th century worldwide struggles such as the [[Cold War]] is that the enemy used to be clearly [[identified ]] with the actually existing [[Communism|Communist]] [[empire]], whereas today the terrorist threat is inherently [[spectral]], without a visible center. It is a little bit like the description of Linda Fiorentino’s [[character ]] in <i>[[The Last Seduction]]: </i> "Most [[people ]] have a dark side … she had nothing else." Most [[regime]]s have a dark oppressive spectral side … the terrorist threat has nothing else. The paradoxical result of this spectralization of the [[enemy]] is an unexpected [[reflexive reversal]]. In this [[world ]] without a clearly identified enemy, it is the [[United States]], the protector against the threat, that is emerging as the main enemy-much like in Agatha Christie’s <i>[[Murder on the Orient-Express]],</i> where, since the <i>entire</i> group of suspects is the murderer, the [[victim]] himself (an evil millionaire) turns out to be the [[real ]] criminal.

This background allows us to finally answer our initial question: Yes, nukes for [[Iran]]- and [[Noriega]] and [[Saddam]] to the [[Hague]]. It is crucial to see the <i>link</i> between these two [[demands]]. Why are [[Timothy Garton Ash]], [[Michael Ignatieff]] and other [[internationalist liberals]] - who are otherwise [[full ]] of pathetic praise for the Hague tribunal - silent [[about ]] the [[idea ]] to deliver Noriega and Saddam to the Hague? Why [[Milosevic]] and not Noriega? Why was there not even a [[public ]] trial against Noriega? Was it because he would have disclosed his own [[CIA]] [[past]], including how the [[United States]] condoned his [[participation ]] in the [[murder ]] of [[Omar Torrijos Herrera]]? In a similar way, Saddam’s regime was an abominable [[authoritarianism|authoritarian]] [[state]], [[guilty ]] of many crimes, mostly toward its own people. However, one should note the strange but key fact that, when the U.S. representatives were enumerating Saddam’s [[evil]] deeds, they systematically omitted what was undoubtedly his greatest crime (in [[terms ]] of [[human ]] [[suffering ]] and of violating [[international law]]): the [[aggression ]] against Iran. Why? Because the United States and the majority of foreign states actively helped [[Iraq]] in this aggression. What’s more, the United States now plans to <i>continue</i> Saddam’s [[work ]] of toppling the Iranian government.

As to Iran and nukes, the surprising fact is that the [[MAD]] logic still operates today: Why hasn’t the tension between [[India]] and [[Pakistan]] exploded into an all-out war? Because both sides are nuclear powers. Why have the Arab states not risked [[another ]] attack on [[Israel]]? Because Israel is a nuclear power. So why should this MAD logic not work in the [[case ]] of [[Iran]]? The standard counter-argument is that in Iran, [[Muslim fundamentalists]] are in [[power]] who may be tempted to nuke Israel. (Iran is the only large Arab state which not only does not diplomatically recognize Israel, but resolutely denies its [[right ]] to [[exist ]] as a state). Is, however, the Iranian regime really so "[[irrational]]"? Isn’t Pakistan, with its nuclear arms <i>and</i> its [[secret ]] services’ ties to [[al-Qaeda]], a much greater threat? Furthermore, two decades ago, Iran <i>was</i> brutally attacked by Iraq (with [[active ]] U.S. support), so it has every right to feel threatened.

The last trump card of [[Western liberals]] is that nuclear weapons would [[help ]] sustain the anti-democratic rulers in Iran, thus preventing a democratic [[revolution]] there. This argument got a boost a few months ago, with elections in Iraq and [[Palestine]]. Was perhaps [[Paul Wolfowitz]] correct after all? Isn’t there a [[chance ]] that (Western) [[democracy]] <i>may</i> work and take roots in the [[Middle East]], and that this unexpected [[process ]] will [[change ]] the coordinates of the entire Middle East? Isn’t the ultimate unresolvability of the Middle East [[conflict ]] the fact that the anti-democratic Arab regimes [[need ]] [[Israel]] as the [[figure ]] of the [[Enemy]] that legitimizes their rule? Consequently, isn’t [[Bush]] merely accomplishing the work of [[Reagan]]? In the same way that Reagan was "naively" convinced that [[democracy]] would undermine [[Communism]] and that Communism would fall, thus proving all the skeptic specialists wrong, perhaps Bush will be proven right in his "naive" crusade for the democratization of the Middle East.

It is here that one approaches the crux of the matter: Such an optimistic [[reading ]] relies on the problematic [[belief ]] in a preestablished [[harmony ]] between the global spread of multi-party [[Western democracy]] and the [[economy|economic]] and [[geopolitics|geopolitical]] interests of the [[United States]]. It is precisely because this harmony can in no way be taken for granted that countries like Iran should possess [[nuclear arms]] to constrain the [[global]] [[hegemony]] of the United States.

* [[Give Iranian Nukes a Chance|Give Iranian Nukes a Chance: In a Mad World, the Logic of MAD Still Works]]. ''In These [[Times]]''. August 11, 2005. <http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2280/>. Also listed on ''[[Lacan]].com''. <http://www.lacan.com/zizekiranian.htm>.