[Opinion] American Neo-conservatives

Many people are confused by current American-led war in Iraq whose justification is Anti-terrorism. The Saddam Hussein`s regime which was even willing to undergo inspection of their presidential palace is under severe military punishment. In other hand the United State is willing to treat the Kim Jong-il`s regime, with peaceful diplomatic measures, which is threatening victory against U.S. imperialism. We’re clueless to U.S. intention. Due to situations like this many conclude that the actual reason for American war against Iraq is merely economical gains.

▷Iraq is only next to Saudi Arabia in oil reserve but U.S. and Britain were strictly excluded from obtaining development rights. Add to the injury, many oil producing countries such as Iraq, Iran, Venezuela and others are changing their transaction currencies from U.S. dollars to Euro dollars, undermining U.S. dollar supremacy. Due to tremendous deficit in trade and finance, U.S. is relying on foreign capital. The worst scenario for U.S. is adaptation of Euro dollars by Organizations for Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). That will lead to worst dollar secession phenomenon which will then cause financial crisis, slumping domestic financial asset prices.

▷However it is unreasonable to blame the war just for it`s economic gains. First, the U.S. after the September 11th incident isn’t the same old U.S. Americans are now tensed about fact that U.S. mainland can be under attack by potential enemies. It provided increasing influences to hard-liners. This is why preemptive strike hard line by four major U.S. hard-liners, Dick Cheney, Vice President, Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, Poll Wolfowitz Deputy Secretary of Defense, and Richard Perle, former Chairman of Defense Policy is receiving strong supports from the U.S. public. What is more interesting is that behind these four hard-liners are the influences of neo-conservatives.

▷The U.S. Neo-conservatives are a joint group formed by right-wing faction from the Republican Party and anti-communist faction from Democratic Party in the early 1970s. They were first raised by pessimists who criticized incapacity of Richard Nixton and Henry Kissinger`s the West-east thawing policies as they thought the policies were caused by the defeat in the Vietnam War. During the Gerald Ford administration, they formed a ‘B-team’ which evaluated military strength then overrated the Soviet threat to pressure appeasers in the State Department and CIA. Later in the Reagan administration, they led the ‘Balance of Power’ strategy to ‘Oppression by Power’ strategy to dismantle Soviet Union. In 1991 Gulf war, they were the ones who are responsible for hard-line strategies. The neo-conservative faction is deeply rooted like this and firm in their policies with no turning back. May be this unconvincing war was unavoidable because of it.

Chan-Geun Lee, Guest editorialist, Professor of In-chon University

ckl1022@incheon.ac.kr