US Imperialist Road to Conquest: Reaching and Revoking Peace and Disarmament Agreements By James Petras Al-Jazeerah, CCUN, May 2, 2018

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean president Moon Jae-in,  April 2018

Introduction

In recent years US imperialist strategy has sought to lessen the cost of defeating and
overthrowing independent countries.

The means and method are fairly straight forward. World-wide propaganda
campaigns which demonize the adversary; the enlistment and collaboration of European
and regional allies (England, France, Saudi Arabia and Israel); the recruitment,
contracting, training and arming of local and overseas mercenaries dubbed “rebels”, or
‘democrats’; economic sanctions to provoke domestic social tensions and political
instability of the government; proposals to negotiate a settlement; negotiations which
demand non-reciprocal concessions and which include changes in strategic weapons in
exchange for promises to end sanctions, diplomatic recognition and peaceful co
existence.

The strategic goal is disarmament in order to facilitate military and political
intervention leading up to and beyond defeat, occupation, regime change; the impositions
of a "client regime" to facilitate the pillage of economic resources and the securing of
military bases, international alignment with the US empire and a military springboard for
further conquests against neighbors and independent adversaries.

We will apply this model to recent and current examples of US tactical and
strategic empire building in diverse regions, especially focusing on North Africa
(Libya), the Middle East (Iraq, Palestine, Syria and Iran), Asia (North Korea), and Latin
America (FARC in Colombia).

Case 1: Libya

After several decades of failed efforts to overthrow the popular Libyan
government of Muammar Gaddafi via local tribal and monarchist armed terrorists, and
international economic sanctions , the US proposed a policy of negotiations and
accommodation.

The US opened negotiations to end sanctions, offered diplomatic recognition and
acceptance in the ‘international community’,in exchange for Gaddafi’s demobilization
and abandonment of Libya’s strategic arms including its long-range ballistic missiles and
other effective deterrents. The US did not reduce its military bases, ready and alert ,
targeting Tripoli.

In 2003 Gaddafi signed off on the agreement with the George W. Bush regime.
Major US Libyan oil agreements and diplomatic accords were signed. US security
adviser Condoleezza Rice visited President Gaddafi as a symbol of peace and friendship,
even as US military aid was channeled to armed US clients.

In February 2011 the US led by President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton joined with their EU allies (France, UK . . .) and bombed Libya – its
infrastructure, ports, transport centers, oil facilities, hospitals and schools… US and EU
backed terrorists seized control of the major cities, and captured, tortured and murdered
President Gaddafi. Over 2 million immigrant workers were forced to flee to Europe and
the Middle East or return to central Africa.

Case 2: Iraq

Iraq under Saddam Hussein received arms and support from Washington to attack
and invade Iran. This de facto agreement, encourage the Iraqi leader to assume that
collaboration between nationalist Iraq and imperial Washington reflected a shared
common agenda. Subsequently Baghdad believed that they had tacit US support in a
territorial dispute with Kuwait. When Saddam invaded, the US bombed, devastated,
invaded, occupied and partitioned Iraq.

The US backed the Kurds territorial seizure in the North and imposed a no-fly
zone. Subsequently, President William Clinton engaged in several bombing attacks
which failed to dislodge Saddam Hussein.

Under President G. W. Bush, the US launched a full-scale war, invasion and
occupation ,killing several hundred thousand citizens and displeasing millions of Iraqis.
The US dissolved the modern secular state and fomented religious and ethnic wars
between Shia and Sunni.

The attempt by Iraq to collaborate with Washington in the 1980’s against its
nationalist neighbor Iran, led to the invasion, the dismantling of the country, the killing of
the secular leaders including Saddam Hussein, and the conversion of Iraq into a vassal
state of the empire.

Case Three: Syria

Syria’s President Bashar Assad, unlike Gaddafi and Hussein, retained a degree of
independence from Washington’s overtures, even as he sought to accommodate US
incursions in Lebanon and its support for the largely minority christian and pro-western
opposition.

In 2011, the US broke its tacit accommodation and provided arms and financing
to its local (so-called) Islamic clients for an uprising which seized control of most of the countryside
and major cities, including half of Damascus. Fortunately, Assad sought the support of
Russia, Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah fighters. Over the next seven years, the US-EU
backed terrorists were defeated and forced to retreat, despite massive military, financial
and logistic support from the US, EU, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

Syria has survived and reconquered most of the country, where Libya and Iraq
failed, because it was able to secure an armed-alliance with strategic allies who
succeeded in neutralizing domestic insurgents.

Case 4: FARC ( The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia)

The FARC was formed in the early 1960’s as a largely peasant army which
grew, by 2001,to nearly 30,000 fighters and millions of supporters ,mostly in the
countryside. In effect a dual system of power predominated outside the major cities.

The FARC made several attempts to negotiate a peace settlement with the
Colombian oligarchical regime. In the late 1970’s a temporary agreement led sections of
the FARC to shed arms, form an electoral party, the Patriotic Union, and participate in
elections. After several electoral gains, the oligarchy abruptly broke the agreement,
unleashed a campaign of terror, and assassinated 5,000 party activists and several
presidential and congressional candidates and elected officials. The FARC returned to
armed struggle.

During subsequent negotiations, between1980-81, the oligarchical regime broke
off talks and raided the meeting site in an attempt to assasinate the FARC representatives,
who successfully evaded capture. Despite the repeated failures ,in 2016 the FARC
agreed to enter into ‘peace negotiations’ with the Colombian regime of President Juan
Manuel Santos, a former Defense minister who was a leading force during the
extermination campaign in the countryside and urban slums during between 2001-2010 .
However major political changes took place within the FARC. During the previous
decade the historic leaders of the FARC were killed or died and were replaced by a new
cohort who lacked the experience and commitment to secure agreements which
advanced peace with justice, while retaining their arms in the eventuality that the
untrustworthy oligarchical regime, which had repeatedly sabotaged negotiations, reneged
on the so-called ‘peace agreement’.

In blind pursuit of peace, the FARC agreed to demobilize and disarm its
revolutionary army; it failed to secure control over socio-economic reforms, including

land reform; it turned security over to the regime’s military forces linked to landlords, the
seven US military bases and narco-death squads.

The ‘peace agreement’ destroyed the FARC. Once disarmed the regime reneged
on the agreement: dozens of FARC combatants were assassinated or forced to flee; the
oligarchs retained total control over land from dispossessed peasants,natural resources,
public funding and elite controlled elections; FARC leaders and activists were jailed and
subject to death threats and a constant barrage of hostile public and private media
propaganda.

The FARC’s disastrous peace agreement led to internal splits, divisions and
isolation. By the end of 2017, the FARC disintegrated: each fraction went its own way.
Some rejoined reduced guerrilla groupings; others abandoned the struggle and sought
employment; others opportunities to collaboration with the regime or became coca
farmers.

The oligarchy and the US secured through negotiations the surrender and defeat
of the FARC which it failed to accomplish during four decades of military warfare.

Case 5: Iran: The Nuclear Accord

In 2016 Iran signed a peace accord with seven signatories: the US, the UK,
France, Germany, China, Russia, European Union. The agreement stipulated that Iran
would limit its manufacture of enriched uranium which had dual use – civilian and
military – and ship it out of the country . Iran permitted western inspection of nuclear
facilities ---which found Teheran in full compliance.

In exchange the US and its collaborators agreed to end economic sanctions,
unfreeze Iranian assets and end restrictions on trade, banking and investment.
The Iranians fully complied. Enriched uranium laboratories ceased producing and
shipped-out remaining stock. Inspections were granted full access of Iranian facilities.
In contrast the Obama regime did not fully comply. Partial sanctions were lifted
but others were reinforced, deeply restricting Iran’s access to financial markets – in clear
violation of the agreement. Nevertheless, Iran continued to maintain its part of the
agreement.

With the elections of Donald Trump, the US rejected the agreement (‘it’s the
worst deal ever’) and in compliance with the Israeli Prime Minister B. Netanyahu’s
military agenda, demanded the total restoration of sanctions, the dismantling of Iran’s
entire military defenses and its submission to the US, Israeli and Saudi Arabian dictates
in the Middle East.

In other words, President Trump discarded the agreement in opposition to all the
major countries in Europe and Asia, in favor of Israel’s demands to isolate, disarm and
attack Iran and impose a puppet regime in Teheran.

French Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron sought to ‘modify’ (sic) the agreement
to include some of Trump’s demands to secure new military concessions from Iran,
including that it (1) abandon its allies in the region (Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Palestine,
Lebanon-Hezbollah, and islamic mass movements), (2) dismantle and end its advanced

inter-continental ballistic missile defense system, (3) accept US (Israeli) supervision and
inspection of all its military bases and scientific centers.

President Macron’s posture was to ‘save’ the form of the ‘agreement’ by …
destroying the substances. He shared Trump’s objective but sought a step by step
approach based on ‘modifying’ the existing agreement. Trump chose the Israeli
approach; a frontal repudiation of the entire agreement, accompanied by overt threats of a
military attack, if Iran rejected concessions and refused to capitulate to Washington.

Case 6: Palestine

The US pretended to broker a peace agreement between Israel and Palestine in
which Israel would recognize Palestine, end colonization and pursue a peace settlement
based on mutually agreed to a two state solution based on pre 1967 territorial and
historical rights. The United States under President Clinton hailed the settlement and
then….. proceeded to back each and every one of Israel’s present and future violations.

Over 600,000 Israel’s colonists seized land and expelled tens of thousands of
Palestinians. Israel regularly invades the West Bank and has assassinated and jailed tens
of thousands of Palestinians. Israel seized total control of Jerusalem. The US endorsed,
armed, and financed, Israeli step by step ethnic cleansing and Judafication of Palestine.

Case 7: North Korea

The US has recently stated that it favors a negotiated agreement initiated by North
Korean President Kim Jong- un .Pyongyang has offered to end its nuclear programs and

testing, and to negotiate a permanent peace treaty including the denuclearization of the
peninsula and the retention of US military forces in South Korea.
President Trump has pursued a strategy of ‘support’ of the negotiation….. while
tightening economic sanctions, and ongoing military exercises in South Korea. In the
run up to negotiations the US has made no reciprocal concessions. Trump overtly
threatens to scuttle the negotiations if North Korea does not submit to Washinton’s
insistence that North Korea disarm and demobilize their defenses.

In other words, President Trump wants North Korea to follow the policies that led
to the US successful invasion and military conquest and destruction of Iraq , Libya and
the FARC.

Washington’s negotiations for a Korean peace agreement will follow the same
path as its recent broken nuclear agreement’ with Iran-- one-sided disarmament of
Teheran and the subsequent reneging of the agreement.

For empire builders like the US, negotiations are tactical diversions to disarm
independent countries in order to weaken and attack them, as all of our case studies
demonstrate.

Conclusion

In our studies we have highlighted how Washington uses ‘negotiations’ and
‘peace processes’ as tactical weapons to enhance empire-building. By disarming and
demobilizing adversaries it facilitates strategic goals like regime change.

Knowing that empire builders are perfidious enemies does not mean countries
should reject peace processes and negotiations – because that would give Washington a
propaganda weapon. Instead imperial adversaries could follow the following guidelines.
Negotiations should lead to reciprocal concessions – not one sided, especially
non-reciprocal reductions of arms programs.

Negotiations should never demilitarize and demobilize its defense forces which
increases vulnerability and permits sudden attacks. Negotiators should retain their
ability to impose a high cost for imperial violations and especially sudden reversals of
military and economic agreements. Imperial violator hesitate to invade when the human
and national costs are high and politically unpopular.

Imperial opponents should not remain isolated. They must secure military allies.
The case of Syria is clear. Assad built a coalition of Russia, Iran and Hezbollah which
effectively countered the US-EU-Israeli- Turkish and Saudi backed terrorist ‘rebels’.
Iran did agree to dismantle its nuclear capacity but it retained its ICBM program
which can retaliate to surprise military attacks by Israel or the US. Almost surely Israel
will insist that the US suffer the cost of Middle East wars, to Tel Aviv’s advantage.
North Korea has already made unilateral, non-reciprocal concessions to the US
and to a lesser degree to South Korea. If it is unable to secure allies (like China and
Russia ) and if it ends its nuclear deterrent it invites pressure for more concessions.

Lifting economic sanctions can be reciprocated but not by compromising
strategic military defenses.

The basic principles are reciprocity, strategic defense and tactical economic
flexibility. The guiding idea is that there are no permanent allies only permanent
interests. Misguided trust in lofty western imperial ‘values’ and not realistic recognition
of imperial interests can be fatal to independent leaders and destructive to a people,as
was clearly the case of Iraq, Libya and Palestine and near fatal to Syria. The most recent
example is the case of Iran: the US signed a peace agreement in 2016 and repudiated it in
2017.

It behooves North Korea to learn from the Iranian experience.

The imperial time frame for repudiating agreement may vary; Libya signed a
disarmament agreement with the US in 2003 and Washington bombed them in 2011.
In all cases the principle remains the same. There is no historical example of an
imperial power renouncing its interests in compliance with a paper agreement. It only
abides with agreements when it has no other options.

***

Share the link of this article with your facebook friends