Occupation

by Phineas Dash

The model currently being punditized for the reconstruction of Iraq is the Marshall Plan and the occupation of Germany and Japan as they were transformed into democracies after World War II.

What no one is mentioning is that the Marshall Plan was not without its critics at the time and since. Not for the generous amount of money that was spent or the overall goal of reconstruction, but because it was a United States-only program.

Albert Einstein was one who opposed the Marshall Plan on these grounds. It was an important moment in establishing the United Nations as a force in postwar order, and Einstein believed that the Marshall Plan should have been under international auspices, specifically through the United Nations.

He also argued that if it was only the United States controlling the reconstruction of western Europe, the Soviet Union would see it as an attempt to establish hegemony in the area, and to threaten the Soviet Union. This in fact is how the Soviets saw the Marshall Plan, and they tightened and expanded control over Eastern Europe. Perhaps the Cold War would have happened anyway, but the Marshall Plan was arguably a factor in creating it.

Now the U.S. wants to establish a min-Marshall Plan for Iraq, which will be seen as establishing American hegemony in the Middle East, the one place in the world where political tensions are similar to those existing in Europe in the 1940s and most of the rest of the century. An international program, through the United Nations, would mitigate this image, and also enrich the possibilities for Iraq's democracy. The American model is not the only "successful" model in the world, and European models or the Japanese model, for instance, might offer more of what Iraq needs.

Of course this would loosen American corporate control over the Iraq economy and its oil. So it's not likely to happen. But it's worth mentioning that the Marshall Plan model is not without danger.

But the one thing the U.S. occupation has going for it is that occupation is boring, and it will soon disappear from the media. Does the media have anything at all to say about the administration of Afghanistan? The troops still in the Balkans? Iraq largely disappeared from view after Bush War I and now that Bush War II is about over, it soon will again.