WHEN Bill Clinton campaigned in 1992 to unseat George Bush the First as president of the United States, he gave currency to a slogan which quickly embedded itself in the political lexicon. Clinton’s campaign strategist, James Carville, posted a small list of objectives to keep the staff and volunteers on message. It had only three items: (1) Change vs more of the same (2) The economy, stupid (3) Don’t forget health care. Politicians and talking heads in the media quickly adopted that second phrase as, “It’s the economy, stupid” and although it was never mentioned, it formed a thread which ran throughout a landmark speech from the White House this week.

“Operation Iraqi Freedom is over,” declared Barack Obama on Tuesday evening. The US president, his demeanour suitably sombre, addressed his nation from the Oval Office for only the second time since he became president 20 months ago, behind the same desk from which George Bush the Second launched his war in Iraq. “We have met our responsibilities. It is time to turn the page,” Obama informed his hearers. “Two weeks ago, America’s final combat brigade in Iraq – the Army’s Fourth Stryker Brigade – journeyed home in the pre-dawn darkness.”

While representing the state of Illinois in the US Senate, Obama had vigorously opposed Bush’s attack on Iraq. During his extended campaign for president, he promised he would withdraw US fighting forces from Iraq by the end of August this year. So rhetorically at least, he has kept his promise: “This was my pledge to the American people as a candidate for this office. Last February, I announced a plan that would bring our combat brigades out of Iraq, while redoubling our efforts to strengthen Iraq’s security forces and support its government and people. That is what we have done.” That morning, Obama had visited an army base in Texas where he cautioned that his address would neither be a “self-congratulatory” nor a “victory lap”.

Obama, the vehement opponent of the war, spoke almost reverently about the results of Bush’s unwarranted, unprovoked, ill-thought-out, wanton and illegal unleashing of power on a small country which posed no threat to the United States. He called on Iraqi leaders to “move forward with a sense of urgency to form an inclusive government” and pledged that while the soldiers were leaving, “our commitment to Iraq’s future is not”. He did avoid indulging in the kind of triumphalist rhetoric Bush uttered a few weeks after “Shock and Awe” aboard an aircraft carrier under a huge sign proclaiming, “Mission Accomplished”. But like all occupants of high office in the US and elsewhere, Obama made ritual obeisance to the military, describing them as “the steel in our ship of state”.

Even as he steered clear of praising Bush, he noted that while it was well known they had disagreed about the war from its outset, “No one could doubt President Bush’s support for the troops or his love of country or his commitment to our security.”

Although there are now no combat-tasked US forces in Iraq, 50,000 pairs of American boots remain there, as do more than a million pieces of equipment and 94 bases. The remaining troops are supposed to train Iraqi forces and to provide security for US civilians still there. What Obama didn’t mention was that as the soldiers march out, private military contractors are moving in. This contracting out of military functions is a trend which was accelerated during the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld years, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are the most privatised in American history. In fact, the US Congressional Research Service reported last month that the Department of Defence has more contractors than uniformed personnel in both Iraq and Afghanistan – 207,600 to 175,000.

Underlying Obama’s 20-minute address was the importance of repairing the wounded and dysfunctional US economy: “Today our most urgent task is to restore our economy … This will be difficult. But in the days to come, it must be our central mission as a people, and my central responsibility as president.” He combined tribute to the military with the need for his country to unify itself to improve the economy: “As we wind down the war in Iraq, we must tackle those challenges at home with as much energy and grit, and sense of common purpose as our men and women in uniform who have served abroad. They have met every test they faced. Now it is our turn.”

One of the founders of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, cautioned his compatriots to eschew “entangling alliances”, but since World War II the US has been very willing, even eager, to intervene in the affairs of other countries. As a matter of fact, the US has 38 large and medium-sized bases around the world – almost exactly equalling Britain’s 36 naval bases and army garrisons at the zenith of its imperial rule in 1898. Interestingly, the world’s first major imperial power, Rome, had 37 major bases across its realm from Britain to Egypt and from Spain to Armenia in 117 AD.

We should not forget the sulphurous atmosphere which surrounded Bush’s months of manoeuvring to attack Iraq. He orchestrated a campaign comprising fabrications, innuendo, character assassination and outright lies to sell his effort to sever connections between Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein’s regime and to seek out and destroy Weapons of Mass Destruction, both of which, as was pointed out then and which has been borne out by subsequent experience, were completely false.

At the time, the designated adult in his Cabinet, Colin Powell, who, as an army general chaired the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was said to have warned Bush about the “Pottery Barn rule”. Pottery Barn is a chain of stores in the US which sell fragile decorative items, and urban myth has it that the rule in those stores is “if you break it, you own it”. That’s not true, of course, but it’s widely believed. What Powell did tell his president is, “Once you break it, you are going to own it, and we’re going to be responsible for 26 million people standing there and looking at us. And it is going to suck up a good 40 to 50 per cent of the army for years. And it’s going to take all the oxygen out of the political environment.”

About the only positive result of the seven and a half years of carnage and mayhem in the cradle of civilisation is the toppling of the tyrant, Saddam Hussein. But American soldiers stood by while Iraqis looted the Ministry of Trade and set fire to the Ministry of Transport next door and either destroyed or stole priceless artifacts going back to the earliest periods of mankind’s gathering in settled communities. Hostile factions jostle for control over large stretches of the country, which still lacks reliable basic facilities like electricity and water, not to mention a functional government.

Ever the optimist, Obama tried to put a positive spin on things: “Ending this war is not only in Iraq’s interest – it is in our own. The United States has paid a huge price to put the future of Iraq in the hands of its own people…but this milestone should serve as a reminder to all Americans that the future is ours to shape if we move forward with confidence and commitment.”

Keep your seat belt securely fastened – there is much bumpy flying ahead.

keeble.mack@sympatico.ca