against the FMLN if that becomes necessary.
Let me put it another way. Why shouldn't the logic of the US confronting a dictatorship apply to their invasion of Panama? There was a rotten, corrupt regime, which routinely vio lated human rights, if ever there was one. But so far as I know, all left wing No. The arrogant militarism of the United States has been strengthened. It will use that strength for wholly reactionary purposes. That is my balance sheet.
What now are the prospects? Yes, the bi-polar world of the Cold War is gone, to be replaced most likely by a trianDear Paul Clarke, Thank you for your letter. It was closely argued, and I think that events since you wrote are making some of your points stronger.
It is, I admit, the liberal' centre of the debate which is disintegrating. The fate of the Kurds and of the Shia rebellion strengthen those who say that Bush did not go far or hard enough, who always argued that the coalitions armies should go to Baghdad or - at least - that even the 100 hours ground war did not properly achieve the objective of destroying Saddam's military machine. The same fates also, on the other wing, help the arguments which you would more easily accept: that any limited' war to throw Iraq out of Kuwait was bound to flood over into uncontrollable, unintended and appalling human consequences. That was one of the reasons for opposing any war in the first place.
It is now difficult for me to go on using a sort of utilitarian calculus to justify throwing Saddam out of Kuwait by force. The balance of pain has swung the other way. The war is, in effect, still going on and has led to more suffering in the short term than if no attempt had been made to liberate the Kuwaitis. I say: in the short term. My. feeling that Saddam, unchallenged, would have used his military power again remains, and I don't accept your assumption that Saddam was as likely to attack Israel before his occupation of Kuwait as after it. But that sort of gain: loss calculation is unprovable.
I have not used the 'inevitability' line. Hobsbawm rather took it, in Marxism Today, saying in effect that there was no way to avoid the Gulf war - that America was bound to use force against such a provocation to her interests - but at the same time utterly deploring the war and prophesying that all its consequences would leave matters worse than before. It's not that I disagree with Eric Hobsbawm. It's rather that I feel it was an evasion. My sense was, and at an instinct level still is, that any invasion of a small country by a larger and crueller one should be resisted, and that it's no good hoping to be choosy about one's allies in the resistance.
Perhaps the moral for me, is that it's safer to stay by instincts than argue by balances of suffering when it comes to war. By the way, what would your approach to the Kurds be now? You can of course decline to have an approach. But should they be assisted? Or is George Bush right for all the wrong reasons? We may all wish that another power, not only the Americans, were in another position to save them physicat ly in their own country. But the wish remains empty.
We agree broadly over the New World Disorder, and the growing weakness of America. About the new helplessness of Cuba and Latin America in general, there's no doubt. Yet I can not see the Gulf expedition as the beginning of a new Pax Americana; it looks to me like the end of something. Neither am I easy with your assumption that the traditional context, rivalry be tween imperialisms leads to militarism and war, still survives. It's a question of to what extent it was ever true. The left has looked too little into collaboration between imperialisms, and that may be our dark future.
Yours sincerely Neal Ascherson April 2, 1991
gular struggle between the US, Ger- imperialisms may be our dark