United States' Imperialistic Ambitions

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines Imperialism as “the policy, practice, or advocacy of extending the power and dominion of a nation especially by direct territorial acquisitions or by gaining indirect control over the political or economic life of other areas”. We, the inhabitants of the sub-continent are not at all oblivious of what imperialism means and its impact on the lives of the subjugate people. The British ruled India for about a century and established their imperial rule over the princely states in India. Since that time, much water has flown under the bridge and the world, as a whole, has changed. British imperialism is a thing of the past, but a new world order has emerged, where the United States and their allies are the Imperial masters and their neo-imperialist ideas and endeavors are engulfing this new world.

At some point of time in the history, the United States itself was a subject of imperialist subjugation. But there has been stupendous economic development in the United States since its independence on July 1776. The economic supremacy of the United States resulted in it being the greatest super power in the world. With the economic domination came imperialistic ambition also for the successive governments in the US. What we had seen in the Latin American countries, the Caribbean and now in West Asia and the Middle East are the same aspirations of the United States in different hues. One of the latest instances of American imperialist ambition in its full form can be very well seen in its ludicrous attempt of savaging Iraq using military force and overthrowing of the ruler of Iraq- Saddam Hussein. Political observers see this effort of the United States as a malevolent attempt to secure a dependent client state military base at the heart of energy producing region of the world.

No ambivalence should prevail on the fact that the military exercise of the United States in overthrowing the government in Iraq has to be ridiculed with greatest contempt. But I don’t intend to acquiesce to the authoritarian rule of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and his dictatorial methods of governance either, but I am simply questioning the moral and legal authority the United States proclaims to have in initializing a military assault. The pretexts on which the United States started this war have all been found baseless and unsubstantiated – there are neither Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) in Iraq and nor are there any evidence of Saddam Hussein having malicious connections with Osama-bin-Laden and his al-Qaeda. One of the most important contradictions of the United States’ hostility towards Saddam Hussein lies on the historical fact that the US was covertly supporting Saddam in his war against Iran before the Kuwait war. Saddam Hussein himself is no pious soul; one would find it absolutely difficult to forget the gruesome act of genocide perpetrated by him against the Kurds using the poisonous gas during 1988, which being one of the many dastardly acts he had committed against humanity.

Possibility of the existence of WMD with Iraq, an excuse with which George W Bush got the congressional approval to resort to war against Iraq, turned out to be absurd and so preposterous was his claim that Saddam is having connections with al-Qaeda. When the former turned out to be a big farce, the latter resulted only in increasing recruitment done by al-Qaeda from Iraq and the subsequent threat coming out of it. But if one would think that the United States got defeated in realizing its imperialist ambitions by committing these mistakes, it would be bizarre. With the war in Iraq and with the military ambush in the Afghanistan, the United States became successful in establishing military bases in both these countries. With the US having control over Iraq, the world's second largest known oil reserves, it has significantly enhanced its strategic power and influence over its major rivals and hence has satisfied its imperialistic ambitions to some extend vis-à-vis the Middle East.

Now the United States has two more countries to conquer in their ‘axis of evil’ group – Iran and North Korea. But the US will only tread safely on these two countries as they are having nuclear capabilities in their armory and that, as Noam Chomsky would put it, is a very dangerous lesson that the world is learning. The new lesson will read like this – ‘if you as a country want to shield yourself from the clutches of American Imperialist outrages, you had better imitate North Korea or Iran and pose a plausible threat to the US.