THE BUSH AND ROMOANOV REGIMES: FEARS SURFACE IN
ESTABLISHMENT ABOUT THE WAR

By Richard Becker

"Is the Russia of the late Romanovs really our model, a selfish,
superstitious empire thrashing toward self-destruction in the name of a
doomed status quo?"

That was the astonishingly undiplomatic question posed by career
diplomat John Brady Kiesling, in his open letter of resignation dated
Feb. 26.

Kiesling, political affairs officer at the U.S. Embassy in Athens,
Greece, addres sed the letter to Secretary of State Colin Powell in
protest of what he termed "our fervent pursuit of war with Iraq."

The Kiesling resignation created an uproar because he spoke not only for
himself, but for a growing section of the U.S. foreign policy
establishment. On March 3, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright,
addressing a White House conference, called on the Bush administration
to hold off on launching a new war.

"The momentum seems to be moving in the direction of war," Albright
said. "We might get the war over, but we might not get the postwar
over."

Albright's statement must have shocked the Bush war cabinet, as she
herself was a fervent pursuer of war against Iraq when serving in the
Clinton administration.

The opposition to war coming from Kiesling, Albright and numerous other
diplomatic and national security luminaries has nothing to do with
humanitarian concerns. It is instead another product of the fierce and
growing global opposition to a new imperialist war.

This was admitted in effect by Albright in her remarks. Pointing to what
she termed increased anti-American feelings overseas in response to
Bush's Iraq policy, Albright asserted that "there must be some way to do
what we wanted without alienating everybody."

What demonstrated that "alienation," and emboldened many governments to
speak out against the war, is the millions of people marching in
hundreds of cities spanning the globe.

It is only the unexpected intervention of the people in the political
process that has caused a division among the rulers and their well-paid
officialdom. Their disagreement is not over the goal: the subjugation
of the Middle East and the repossession of its rich oil resources. On
that they all agree. Rather, it is on how to proceed in achieving this
longstanding objective.

While the ruling elites had pretty much closed ranks behind the war
strategy a few months ago--and may well do so again if and when
hostilities begin--the unprecedented mass mobilizations of recent weeks
have engendered fear of unwanted consequences in the event of war.

In that regard, Kiesling's reference to the Romanov dynasty, and its
suggested comparison to the Bush administration, is most interesting.

THE BUSH AND ROMANOV REGIMES

Who were the Romanovs? They were the last hereditary monarchy, czars, of
the Russian Empire. Their rule, contrary to latter-day attempts at
romanticizing them, was cruel and capricious in the extreme. Imperial
Russia was a police state, known as the "prison-house of nations," and a
bastion of reaction in relation to Europe and Asia.

The czars lived in indescribable luxury. In a country where the vast
majority suffered from poverty, hunger, illiteracy and disease, the
horses in the czar's stables were sheltered from the cold with blankets
studded with rubies and emeralds.

During World War I, beginning in 1914, the czar's general staff sent
millions of workers and peasants to their deaths. On the home front, the
suffering of the population became unbearable.

To this misery, the Romanovs and their royal hangers-on were completely
oblivious. Oblivious, that is, until the suffering of the people
exploded in revolution in February 1917. Within days the Roman ovs and
the whole rotten structure were gone and the royal family was in
custody. A few months later a second, socialist revolution brought the
working class to power and changed the world.

It is highly doubtful that Kiesling sees socialist revolution in the
U.S. on the im med iate horizon, so why the more-than- startling analogy
between the Bush and Romanov regimes?

What Albright, Kiesling and others fear is that the current lords of the
empire, in their unrestrained militarism and supreme arrogance, could
trigger new social explosions. That the record-high anger against U.S.
military, economic and political domination could be transformed into a
global firestorm of protest in the event of a new attack on Iraq.

As the more sober establishment analysts well know, every empire in
history has proclaimed itself invincible and eternal, and every previous
empire has fallen.

For all those active in building the anti-war movement over the past
year, the Kiesling resignation should be understood as a victory. It is
only the mobilization of the people--the one factor the rulers almost
always leave out of their calculations--that has aroused the fears of a
significant section of the ruling establishment and pushed back the war
for this long.

But this is not the time to rest on past achievements. The crisis has
now entered its most crucial phase. All who are opposed to war and
racism must do everything possible to build the largest possible
mobilizations on March 15. Only the people can stop the war.

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