arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)

HIS name is Richard N. Perle. He was a top official in the Reagan administration with the strange nickname "Prince of Darkness." He remains close to hawkish Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his right-hand man, Paul "Veloceraptor" Wolfowitz. He gives interviews with an Airfix-type model of an "invisible" Stealth bomber at his side, with a poodle – curiously, called Reagan – at his feet.

Perle is the most visible advocate of the next war being dreamt up by the empire's militarists.

The aggression against Afghanistan has not yet ended. And Allah only knows when it will end. But in their numerous caves on Capitol Hill, the warmongers are getting restless again, carried away on a premature wave of triumphalism. Perle is the most "vocal" of them, as they say in the United States. He appears on every TV program, particularly those of his good friend, ultraright-wing commentator William Safire.

And he defends what has become his cause, "Phase 2" of the war against terror: an all-out attack on Iraq, particularly against President Saddam Hussein and his regime.

His arguments are simple and easily sold to an audience that continues to be traumatized by September 11.

"If we end this with Afghanistan and leave all the other terrorist-sponsoring regimes intact, then I don't see how we can call this a victory," he has stated.

According to London newspaper The Guardian, Perle's logic could not be clearer: "Terrorism requires state sponsorship, a place where men of evil can plan, train and indoctrinate for havoc. Afghanistan was the target because it had become such a place. If there are others, America cannot leave them unhindered."

And he follows this up with a series of arguments and anecdotes illustrating how Iraq corresponds perfectly to the empire's definition of a terrorist state.

He tells how an Iraqi who defected to the United States had described a hijackers' training course allegedly provided by the Baghdad government. He speaks of a mysterious trip to Prague on the part of the head of the terrorist network responsible for September 11, Mohammed Atta, who talked with "a Baghdad official." And he ends by invoking the anthrax theme, where the "hand of Saddam" is "definitely" suspected.

Behind Perle is a chorus of hawks always ready to involve themselves in war-promoting activities. They add, with very respectable conviction, that "Saddam" – as if they knew him from nursery school – "dreams" of acquiring nuclear arms and that he already has the means of biological warfare at his disposal.

In the government camp, the tone is prudent. Relatively speaking. They say that Colin Powell is the one who is most resistant to "Phase 2" being initiated on Iraqi territory. Not because he is a pacifist, for the Gulf War hero has not reached that point. But simply because he does not consider it the correct moment to expand the War against Terror.

But the Bush administration cannot disappoint the hawks too much, because they make up a good part of its political forces.

Thus, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, with her customary attention to detail, was entrusted to participate in the media spectacle, where she used quite a few bellicose sentences. Speaking on NBC's "Meet the Press" program, she summed up her thoughts. According to her, Saddam Hussein's refusal to accept UN inspectors in Iraq, in and of itself, is reason enough to wage war there. But after offering this carrot to the hawks, she put the brakes on any commitment from the administration: "I think it's a little early to start talking about the next phase of this war."

In truth, there are many hawks, both inside and outside the administration. But various factors explain the apparently prudent attitude of these Pentagon and White House bellicists:

• The primary objective is to capture Osama bin Laden, destroy Al-Qaeda and end the Taliban rule in Afghanistan, a job that is far from being completed.

• Iraq, with its modern and powerful army, cannot be compared to the hungry Taliban hordes. Baghdad has more than 400,000 men available, almost 10 times more than the Taliban army.

• Attacking Iraq could provoke a rupture with Arab countries, particularly Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which are offering support, albeit tepid, to the war in Afghanistan.

• An offensive in Iraq, on the lines of the Afghan model, implies using internal opposition forces such as the Kurds in the north and the Shiites in the south. But it is obvious that the U.S. administration doubts these groups' capabilities.

Hawk Perle and his friends – encouraged by the weak opposition to the war within the United States – aren't concerned. Perle talks as if the offensive were in the bag. And he affirms with a conviction worthy of his masters in the military-industrial complex:

"Iraq will be much, much easier than a lot of people think."

and you forget to mention the fact that the US really needs to pursuade Turkey of the need to bomb Iraq (in order to make use of the airbase in Incirlik).