Should the U.S. Offer Iraq Statehood?

Sierra Times ^ | May 5, 2003 | J. Neil Schulman

[J. Neil Schulman]

Should the U.S. Offer Iraq Statehood?

By J. Neil Schulman © 2003

Despite the endless repetition from campus Trotskyists and unreconciled supporters of Ohio Senator Robert Taft’s 1952 presidential bid, the United States of America is not now, nor has it ever been, an empire.

If the United States were an empire, the Stars and Stripes would today be flying over Ottawa, Mexico City, Havana, Panama City, Managua, San Salvador, Manila, Madrid, Paris, Berlin, Tokyo, Beijing, Seoul, Saigon, and Kuwait City. At least.

The United States does not have colonial ambitions, and that defines imperialism. We back friendly foreign regimes and sometimes aid even unfriendly ones, when we perceive it in our strategic interest. Too often the enemy of our enemy is a friend, even if the “friend” is as miserable as Stalin, Mao, Marcos, Somoza, or Saddam, and too often we’ve had to clean up the mess afterwards.

But there is nothing that I can find in the Federalist Papers, in the Constitution of the United States -- even in the writings of Old Rightists and New Leftists -- that says the maximum number of states allowed in the Union is 50, or that for a state to be added to the union its people have to be English speaking.

America is not a territory. It is a revolution. Its founding document declares,

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. - That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, -That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

The Declaration of Independence is not merely applicable to a particular time and place. The least important thing about it is the secession of colonies from its homeland. It is a statement of how human affairs should be organized, and is as applicable in Asia - or on Mars - as it was to Massachusetts and Virginia.

So the question needs to be asked. If the peoples of Iraq, just liberated from a brutal dictator, ever voted in a referendum that their future lay with the Americans who have spent their blood and treasure to free them, would it be imperialism, or merely American, to welcome them into the Union?

We say we believe in separation of church and state. Should we keep a state out of the union because the majority of its people are of a different religion than most of us? Utah doesn’t seem to have been much of a mismatch, has it?

English is not their first language. But if one added up the square mileage of all the neighborhoods in the United States where English isn’t spoken as a first language, might not it equal the square mileage of Iraq?

Iraq would not be physically connected to the United States. But neither is Hawaii. And just a few years before it became a state, the most common first language of Hawaii was Japanese.

I can hear the howls already: This proves American imperialism! It’s about the oil! He wants Iraq’s oil!

Not me. I want orbital solar-power satellites, interplanetary nuclear spaceships, and countertop cold fusion. If fifty years from now the United States is still burning petroleum, America will have failed the test of progressive capitalism.

Like most Americans, I’m a provincial isolationist at heart. It took hijacked American commercial passenger jetliners being crashed into American office buildings for me even to notice that there were foreigners who really hated us. Americans like me don’t even like foreigners enough to want to colonize them.

But we don’t define America by race, religion, or ethnicity. If our cultural strength has come by inviting diverse foreigners to immigrate to our shores, is it much different to invite twenty-four million of them to bring their country with them? I don’t recall reading anywhere that a necessary precondition for becoming an American was being homeless and penniless.

I know this is a long shot. The American Bill of Rights is a Harsh Mistress. Becoming an American – becoming a person who defines his or her identity not by the past but in possibilities for the future, and habituating easygoing tolerance rather than inbred xenophobia – is hard work.

But wasn’t that the point of America in the first place?

Copyright © 2003 by J. Neil Schulman. All rights reserved.

J. NEIL SCHULMAN is the author of two Prometheus award-winning novels, Alongside Night and The Rainbow Cadenza, short fiction, nonfiction, and screenwritings, including the CBS Twilight Zone episode "Profile in Silver." His latest novel, a finalist for this year's Prometheus Award, is the comic fantasy Escape from Heaven. His articles have appeared in publications ranging from National Review to the Los Angeles Times. His personal website is http://www.jneil.tv/.

[nomad]

You really want to turn them into mind-numbed vegetables? Turn them into Democrats! Seriously though, I can`t believe these guys, are they for real? Good god, why don`t we just give them a few dozen nukes while we`re at it! Talk about letting the wolves into the hen house! And if you think we have trouble with OUR borders, can you imagine THEIRS? Every fanatic in the Islamic world would make a bee line for Iraq and their free ticket to America, martyrdom and 40 virgins.

[capitan_refugio]

Cripes, J. Neil! Offer statehood to a California-sized basket case? We already have California!!

[SoDak]

Don't worry. The author is being silly at best, to prove some odd point. So am I. It's late, I can't sleep, and I have a 12 hour day ahead starting in less than 5 hours.

[marktwain]

Nice post,

I wrote a review to Escape from Heaven, (great book) for Amazon.com, but they wanted my credit card number for me to get it loaded to their site. That perturbed me enough that I haven't done it.

Now if we just did away with all the stupid federal "revenue sharing" there would be far less of a problem with Iraqi statehood.

[Greybird]

If you were trying to show the lunacy of neoconservative principles, I salute your piece of satire.

I know Neil Schulman personally. While he's been one of my favorite authors for 20 years, and has my highest respect for his intellect, he nonetheless is being completely serious -- to his detriment, I would add.

The solution to empire-on-the-cheap, which we are practicing, is to stop doing it. Period. Not to extend the direct sway of the American garrison State to more of the world.

Neil has come close to jettisoning his libertarian (and, to a large extent, anarchist) principles out of his outrage over Nine Eleven, and I can empathize, but I cannot agree with him that it's appropriate. Nor, further, can I fathom the endorsement of State power that is behind such a suggestion as this. Nor, finally, can I understand how he misses the fact of Israel already being de facto U.S. territory, in every economic and military measurement, much more so than is a Puerto Rico -- and its being a nuclear-armed loose cannon.

[desertsolitaire]

While many more reasons against come immediately to mind, I am reminded that in American history, We have done some pretty audacious things that later turned out to be spot-on. i.e. Louisiana Purchase.

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

The problem is that Iraq needs its own, much more conservative Constitution. For example, abortion. I would suspect that there would be a much larger problem with abortion in Iraq than the US. Secondly, public attire. If they are allowed to have nude bars and bikini beaches [since the US would turn all the beach land into Federal parks], and then there is FICA, which would be a terrible jolt for both Iraq and the US. Then building codes, Federal laws, etc. Iraq would be just as miserable as we are if not more so due to the shock.

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

We are too much of a beurocratic minefield to be flexible enough to take in other cultures. They would revolt almost immediately. We are boxed in by liberal beurocratic blunderings of the past that the RINOS block with their bodies.

[SamAdams76]

Iraq aside, I agree with the thrust of this article. The United States needs to expand. However, my standards for statehood are a little tougher. Any new state must be a net asset gain to the United States, the Constitution must be adopted in its entirety and the official language must become English. In the meantime, the would-be state could be made a territory in much the manner Puerto Rico is today.

I believe that in time, the United States will stretch from the Arctic Circle to the Panama Canal, including Cuba. At a bare minimum.

[Jim Noble]

It is true that the Constitution provides an "open architecture", and that the Declaration is universalist.

The expansion of the sweet land of liberty is long overdue. I'm not sure Iraq is the place to start.

How about Alberta and Sonora first?

[buffyt]

I second that motion! Texas would be a rich country if 1/2 of our earnings and most of our resources were not taken away by the US Government! And we would take Bush back to be our president again!

[buffyt]

Depends on who is in control in Iraq. Under Hussein, pregnant women were beaten until they miscarried then the babies were killed. Abortion wasn't a problem for the Hussein regime.

I hope whatever government they come up with is much more humane & civilized than the Hussein regime. And you can't be a humane or civilized if your country condones abortion on demand. (to save mother's life, as in etopic pregnancy is not abortion on demand)

[ChemistCat]

Isn't that special. Tim McVeigh wasn't evil? Being rightwing somehow makes what he did okay? Or is it just that what he did is old news, not significant?

I'm not so partisan that everybody on "my side" who does a wicked thing gets a pass. I hope I'm NEVER that partisan.

[the gillman@blacklagoon.com]

Why not? Rhode Island is a state.

[ChemistCat]

I've been thinking about your post and I've decided that you see all Iraqis as terrorists.

I've lived in that part of the world. They're just people. They would benefit very much from a free-market system (imagine living where your President could walk into a big bank and demand a billion in cash--and get it!) and our system, flaky as it is, is the best in the world. If we don't co-opt them maybe the UN will. Isn't that a scary thought?

I'd embrace your xenophobia in a moment if I thought there was ANYTHING we could do with or within our borders that would make us safe. I live in the Oklahoma City area, so I KNOW better. Don't tell me I'm repeating tired speeches...it sounds too much like "9/11 was two years ago...move on, already."

[grania]

You're forgetting one of the biggies. What a great source of cheap labor this would be.

[nomad]

I never said that McVeigh wasn`t evil, I just find it interesting that when people mention home grown terrorists they insist on the rightwingers and give a pass to all those sixties lefties or the present day anarchist, watermellon, animal rights groups. I also never said that all Iraqis are terrorists, just enough of them, and their neighbors, to make this idea suicidal. As far as I`m concerned anyone is welcome to come to America if they truly desire freedom but after 9/11, don`t tell me I`m being xenophobic if I insist THEY prove they are not going to try to cut our throats.BTW, I think we can do a credible job of securing our borders if we really set our minds and efforts to it.