The Cultural Constitution of Political Economy(2006) Seeing War of the Worlds(2006) Ward Churchill and Innocence(2005) Frodo or Gollum: U.S. Foreign Policy and Iraq(2003) Grasping the Mundane (2003) Intertwined Timelines: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq and the USA(2001) Radical Islam as a Prelude to Secularization? (2001) Does Righteousness Deliver Evil? (2001) Two Approaches to the Meanings of Terror Ithaca article and video Buzzsaw Interview

Circuits of Conversion: From 14,000 to 1 Present Dangers Wading in the Deep: Supporting Emergent Anarchies Celebrating the End of the Cold War

International Relations and the Problem of Difference Interrogating Imperialism: Conversations on Gender, Race, and War The Global Economy as Political Space

The Rites of Dispossession (PDF) Cultural Constitution of Political Economy (PDF) A Medium of Others (PDF) Savage Smith and the temporal walls of capitalism (PDF) If Only You Could See What I Have Seen with Your Eyes: Staging an Encounting Between Social Science and Literature (PDF)

Frodo or Gollum: U.S. Foreign Policy and Iraq
Naeem Inayatullah (in the Ithacan, Novermber 20, 2003)

Realist international relations theory and J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings share a
concern about the corruptive influence of power. Characters such as Gandalf, Elrond,
and Aragorn recognize that power corrupts and then enslaves its users. More important,
they refuse the ring even under threat of attack because they realize that pure intentions
are not enough. They are able to imagine that the disaster created by the combination of
their good intentions and the ring’s power might be worse than what the malevolence of
Mordor can generate. As we are often reminded, the road to hell is paved with good
intentions.

In a startling bit of candor prior to the first Gulf War, George Bush made clear that not
Kuwaiti sovereignty but rather oil, the lifeblood of “our economy,” was really at stake.
Today, in what appears to be a reversal, the regime of George W. Bush proclaims that the
purpose of today’s war is to teach Iraq and the Middle East how to create democracy. I
believe it is a mistake to think of this idealism as a mere cover for oil. Indeed, the purer
intentions of teaching may be the greater danger.

The problem with the teaching imperative is that it usually cannot confront the doubt that
teaching may not be possible. Even though empire can bring great things, including
perhaps democracy, its teaching is forced. When others are disallowed the possibility of
making mistakes they cannot learn from their own experience. Too often, the net result
of imposed teaching is deep resentment.

In North America we often underestimate the depth and meaning of this world-wide
resentment. It can be so pervasive that people sometimes want to destroy the giver, the
teacher, the superpower, the empire – even at the cost of their own lives. Anticipating
such a death, I sometimes think, gives some lives more meaning than all the gifts of
empire. Live free or die, some might say.

But resistance is not the only reason why the teaching imperative is so perilous.
Teaching backed by (super-) power can overwhelm the soul of the teacher, the empire
builder. If we let ourselves we can imagine that greatness causes suffering in the teacher.
The greater the greatness the more it is imbued with emptiness. The bigger the empire
and the larger the burden of teaching, the more lonely is the teacher. One is indeed the
loneliest number, as Gollum would attest.

The fellowship of the ring fights on two fronts. It confronts Mordor, but in a manner that
does not fuel the far greater threat -- power itself. Frodo’s mission is nothing less than to
destroy the ring; he uses power to undermine power. Do we emulate Frodo in our daily
lives? To what degree does U.S. foreign policy create a fellowship against the ring of
power? How do we calculate the benefits of a lonely empire against those of an
international fellowship? Even as we applaud Frodo, might it be that we are more akin to
Gollum?