THE SPIN FROM global-justice advocates is that 9/11 and the anti-Saddam crusade have not dampened their movement. Rather, those events have caused a shift in focus from the streets to other forms of protest and engagement.

Guardian columnist George Monbiot, one of the leading theorists of the global-justice movement, offered the most succinct summing up of this spin in a January 28 column. " Far from dying away, " Monbiot wrote, " our movement has grown bigger than most of us could have guessed. " He cited the 150,000 gathered for the World Social Forum, of course, but Monbiot also argued that the media have " interpreted the absence of coverage (by the newsrooms) as an absence of activity. One of our recent discoveries is that we no longer need them. "

Monbiot’s cheerleading has more than an element of truth to it, but he ignores the way the war on Iraq distracted the world’s attention from global-justice issues. Valuable energy that could have been used to extend the movement’s momentum has been used instead to organize opposition to war in Iraq. And while Monbiot may be right that the media’s role as a conduit for organizing protest has declined, the fourth estate’s importance in reaching the masses who are more interested in Joe Millionaire than in street politics has yet to diminish. But TV anchors and print pundits obsessing over Iraq won’t touch issues dear to the global-justice movement.

A number of world leaders sympathetic to the global-justice movement have realized that Iraq has stolen focus from the plight of the world’s poor — and they are sounding the alarm. At a recent gathering of the heads of state of the Non-Aligned Movement (the grouping of 115 countries not militarily aligned with a Cold War superpower) in Kuala Lumpur, South African president Thabo Mbeki argued that an Iraq war would " deliver a deadly blow to the poor of the world, who will have to bear the additional pain of growing impoverishment. " A week earlier, at the International Fund for Agricultural Development’s annual meeting in Rome, UN secretary-general Kofi Annan warned that the world body’s steady focus on Iraq " should not distract us from our determination to carry out the wider agenda of the United Nations. "

Some in the trenches of the fight for global justice admit that the impending Iraq adventure has drawn attention away from the movement — and stalled some of its public momentum as well. For instance, one of the global-justice movement’s greatest practical achievements has been the debt-forgiveness campaign of the Jubilee Debt Coalition (a UK-based group dedicated to changing international debt policy). Empowered by its skillful coalition-building between diverse constituencies (including churches and labor) and aided by the press attracted by celebrity advocates such as U2 singer Bono, the Jubilee movement successfully forced debt forgiveness onto the agenda of the IMF and the World Bank.

Jubilee continues to watchdog the implementation of the World Bank and IMF’s " enhanced " debt-write-off plan and to call for even broader and more far-reaching debt-forgiveness efforts. Jubilee USA Network national coordinator Marie Clark says that in this " dramatic time, " her organization is feeling the pinch of " a limited amount of time and resources. " Clark also observes that an Iraq-obsessed media are ignoring a lot of what’s still going on in the debt-forgiveness/global-justice movement, even when it overlaps with the war on terror and Iraq — such as the question of accelerated debt forgiveness for Pakistan, and Turkey’s battle with the IMF over its austerity program.

Clark agrees with Monbiot that global-justice issues have not gone into total limbo. But she admits that the highly visible marching and confrontation that formerly garnered media attention for the global-justice cause has been diverted to the antiwar effort. " While the mass mobilizations have been smaller, " Clark notes, " we’re seeing more of an emphasis on action played out in the regional and local spheres. It’s not that the work has declined, but we’ve focused on different tactics. " In Jubilee USA Network’s case, some of that change in tactics has centered on lobbying the US Congress, where debt-forgiveness advocates have started to get a more favorable hearing.

THE POLITICAL THEORY driving the impending war on Iraq has now become crystal clear. Regime change in Iraq is the first domino in a progression of peace and democratization in the Middle East.

As President George W. Bush put it in a recent speech at the American Enterprise Institute: " Success in Iraq could also begin a new stage for Middle Eastern peace, and set in motion progress toward a truly democratic Palestinian state. The passing of Saddam Hussein’s regime will deprive terrorist networks of a wealthy patron that pays for terrorist training and offers rewards to families of suicide bombers. And other regimes will be given a clear warning that support for terror will not be tolerated. "

It is interesting to note, however, that a number of economists and globalization advocates see another set of dominoes tumbling if a war on Iraq commences. Not only could even a short conflict roil crucial markets (such as oil) and kill off any faint hopes of reviving the US economy, but the unilateral nature of the American effort to unseat Hussein could fray time-tested trading and economic bonds — damaging the free flow of goods and capital that is the underpinning of globalization.

It’s not that things are so peachy at present, even without a war in Iraq. As numerous published reports on the mood at the World Economic Forum in Davos made clear, dour assessment of the world economy — and the additional peril to global finance represented by a war on Iraq — was inescapable. Robert Gottliebsen of the Australian wrote that " I’ve attended more than 15 forums, and I’ve never encountered this level of global apprehension. It’s undoubtedly the most dramatic in the 33-year history of world business summits. "

Throw in the Iraq war, and economists see the global economic brew becoming even more toxic, for both the United States and others. Economists and scholars — such as Benjamin Barber, a University of Maryland scholar and author of Jihad vs. McWorld (Times Books, 1995) — who are critical of globalization and its effects have been scathing on this issue. In a talk last week in Washington sponsored by the Goethe-Institut, Barber noted that the United States was the architect of the international order that undergirds globalization. " Now, " Barber noted of the Bush administration’s Iraq policy, " it is abdicating and abjuring the concept of global governance. "

But even some of pro-globalization’s biggest US op-ed warriors — the New York Times’ Thomas Friedman and the Washington Post’s Robert J. Samuelson — have expressed strong doubts about the possible repercussions of a war on Iraq. Friedman supports the war, but has been forthright about its contradictions and dangers. Last week, in a column titled " Chicken à la Iraq, " he noted that " [i]ndeed, our own Congress is being asked to suspend belief yet again and accept Mr. Bush’s promises that this war, soaring oil prices and a weakening dollar won’t bust the budget even more than his tax cuts already have. "

Samuelson sees an Iraq war posing even greater dangers for globalization. In a February 19 column titled " War’s Economic Side Effects, " Samuelson bluntly summed up the issue: " What may ultimately be said of a war with Iraq, assuming it occurs, is that it made the world safe for globalization — or that it proved the world unfit for globalization. " Noting that globalization once seemed " irrepressible, " he argued that economic and political pressures have already slowed globalization. And the war with Iraq? " Contradictions abound, " Samuelson concluded. " American leadership seems strong — and countries everywhere assail it. Economic pressures draw nations together — and cultural and political differences pull them apart. Some technologies favor global commerce — and others abet terrorism. The logic for cohesion resists the power of fragmentation. This looming war may help determine which prevails. "

Other economists see more than contradiction. They see possible disaster. In a February 24 op-ed published in the Singapore paper the Edge, Earth Institute director Jeffrey Sachs dissected the possible effects of a war on Iraq. In this piece, Sachs trumpeted the " new form " assumed by globalization: " global mass politics. " He argued that the worldwide protests may not halt the war, but they will set the stage for considerable damage to the United States and the world. " It is unlikely that worldwide protests will stop the Bush Administration’s war plans, " Sachs observed, " but they will shape the political, security and economic ramifications of such a war. " Americans, he continued, " will pay dearly for launching a war against global opinion " and " anti-US sentiments and terrorism unleashed are likely to be massive. "

At his press conference on March 6, President Bush brushed off questions about the effect that protesters had on his thinking about war in Iraq. " I’ve seen all kinds of protests since I’ve been the president, " he quipped. Bush also refused to put any sort of price tag on the Iraq conflict, telling one questioner that " at the appropriate time, we will ask for a supplemental. And that will be the moment where you and others will be able to recognize what we think the dollar cost of a conflict will be. "

These separate questions, however, are connected. And at their intersection, Carlo Giuliani meets Robert Samuelson. The fact that Iraq has seen a convergence of the views of the global-justice movement and the views of globalization’s greatest cheerleaders signals that opposition to the manner in which the United States is pursuing regime change in Iraq is very broad indeed.

Richard Byrne can be reached at richardbyrne1@earthlink.net.