America's war
Editorial
Stabroek News
March 12, 2003
A writer in the New York Times (February 17) dealing with the huge anti-war demonstrations around the world on the previous weekend remarked "that there may still be two superpowers on the planet: the United States and world public opinion".
Much earlier a distinguished British Professor Fred Halliday, Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics writing last year on the subject of "A New Global Configuration" had made the same point as follows:
"... if states band-wagon, popular opinion does not. At the level of popular feeling across the world, and not just in the Muslim world a kind of countervailing balance of effect is taking shape. Hence the opposition of much of Latin America to support for the US campaign, widespread objections in East Asia and (normally anti-Muslim) India. Loosely associated with globalisation, this antipathy to US hegemony too will not easily go away".
To get an answer to the question as to whether such powerful expressions of feeling can function as a balance to US military power as was the case with Soviet bloc power during the cold war, one must consider what are the origins of such feelings. The roots of anti-Americanism are spread deeper and wider than just the probable war on Iraq. In addition to historical and cultural factors which make for separation in the international community there is the powerful influence of global mass media. A dominant number of the world's population have seen on TV images of the realities of modern war in which civilians including women and children are mangled. At the same time changes in the structure of societies similarly stimulated by mass media have opened up the potential for individual and group action including street demonstrations.
Nevertheless the major immediate precipitant of anti-Americanism worldwide is almost certainly the image which the Bush administration projects of itself. It is sadly an image of arrogance, which comes across as "we don't care what you think, we will do what is best for us". The image derives from the US attempts to destroy international instruments and institutions as for example the Kyoto Protocol, the International Criminal Court, disarmament treaties and numerous others. Particularly offensive is President Bush's often repeated assertion that the existence of the UN with its two hundred member states is dependent on whether the Security Council supports his objectives.
Consequent anti-American expressions, whether in anti-war demonstrations or in other ways, could provide a seed bed for terrorism and pose threats to American interests but are seen in the White House as "soft power" and are thus unlikely to influence the Bush administration in its headlong obsessive rush to war.
But while the demonstrations might not have directly influenced the US administration, the same factors which generate such powerful protest action have posed difficult problems for US foreign policy, problems which have not been susceptible to resolution by the unilateral action, threats and coercive measures and bribes which have taken the place of US diplomacy.
In Europe, governments defy public opinion at their peril -as Tony Blair is finding out in the UK to his growing dismay. Prime Ministers Aznar of Spain and Berlusconi of Italy have followed Blair in their total support of President Bush but it is precisely in Madrid and Rome that there have been the largest million man demonstrations. The anti-Iraq war sentiment is reportedly continent wide despite the famous letter of support signed by eight European leaders.
It will be recalled that in January, eight European leaders published in the Times of London a letter expressing unity with the United states in opposing Saddam Hussein. The letter which had apparently been sponsored by Prime Ministers Aznar and Blair excluded France and Germany but included states from Eastern Europe who were about to be admitted to membership of the European Union. This prompted Rumsfeld's snide remarks separating the new Europe from the old. But the realities behind the letter did not support the purported show of "new Europe's" unity with the US. Subsequent reports indicate that in several instances the signatories did not reflect the views of the governments of those states. For example, the Czech Prime Minister stated that he would not have signed and disassociated himself from his President Vaclav Havel whose signature, he disclosed, had been pencilled in at the last moment. The Portuguese President similarly disassociated himself from his Prime Minister who had signed. Moreover, it was pointed out that the signatories were in a minority in EU's twenty-five members (including new members). Equally to the point is President Chirac's assertion that despite several telephone conversations at that time with Blair, there had been no mention by Blair of the letter proposal. Indeed the matter had been kept secret from France and Germany and Greece, the current Chairman of the EU. Such subterfuge, together with the UK government's paper on Iraq which purported to be based on secret intelligence but which in fact had been substantially plagiarised from published papers based on student research, are at the moral and intellectual level of errant school boys. Yet both of these documents were praised by Washington as representing significant diplomatic breakthroughs.
The entrenched anti-war attitudes in Europe which show up not only in demonstrations but in foreign policy initiatives including at the level of the Security Council derive from their centuries old experience of war in their countries. The architects of the EU built it primarily as a Security Community in which war was to be abolished among its members. A British scholar Jonathan Eyal interprets the European experience as follows;
"Living in close proximity in relatively small vulnerable countries, Europeans have grown accustomed to believing that their best hope, is to manage rather than eliminate, security risks... The outcome is a collection of European nations that instinctively believe in the power of diplomacy at all costs...".
Eyal further points out that the US stands "dramatically opposed... Vulnerabilities are not to be managed but must be eliminated; hence the total "war" against terrorism or weapons of mass destruction".
The current US administration shows little understanding of such deep factors which shape the foreign policies of European States. They see French and German opposition to war with Iraq as pure "cussedness". They point to the thousands of graves of American soldiers who died in the struggle to liberate France and Europe and denounce French ingratitude. And indeed the US paid a high and tragic price. Alas gratitude is not carried across the generations.
Turkey is another example where powerful internal factors influence foreign policy responses and make it not easily susceptible to threats and bribes. Turkey's military cooperation is expected to be a crucial part of US strategy in the attack on Iraq. The unwillingness to date of the Turkish parliament to approve of the stationing of US forces there, likewise derives from geographical, historical, demographic, religious and constitutional factors. By ancient conquest, Turkey is a Muslim country. Geographically it shares a long frontier with Iraq through which Iraqi oil helps to support the Turkish economy. In terms of population it has a huge Kurdish minority with which until recently there was conflict costing thirty thousand lives. In modern times a great leader Ataturk established Turkey as a secular republic with its powerful army as guardian of the secular nature of the state. In very recent times religious parties (i.e. Muslim) parties have been removed from power or have not been allowed to contest elections. In this situation last year November, the AK party (Justice and Development) with strong Islamic roots won a sweeping majority victory. The AK party is led by the charismatic figure, Recep Erdogan who was not allowed to take a seat in parliament because three years ago he had been convicted for reading an Islamic poem at a public gathering. The AK party is now in a perilous balancing act, holding power as a secular and democratic party. With the Muslim people of Turkey being predominantly anti-war, the AK has not been willing to support the US request although opening a northern front into Iraq through Turkey is vital to US strategy and the US is consequently offering thirty billion US dollars in grants and loans. Turkey is in a situation of grave economic crisis with nearly half a million people having lost their jobs in recent years. Erdogan is fighting a by-election so as to gain a seat and take over as Prime Minister. In terms of his constituency's sympathies he has therefore not been able to provide full backing to the US request.
Powerful anti-war sentiments in Turkey are not fuelled only by the Islamic faith but by deep fears that in the case of war, the large Kurdish minority in Iraq will set up an independent state and will be joined by Kurds in Turkey, Iran and Syria in a powerful Kurdistan State thus destabilizing Turkey and the whole sub-region. Nevertheless, the US might have their way as the Turkish Generals are now supporting the US request.
The Bush administration divides the world into good and evil, with leaders either with them or against them. Hence in place of diplomacy and persuasion there have been assertions of military might and threats and bribes and often personal denunciations of foreign leaders. Hence in addition to the massive protests in the streets, it has earned widespread distrust and the hostility of UN member states as reflected in the sharp division in the Security Council. Even Mexico, so closely linked to the US in NAFTA and Chile who recently concluded a trade pact with the US are unwilling to support a new US/UK resolution authorising war.
What next, if the US and UK do not secure support for a new resolution, President Bush will from his perspective see no advantage in waiting any longer. He who reportedly avoided war service and was dubiously elected will unleash a war with incalculable consequences for the international order. War might now not be weeks away but a matter of days.
It will be for historians to ascertain President Bush's true motives. It may be personal (he claims that Saddam tried to kill his father). It may be greed for Iraq's oil wealth. But in significant part the inevitability of war may derive from Bush's vision of the world as divided between good and evil, a vision which leaves no place for diplomacy but only for the use of military might.
The war is the inevitable self-confirmatory product of analysis in the Bush White House.
