A new version of bipolarity?

By Mohamed Sid-Ahmed

Two years ago, a spate of suicide bombings in Israel prompted a number of world leaders to convene a summit in Sharm El-Sheikh for the purpose of combating terrorism, although officially the conference was designed to salvage the peace process. The switch in emphasis was meant to avoid an unnecessary debate over differences in interpretation of the word terrorism. In addition to the sponsors of the Middle East peace process, the United States, Russia and the main European powers, all the Arab leaders, with the exception of Saddam Hussein, were invited, as was the then Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres. It was at this conference that Arab leaders committed themselves to peace as their strategic objective, an objective that is obstructed at every turn by Israel's current Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

Since the Sharm El-Sheikh summit convened to combat terrorism as a regional threat, terrorism has become a global phenomenon. This was made glaringly clear in the past weeks not only by the Nairobi and Dar Es-Salaam blasts but by the devastating bomb attack that came close on their heels in Omagh, Northern Ireland. Described as the worst terrorist attack suffered by the troubled province in the last thirty years, it came at a time of apparent progress in the peace process. The same cannot be said of the Middle East peace process, which has ground to a virtual standstill.

Early in the investigation into the bomb attacks against the US embassies, American officials named Osama Bin Laden as a key suspect, although even now, and despite the arrest of an Arab suspect in Karachi, there is no hard evidence of an Islamist connection. True, groups calling themselves Islamic have claimed responsibility for the attacks, but none of the names they use are on any known list of terrorists. The names could well be fictitious to cover the real culprits. They have invoked the Judaisation of the whole of Jerusalem as the reason behind their act. What is important is not whether the perpetrators are Islamists or not, but that the issue of Jerusalem can be used to endow terrorist acts with legitimacy in the eyes of given sections of international public opinion.

The stalled peace process and its complete inadequacy in face of Netanyahu's determination to press ahead with his expansionist plans in Jerusalem could well encourage certain forces to resort to non-institutionalised means to deter him. And what is true for Jerusalem is also true for the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations in general, even for Arab-Israeli negotiations as a whole. But the Judaisation of Jerusalem is not only a Palestinian or Arab problem, but one that is of concern to Muslims and Christians all over the world.

The collapse of the Soviet Union encouraged the belief that a bipolar world order was a thing of the past and that it had been replaced by a new world order, albeit one still in the making. Today we are seeing signs of the emergence of a new bipolar world order, dominated this time around not by a confrontation between two superpowers but by a confrontation between one pole representing the so-called new world order and another pole outside international legality which asserts itself whenever 'the world order' reveals its inner flaws too flagrantly, as in its persistent application of double standards, or when it appears unable to cope with acute crises, whether global, regional or even local. With the new world order imposing strong constraints on conventional warfare between states, terrorism is becoming in a way the only viable alternative to military hostilities.

Unlike the previous bipolar world order which was based on a geographical confrontation between its two poles, the communist pole in the East and the capitalist pole in the West, the new bipolarity is globalist in nature. For the new world order to prevail, it must prove itself capable of resolving all conflicts anywhere in the world by peaceful means. Much depends here on the ability of the United States to assume a leading role on the world scene.. This is questionable in the context of the crisis now facing its president following his admission last Monday of an illicit sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky.

Actually, the rise of terrorism is not the only indication of serious flaws in the new world order. Another manifest expression is the continued application of a policy of nuclear apartheid, in which a number of select states are authorised to maintain nuclear arsenals (the five permanent members of the Security Council, as official members of the nuclear club, plus Israel as an undeclared member), while all other states are excluded. This policy has been challenged openly by India and Pakistan, and it is to be expected that others will follow suit, especially in the Middle East where Israel's monopoly of nuclear capability in the region is an unstable equilibrium that cannot be sustained indefinitely.

All such disequilibria can only fuel the terrorist pole in its confrontation with the pole of international law and order as represented in a global system said to be committed to the peaceful resolution of all conflict situations -- a commitment it has yet to live up to.