15 - 21 November 2001
Issue No.560
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 15 - 21 November 2001 Issue No.560 |
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The stick for the carrot?
Mohamed Sid-Ahmed wonders whether the Bush administration has shifted the focus of its Middle East policy towards Iraq
Conflicting reports on the progress of the war effort in Afghanistan, especially after the capture of Kabul, make it difficult to know how Pentagon officials are really assessing the success of their military operations. Yet America's attitude towards various hot issues on the international scene will be determined to a very great extent by that assessment.
In a joint press conference, President Bush and Prime Minister Blair reiterated their commitment to the war against terrorism and declared that they will be victorious however long it takes. Denying that the Western alliance and the popular support it enjoys have been eroded, Blair said his recent visit to the Middle East had confirmed that the alliance is stronger today than ever before. An equally upbeat Bush asserted that the US-led war will succeed whatever the results of the current efforts to achieve peace in the Middle East. One is struck by the optimistic tone used when talking about the campaign against terrorism in Afghanistan and the far less optimistic tone used when referring to the prospects of peace in the Middle East.
The UN General Assembly meeting provided Bush with an opportunity to meet Arafat and begin translating his declared commitment to the establishment of a Palestinian state into concrete steps. But Bush avoided the meeting and let the opportunity pass. Meanwhile, Colin Powell announced that Iraq might be the next target in the American military campaign that began in Afghanistan. This statement is a clear departure from Powell's assertion a month ago that the United States had no immediate plan to attack Iraq. His new statement is closer to the viewpoint of Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, leading analysts to ponder the significance of this startling U-turn.
Even before 11 September, Washington was abuzz with rumours of policy differences between hard-liners and moderates in the Bush administration. The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon polarised these differences even more sharply, and today it is an open secret that the hawks and doves among Bush's closest associates are locked in a fierce struggle. Most prominent among the hawks are Vice-President Dick Cheney, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, his assistant Paul Wolfowitz and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, who are determined to avenge the terrorist acts that shook America. They are also fervent supporters of Israel. Facing them is Secretary of State Colin Powell, who is increasingly isolated and who is described by those familiar with what is going on as the only reasonable person in the Bush administration. This might also apply to CIA chief George Tenet, who is closer to the doves and is accused by the hawks of having failed to predict and avoid the dramatic events of 11 September.
The confrontation between hawks and doves is particularly acute over how the war in Afghanistan should be conducted. Whenever the war seems to be making headway, the hawks are content to take a back seat and allow the moderates to get on with their efforts to shore up the international alliance and win over Arab and Islamic countries. It was in this atmosphere that Bush first spoke of the need for a Palestinian state in a bid to convince the Arab and Islamic countries that his war on terror was directed against Bin Laden and not against the Arab and Islamic worlds as such.
However, the war is now acquiring new proportions after the downfall of Kabul, while Bin Laden continues to elude capture. As the military campaign drags on with no end in sight, support for what many initially believed would be a swift, clean operation is wearing thin. French President Jacques Chirac has warned of the danger of a human catastrophe in Afghanistan. During his visit to New York a few days ago, he called on the United Nations to convene an international conference to save Afghanistan. The proposal was submitted to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who swiftly accepted it. Various UN reports talk of some five million Afghanis in need of urgent help and predict that no less than a hundred thousand children will die during the coming winter if assistance is not immediately forthcoming. Observers note that Chirac's insistence on the humanitarian and not only military aspect of the Afghan crisis reflects growing pressure from public opinion in France, which is becoming increasingly sceptical of the effectiveness and legitimacy of what the West is doing in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, beleaguered Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf is calling for a suspension of hostilities against Afghanistan during Ramadan. In a statement he made in Istanbul on his way to New York to address the General Assembly, Musharraf renewed his warning that the continuation of military activities in Ramadan will result in further diplomatic and political complications and will have negative effects on the Islamic world.
The protracted military campaign has not only exacerbated rifts in the ranks of the Bush administration, but is affecting the cohesion of the Western alliance itself. The Green parties in Europe are calling for the "containment" of military strikes on Afghanistan. As members of the ruling coalitions in Germany, Belgium, France and Finland, all of which are providing the American-led military campaign with financial and logistical support, their words cannot be lightly dismissed. At a meeting in Brussels, the European Green parties issued a statement pledging to do everything in their power to halt the "dangerous escalation of the military conflict in Afghanistan," but stopped short of calling for an end to the war.
The Green ministers, traditionally anti-war, find themselves in an awkward position when the issue at stake is a war against terrorism. Germany's well-known Green foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, threatened to resign from the party if it did not support his decision to send a German contingent to Afghanistan. Fischer warned that the Greens' opposition in parliament to sending the contingent could further strain the already shaky German coalition government and expose it to a breakdown. In Belgium, whose government refuses to take part in the war, vice-Prime Minister Isabelle Doran is spearheading a campaign to suspend the raids temporarily. In France, the Greens have suffered from divisions in their ranks over who should be chosen as their next presidential candidate. They have issued a statement condemning the military campaign as ineffective and a threat to civil society that can reach "dramatic proportions." The adoption of a similar line by the French Communist Party could threaten the coalition government of Lionel Jospin.
The growing disarray in the ranks of the Western alliance, compounded by the military campaign's failure so far to achieve its primary objective, which is the capture of Osama Bin Laden, is reflected in the power balance between hawks and doves in the Bush administration, which has tilted clearly towards the hawks. This is borne out by a number of recent developments, such as Colin Powell's U-turn. But perhaps the victory of the hawks in the confrontation finds its clearest expression in Bush's decision not to meet Arafat last week, as well as in the ominous sounds coming out of Washington about Iraq's complicity in the anthrax attacks. US investigators have been unable to establish any connection between the Iraqi regime and 11 September, but the demonisation of Iraq has been so successful that even unsubstantiated rumours of its possible involvement in the recent spate of bioterrorist attacks could be used to justify military action against it. Some of the top US officials in previous US administrations we met in Washington a fortnight ago as a delegation of the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs did not exclude such a scenario.
We did not only meet hawks in America. We also met moderates who came forward with reasonable proposals such as appointing George Mitchell as a roaming US ambassador to the Middle East who would use his report to pave the way for the resumption of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. But the new dimensions now acquired by the military campaign in Afghanistan, the human tragedy involved, the short time left before Afghanistan's harsh winter sets in, are all factors that reinforce the position of the hawks at the expense of the doves. The hawks are in favour of resorting to the Iraqi stick instead of the Palestinian carrot, of calling back to order all Arab regimes, including those traditionally considered moderate and friendly to America. The only regional leader such a policy can please is Sharon. After Kabul, will this policy be reassessed before it is too late?
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