10 - 16 January 2002
Issue No.568
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 10 - 16 January 2002 Issue No.568 |
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Some lessons, so far
Roger Owen contemplates the issues that just won't go away
The American newspapers are now full of audits of the first three months of the Afghan phase of the war against terrorism. They are quick to note some of the more obvious military lessons -- such as the pros and cons of limiting American casualties by relying so heavily on local Afghan forces -- but not some of the larger issues raised. Three seem of great importance.
The first is the way the Bush administration has chosen to pursue its own particular version of national interest. Although it was recognised that allies would be needed, it was only with some difficulty that Secretary of State Colin Powell got his colleagues to agree to calling this alliance a coalition. And even then the administration has done its best to maintain its own freedom of action, both inside Afghanistan and out, allowing minimal input from its allies, or from the United Nations, and then only when absolutely necessary.
It is also clear that it will seek to maintain this same freedom of action when it decides what, if any, further targets are to be attacked. Hence, while European commentators and others have hailed the new policies as America's emergence from the unilateralism demonstrated so clearly during the first nine months of the Bush presidency, they have been much slower to realise how limited this has been and how these limitations will work themselves out in the future, particularly if America uses its present aggressive notion of what constitutes defence of its national sovereignty as licence to go anywhere in the world to do anything it wants.
The second larger lesson stems from the fact that there was little or no discussion in Washington about whether to call the campaign against international terrorism a war. This was in marked contrast to Europe, where governments are much more sensitive to the implications of such a move, from the treatment of prisoners to respect for the Geneva Conventions and their subsequent supplementary conventions, which are supposed to protect civilian victims of armed conflict. Once again, the United States government seems to have preferred to keep its options open with regard to its Taliban and Al- Qa'eda captives -- presently classified as "detainees" -- while ignoring the possibility that its special forces may have been witness to what, in terms of the Geneva Conventions, may technically have been crimes of war.
Third, in President Bush's new view of the world, states are not only divided into those who support the war on terrorism and those who do not, but also between those who have their own domestic problems with terrorists and those who do not. The instant support given by Britain's Tony Blair had much to do with the fact that his struggles with militant groups in Northern Ireland were by no means over. While the dramatic cold-shouldering of President Vincente Fox of Mexico, who was moved by the 11 September attacks from the top of Bush's friendship list to somewhere near the bottom, is a clear reflection of the fact that, having no terrorists of his own, Fox had nothing to offer either in terms of intelligence or meaningful moral support.
Clearly, the next stage of the war on terrorism will see some of these propositions tested in ways they have not been done so far. Indeed, this has already started in the case of Israel and India, two states which have echoed America's definition of an aggressive right to self-defence in ways which threaten America's own interests. It has already started in a small way in Afghanistan too, with some members of the interim government complaining about America's continued bombing of suspected targets in the east of the country. Such complaints can be ignored or finessed for the time being, while the Afghan government is so weak, but will assume increasing importance in future, raising the possibility that, somewhere along the line, attempts will be made to produce a ruling group more congenial to American interests.
Then there is the question of America's proposed nuclear shield. While it is now presented simply in terms of the defence it may offer against rogue missile attacks, the creation of an effective shield would also allow a much more aggressive policy towards, say, Iraq or North Korea, if Washington could be sure that there was no danger of any serious retaliation.
We can be sure that many of these questions will enter American political debate as well. Major wars, as is well known, generally involve an initial period in which partisan conflicts are put aside. In this recent case it takes something of a real effort of memory to recall how divided the country was before, during and after the Bush/Gore presidential election. Just as clearly, it is in President Bush's interest to maintain this situation as long as possible. Hence his recent declaration that the year 2002 is going to be another year of war.
Nevertheless, the major issues so hotly debated before September -- for example, the future of social security -- will not simply go away. Meanwhile, newer, war-related, issues will surface soon enough, beginning with the urgent question, which will have to be addressed in next year's budget, of how the country is going to pay for the war itself. No one yet knows what the cost will be. But, unlike the Gulf War, when much of the price was paid by America's Middle East allies, this one will certainly have a hefty tag attached. Something of President Bush's own thinking about all this will have to be revealed in his January State of the Union Address.
Great world powers always want to set the rules for the rest of the world and to persuade other peoples that their national interest is in fact everyone else's. And, just as surely, such claims are always open to criticism and intellectual attack. The gap between the lofty rhetoric and the less than noble interests involved becomes too apparent. So, too, does that other gap between the ends proclaimed and the means adopted to pursue them. Both gaps are now very obviously on view as far as America's war against terrorism is concerned. Once again we have to engage with this as best we can. Trying to draw lessons, to take stock, to anticipate what might come next, is just one of these ways forward.
* The writer is director of the Arab Contemporary Studies Programme at Harvard University.
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