7 - 13 March 2002
Issue No.576
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 7 - 13 March 2002 Issue No.576 |
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Brooking no dissent
Washington has cowed Russia, stationed its troops in Central Asia and the Caucasus, and is now "sorting out" the Middle East. Gamil Mattar* on six months of Cheney triumphant
US foreign policy has never been so transparent. Nor has a US president ever put together a team so single-minded as Richard Cheney, Ronald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, Paul Wolfowitz, and Colin Powell. In the early days of the administration one might have suspected George Bush Sr to get involved. He never did. Or, perhaps, the team succeeded in driving him away.
Then came 11 September, after which the team set about implementing a series of long- standing objectives with breath-taking precision. Some of these objectives, perhaps those most desired by the current administration, had for long eluded the tentacle-like reach of US foreign policy. Most were hangovers from the Reagan agenda which, during the Clinton years, had been temporarily ignored.
Within days of the attacks on New York and Washington Vice President Cheney had the team working with a remarkable resolve. Once they had absorbed the initial shock the presidential team set out to implement, within months, what the US had tried and failed to implement for decades. Six months on we are in a position to assess the handiwork of Cheney's team and see how it has fared with hurdles that have long bedevilled US foreign policy.
Remember the quagmire into which the Missile Shield programme had fallen. Resistance on the domestic front had been strong, and for a while it seemed that George W. Bush would fail, as Reagan and his father had failed. The Missile Shield programme had simply not captured the imagination of either the US Congress or public, and America's European allies were actively opposed to the idea, fearing the project would instigate an arms race with China and Russia.
After 11 September everything changed. Congressional and public resistance collapsed. Europe has toned down its objections. Even Russia seems willing to endorse the programme, on certain conditions. China is not available for serious comment, relapsing into the one role it has perfected -- politically engaging on the surface it remains isolationist at heart. China flirts with Washington over the matter of terror while doing its best to keep the US out of its domestic affairs.
The Missile Shield is not the only military goal that has been resuscitated. The US military machine is now backed by unprecedentedly high levels of congressional funding: it is patently no longer a fighting force commissioned to protect the safety of US land, sea, and air but one commissioned to bolster a global empire. And no one is making noises about that. Another long cherished goal is coming true as the US military finally encircles the Russian Federation. Since Clinton's days Washington has been seeking to enlarge NATO. With every economic trouble, every political tremor in Russia, NATO pushed on to the east. The US is now moving into the Caucasus and is actively encouraging the three Baltic countries to seek NATO membership. Members of the US presidential team are determined to take this trend a step forward, even at the risk of triggering a confrontation with Russia. Kissinger would have been envious. The age-old US strategic fantasy of containing Russia -- communist or capitalist, it does not matter -- is happening.
Six months after the 11 September attacks US forces have already established bases in a number of Central Asian Islamic republics, all bordering Russia. These troops are now ready to perform training and a variety of minor missions in Georgia, Russia's foremost regional rival and the major Caucasus power. The US is now where it wants to be. The Cold War dream has come true.
Other objectives have been achieved. The swiftness with which the Bush administration asserted state control of the lives of ordinary American citizens on the pretext of protecting the country from terror was remarkable. With unseemly haste laws were passed boosting the power of the US government at home as well as abroad, at the expense of the freedom, privacy, and constitutional rights of US citizens and at the risk of compromising America's image and integrity abroad.
In the immediate aftermath of the 11 September attacks there was a short-lived surge of interest in the question: Why does the world hate America? Washington nonetheless proceeded to pursue the policies blamed for igniting global resentment of the US in the first place. The brutality and arrogance of US policies actually increased, with the American media machine mangling any country having second thoughts about US policy. The Arabs bore the brunt of this mayhem. The Europeans and Asians got off lightly in comparison.
Yet the Arabs did not act very differently from the rest of the world. The more pressure Washington applied, the more concessions it got. In comparison with other nations, however, the Arabs are having a rough time. They are asked to adjust their whole lifestyle to match the needs of the American empire, and Washington is not being discrete about it. It wants the Arabs to revise their educational and religious systems. It wants the Arab media to change its tone, even when addressing Arab expatriates, and to conform, however hypocritically, to US taste. More significant, though, is that the Arabs are being told to make peace with Israel on Israel's own terms.
None of this is completely new, though the urgency with which the agenda is being pursued is. Bush's team is trying to do in a year what the empire had tried, and failed, to accomplish for decades. Forget Reagan's failures. Forget Clinton's lapses. The old objectives have been dusted off, repackaged, and set in motion. And nothing the Arabs can think or do, covertly or overtly, will change Washington's mind.
Washington is in no mood to allow UN resolutions to function as a point of reference in any peace deal. At best, the Americans will salvage parts of the Oslo accords, and use them to hatch a peace formula of sorts. Washington's wager is that the Arabs and the Palestinians, now coming under horrendous political and military pressure, will acquiesce.
Washington is in no mood to listen to the Arab point of view. The time for friendship, partnership, and mutual respect is gone. The Arabs can cry and plead all they want. It is not going to get them anywhere. The current US administration is determined to achieve the goals that have eluded other administrations for so long -- it wants an Arab-Israeli peace on Israel's terms. There is nothing the Arabs can do to make the Americans change their mind. They can choose only between capitulation and resistance.
US officials -- Richard Haas and others-- make no secret of the fact that they are discussing the upcoming Arab summit with Arab officials, basically telling them to make sure the summit does not make things difficult for US- Israeli policy in the region. Arab officials are taking the hint. As preparations for the summit get underway, some have even begun suggesting the event may be better postponed.
* The writer is director of the Arab Centre for Development and Futuristic Research.
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