Johnson and Bush
In a continuing series of articles, Abdel-Moneim Said explores the impact of 11 September on Washington's views of the world
The events of 11 September 2001 held a harsh mirror up to the Arabs and their relationship with the world. More importantly, it threw into relief an approach to their relationship with the US in which the dominant trait has been ignorance -- on the nature of the current administration in Washington and on America and American society in general. It is useful, here, to keep in the forefront of our minds the fact that Washington is a power that cannot be ignored. A nation with a GNP exceeding $11 trillion -- a third of the global product -- constitutes an unprecedented historical fact. And because of this Arab capitals, like capitals around the world, are obsessed with the perennial question: "What are we going to do with the US?" Somehow, every nation must determine how -- and the extent to which -- it will adjust to or reconcile itself with the reality of American power, a process that demands an economic and strategic perspective on the US rather than the view dictated by leftist, nationalist or fundamentalist ideals.
We will better understand US interests once we recognise that it was always a "hesitant power" when it came to establishing its presence in the international arena. In the second half of the 19th century Europe anticipated a US expansion in the Old World. The clouds of the US civil war dispersed to reveal Washington equipped with the most modern military machine in the world and soon after with the most vigorous economy in the world as well. Nevertheless, over the next 30 years, the US made no attempts to extend its frontiers beyond those that exist today. Moreover, it dismantled the bulk of its army, leaving only small units to fight native Americans and protect wagon trains and the railways. Although the US took part in World War I it refrained from participating in the League of Nations. A quarter of a century later it took the US two years to resolve to enter World War II and, subsequently, it required enormous efforts to persuade Washington not to withdraw again behind the barricades of its seas and oceans.
American reluctance to foray into the world and its battles contrasts with other powers that were much smaller and more vulnerable -- Holland, Portugal and Belgium -- which built up overseas empires, some of which remained until the last quarter of the 20th century. George Washington's advice to his country to stay clear of Europe and its evils is not sufficient to explain this phenomenon. A more practical explanation would be that US interests had not yet matured sufficiently to encourage it to set its sights beyond its borders. Indeed, it was economic interests, specifically, that furnished the primary impetus to assert itself abroad, however much it argued that its aim was to redress distorted balances of power in Europe or elsewhere.
When it did emerge into the world it did so unlike any empire before. Other empires acquired vast tracts of land. The US acquired control not only over land but also over the skies and the space beyond. To many Arabs this reality is disturbing and infuriating. It is as if it represents some warp in the universe, a perversion of the eternal laws governing the balance of power between nations. Other peoples -- in Latin America, Eastern Europe, most of Asia and, of course, in Western Europe -- look at things differently. To them closer relations with the US were a blessing, not an affliction. Rarely do we find in their political literature the vehement curse against everything American. On the contrary, it was a sad day in Germany, a dominant power in a politically and economically united Europe, when it learned that it would not be a stop on George Bush junior's first tour of Europe. Similarly, Romanians were dejected when the US passed it over when selecting the first group of new nations to join NATO. And an expression of glee lit the face of Chinese President Jiang Zemin when he was given the opportunity to ring the opening bell on the Wall Street stock market during one of his frequent visits to the US.
The most widespread complaint with regard to US conduct abroad is not that it intervenes too much, but rather that it intervenes too late, not enough and, of course, in a very idiosyncratic, American way. This is as much the case in the Balkans and Africa as it is in the Middle East. When Bill Clinton visited Africa towards the end of his presidency African peoples were heartened by the belief that now the US would no longer ignore a continent it had neglected for so long.
The US is unlike any other empire in history because, perhaps for the first time in history, it is an empire that is an extension of human rather than natural forces. Human forces know limits, errors and offences; the forces of nature are, in a word, tyrannical. The creation of the US from beginning to end was a human enterprise, involving some 40 individuals who, in light of their studies of the past, laid the foundations for a state governed not by divine right but by ordinary people from every walk of life. The governing framework of that state is an ingenious constitution capable of absorbing the essence of human experience, of maintaining a balance of diverse interests and, more importantly, of enabling the infinite expansion of interests, firstly in the economic market and then into the political and cultural arenas.
The US is the only empire in history to have spent vast sums and energies towards the reconstruction and development of its former enemies -- Germany and Japan -- in order to expand its market. In so doing the US did not expect more than a local market ready to receive its scientists, entrepreneurs and communication technologies. When the Chinese market was ready, communism posed no obstacle to economic good will, whereas the Russia market, still unprepared, remains out of the running. In short, the US transmitted its own continental experience across the continents, not through territorial expansion but through its ability to manage, exploit and transform its experience into the largest market the world has ever known.
Scholars differ over the bases of US power, variously attributing it to military, economic or technological prowess. In fact the source of such might resides in its enormous market, without which Japan could not live and without a share of which China could not have aspired to the ranks of the world's industrialised nations. When technological advances led the world to globalisation the US was poised for the new development. It could handle a macro-economy spread across a vast portion of the earth. More importantly, it had human resources from every part of the globe and possessed with an extraordinary ability to acclimatise to different cultural environments. When US forces came to the Gulf, American Muslims stood side by side with their Egyptian and Saudi co-religionists at prayer time. For the first time in the history of empires, 2,000 members of the imperial army were members of the official religion of the nation they were fighting.
Yet some Arabs decided that they, and they alone out of all the peoples of the world, should destroy the American empire, either by blowing up the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon building in Washington, or by opening fire on US soldiers in Kuwait. It was a wrong strategy to choose on all levels. The US, under the recently installed Bush junior administration, was on the brink of profound change and the first military strike against the US mainland since 1812 gave it the leeway to push forward its ultra-conservative agenda and render it a concrete reality on military and strategic levels.
If this administration harks back to that of Ronald Reagan, as I noted in a previous article in this series, it also bears a certain resemblance to that of President Lyndon Johnson. Then, too, a strike against US military prestige, emanating from its failure to invade north Vietnam, plunged the US into a state of turmoil and confusion, just as 11 September did several decades later. In both instances the US suffered intense doubts over its material capacities and its political and moral leadership. In addition, when coming to power both the Johnson and Bush junior administrations were insecure, having succeeded powerful and charismatic leaderships and having simultaneously inherited from these administrations immense problems. In the first instance, Johnson had to follow in the overwhelming shadow of John Kennedy. In the second Bush was brought to power through a Supreme Court ruling, following elections that brought him an extremely narrow majority and in the wake of Clinton, whom the American people pardoned for all sins since he had given them eight years of uninterrupted prosperity.
Under both administrations, too, the US had reached new pinnacles of infatuation with Israel, exacerbating tensions and mutual suspicion with even its closest allies in the Arab world. The Johnson administration led Egypt astray before the 1967 war, supplied Israel with arms and funds, supported Israel in international forums after its attack on Egypt in 1967 and accused the Arabs of precipitating Israel's preventive war. In like manner Bush junior, in the aftermath of 11 September, discovered in Sharon a "man of peace" and described Israel's reoccupation of Palestinian territory and its brutality against the Palestinians as legitimate self-defence. As occurred under Johnson, the US under Bush augmented material and financial aid to Israel and defended Israel in international forums. In addition, the Bush administration looked the other way while Israel perpetrated war crimes while simultaneously lauding Tel Aviv as a major partner in the war against terrorism.
The two administrations share another common point: in the case of both America's traditional pragmatism and its affirmation of laissez- faire economics as a universal panacea collapsed before a growing obsession with security concerns. This declining focus on economic issues has impacted on the international economy, its currency as solid as gold, the Johnson administration plunged the US into a recession that resulted in the abolition of the gold standard in 1971. And precisely the same dynamic has been set in motion by Bush. After eight years of sustained economic growth, his administration has propelled the US economy, and with it the global economy, towards a new round of recession, one that threatens to last indefinitely given there is no sign when the war on terrorism will end.
Under such circumstances the US displayed, and is displaying, an increased passion for the use of force and growing impatience with its friends and allies. Washington began to believe, and once again believes, that the world is an encumbrance, incapable of moving forwards because it has refused to heed American orders.
