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>From http://www.gulf-news.com/Articles/print.asp?ArticleID=53573
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Is Bush slowly leading the world to disaster?
Paris | By Patrick Seale | 07/06/2002
To understand the thinking of the Bush Administration, there is no better source than
the important speech President George W Bush delivered on 1 June at West Point,
America's most prestigious military academy, at a graduation ceremony for 958
young officers.
A vast crowd gathered in the academy's stadium to hear him explain the philosophy
underlying the foreign and defence policies of his Administration.
First, a word of background. The President was speaking as the acclaimed leader of
the most powerful country on earth, a country conscious of its unmatched military
strength, of its global reach, of its world- wide responsibilities. The latest poll
published in Time Magazine on June 3 showed that 72 per cent of Americans
approve of the way Bush is running the country. Hail to the chief!
But the United States is also a country still living in the after-shock of September
11.
Only last week was the site of the World Trade Center finally cleared of rubble from
the soaring twin towers, which once dominated the lower Manhattan skyline. In the
American perception, the enemy that brought them down is still out there – invisible,
secret, fanatical, 'evil', steeped in hate of the 'good' United States and, no doubt,
preparing to strike again.
'Terrorists' and 'rogue states'
The attack, nine months ago, has captured the American mind to the exclusion of
almost everything else. Unprecedented in its surprise and destructive power, it has
shaken American certainties and forced a reordering of American national priorities.
Never before had anyone dared strike at the American heartland. The devastating
effect spread like a tidal wave through the U.S. economy, causing losses of
hundreds of billions of dollars. It also produced an earthquake in international
politics.
It seemed that the target was not just New York and the Pentagon but the West's
open society itself.
As everyone knows, the 11 September attack was a low-tech suicide mission in
which hijacked civilian aircraft were used as missiles. But, America is now asking,
what if a terrorist organisation were to acquire nuclear, chemical or biological
weapons, perhaps passed on to it by a 'rogue state'? This is the new conundrum
facing the Bush Administration, providing a new dimension to its 'war on terror'. How
can such a deadly threat be countered?
Since that fateful day of September 11 when America lost its innocence, Pentagon
planners, intelligence and security officials, Congressional committees, strategic
thinkers at scores of research institutes, and a legion of armchair strategists have
grappled with the problem of how to make America safe again.
President Bush's speech last week was intended to provide an answer. It was a
classic statement of the 'neo-conservative' thinking now in the ascendant inside the
Bush Administration. No doubt it was also intended to reassure and mobilise
American opinion ahead of the first anniversary of September 11 and the mid-term
elections in November.
Bush's first-strike policy
Bush's message was simple, but deeply disturbing. It can be summarised as follows:
Deterrence – that is to say neutralising a potential enemy with the fear of
overwhelming retaliation – no longer works. Although it kept the peace between the
US and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, deterrence was ineffective on
September 11. Al Qaida was not deterred by America's retaliatory power! In Bush's
own words, deterrence 'means nothing against shadowy terrorist networks with no
nation or citizen to defend.'
Containment – boxing in a potential enemy like the Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to
prevent him from engaging in external aggression – no longer works either. In Bush's
words, containment 'is not possible when unbalanced dictators with weapons of
mass destruction can deliver those weapons on missiles or secretly provide them to
terrorist allies.'
So, if deterrence and containment, traditional instruments for keeping the peace
between nations, are no longer effective, what then? Bush's answer is peremption:
'We must take the battle to the enemy, disrupt his plans, and confront the worst
threats before they emerge… In the world we have entered, the only path to safety is
the path of action. And this nation will act.' The United States, he said, 'must
uncover
terror cells in 60 or more countries' and must 'confront regimes that sponsor terror'.
In other words, Bush has proclaimed a unilateral first-strike policy against terrorists
and their host countries when and where the United States chooses.
The President did not limit himself to threatening the usual three members of his
'axis of evil' (Iran, Iraq and North Korea). 'Other nations', he declared, 'oppose
terror,
but tolerate the hatred that leads to terror. And that must change.'
Carrying his moral crusade further, he invoked 'the peoples of Islamic nations who
want and deserve the same freedoms and opportunities as people in every nation.'
White House aides, quoted by The Washington Post, said that his criticism was
directed at Saudi Arabia, a country which pro-Israeli lobbyists and right-wing
intellectuals have been keen to smear as the prime source of anti-Americanism and
radical Islamic terror.
Bush seemed to be saying that, as the world's strongest power, the United States
had the means and the right to impose its will on others and shape the world in its
own image.
Identifying 'roots of terror'
Will these policies bring the world peace and security or will they, on the contrary,
contribute to global disorder? There are, in my view, several things that are radically
wrong with the current American analysis of the state of the world.
Painful as the September 11 attack was for the United States, it was not an act of
unique, unsurpassed evil. There have been several other terrible crimes in recent
history, some of them perpetrated by the United States itself. Almost always state
violence greatly surpasses terrorist violence, as may be seen by the casualty figures
in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
While few in the West would want to justify or excuse Osama bin Laden's terrorist
crimes, many in the East see his violence as a response to the violence inflicted on
Arabs and Muslims by the West and its allies over the past several decades. I would
suggest that the United States needs to understand bin Laden and not merely
dismiss him as the evil incarnation of fundamentalist Islam.
Bush needs to ask what the 'terrorists' want and what makes them so angry. He
might discover that they are less interested in 'destroying Western civilisation' than
in
justice for their own peoples and nations.
Better intelligence, tightened physical security, military muscle-flexing around the
world and preemptive strikes against 'terror cells', such as Bush advocates, will not
prevent further attacks. That can only be achieved by recognising local grievances
and adopting policies to address them.
The United States needs to be told again and again that the 'roots of terror' do not
lie
in Islamic societies or in the failure of Arab states to adopt a Western model of
democracy. They lie in America's policies: in its support of Israel's oppression of the
Palestinians, in the continued punishment of Iraq 12 years after the Gulf War, and in
America's obtrusive military presence in Arabia in support of its regional hegemonic
designs.
The 'roots of terror' lie also in the way the United States mobilised a whole
generation
of Muslim radicals against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan only to walk away
disgracefully once the Soviets withdrew, leaving the country in ruins and a prey to
warlords and drug barons.
Today, George Bush needs to grasp that his 'war on terror' will be won or lost in the
Palestinian occupied territories. He looked the other way when Israel's Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon hijacked his anti-terrorist agenda.
He seems unable to comprehend that the aim of Sharon's wholesale destruction of
Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority is not to prevent terrorist attacks – indeed
Sharon seems deliberately to provoke them – but to rule out any negotiation which
might lead to a Palestinian state.
Violence will only end once Israel ends its occupation. Only the United States can
bring that about. If it does not, it must expect to pay the price.
Patrick Seale is an eminent commentator and the author of several books on the
Middle East affairs.
© Al Nisr Publishing LLC - Gulf News Online
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