WEB NOTES
Hollow
Victory
Implications of the War on US Security
Daniel
N. Nelson
June 11, 2003
On
his first post-Iraq War foreign excursion, President
George W. Bush thanked Poles, greeted his “good
friend” Vladimir Putin, and maintained photo-op
civility with French President Jacques Chirac at the G8
Summit in Evian, France.
Off to Egypt, the President lectured Israelis and
Palestinians. By
talking, not listening, Bush may have missed the sense
of agitation, anger and distance from America.
At
issue is the fundamentally different way the United
States administration sees the world…exemplified by
Iraq where US and UK forces invaded, changed a regime
and occupied a country. For most other governments and
peoples, this chapter of American foreign policy evinces
a terribly wrong turn taken by the United States and the
current administration. For George W. Bush, this was
victory and personal retribution.
But,
the victory rings hollow. A real war – that which
commenced for America on 9/11 – continues on many
fronts. Its outcome is uncertain. In Indonesia, Saudi
Arabia, Morocco and elsewhere, globalized terrorists
have demonstrated their capacities to kill and
destabilize.
At
the same time, imminent threats to the US and to other
democratic societies expand daily. These include, but
are not limited to, nuclear-armed dictatorships,
pervasive global economic weakness, accumulating
environmental degradation, and inequalities that divide
the world’s regions as never before.
About these threats, were he listening, Bush may
have heard consensus at all of his stops.
For
Iraq’s so-called liberation, more than one hundred
young Americans and scores of British soldiers
sacrificed their lives. Thousands of Iraqis met the same
fate. But, occupation has brought Iraqi citizens less
liberation than chaos.
Efforts to impose Pentagon-decreed rule, headed
by Ahmed Chalebi or others acceptable to US
conservatives, will lead to protest, rejection and
eventually rebellion.
Americans
are not welcome in Iraq, except among Kurds.
The Shia, principally in Iraq’s south and east,
remain embittered from 1991 when US encouragement to
revolt against Saddam after the first Gulf War led to
suppression and the slaughter of thousands. Now, Teheran
has more influence, and the appeal of fundamentalist
theocratic authority and hatred of the West gain with
each week.
The
Central Intelligence Agency assessments made Iraq’s
complexities clear long before the war. The Pentagon
vigorously asserted that its information was better, and
that its war plans were appropriate. Those plans almost
went awry, and would have been disastrous had the Iraqis
been better prepared for defensive tactics or, worse
yet, had any credible air power. Yet, the aftermath of
war is panning out very much as pessimists anticipated.
A
democratic, unified Iraq is illusory. Stability will be
maintained only to the degree that US troops remain in
very large numbers for a long time, doing all of the
things that the Pentagon says it hates to do – police
work and nation-building. During that period, our troops
certainly will be subjected to continuing terrorist
attacks and public abuse.
Are
we safer today after combat in Iraq?
That the United States and Britain have fewer
friends after occupying Iraq is understating the
negative consequences of such a victory.
By dismembering NATO and disparaging the United
Nations, Washington accrued worldwide opprobrium. Even
in countries that diplomatically supported the Bush
administration viewpoint (e.g., Spain, Italy,
Philippines, Japan), public opinion was and remains
solidly against the US action.
Unquestionable,
too, is a far greater burden on the U.S. military and
the American taxpayer. One eighth of our active duty
armed forces will be tied down in Iraq. And, for the
foreseeable future, US citizens will be paying for Iraqi
bureaucrats, police, and public services – while one
of our principal foes, Al Q’aeda, is unvanquished.
In
a strategic context, worldwide antipathy towards the US
grew with battlefield victories, while global terror has
neither abated nor has its organizational core been
disrupted. With
weapons of mass destruction and many Iraqi leaders still
missing, and liberation seemingly equated with anarchic
lawlessness, not democracy, little of the Bush
Administration’s rationale for war remains intact.
Perhaps,
then, Iraq is best seen as a costly detour – one that
the Bush Administration felt compelled to take because
the fight against Al Q’aeda was not reaping clear-cut
success. The US must regain its focus and direction.
Security – the key role of any presidency and any
government – cannot be pursued solely by military
capacities, even those of the United States. Coalitions
of the willing, central to the Bush administration’s
strategy of pre-emption, cannot replace the legitimacy
of multilateral institutions; only the latter have the
stronger bonds of shared norms, rather than transient
interlocking interests, and only the latter offer the
imprimatur of legality. Institutions and policies that
abate threats – reducing over time the genesis of
hatred and violence – ought to be a central component
of American global policy.
Until
this president or his successor makes such a course
correction, hollow victories will recur and the United
States will find itself increasingly alone.
And, when such pseudo triumphs accumulate –
thinking we’ve won when we’ve lost – a real defeat
could be not far behind.
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Daniel N. Nelson,
Ph.D. (Johns Hopkins) is Dean of Arts & Sciences at
the University of New Haven and editor-in-chief of International Politics.
He has served previously in the Department of
State and Defense, and on Capitol Hill. Contact: dnelson@newhaven.edu
; tel: 203-932-7256
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