Losing Friends, Gaining Enemies
28 October 2002
Losing Friends, Gaining Enemies
Middle East International
from Michael Brown Washington
At the current rate, the Bush Administration could find cause to open up a new front in the “war on terrorism” every other week. Afghanistan is currently occupied, Iraq has just seen Congress authorize the president to use military force in the pursuit of its weapons of mass destruction, and now North Korea has been found to have a nuclear weapons programme.
North Korea appears to be flouting the post-11 September American outlook. Secretary of State Colin Powell said on NBC’s Meet the Press on 20 October that North Korea “admitted it, blamed us for their actions, and then said they considered the 1994 Agreed Framework nullified”. For now, the shock of juggling so many potential adversaries at once has the Administration reining in rhetoric on this particular member of the “axis of evil” while fixing axis-member Iraq in its sights. The Administration may be prepared to go off half-cocked in Iraq, but three fronts may be a bit much even for a defence budget rapidly approaching $400bn a year.
Bin Laden & co.
Of course, the Bali bombing that claimed the lives of nearly 200 people – some 70% of them Australians – could mean the international front posed by al-Qa’ida is alive and reconfiguring as well. There may prove to be a mostly local component to the attack, but initial evidence and rhetoric is directed, unsurprisingly, at Bin Laden & co. With loose and increasingly diffuse organizational linkages, it is conceivable that this bombing was both home-grown and tied to the international terrorism network.
CIA Director George Tenet told a Congressional panel on 17 October: “They’ve reconstituted, they are coming after us, they want to execute attacks.” The paranoid and level-headed alike have reason to fear he is right. And, if the Bali attack appears to have driven a wedge between the US and Australia (or between the Australian people and their government’s backing for an American strike on Saddam Hussein), then it is quite conceivable that future strikes will aim at other American allies, particularly those in Europe. Indeed, such splinters may not even be necessary for targets of convenience to be struck by al-Qa’ida affiliates.
Tenet’s warning was a strong one. “You see it in Bali, you see it in Kuwait.” Yet intelligence agencies are already taxed and communication between national agencies may remain weak. At present there are bitter recriminations directed at Australian leaders for not better heeding an American warning of a terrorist danger in Indonesia that did not exclude Bali.
While it seems quite plausible that al-Qa’ida will continue to wreak havoc, Saddam Hussein remains a threat who can be deterred. On the same day the House voted 296-133 to authorize war with Iraq, retired Marine General Anthony Zinni told an audience at the Middle East Institute that Saddam was “containable” and that Iraq should be the “sixth or seventh” priority after jump-starting Palestinian-Israeli talks and reform in Iran.
But Usama bin Laden is different. There is little doubt he would wipe out much of New York City given the chance. And yet, despite the left and right in the US finding rare agreement in the necessity of bringing Bin Laden to justice, the Senate joined the House a few hours later (77-23) in voting to alter course and chase a more clear-cut victory in Iraq.
This may prove to be an overly cynical outlook, but it is a concern driven by clear evidence that Bin Laden is prepared to kill thousands of innocent Americans on American soil. Saddam, on the other hand, brutal though he undoubtedly is, has no such proven hostile intentions against Americans here or anywhere outside Iraq.
Nevertheless, President Bush and most of the US Congress have now targeted Saddam via alleged links to al-Qa’ida. The House and Senate resolution included the claim: “Members of al-Qa’ida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens and interests, including the attacks that occurred on 11 September 2001, are known to be in Iraq.” CIA officials claiming otherwise are said to be protecting their earlier flawed analyses.
Washington on edge
So buffeted by competing and intersecting threats is the American populace and intelligence community alike that the possibility is being considered that even the Washington sniper is somehow connected with al-Qa’ida. This most recent charge was brandished at approximately the same time that a supposed witness recanted testimony that hinted the sniper may have been “olive-skinned”. Detainees at Guantanamo are now being interrogated for information about the murderer.
Washington and nearby suburbs are petrified – not so much of Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction, but of an unknown individual or individuals picking off shoppers with a rifle with deadly accuracy. One goes from one underground train to the next hearing talk of altered routines as a result of the sniper’s activities. “Experts” hold forth on the proper squatting technique to be used while filling the car up with fuel or the manner in which to zigzag en route to pay the cashier. Still more terrified are local Muslims who fear both the sniper and the possible violent backlash against their community in the event the shooter turns out to be a Muslim.
It is within this frenzy of fear that the president and Congress operate. President Bush has presented a policy to pre-empt potential enemies the world over and yet just miles from his door a killer is on the loose, causing many to question the course charted by the White House.
With fear rampant, there is no political danger in appearing to be the toughest militarily on terrorism. Such rhetoric plays well. But in the real world Bush cannot track down or even identify all his enemies. At some point, in extending the fight to the fullest, he risks alienating potential friends and creating new enemies out of the siblings of slain civilians. Already, Bush is straying dangerously close to isolating the United States. Rather than effectively gaining the support of the international community after 11 September, he is frittering away new and old friendships and reverting to the same mindset that brought international anger over the Kyoto environment conference. Tamping down the rhetoric as MEI went to press for the benefit of the United Nations is no more than a stopgap sop to diplomatic sensitivities.
Liberating Iraq’s oil
In the world Bush is shaping, he may well be the occupier of Iraq by early 2003. Recent reports in the New York Times indicate Administration figures are planning to put in place an American-led military government following the removal of the regime in Iraq. Rather than the Iraqi National Congress, Gen. Tommy Franks may administer Iraq and its 11% of the world’s proven oil reserves. If ever there was a time that motives could be called into question, this is it. Yet Bush and the White House do not see it this way. In their own eyes, they will be liberators.
They will also hope to preside over an economic boom fuelled by rapidly decreasing oil prices. Expansion of production by an occupied Iraq could contribute to sharply lower prices. Few around the White House will mind if OPEC takes a hit while the US and European economies spring to life. Yet surely such a scenario cannot long endure without an outcry from the people of the region. Indeed, even the appearance of American control of the precious resource may be enough to direct new animosity at the US and its oil-based leaders.
Shortly after the New York Times story broke, the president attempted to clarify his thinking. He asserted that the US would “never seek to impose our culture or our form of government” on other nations. His words did little to reassure.
Daily it grows clearer that Iraq may not come under Iraqi control for some time as American troops go about the business of destroying any weapons of mass destruction and carrying out what Ahmad Chalabi has termed the “de-Baathification” of the country.
Far more pressing should be the utter failure of the Bush team to fend off the possible balkanization of Iraq. How, precisely, will they respond if the 60% of the population that is Shi’ite begins to assert itself? And what if the Kurds in the north do the same? Such questions remain unanswered, in part, because of the brevity of the Congressional debate.
Very few would be sorry to see Saddam Hussein go, but the post-Cold War era is one of failing to fully understand the long-term consequences of actions that seem to make sense today. The dangers of an unravelling Iraq administered by an American general controlling its oil resources are immense and, again, the subject of strikingly little discussion.
The chicken hawks know how to pick a fight. But whether they can foresee with any accuracy where that fight may lead is very much in question. Their history suggests this is a legitimate concern. After all, they certainly failed to anticipate where arming and abandoning the Mujahedin would lead. The ramifications of a fragmented Iraq deserve higher priority. The stakes in war are too high to extend the benefit of the doubt and to hope blindly that Iraq will rapidly democratize under the benign guiding hand of the Bush White House. Neglected Palestinian elections scheduled for next January also suggest that Middle East democracy may not be quite the priority the Bush Administration maintains.
Tete-à-tete with Sharon
The closeness of the Sharon-Bush relationship will not help advance American regional goals. The Israeli prime minister spoke with Bush on 16 October and was so effusive in his praise of the American leader that the White House likely feared a backlash from Arab states. Sharon maintained: “We never had such relations with any president of the United States as we have with you.” Unable to contain himself, or perhaps delighting in White House geopolitical discomfort, he gushed: “And we never had such a cooperation in everything as we have with the current Administration.”
For once not focusing their talks on the conflict with the Palestinians, the president seemed to give Sharon a free hand to respond to an Iraqi attack. “If Iraq attacks Israel tomorrow, I would assume the prime minister would respond,” Bush stated. Yet there remains considerable speculation that in the midst of a US-led war on Iraq the Israeli government would be asked to give considerable thought to leaving the response to US forces.
Scant press attention was paid to the regional trip of Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs William Burns. He is the first significant American envoy to travel to the region in months – in contrast to the peripatetic activity of high-ranking Clinton officials.
Clinton’s team misunderstood the nature of the conflict but they at least had a presence. Bush’s policy and team both misunderstand the conflict and have largely conceded on it in the forlorn hope that somehow the road to peace between Palestinians and Israelis lies through Baghdad. The notion is absurd (and may underestimate the possibility that the real goal of some of these true believers is further delay to advance more facts on the ground), but it is the staple thinking of the neo-conservatives surrounding Bush.
