There were a few developments in Saudi Arabia that shed light on the Saudi approach to Islamic radicals and terrorism.
First, the Saudis announced that they arrested five to twelve suspects today in the Riyadh bombings of a couple of weeks ago. The exact number is not clear. The alleged mastermind of the 12 May attacks, Ali Abd al-Rahman al-Ghamdi, is among the detainees. This brings the total arrested in the bombings to at least 15 (possibly 22). This is clear evidence that the Saudis are taking seriously the threat of terrorism within the kingdom and are prepared to do something about it. BBC, May 28, 2003; New York Times, May 28, 2003
Second, the American ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Robert W. Jordan, said today that the United States government still considers chances of another attack in the kingdom as high. "There are very likely others out there planning parallel activities, perhaps not even in direct communication with each other," he said, noting that investigators had to remain vigilant about Al Qaeda members yet to be exposed. This indicates that support within the kingdom is still strong for al-Qaeda and that the Saudis have a lot of work to do to root them out. New York Times, May 28, 2003
Third, Saudis seem to be questioning the religious fundamentalism that provides the philosophical underpinnings of al-Qaeda style terrorism. Mansour al-Nogaidan said in print that the Wahhabi doctrine prevalent in Saudi Arabia was the root cause of the violence fomented in the name of Islam here and around the world. "The main problem is that these radical groups draw their justification from Wahhabi thoughts," Mr. Nogaidan, a Saudi newspaper columnist, said in an interview this week, referring to the teachings of Muhammad bin Abd al-Wahhab, which have been prevalent for over 200 years. "They think the only religiously sanctioned way to spread Islam is through jihad," he said, using the term in the sense of "holy war." "It's a huge problem. It's an octopus with its arms everywhere, building these thoughts in everyone's mind." New York Times, May 25, 2003
Fourth, this questioning of religious fundamentalism by Saudis will not be allowed to go too far. Mr. Nogaidan later lost his job at al Watan newspaper for criticizing the religious establishment. Jamal Khachugi, the new editor of Al-Watan, was fired today for allowing the same type of dissent to be published in the newspaper. Arab Press Freedom Watch, May 28, 2003 While the Saudi government might want to end terrorism, it does not want to destroy the religious establishment that provides legitimacy for its autocratic rule, no matter that the Wahhabi establishment provides legitimacy to terrorists as well.
Wednesday, May 28, 2003
"When the United States invaded Iraq, a New York Times/CBS News survey estimated that 42 percent of the American public believed that Saddam Hussein was directly responsible for the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. And an ABC News poll said that 55 percent of Americans believed that Saddam Hussein directly supported Al Qaida. None of this opinion is based on evidence (because there isn't any)." The rest of this lecture can be found at the following link: Instant-Mix Imperial Democracy (Buy One, Get One Free) by Arundhati Roy
Friday, May 23, 2003
It looks like the new administrator for Iraq, Paul Bremer, is less timid about restoring order than Jay Garner was. The UN resolution giving the US control of Iraq seems to have given Bremer more power to take strong measures. He had already given soldiers authority to shoot looters if they threatened the lives of soldiers. Now, even more action is being taken:
*The Iraqi army has been disbanded, and will be replaced by a new defence force.
The new force will be "professional, non-political, militarily effective, and representative of all Iraqis", according to the US administration in Iraq.
*Iraqis will be banned from carrying heavy or automatic weapons.
There would probably be a two-week amnesty before the ban came into force, but the US intends to reduce the threat posed by weapons carried in public.
*The defence and information ministries, the military and security courts and the Olympic Committee have all been dissolved.
*Last week, Mr Bremer abolished the Baath Party and banned its members from working in the public sector.
BBC analyst Roger Hardy says Bremer is anxious to assert his authority, and convince Iraqis that a radical transformation of their country really is under way.
The US will have a hard time getting a legal system in place without these courts. There are other courts to take their place, but the courthouses and legal facilities across the country have been severely damaged. Will the US be able to find Iraqi judges who are not tied to the Ba'ath party? That remains to be seen. What about prosecution for war crimes? Some have suggested a South Africa-style Truth and Reconciliation Committee, others have suggested having Iraqi courts or American military courts prosecute. Will there be enough lawyers and judges for a Truth and Reconciliation Committee or Iraqi courts after the legal system has been de-baathified?
*The Iraqi army has been disbanded, and will be replaced by a new defence force.
The new force will be "professional, non-political, militarily effective, and representative of all Iraqis", according to the US administration in Iraq.
*Iraqis will be banned from carrying heavy or automatic weapons.
There would probably be a two-week amnesty before the ban came into force, but the US intends to reduce the threat posed by weapons carried in public.
*The defence and information ministries, the military and security courts and the Olympic Committee have all been dissolved.
*Last week, Mr Bremer abolished the Baath Party and banned its members from working in the public sector.
BBC analyst Roger Hardy says Bremer is anxious to assert his authority, and convince Iraqis that a radical transformation of their country really is under way.
The US will have a hard time getting a legal system in place without these courts. There are other courts to take their place, but the courthouses and legal facilities across the country have been severely damaged. Will the US be able to find Iraqi judges who are not tied to the Ba'ath party? That remains to be seen. What about prosecution for war crimes? Some have suggested a South Africa-style Truth and Reconciliation Committee, others have suggested having Iraqi courts or American military courts prosecute. Will there be enough lawyers and judges for a Truth and Reconciliation Committee or Iraqi courts after the legal system has been de-baathified?
Thursday, May 22, 2003
This is the overview of the UN resolution that the UN Security Council passed Thursday morning. It envisions the US and UK keeping control of the country, but the UN having a voice in forming a new Iraqi government. Also, there might be a role for UN weapons inspectors. A final decision on inspectors seems to be put off until the future, but the US is asking UN inspectors to examine the Tuwaitha nuclear plant along with its own experts.
US and UK to maintain most of the power
Occupying forces to remain till new government formed
Situation to be reviewed within a year
UN to appoint special representative to help form new government
Sanctions to be lifted, though arms embargo will stay
Russian and French companies will be able to complete lucrative contracts
Return of UN weapons inspectors to be considered
$1bn Iraq Development Fund to be launched
US and Britain run the political transition and spend Iraq's oil revenues.
US and UK to maintain most of the power
Occupying forces to remain till new government formed
Situation to be reviewed within a year
UN to appoint special representative to help form new government
Sanctions to be lifted, though arms embargo will stay
Russian and French companies will be able to complete lucrative contracts
Return of UN weapons inspectors to be considered
$1bn Iraq Development Fund to be launched
US and Britain run the political transition and spend Iraq's oil revenues.
Wednesday, May 14, 2003
So what the hell is going on in Iraq? It has been one month since large scale combat in Iraq was declared to be finished and five weeks since the fall of Baghdad. The reconstruction has gone on longer than the war itself at this point and chaos still reigns. At this point, order should have been restored and actual reconstruction started. Nothing of the sort seems to have taken place. Rather, confusion is still the order of the day.
The US has appointed a new administrator for Iraq, Paul Bremer, a former terrorism expert. The US administrator for Baghdad, Barbara Bodine, has returned to Washington amid criticism that vital services are not being restored quickly enough. A senior US official was quoted recently as saying that "a very different organisation" will be in place by the end of the month but apparently Jay Garner, the head of the Office of Reconstruction will remain in Iraq. Many observers see Bremer's appointment as a clear signal that all is not well, with US officials privately admitting that they underestimated what was involved involved in running post-war Iraq.
Bremer will have to decide which Iraqis join the interim administration and will lead the 'de-baathification' of the government. So far, the US has kept minor Baath party members in positions where they thought it was necessary to have someone with experience to help run the country. The BBC says Bremer "needs to launch a more assertive approach to tackling crime, violence, lack of electricity and running water, and try to get more police on the streets and ministries up and running."
Several Baghdad neighbourhoods still lack electricity and running water, rubbish is piling up in the streets and many shopkeepers are reportedly too afraid of looters to re-open their businesses. There is a lack of security, ministries are not working properly and salaries are not being paid. Iraqi electrical plants run on the fuel oil and diesel, but are not using it because the power grid is not working. Oil refineries can't ship diesel and fuel oil, so their pipelines and storage tanks are full. Because there is no storage, the refineries can produce only limited quantities of gasoline. This has led to shortages and rising tensions at gas stations.
The power grid seems to be central to the rebuilding effort. US administrators accused vandals and Baathist saboteurs of undermining the effort to rebuild the power grid. An Army Corps of Engineers spokesman expected to have the system tied together by June 1, depending on the vandalism.
The US administration says the threat from Baathist holdouts is the most serious law enforcement issue facing coalition forces, but basic street crime is also a major problem. The perception of most Iraqis, rich or poor, is that Americans are unwilling to restore order. The US is also coming under increasing criticism from a Iraqi political leaders, including the exiles that the US brought back to Iraq after the war. But Donald Rumsfeld seems to finally get the idea that the looting in Iraq is more that just 'untidy'. The US announced today that it intends to have 4,000 military police patrolling Baghdad with Iraqi police by June 1 but that "it will take time" to bring order. In the meantime, chaos reigns.
The US has appointed a new administrator for Iraq, Paul Bremer, a former terrorism expert. The US administrator for Baghdad, Barbara Bodine, has returned to Washington amid criticism that vital services are not being restored quickly enough. A senior US official was quoted recently as saying that "a very different organisation" will be in place by the end of the month but apparently Jay Garner, the head of the Office of Reconstruction will remain in Iraq. Many observers see Bremer's appointment as a clear signal that all is not well, with US officials privately admitting that they underestimated what was involved involved in running post-war Iraq.
Bremer will have to decide which Iraqis join the interim administration and will lead the 'de-baathification' of the government. So far, the US has kept minor Baath party members in positions where they thought it was necessary to have someone with experience to help run the country. The BBC says Bremer "needs to launch a more assertive approach to tackling crime, violence, lack of electricity and running water, and try to get more police on the streets and ministries up and running."
Several Baghdad neighbourhoods still lack electricity and running water, rubbish is piling up in the streets and many shopkeepers are reportedly too afraid of looters to re-open their businesses. There is a lack of security, ministries are not working properly and salaries are not being paid. Iraqi electrical plants run on the fuel oil and diesel, but are not using it because the power grid is not working. Oil refineries can't ship diesel and fuel oil, so their pipelines and storage tanks are full. Because there is no storage, the refineries can produce only limited quantities of gasoline. This has led to shortages and rising tensions at gas stations.
The power grid seems to be central to the rebuilding effort. US administrators accused vandals and Baathist saboteurs of undermining the effort to rebuild the power grid. An Army Corps of Engineers spokesman expected to have the system tied together by June 1, depending on the vandalism.
The US administration says the threat from Baathist holdouts is the most serious law enforcement issue facing coalition forces, but basic street crime is also a major problem. The perception of most Iraqis, rich or poor, is that Americans are unwilling to restore order. The US is also coming under increasing criticism from a Iraqi political leaders, including the exiles that the US brought back to Iraq after the war. But Donald Rumsfeld seems to finally get the idea that the looting in Iraq is more that just 'untidy'. The US announced today that it intends to have 4,000 military police patrolling Baghdad with Iraqi police by June 1 but that "it will take time" to bring order. In the meantime, chaos reigns.
A few lessons might be learned from the recent bombings of westerners in Saudi Arabia. Two groups are likely to be affected by the fallout from the bombs. First, the Saudi government and second, the Bush administration.
The US seems to be criticizing, in politely worded statements, the Saudis for their foot-dragging on fighting terrorists in their kingdom. Today, we heard from Condoleeza Rice. American newspapers across the US have run stories today about the failure of the Saudis to heed requests for more security at the bombed sites. We will be hearing louder and more strident demands on the Saudis from US conservatives who have been critical of the Saudis in the past. Their gripe has been that the Saudis have done little to help the investigation of the 9/11 attacks, the bombing of the Khobar towers, and the USS Cole. Many accuse the Saudis of harboring al Qaeda and Taliban.
The connection between the Saudis and the Wahhabi movement, a movement of Islamic fundamentalism on the Arabian Peninsula, goes back to the founding of the Saudi monarchy. There is a tacit agreement upon which the Saudi monarchy rests. That is, the Wahhabi clerics will give legitimacy to the House of Saud as rulers of the Arabian peninsula and the Saudis will protect and support Wahhabi causes. It seemed like an innocuous agreement until recently. The Saudis have been supporting a resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism throughout the world. Sausi support is funded by oil money. The Saudis have built mosques and schools (madrasas) throughout the Islamic world and in the United States and western Europe as well. But this largess does not come without strings. These mosques and schools are staffed by Wahhabi clerics of the type one associates with Saudi fundamentalism. It is out of the radical wing of Islamic fundamentalism that al Qaeda and the Taliban were created during the war in Afghanistan against the Soviet occupation. The US supported the Saudi funding of these organizations in the 1980's because they were fighting against communism. Our support has come back to bite us in the ass.
The other group that will probably be affected by the fallout from the bombing in Riyadh will be the Bush administration. The BBC has an article summarizing the response of American newspapers to the bombing. The Bush administration does not fare well. Many are accusing Bush of failing in the war against terror. Many argue that, while Bush was trumpeting his victory in Iraq as a victory against terrorism, the real terrorists were at work planning new strikes.
The Los Angeles Times seems most critical of the Bush adminstration, with criticism extending far beyond the Riyadh bombings. "Is President Bush's victory in Iraq coming undone like a cheap cowboy boot?" The "unraveling stitches" include failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, setbacks in reconstruction in Iraq, replacing the leaders of the reconstruction agency in Iraq, failure to pressure Israel to accept the Road Map for peace, accusations that the White House was involved in a cover-up of the events of 9/11, and the terror bombings in Riyadh. On that score, they wrote that, "the recent terror bombing in Saudi Arabia will only accelerate the decline of American influence there. The U.S. had already announced a withdrawal of troops from the kingdom; now, a similar exodus of American civilians is likely. So what will happen when Saudi Arabia, home to a quarter of the world's oil, as well as the spiritual capitals of Islam, is let adrift in the shifting sands of Islamopolitics?" Overall, it looks like a failed policy in the Middle East and against terrorism in general and Bush is getting the blame for it.
The generally conservative Wall Street Journal criticized the Saudis as well as successive US administrations. Of the Saudis, they wrote, "Thus far, the kingdom's ruling princes have found it more urgent to protect their own cushy status quo than to look too closely at what is preached in the country's mosques and religious schools." Of the American government, it had this to say, "Monday's murderous attacks provide an opportunity... for the US to signal that the status quo is unacceptably dangerous."
Liberal columnist Maureen Dowd writes in the New York Times that, "Buried in the rubble of Riyadh are some of the Bush administration's basic assumptions: that al-Qaeda was finished, that invading Iraq would bring regional stability and that a show of American superpower against Saddam would cow terrorists."
USA Today compares the intelligence failures of the Riyadh bombing to the intelligence failures of 9/11. "As was the case before 9/11, it had picked up hints of a coming attack but could not pinpoint when or where."
The Washington Post seems to believe that the Saudi government has received a wake-up call and that the bombing will cause them to take the war on terrorism much more seriously. Up to now, they have refused to admit that there is a problem in their kingdom. Many Saudis even refuse to admit that any of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis. Hopefully, it will be a wake-up call. As the Wall Street Journal wrote, the status quo is dangerous, for the Saudis, the Bush administration, and Americans all over the world.
The US seems to be criticizing, in politely worded statements, the Saudis for their foot-dragging on fighting terrorists in their kingdom. Today, we heard from Condoleeza Rice. American newspapers across the US have run stories today about the failure of the Saudis to heed requests for more security at the bombed sites. We will be hearing louder and more strident demands on the Saudis from US conservatives who have been critical of the Saudis in the past. Their gripe has been that the Saudis have done little to help the investigation of the 9/11 attacks, the bombing of the Khobar towers, and the USS Cole. Many accuse the Saudis of harboring al Qaeda and Taliban.
The connection between the Saudis and the Wahhabi movement, a movement of Islamic fundamentalism on the Arabian Peninsula, goes back to the founding of the Saudi monarchy. There is a tacit agreement upon which the Saudi monarchy rests. That is, the Wahhabi clerics will give legitimacy to the House of Saud as rulers of the Arabian peninsula and the Saudis will protect and support Wahhabi causes. It seemed like an innocuous agreement until recently. The Saudis have been supporting a resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism throughout the world. Sausi support is funded by oil money. The Saudis have built mosques and schools (madrasas) throughout the Islamic world and in the United States and western Europe as well. But this largess does not come without strings. These mosques and schools are staffed by Wahhabi clerics of the type one associates with Saudi fundamentalism. It is out of the radical wing of Islamic fundamentalism that al Qaeda and the Taliban were created during the war in Afghanistan against the Soviet occupation. The US supported the Saudi funding of these organizations in the 1980's because they were fighting against communism. Our support has come back to bite us in the ass.
The other group that will probably be affected by the fallout from the bombing in Riyadh will be the Bush administration. The BBC has an article summarizing the response of American newspapers to the bombing. The Bush administration does not fare well. Many are accusing Bush of failing in the war against terror. Many argue that, while Bush was trumpeting his victory in Iraq as a victory against terrorism, the real terrorists were at work planning new strikes.
The Los Angeles Times seems most critical of the Bush adminstration, with criticism extending far beyond the Riyadh bombings. "Is President Bush's victory in Iraq coming undone like a cheap cowboy boot?" The "unraveling stitches" include failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, setbacks in reconstruction in Iraq, replacing the leaders of the reconstruction agency in Iraq, failure to pressure Israel to accept the Road Map for peace, accusations that the White House was involved in a cover-up of the events of 9/11, and the terror bombings in Riyadh. On that score, they wrote that, "the recent terror bombing in Saudi Arabia will only accelerate the decline of American influence there. The U.S. had already announced a withdrawal of troops from the kingdom; now, a similar exodus of American civilians is likely. So what will happen when Saudi Arabia, home to a quarter of the world's oil, as well as the spiritual capitals of Islam, is let adrift in the shifting sands of Islamopolitics?" Overall, it looks like a failed policy in the Middle East and against terrorism in general and Bush is getting the blame for it.
The generally conservative Wall Street Journal criticized the Saudis as well as successive US administrations. Of the Saudis, they wrote, "Thus far, the kingdom's ruling princes have found it more urgent to protect their own cushy status quo than to look too closely at what is preached in the country's mosques and religious schools." Of the American government, it had this to say, "Monday's murderous attacks provide an opportunity... for the US to signal that the status quo is unacceptably dangerous."
Liberal columnist Maureen Dowd writes in the New York Times that, "Buried in the rubble of Riyadh are some of the Bush administration's basic assumptions: that al-Qaeda was finished, that invading Iraq would bring regional stability and that a show of American superpower against Saddam would cow terrorists."
USA Today compares the intelligence failures of the Riyadh bombing to the intelligence failures of 9/11. "As was the case before 9/11, it had picked up hints of a coming attack but could not pinpoint when or where."
The Washington Post seems to believe that the Saudi government has received a wake-up call and that the bombing will cause them to take the war on terrorism much more seriously. Up to now, they have refused to admit that there is a problem in their kingdom. Many Saudis even refuse to admit that any of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis. Hopefully, it will be a wake-up call. As the Wall Street Journal wrote, the status quo is dangerous, for the Saudis, the Bush administration, and Americans all over the world.
Thursday, May 08, 2003
According to the New York Times, a draft resolution will be introduced in the UN by the US, Britain and Spain on Friday morning. The resolution would lift economic sanctions against Iraq and endorse US and British control of Iraq's political development and financial resources for at least 12 months. Under the resolution, new Iraqi oil revenues and at least $3 billion in the current United Nations-controlled escrow fund would be transferred to a new Iraqi Assistance Fund to be "disbursed at the direction of" the US and Britain — referred to as the "provisional authority" — in consultation with the interim government to be formed in Iraq.
It is seems unlikely that the UN would go along with this resolution because it would give the US free reign to do as it pleases in Iraq. However France and Germany, in a conciliatory mood after the bashing they have been taking from the US, look unlikely to oppose it. Russia's position is that sanctions must stay in place until weapons of mass destruction have been found. On the other hand, Russia may go along in order to recoup some of the $6 billion to $8 billion Iraqi debt owed to Russia. Perhaps these countries see the resolution as an American attempt to create more division in the UN and they want to avoid more international conflict than has already been created over the war.
It is seems unlikely that the UN would go along with this resolution because it would give the US free reign to do as it pleases in Iraq. However France and Germany, in a conciliatory mood after the bashing they have been taking from the US, look unlikely to oppose it. Russia's position is that sanctions must stay in place until weapons of mass destruction have been found. On the other hand, Russia may go along in order to recoup some of the $6 billion to $8 billion Iraqi debt owed to Russia. Perhaps these countries see the resolution as an American attempt to create more division in the UN and they want to avoid more international conflict than has already been created over the war.
Senator Orrin G. Hatch, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, backed down today from an effort to make permanent the sweeping antiterrorism powers in the USA PATRIOT Act. Instead, the Senate approved a measure expanding the government's ability to use secret surveillance tools against terrorist suspects who are not thought to be members of known terrorist groups. Under current law, federal officials must establish a link to a foreign terrorist group in order to secure or request a secret warrant.
This political wrangling is considered a compromise by senators and by the New York Times. The way I see it, the only compromise is a compromise of our consitutional rights. The USA PATRIOT Act is the largest attack on civil liberties since the Alien and Sedition acts of World War I. Orrin Hatch wants to make it permanent and Attorney General John Ashcroft wants to expand the attack with the Patriot Act II. We have to fight the atmosphere of fear that is leading Americans to give up the cherished freedoms that makes this country strong. If the war against terror is to have any meaning, then there must be something to protect from the terrorists. If we eliminate terrorism at the cost of freedom, then what have we won?
This political wrangling is considered a compromise by senators and by the New York Times. The way I see it, the only compromise is a compromise of our consitutional rights. The USA PATRIOT Act is the largest attack on civil liberties since the Alien and Sedition acts of World War I. Orrin Hatch wants to make it permanent and Attorney General John Ashcroft wants to expand the attack with the Patriot Act II. We have to fight the atmosphere of fear that is leading Americans to give up the cherished freedoms that makes this country strong. If the war against terror is to have any meaning, then there must be something to protect from the terrorists. If we eliminate terrorism at the cost of freedom, then what have we won?
Tuesday, May 06, 2003
I was reading an article in Scientific American today regarding the possibility of parallel universes. The article says that mathematical models predict that there is a twin universe at least 10 to the 10 to the 28th power meters away. Suffice it to say that it is very far away, according to this model. This model supposes that space is infinite and that there are an infinite number of universes. Therefore, there must be a twin universe exactly like our own. However, this model falls foul of a common mistake in logic. Just because a set is infinite, does not mean that every possible member of the set exists. There may be possibilities which would fall into the set, but do not exist. This does not make the set any less infinite. In other words, it is not a fact that an infinite number of monkeys banging away at an infinite number of typewriters (or computer weblogs) for an infinite amount of time will necessarily reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. It might be that they fail to reproduce Trolius and Cressida by leaving out the third act.
The Scientific American article began with this paragraph: "Is there a copy of you reading this artcle? A person who is not you but who lives on a planet Earth, with misty mountains, fertile fields and sprawling cities, in a solar system with eight other planets? The life of this person has been identical to yours in every respect. But perhaps he or she now decides to put down this article without finishing it, while you read on." At that point, I decided to stop reading and take a nap.
The Scientific American article began with this paragraph: "Is there a copy of you reading this artcle? A person who is not you but who lives on a planet Earth, with misty mountains, fertile fields and sprawling cities, in a solar system with eight other planets? The life of this person has been identical to yours in every respect. But perhaps he or she now decides to put down this article without finishing it, while you read on." At that point, I decided to stop reading and take a nap.
Saturday, May 03, 2003
There is a new column by Thomas Friedman in the New York Times about reconstruction in Iraq. I highly recommend reading it. Here is a taste of what he says:
Friends, whether you like or hate how and why we got into this war, the fact is America — you and I — has assumed responsibility for rebuilding Iraq. We are talking about one of the biggest nation-building projects the U.S. has ever undertaken, the mother of all long hauls. We now have a 51st state of 23 million people. We just adopted a baby called Baghdad — and this is no time for the parents to get a divorce. Because raising that baby, in the neighborhood it lives in, is going to be a mammoth task. If both Republicans and Democrats don't start looking clearly and honestly at what is evolving in Iraq, we're all going to be in trouble.
Friends, whether you like or hate how and why we got into this war, the fact is America — you and I — has assumed responsibility for rebuilding Iraq. We are talking about one of the biggest nation-building projects the U.S. has ever undertaken, the mother of all long hauls. We now have a 51st state of 23 million people. We just adopted a baby called Baghdad — and this is no time for the parents to get a divorce. Because raising that baby, in the neighborhood it lives in, is going to be a mammoth task. If both Republicans and Democrats don't start looking clearly and honestly at what is evolving in Iraq, we're all going to be in trouble.
What Was the War About?
The Bush administration’s goals in starting a war in Iraq are beginning to become clearer. This week, in articles in the economist, NPR, and the Atlantic Monthly, a few things have come to light that show that the war in Iraq was about more than just the liberation of Iraqis from an oppressive dictator. In fact, it almost seems that liberation, terrorism and weapons of mass distraction were a sideshow from the real goals of the war. The public goals of the war were useful in building support for the war with the public and to pull foreign governments into a ‘coalition of the willing’, but were not the main reasons the war was undertaken. The real reasons are much more mundane and harder to raise public passions about.
In large part, we are seeing in the results of the war a shift in international relations as fundamental as the end of the cold war. In fact, this is probably an extension of the changes that were occurring at the beginning of the 1990’s, but were put off for 10 years during the Clinton administration. The war in Iraq might have been only three weeks long, but it was a three weeks that changed the world. Perhaps that is why people were glued to their televisions for those three weeks, in order to see something that might show what the world would look like after it was over.
The Failure of Containment
The goals of the war in Iraq were threefold: to change relations of power in the middle east; to change relations of power globally, especially between the US and Europe; and to control the price of oil. Since 1998, the neo-cons have argued that the policy of containment in Iraq was unsustainable. For the most part, they were correct. It was extremely expensive, relied on unstable allies in the middle east, notably Saudi Arabia, and increased anti-American sentiment in the Arab world. On top of that, the policy of containment was destroying Iraqi society while doing nothing to remove Saddam Hussein.
The Europeans liked containment because they bore none of the costs while still reaping some of the benefits. France, Germany and Russia were selling goods to Saddam’s regime both under the oil-for-food program and illegally. To be certain, other countries were selling to Iraq as well, but these three are the major players in international relations. The US could not sell to Iraq in part because Iraq would not buy from the US and Britain, who were also the main opponents of lifting sanctions. France, Germany and Russia were all increasing their ties to Iraq before the war in order to have a foothold there when sanctions were lifted.
This relationship was played out in the diplomatic debate that led up to the war. The anti-war coalition wanted to keep the status quo because it imposed no costs on them other than lost opportunity. In addition, the status quo allowed them to recoup some of the lost opportunities through the oil-for-food program and illegal sales. The US and Britain, on the other hand, were bearing the sole burden of maintaining the containment policy. In addition, the policy relied on the military deployment in Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
The Instability of Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia is an inherently unstable country. It is essentially a very expensive piece of desert which is, according to an article in the Atlantic Monthly, “run by an increasingly dysfunctional royal family that has been funding militant Islamic movements abroad in an attempt to protect itself from them at home.” The Atlantic Monthly article describes a corrupt and vulnerable regime. It was formed in 1932 when Abdul Aziz ibn Saud, a powerful tribal leader, declared himself king. Since he died, his sons have run the country. The current king, Fahd, suffered a near fatal stroke in 1995 and has been incapacitated since then. Rumors say that he is kept alive only to prevent a power struggle among his brothers and his son Abdul Aziz.
Right now, Fahd’s brother Abdullah is next in line to be king if Fahd dies but his half brothers will not allow him to be king, according to the Atlantic Monthly article. In addition, Fahd’s son Abdul Aziz had been increasing his popular support and is increasingly looking like he is planning to take over after his father’s death. Abdul Aziz had been funding radical Wahhabi causes as well as clerics and causes associated with Osama bin Laden, including coordinating an aid package to the Taliban in 1997. It appears that the House of Saud is on very shaky legs and might be taken over by a member supported by radical Islamicists whose chief gripe against the current regime is that they allow American troops on Saudi soil.
Al Qaeda is the main supporter of anti-American terrorism throughout the world. The bulk of al Qaeda members and funding comes from Saudi Arabia. Rumors continue that Saudi Arabia is dragging its feet in helping the US fight the war on terror. Much of this is probably because of the Saudi relationship with the Wahhabi movement. The Wahhabis are a fundamentalist sect of Islam from which both al Qaeda and the Taliban get their ideology. It was ibn Saud’s alliance with the Wahhabi movement that brought him to power in the middle of the 20th century. This is a very unstable ally that the US has been relying on as the centerpiece of its middle east policy. Therefore, in the eyes of the neo-cons, the containment policy in Iraq had to be scrapped. Something had to replace it and that something is the goal of the war in Iraq.
Changing Relations in the Middle East
The containment policy could not be scrapped by simply walking away from Iraq. To do so would make the costs that the US bore for ten years meaningless with nothing to gain for it. It would leave a repressive dictator in place with the public perception that he had stood up to the most powerful country on earth and won. Obviously, this would not have been acceptable to the American foreign policy establishment or the American people, for that matter, especially at a time when the US was nominally at war against terrorism. The war in Iraq was begun in order to establish a new power relationship in the middle east, with the US as the major power player.
One result of the war is that there will be less pressure on the Saudis to support America. This week, the US announced that it will immediately move troops out of Saudi Arabia and eventually will remove all troops. This is not to say that the US will completely move troops out of the middle east. In fact, since 1990, the US has been reducing its troop presence throughout the world except in the middle east. All new US military bases established since the cold war have been in the Persian Gulf, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and Kirgizstan. It seems clear that any bases removed from Saudi Arabia will be replaced by bases in Iraq.
It’s Not About Oil, It’s About the Price of Oil
The new power landscape in the middle east also means less US support for Saudi Arabia and a new balance of power between the Arabs and Israel. Thomas Friedman, columnist for the New York Times, has said that the war in Iraq was not about oil, it was about the price of oil. What he meant was that oil producers were perfectly willing to provide as much oil as the west required, but they would prefer to sell it at their price, which would be higher than at present. The largest supplier of oil in the world is Saudi Arabia. By managing production, Saudi Arabia has kept the price of oil low, mainly to the benefit of the US.
Iraq has oil reserves second only to Saudi Arabia but has been unable to sell on the world market for ten years because of UN sanctions. The oil for food program was the only legal method for Iraq to sell oil and coincidentally, the only lever the UN has in Iraq right now. If Iraq were able to increase production, then according to an article in the Economist this week, within a decade it could “crank out so much oil that Saudi Arabia . . . would lose its market power.” This depends a lot on the makeup of postwar Iraq. The US is pushing for a democratic, liberal Iraq with a privatized oil sector. A privatized oil sector means selling off the government controlled oil industry and subjecting oil production to market forces. If the US forces Iraq to sell off its oil industry to private buyers, then multinational, mostly American oil companies are the most likely buyers. It is certain that there will be few indigenous Iraqi buyers.
Why would the US turn against its old ally and attempt to set up a new oil power broker? Precisely for the reasons outlined above. Saudi Arabia is unstable and increasingly unreliable. The Saudis opposed the war in Iraq, perhaps because they feared this sort of power restructuring. This week, a Heritage Foundation spokesman said that there has to be some kind of rewards for those who support US policies and punishment for those who oppose it. It seems there may be a day of reckoning approaching for Saudi Arabia now that a new power relationship is developing in the Arab world.
Israel and Palestine
The new power relationship affects the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as well. All politics in the middle east are colored by this conflict. It has raged for over 50 years, since the end of World War II. The US has been receiving international pressure to do something to solve the impasse that has been the order of the day since the breakdown of the Oslo peace process in the 1990’s. There is a wide perception that the intransigence of the Palestinians was responsible for the breakdown. It is a debatable point, but since we are talking about why the Bush administration is acting as it is, it is the perceptions that matter, not necessarily the facts.
If the perception is that the Palestinians were responsible for the breakdown in talks with Israel, then it was because of the power relationship within the Palestinian community and in the Arab world as a whole. The PLO could not compromise with Israel so long as radical Palestinians such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad were increasing in popularity and power within the Palestinian community. After the breakdown of the peace process, it was these groups that began to take the lead in establishing the relationship with Israel through suicide bombings, or martyrdom operations, as they called it. Israel refused to negotiate with the Palestinians so long as these bombing continued.
It was in this atmosphere that the Bush administration was called on to bring a settlement. Bush refused for the first couple years of his administration to do anything. It was only after September 11, 2001 that he began to look at the middle east. He still refused to focus on the Palestinian issue because of the war on terror in Afghanistan, then the war in Iraq. In fact, he supported Israel’s crackdown on Islamic Jihad and Hamas by including these organizations as well as Hizbullah in Lebanon on the list of terrorist organizations, making the war on terror much wider than simply a war on al Qaeda or even just anti-American terror.
In this atmosphere, the US, the UN, the EU and Russia put together a plan called the Road Map to Peace, but did not publish it. Instead, they specifically waited until after the war in Iraq to do so. Why wait? It was not simply that the US did not have the diplomatic resources to wage war in Iraq and push the Road Map, they could have pushed the Road Map first, then done the war in Iraq. They waited specifically until they had established a new power relationship in the middle east. The US defeated Iraq quickly and decisively in part to remove Saddam Hussein as a supporter of Islamic Jihad and Hamas and in part in order to show who was boss in the region. Since the war, we see Syria much subdued and cooperating with the US. Colin Powell’s trip to Damascus this week is likely to increase pressure on Syria to move towards peace with Israel.
Iran is also more subdued, though less cooperative. Mainly we see less support for Islamic Jihad and Hamas in Palestine. It is now, in this atmosphere that the Bush administration is beginning its push for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. This week, the Palestinian Authority has installed a new Prime Minister and the Road Map has been officially published. It was only after the relations of power had changed in the middle east that the Bush administration would attempt to settle the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys
So how does the war in Iraq change the relations of power globally? The quote from the Heritage Foundation regarding international rewards and punishments was aimed at a report this week that the US would be closing bases in Germany and moving American military resources to the east in Europe. The main beneficiaries of these moves would be Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, all of which supported the war in Iraq. There have also been reports recently of the US reviewing its policy towards France, outlining possible changes in the US relationship with that country. (See my Blog April 23, 2003.) Possible policy changes would be to shift NATO decisions away from France and limit French participation in meetings with US allies.
These moves are not simply immediate punishments for allies that didn’t toe the line, but are part of a larger shift in American foreign policy. American policy towards Europe is shifting towards a policy of ‘disaggregation,’ according to senior official in the Bush administration. This means that the US is dropping its 50 year policy of supporting European integration and might even be actively attempting to undermine it. It also means that the US will look less for a unified EU foreign policy and more for support from individual countries. The Bush administration had already opposed new international treaties such as the global warming treaty and the international criminal court and scrapped old ones such as the cold war era START treaty to reduce stockpiles of nuclear weapons.
In part, the new policy direction is in reaction to the perceived lack of support by certain European countries for the war. In part, it is fueled by a fear of an ascendant Europe. Throughout the cold war, European integration was in America’s interest because it provided a united front to oppose the communist east. Nowadays, the Bush administration fears that a united Europe will be a rival to the US in international affairs. These fears are exacerbated by President Jacques Chirac of France when he says things like, “We need a means to struggle against American hegemony.”
Undermining the United Nations
One forum for the struggle against American hegemony was at the UN last winter in the lead-up to the Iraq war. Conservatives in the US have never cared much for the UN because it often took positions opposed to the US. In many cases, the US prevented the UN from taking positions by exercising its veto in the Security Council. The UN is widely perceived among conservatives as an obstacle to America acting freely in the world. It is a debatable point. In fact, the UN might actually have made it easier to act in the world by giving legitimacy to certain actions, such as the Gulf War I. However, the neo-conservatives have little need for international legitimacy, so the UN is merely an obstacle to them.
This shed a new light on the debates in the UN preceding the Iraq war. The Bush administration set a very short timeline on getting UN approval for invading Iraq. The UN did not want to play that game and it is likely that the Bush administration knew this going into the debates. Britain and other coalition allies as well as the American and world public wanted international legitimacy for the war. France, Russia, China and others set out the conditions for legitimacy and that was to find weapons of mass destruction or for Iraq to fail to come fully clean regarding the weapons. The arms inspectors said it would take months, but the Bush administration gave them only weeks. It appears to have been a policy which was intended to fail. American unilateral action in the face of apparent UN failure was intended to make the UN irrelevant, which seems to be the continuing attitude of the US towards UN attempts to involve itself in the reconstruction of Iraq.
The problem with this new foreign policy is that, by weakening the international institutions that have ensured peace and security for the past half-century, we are increasingly making the world less secure. While these institutions may have been an obstacle to America having a free hand to act as it wishes in the world, they also acted to protect American interests. We depend on international institutions to fight the war against terror and to safeguard the international economic system that the US relies on.
The war in Iraq is in the process of redrawing the lines of power in the world. It appears that the US will rely less on ‘old Europe’ in the words of Donald Rumsfeld, and more on the ‘new Europe’, which are those countries in central Europe that supported the US war on Iraq. Also, we are seeing a shift in power in the middle east away from relying on Saudi Arabia as the provider of oil price stability and towards building an Iraq in America’s image to do the job for us. We are also seeing pressure being brought to bear on Syria and radical Palestinian movements in order to force a settlement on the Palestinians. While some of these shifts may be for the good, others might be less beneficial. Still others might not work out as planned. Whatever the case, the world will be a very different place from now on.
The Bush administration’s goals in starting a war in Iraq are beginning to become clearer. This week, in articles in the economist, NPR, and the Atlantic Monthly, a few things have come to light that show that the war in Iraq was about more than just the liberation of Iraqis from an oppressive dictator. In fact, it almost seems that liberation, terrorism and weapons of mass distraction were a sideshow from the real goals of the war. The public goals of the war were useful in building support for the war with the public and to pull foreign governments into a ‘coalition of the willing’, but were not the main reasons the war was undertaken. The real reasons are much more mundane and harder to raise public passions about.
In large part, we are seeing in the results of the war a shift in international relations as fundamental as the end of the cold war. In fact, this is probably an extension of the changes that were occurring at the beginning of the 1990’s, but were put off for 10 years during the Clinton administration. The war in Iraq might have been only three weeks long, but it was a three weeks that changed the world. Perhaps that is why people were glued to their televisions for those three weeks, in order to see something that might show what the world would look like after it was over.
The Failure of Containment
The goals of the war in Iraq were threefold: to change relations of power in the middle east; to change relations of power globally, especially between the US and Europe; and to control the price of oil. Since 1998, the neo-cons have argued that the policy of containment in Iraq was unsustainable. For the most part, they were correct. It was extremely expensive, relied on unstable allies in the middle east, notably Saudi Arabia, and increased anti-American sentiment in the Arab world. On top of that, the policy of containment was destroying Iraqi society while doing nothing to remove Saddam Hussein.
The Europeans liked containment because they bore none of the costs while still reaping some of the benefits. France, Germany and Russia were selling goods to Saddam’s regime both under the oil-for-food program and illegally. To be certain, other countries were selling to Iraq as well, but these three are the major players in international relations. The US could not sell to Iraq in part because Iraq would not buy from the US and Britain, who were also the main opponents of lifting sanctions. France, Germany and Russia were all increasing their ties to Iraq before the war in order to have a foothold there when sanctions were lifted.
This relationship was played out in the diplomatic debate that led up to the war. The anti-war coalition wanted to keep the status quo because it imposed no costs on them other than lost opportunity. In addition, the status quo allowed them to recoup some of the lost opportunities through the oil-for-food program and illegal sales. The US and Britain, on the other hand, were bearing the sole burden of maintaining the containment policy. In addition, the policy relied on the military deployment in Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
The Instability of Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia is an inherently unstable country. It is essentially a very expensive piece of desert which is, according to an article in the Atlantic Monthly, “run by an increasingly dysfunctional royal family that has been funding militant Islamic movements abroad in an attempt to protect itself from them at home.” The Atlantic Monthly article describes a corrupt and vulnerable regime. It was formed in 1932 when Abdul Aziz ibn Saud, a powerful tribal leader, declared himself king. Since he died, his sons have run the country. The current king, Fahd, suffered a near fatal stroke in 1995 and has been incapacitated since then. Rumors say that he is kept alive only to prevent a power struggle among his brothers and his son Abdul Aziz.
Right now, Fahd’s brother Abdullah is next in line to be king if Fahd dies but his half brothers will not allow him to be king, according to the Atlantic Monthly article. In addition, Fahd’s son Abdul Aziz had been increasing his popular support and is increasingly looking like he is planning to take over after his father’s death. Abdul Aziz had been funding radical Wahhabi causes as well as clerics and causes associated with Osama bin Laden, including coordinating an aid package to the Taliban in 1997. It appears that the House of Saud is on very shaky legs and might be taken over by a member supported by radical Islamicists whose chief gripe against the current regime is that they allow American troops on Saudi soil.
Al Qaeda is the main supporter of anti-American terrorism throughout the world. The bulk of al Qaeda members and funding comes from Saudi Arabia. Rumors continue that Saudi Arabia is dragging its feet in helping the US fight the war on terror. Much of this is probably because of the Saudi relationship with the Wahhabi movement. The Wahhabis are a fundamentalist sect of Islam from which both al Qaeda and the Taliban get their ideology. It was ibn Saud’s alliance with the Wahhabi movement that brought him to power in the middle of the 20th century. This is a very unstable ally that the US has been relying on as the centerpiece of its middle east policy. Therefore, in the eyes of the neo-cons, the containment policy in Iraq had to be scrapped. Something had to replace it and that something is the goal of the war in Iraq.
Changing Relations in the Middle East
The containment policy could not be scrapped by simply walking away from Iraq. To do so would make the costs that the US bore for ten years meaningless with nothing to gain for it. It would leave a repressive dictator in place with the public perception that he had stood up to the most powerful country on earth and won. Obviously, this would not have been acceptable to the American foreign policy establishment or the American people, for that matter, especially at a time when the US was nominally at war against terrorism. The war in Iraq was begun in order to establish a new power relationship in the middle east, with the US as the major power player.
One result of the war is that there will be less pressure on the Saudis to support America. This week, the US announced that it will immediately move troops out of Saudi Arabia and eventually will remove all troops. This is not to say that the US will completely move troops out of the middle east. In fact, since 1990, the US has been reducing its troop presence throughout the world except in the middle east. All new US military bases established since the cold war have been in the Persian Gulf, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and Kirgizstan. It seems clear that any bases removed from Saudi Arabia will be replaced by bases in Iraq.
It’s Not About Oil, It’s About the Price of Oil
The new power landscape in the middle east also means less US support for Saudi Arabia and a new balance of power between the Arabs and Israel. Thomas Friedman, columnist for the New York Times, has said that the war in Iraq was not about oil, it was about the price of oil. What he meant was that oil producers were perfectly willing to provide as much oil as the west required, but they would prefer to sell it at their price, which would be higher than at present. The largest supplier of oil in the world is Saudi Arabia. By managing production, Saudi Arabia has kept the price of oil low, mainly to the benefit of the US.
Iraq has oil reserves second only to Saudi Arabia but has been unable to sell on the world market for ten years because of UN sanctions. The oil for food program was the only legal method for Iraq to sell oil and coincidentally, the only lever the UN has in Iraq right now. If Iraq were able to increase production, then according to an article in the Economist this week, within a decade it could “crank out so much oil that Saudi Arabia . . . would lose its market power.” This depends a lot on the makeup of postwar Iraq. The US is pushing for a democratic, liberal Iraq with a privatized oil sector. A privatized oil sector means selling off the government controlled oil industry and subjecting oil production to market forces. If the US forces Iraq to sell off its oil industry to private buyers, then multinational, mostly American oil companies are the most likely buyers. It is certain that there will be few indigenous Iraqi buyers.
Why would the US turn against its old ally and attempt to set up a new oil power broker? Precisely for the reasons outlined above. Saudi Arabia is unstable and increasingly unreliable. The Saudis opposed the war in Iraq, perhaps because they feared this sort of power restructuring. This week, a Heritage Foundation spokesman said that there has to be some kind of rewards for those who support US policies and punishment for those who oppose it. It seems there may be a day of reckoning approaching for Saudi Arabia now that a new power relationship is developing in the Arab world.
Israel and Palestine
The new power relationship affects the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as well. All politics in the middle east are colored by this conflict. It has raged for over 50 years, since the end of World War II. The US has been receiving international pressure to do something to solve the impasse that has been the order of the day since the breakdown of the Oslo peace process in the 1990’s. There is a wide perception that the intransigence of the Palestinians was responsible for the breakdown. It is a debatable point, but since we are talking about why the Bush administration is acting as it is, it is the perceptions that matter, not necessarily the facts.
If the perception is that the Palestinians were responsible for the breakdown in talks with Israel, then it was because of the power relationship within the Palestinian community and in the Arab world as a whole. The PLO could not compromise with Israel so long as radical Palestinians such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad were increasing in popularity and power within the Palestinian community. After the breakdown of the peace process, it was these groups that began to take the lead in establishing the relationship with Israel through suicide bombings, or martyrdom operations, as they called it. Israel refused to negotiate with the Palestinians so long as these bombing continued.
It was in this atmosphere that the Bush administration was called on to bring a settlement. Bush refused for the first couple years of his administration to do anything. It was only after September 11, 2001 that he began to look at the middle east. He still refused to focus on the Palestinian issue because of the war on terror in Afghanistan, then the war in Iraq. In fact, he supported Israel’s crackdown on Islamic Jihad and Hamas by including these organizations as well as Hizbullah in Lebanon on the list of terrorist organizations, making the war on terror much wider than simply a war on al Qaeda or even just anti-American terror.
In this atmosphere, the US, the UN, the EU and Russia put together a plan called the Road Map to Peace, but did not publish it. Instead, they specifically waited until after the war in Iraq to do so. Why wait? It was not simply that the US did not have the diplomatic resources to wage war in Iraq and push the Road Map, they could have pushed the Road Map first, then done the war in Iraq. They waited specifically until they had established a new power relationship in the middle east. The US defeated Iraq quickly and decisively in part to remove Saddam Hussein as a supporter of Islamic Jihad and Hamas and in part in order to show who was boss in the region. Since the war, we see Syria much subdued and cooperating with the US. Colin Powell’s trip to Damascus this week is likely to increase pressure on Syria to move towards peace with Israel.
Iran is also more subdued, though less cooperative. Mainly we see less support for Islamic Jihad and Hamas in Palestine. It is now, in this atmosphere that the Bush administration is beginning its push for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. This week, the Palestinian Authority has installed a new Prime Minister and the Road Map has been officially published. It was only after the relations of power had changed in the middle east that the Bush administration would attempt to settle the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys
So how does the war in Iraq change the relations of power globally? The quote from the Heritage Foundation regarding international rewards and punishments was aimed at a report this week that the US would be closing bases in Germany and moving American military resources to the east in Europe. The main beneficiaries of these moves would be Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, all of which supported the war in Iraq. There have also been reports recently of the US reviewing its policy towards France, outlining possible changes in the US relationship with that country. (See my Blog April 23, 2003.) Possible policy changes would be to shift NATO decisions away from France and limit French participation in meetings with US allies.
These moves are not simply immediate punishments for allies that didn’t toe the line, but are part of a larger shift in American foreign policy. American policy towards Europe is shifting towards a policy of ‘disaggregation,’ according to senior official in the Bush administration. This means that the US is dropping its 50 year policy of supporting European integration and might even be actively attempting to undermine it. It also means that the US will look less for a unified EU foreign policy and more for support from individual countries. The Bush administration had already opposed new international treaties such as the global warming treaty and the international criminal court and scrapped old ones such as the cold war era START treaty to reduce stockpiles of nuclear weapons.
In part, the new policy direction is in reaction to the perceived lack of support by certain European countries for the war. In part, it is fueled by a fear of an ascendant Europe. Throughout the cold war, European integration was in America’s interest because it provided a united front to oppose the communist east. Nowadays, the Bush administration fears that a united Europe will be a rival to the US in international affairs. These fears are exacerbated by President Jacques Chirac of France when he says things like, “We need a means to struggle against American hegemony.”
Undermining the United Nations
One forum for the struggle against American hegemony was at the UN last winter in the lead-up to the Iraq war. Conservatives in the US have never cared much for the UN because it often took positions opposed to the US. In many cases, the US prevented the UN from taking positions by exercising its veto in the Security Council. The UN is widely perceived among conservatives as an obstacle to America acting freely in the world. It is a debatable point. In fact, the UN might actually have made it easier to act in the world by giving legitimacy to certain actions, such as the Gulf War I. However, the neo-conservatives have little need for international legitimacy, so the UN is merely an obstacle to them.
This shed a new light on the debates in the UN preceding the Iraq war. The Bush administration set a very short timeline on getting UN approval for invading Iraq. The UN did not want to play that game and it is likely that the Bush administration knew this going into the debates. Britain and other coalition allies as well as the American and world public wanted international legitimacy for the war. France, Russia, China and others set out the conditions for legitimacy and that was to find weapons of mass destruction or for Iraq to fail to come fully clean regarding the weapons. The arms inspectors said it would take months, but the Bush administration gave them only weeks. It appears to have been a policy which was intended to fail. American unilateral action in the face of apparent UN failure was intended to make the UN irrelevant, which seems to be the continuing attitude of the US towards UN attempts to involve itself in the reconstruction of Iraq.
The problem with this new foreign policy is that, by weakening the international institutions that have ensured peace and security for the past half-century, we are increasingly making the world less secure. While these institutions may have been an obstacle to America having a free hand to act as it wishes in the world, they also acted to protect American interests. We depend on international institutions to fight the war against terror and to safeguard the international economic system that the US relies on.
The war in Iraq is in the process of redrawing the lines of power in the world. It appears that the US will rely less on ‘old Europe’ in the words of Donald Rumsfeld, and more on the ‘new Europe’, which are those countries in central Europe that supported the US war on Iraq. Also, we are seeing a shift in power in the middle east away from relying on Saudi Arabia as the provider of oil price stability and towards building an Iraq in America’s image to do the job for us. We are also seeing pressure being brought to bear on Syria and radical Palestinian movements in order to force a settlement on the Palestinians. While some of these shifts may be for the good, others might be less beneficial. Still others might not work out as planned. Whatever the case, the world will be a very different place from now on.
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