| |
Power by other
means
By Ehsan Ahrari
A
number of captivating developments are taking place in
the world around us. There is that "hyperpower", the
United States, which has all the military prowess and
wherewithal to tell Iraq that it will be invaded sooner
rather than later, with or without the approval of the
UN Security Council. France and Germany are equally
determined to forestall that invasion, but their power
is limited. Russia is increasingly making known its own
opposition to US military action against Iraq. But it,
too, has little power to stop that potential. China is
siding with France and Russia. These three nations have
veto power that they can exercise in the Security
Council, but they may not be able to deter the United
States.
But there is also a very important
sideshow taking place that involves the global balance
of power. Iraq may turn out to be only the issue of the
moment. Each of the aforementioned actors is playing its
best hand to the hilt.
In the Cold War years,
both the US and the Soviet Union regularly acted to
avert any precipitous tilt of that global balance in
favor of the other. In the 21st century, Russia, China
and France are assiduously working for the revival of
that important governing principle, while the US, the
sole but a formidable force, is working against it.
Iraq has been the major sore point for
Washington. It was the only country since the World War
II that lost a war but managed not to surrender. There
was no humiliating "photo-op" involving Saddam Hussein
and the signing of an agreement of capitulation, a-la
Japan after World War II. Even after badly losing the
Gulf War of 1991, the Iraqi dictator was nowhere to be
seen when Generals Norman Schwartzkopf and Khalid Bin
Sultan showed up to sign the ceasefire agreement with
their Iraqi counterpart. The US has regretted making
that mistake ever since. Thus, this time, the Bush
administration is determined to bring about not just a
regime change but also the decapitation of Iraqi
leadership.
The US knows that by invading Iraq
it can establish its hegemony on the Middle East for a
long time, or so its hopes. After occupying Iraq, the
civilian leadership in Washington thinks that it can
intimidate Iran to no end. The intent is likely to be to
pressure Iran into abandoning its nuclear and missile
programs. The notion of "regime change" in Iran through
carrying out propaganda campaigns is already a live
option inside the Beltway. The Saudi Islamic puritans
also are likely to come under sharp pressure to tame
their puritanism, indeed, liberalize their society.
That leaves Syria as a challenge, but a
challenge of minor scope. The Israelis will be more than
happy to carry out the lion's share of solving the
Syrian problem by taking whatever action is necessary.
All they need is a green light from the Bush
administration. Another "bad boy", Muammar Gaddafi of
Libya, is pretty much tamed, except for his Scud missile
and chemical weapons programs. And those programs are
likely to come under heightened scrutiny, if all goes
well involving Iraq from the US perspective.
How
do the preceding scenarios affect Russian and French
power? Well, neither one has much visible power in the
Middle East, to start with. In the Cold War years, the
Soviet Union successfully played the role of "spoiler"
by serving as an obstacle to any ambitious US exercise
of hegemony. In fact, the US and the USSR came close to
a nuclear clash during the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, when
the Egyptian Third Army faced the possibility of being
annihilated as a result of the Israeli counterattack.
Egypt sent an urgent plea for help to the Soviet Union
to save its forces, and Moscow threatened to send troops
to assist Cairo, thereby making possible a direct clash
of the two superpowers. The result was the famous
"shuttle diplomacy" of then US secretary of state Henry
Kissinger, and a resultant aversion of a major crisis
that would have overwhelmingly favored the US and its
client, Israel.
Moscow's own hegemonic
aspirations were similarly deterred by Washington during
the Cold War decades. About the only time the USSR had
any substantive success of a temporary nature was when
it occupied Afghanistan. However, that occupation was
brought to an end through a successful proxy war
involving the US and Pakistan.
In the post-Cold
War years, Russia emerged as a mere shadow of its
erstwhile formidable military self. The previous role of
the former Soviet Union as deterrent to any precipitous
US action, anywhere in the world, but especially in the
Middle East, also entered history. Iraq, Syria and Libya
- who could count on the Soviet help during the time of
crises in the Cold War decades - were left with no
possibility of a superpower backing their respective
security interests.
France emerged from World
War II as a shattered power. It remained on the sideline
in reference to the Middle East during the post-Cold War
years. However, it - unlike the UK, which opted for the
perpetual post-World War II role of subservience to the
US - adopted Gaullism as a permanent feature of its
foreign policy. Gaullism may best be described as
France's exercise of pretending to act as a major power.
As such, it institutionalized such characteristics as
developing an independent nuclear force (force de
frappe), and annoying the US, whenever such
opportunities presented themselves in global affairs. It
is that very role that Paris is now playing so
diligently in opposing Washington’s preference for the
invasion of Iraq.
The larger purpose of this
balancing of power among the US, Russia and France
appears to be the desire on the part of Moscow and Paris
to make it difficult for Washington to establish its
hegemony in the Middle East by carrying out the invasion
of Iraq. They cannot stop the US military machinery.
However, if they can muddy up the international waters
long enough by postponing the US invasion, they might
succeed in permanently forestalling it. This observation
may sound a bit outrageous at face value; however,
considering that France and Russia do not have much of a
military deterrence at their disposal, the use of the
international forum to echo all sorts of doubts about
the very rationality (or the lack there of) of carrying
out a war instead of pursuing a harsher inspection
regime in Iraq, might turn out to be the most effective
and potent strategy at their disposal.
The US,
on its side, is fully cognizant of the Franco-Russian
strategy. That is why President George W Bush is
sounding tirelessly militant and jingoistic in his
denunciation of Iraq. In addition, he is also wary of
the linkage between Iraq and North Korea involving
weapons of mass destruction.
North Korea is
doing everything publicly that Bush has been accusing
Iraq of doing. Pyongyang has very active nuclear weapons
and missile development and sale programs that go to the
heart of the nuclear and missile proliferation problems
that so rattle the US. Yet Washington is presently not
interested in confronting Pyongyang, by threatening
military actions. If the invasion of Iraq is carried out
in the near future, the Bush administration may be able
to concentrate on confronting North Korea at some point.
So, from Washington's perspective, there is that
dual challenge of toppling Saddam and defanging Kim
Jong-il, whose successful resolution will guarantee US
hegemony for the foreseeable future. After that, the US
may focus on ensuring that neither Russia nor China
becomes so powerful that the global system starts to
look bipolar or tripolar, as opposed to its present
state of unipolarity.
As the US has become
blatant about not allowing any other nation-state to
challenge its military dominance, its invasion of Iraq
might be the beginning of truly operationalizing that
notion. Whether that invasion will really be the
beginning of the making or unmaking of the Pax-Americana
has a lot to do with how other great powers would react
to it in the days when the US becomes an "occupier" of a
major Muslim-Arab country, and attempts to shape it in
its own image.
(©2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd.
All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com
for information on our sales and syndication policies,
or to submit a letter to the editor.)
|
| |
|
|
 |
|
