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COMMENTARY
Contradictory visions of American
power
By Ehsan Ahrari
The
American people have entirely different perspectives
regarding their country's imminent invasion of Iraq than
how it is being viewed in the Middle East or in other
regions of the world. Those crucial perceptual
differences explain why so many people in the United
States support the ousting of Saddam Hussein, even
without UN sanctions, while it is being opposed so
overwhelmingly in other parts of the world. The irony of
these differences of perceptions is that both sides are
not off the mark. But how can both sides be right? At
the risk of oversimplification, let me suggest that both
sides are focused on different "evidence" in drawing
conclusions.
Public opinion research has proven,
time and again, that Americans pay little attention to
world events, and that their comprehension of the
ebb-and-flow of those events is superficial as well as
malleable. That is one reason why American presidents
have historically played a crucial role in "shaping" and
"nurturing" public opinion regarding major issues of
foreign policy. However, the role of a president to use
the power of his "bully pulpit" starts to become shaky
when the American mass media begin to dissect the
official explanations and rhetoric related to a given
major issue of foreign policy and raise questions about
its stated rationale and correctness.
A classic
example of this point may be established by examining
America's involvement in Vietnam. The seeds of that
involvement were sown in then-president John F Kennedy's
inaugural speech of "paying any price and bearing any
burden" to defend freedom and fight communism worldwide.
That rhetorical hyperbole took the US into the
Vietnam imbroglio. One may recall the "domino theory"
that was used as a rationale for the growing American
force presence in Vietnam from 1963 through 1968, or so,
and for the urgency of taking a stand against global
communism. But with the continued protraction of the
Vietnam conflict, the increasing number of American
casualties, and, above all, the intense scrutiny
regarding the pointlessness of that conflict by the
American media were some of the major reasons why
domestic support for that conflict transformed into a
powerful peace movement. Consequently, the US had to
redeploy its forces from South Vietnam under humiliating
circumstances as the North Vietnamese communists took
over the rest of that country. That was a conflict whose
significance was arguably understood only inside the top
echelons of the US government in the late 1950s and
early- to mid- 1960s.
Compare that conflict and
America's involvement in containing the communist regime
of North Vietnam with the present politically charged
environment leading to its invasion of Iraq. The chief
difference between then and now is that the US was
attacked by a group of terrorists on September 11, 2001.
Thus, public opinion has remained highly vulnerable to
all sorts of rhetorical linkages that the present
administration is incessantly establishing between
al-Qaeda terrorists and the Middle East. Saddam Hussein
is the recent focal point, despite the highly
questionable nature of linkages that President George W
Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell have attempted
to establish between him and the al-Qaeda murderers. So,
there is a significant amount of support inside the US
for toppling Saddam even without UN support. There is
little doubt that the American public has been persuaded
into viewing the invasion of Iraq as a "necessary
aspect" of ridding the world of the scourge of global
terrorism.
In the meantime, the role of the
American mass media as the "chief scrutinizer" of the
governmental rhetoric on the issue of global terrorism
and its linkages with Saddam's regime has been
considerably neutralized since the September 11 attacks.
As objective and as scrupulous the American media
historically have been in probing governmental rhetoric
on issues of foreign affairs, they have pretty much
accepted the basic line that Saddam's imminent ouster,
indeed, is part and parcel of America's vital national
interests.
Then there is the fact the
neoconservatives, inside and outside the government,
have incessantly promoted an entirely different vision
of the purpose of America's power in world affairs since
the September 11 attacks. That vision clearly states
that the US should no longer content itself by merely
managing global conflicts. Rather, the lone superpower
should unabashedly use its military and economic power
to shape those conflicts, and, in the process, alter the
regional balance of power in its favor. To add authority
to the position advocated by the neoconservatives, two
important government documents - the Quadrennial Defense
Review of 2001 and the National Security Strategy of
2002 - have incorporated their perspectives.
These two documents argue that any potential
adversaries should never be permitted to challenge the
US's dominant global strategic position, and that no
country should be allowed to gain military superiority
over the lone superpower. Those documents also formally
enshrined the doctrines of preemption, regime change and
proactive counterproliferation in the realms of weapons
of mass destruction. To be sure, these ideas are not
entirely new. They were originally leaked as part of the
thinking of mid-level US officials in 1992, when George
H W Bush was in office. His administration, rightly and
quickly, took the air out of such highly contentious
visions of America's exercise of power, and assured the
community of nations that the US would never consider
adopting any of them. However, under the current
administration, those very same concepts have become
inseparable from US foreign policy.
The
international community has become acutely aware of
those proactive doctrines that are described as evidence
of this country's "imperious" thinking outside the US.
When they combine those official documents with what is
about to happen in Iraq, and what is likely to happen
next in North Korea, the international community is
drawing conclusions that the invasion of Iraq is the
beginning of an American empire. As the Los Angeles
Times of March 16 notes, "They [the international
community] worry that America's self-declared right to
launch preemptive wars, its willingness to dismiss the
United Nations, to shuck allies and make plans to invade
and occupy another country - all amid talk of remaking
the Mideast - are the beginning of the end of the
post-World War II order and the start of an American
imperium."
But for the American people, their
country - the bastion of exceptionalism and democratic
egalitarianism - can never be anything as hideous as an
imperial power. Only events of coming weeks and months
will provide clear evidence of which side is correctly
reading the strategic purposes of America's global power
in the near future.
Ehsan Ahrari, PhD,
is an Alexandria, Virginia, US-based independent
strategic analyst.
(©2003 Asia Times Online
Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com
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