The not-so-easy choices the US faces


	March 26, 2002	atimes.com

Central Asia/Russia

The not-so-easy choices the US faces
By Ehsan Ahrari

Former United States secretary of state Henry Kissinger, in his essay, "Why Bush's Axis of Evil Provokes Acrimony", added his sage thinking to the increasingly convoluted international debate resulting from that statement.

Since the US under the presidency of George W Bush is regularly described as a practitioner of unilateralism - which, despite the denials of top Bush officials, has not really gone away in the post-September 11 era - it is instructive to reflect on two very important points made by Kissinger in the context of Afghanistan and Iraq.

He states, "It must be remembered that one country's perception of unilateralism is another's perception of leadership. A definition of consensus based on unanimity leads to paralysis; a definition of leadership insisting on unilateralism on every issue leads to an imperialism that in the long run exhausts the imperial power." Kissinger's most perceptive advice for the US is "to navigate between these extremes is the challenge for American policy".

But the controversies related to Bush's foreign policy in the post-September 11 era might not be dismissed as merely perceptual. If Washington wants to defeat global terrorism, the whole world is in its corner because terrorism seems to be increasingly complicating daily human existence at the global level, and, with the passage of every day, one gets the sinking feeling that the worse part of this pathology may still be ahead of us. But then the US becomes solely focused on the military aspects of defeating terrorism in Afghanistan, at the gross neglect of political, economic, and diplomatic aspects of achieving that objective.

For instance, we are told that the United States has successfully concluded Operation Anaconda. Reports from Afghanistan describe the final phase of "mop-up" operations of eradicating the al-Qaeda and the Taliban fighting forces. Then there are disturbing reports that the opium trade is re-emerging in that country with a vengeance. As long as that trade is thriving, terrorist groups in and around Afghanistan will continue to find avenfor subsidizing their nefarious activities.

Another equally depressing report describes the resurgence of warlordism in Afghanistan with, perhaps, unwitting participation of the United States. It states, "Inter-ethnic tension is compounded by the fact that Hamid Karzai [Afghanistan's interim leader] has been unable to build a constituency amongst his fellow Pashtuns, where there is political anarchy and rampant warlordism - much of it being fueled by the Americans who fund warlords to hunt down al-Qaeda fighters and decline to pressure them to be loyal to the central government."

Since the United States is the leader of the Anaconda operations, no country is yet criticizing it for remaining so focused on the military operations that it might end up losing the larger war on terrorism, especially if Afghanistan once again were to be divided into mini-fiefdoms of petty warlords, as it was before the emergence of the Taliban as the dominant force of that country in 1996.

Kissinger's point about navigating between the extremes of seeking consensus on every issue and unilateralism is, at worst, not being carried out at all, or at best, it is being done for the purpose of only promoting solutions preferred by the United States. The case in point is Iraq. Vice President Dick Cheney, in his recent trip to the Middle East, found out how wide the chasm between the United States and the Arab world really is on the issue of toppling Saddam Hussein.

How naive the Bush administration can be to think that Arab governments would go along with the US to oust Saddam for violating United Nations resolutions when Israel has been doing the same thing for so long, and with the frequent and even explicit support and approval of the Bush officials, including Bush himself. No one loves Saddam in the ruling corridors of the Arab Middle East, but there is a growing feeling that the follies of Saddam are certainly no greater than those of Israel. The Saudi Gazette, Saudi Arabia's main English-language newspaper, expressing the official contempt for Saddam and Ariel Sharon of Israel during Cheney's visit to that country, labeled both of them "butchers".

The double standards of the US foreign policy regarding Israel and Iraq, which have been controversial in the Middle East and Europe for such a long time, have not only have been intensified in the post-September 11 era, but they have also emerged as a source of intense resentment among Arab leaders.

Under such a charged environment, the task of creating a consensus among America's European and Arab allies and friends for ousting Saddam has become next to impossible. Consequently, the temptation among the mandarins of US foreign policy, both inside and in the close propinquity of the Bush administration, is to prefer the seemingly easy course of unilateral action to achieve that result.

But Henry Kissinger's second point is also superb advice for the current administration. "The dominant trend in American foreign policy," he writes, "must be to transform power into consensus so that the international order is based on agreement rather than reluctant acquiescence." In the post-September 11 era - which is characterized by a remarkable resurgence of bellicosity, militarism and, at best, tepid commitment to unilateralism in the United States - it seems that there is little interest in going through the tedium of transforming power into consensus. On the contrary, the Bush administration appears to be ready to fall prey to the temptations of unilateral actions - especially opting for a military solution to an obdurate problem - and to confuse "reluctant acquiescence" of the allies and friends with agreement.

The future ability of the United States to choose between diplomacy and military options will speak volumes about whether it will continue to use its power to create international consensus over intricate conflicting issues of global magnitude, and thus remain a global moral force, or become a mere bully, only preferring to have its way.

Iraq might test the will and patience of the Bush administration not to opt for seemingly easy solutions, which may only pave the path for future miasma of endless involvement, in order to avoid anarchy spilling beyond the borders of Iraq.

Ehsan Ahrarim PhD, is a Norfolk, Virginia, US-based strategic analyst.

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