Is American Policy Changing? (For publication on Sunday the 17^th September 2006)

By Kazi Anwarul Masud (former Secretary and ambassador)

Despite popular perception that the aggressive foreign policy of the Bush administration has undergone a perceptible change towards multilarealism Bush National Security Strategy of 2006 compared to his earlier one of 2002 does not reflect the popular belief of a change in policy. Lawrence Korb and Caroline Wadhams (Center for American Progress) disagree. They argue that the 2006 NSS continue to confuse preemption with preventive war, emphasizes the unachievable goal of “ending tyranny” throughout the world, and fails to make a realistic assessment of threat to the US and the Western world. Unless one thinks of President Bush as a zealot who has been sent by God with a mission to rid the world, among others, of the axis-of evil, then one is truly left wondering as to why an American President in his second term is not yet clear as to the legacy he intends to bequeath the world after he has left his office. Bill Clinton, Molina Lewinsky episode apart, has left a prosperous and safer America. His efforts to sincerely try to solve the Middle East crisis, as Jimmy Carter did with regard to the Middle East reflected in the historical handshake by Yasser Arafat with Yitzhak Rabin will always be remembered. President Reagan’s request to Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall was not followed by American military prowess. Neither did Eisenhower and Johnson employ military power to prevent Soviet Union’s military interventions in Hungary and Poland in 1956 and then Czechoslovakia in 1968. President Bush on the other hand still remains totally committed to what he calls for eradication of “Islamic fanaticism” which is not contested by the Islamic world as terrorism is abhorred by the Muslims as by the next person but what is being contested is the religious profiling by the Western countries in the name of security. As it is many academics of impeccable credentials are worried of “spiraling alienation” of the Muslim Diaspora in the West though, in the words of Professor David Held, we no longer live in a world of discreet national communities but “in overlapping communities of fate”. It is not known whether Bush administration had made a cost-benefit analysis of the doctrine of preemption before embarking on what is now commonly realized as an adventure  in Iraq that has turned costly both financially and materially (more than 2400 American military personnel have lost their lives and more than 17500 have been wounded while more than $ 300 billion has been spent). Bush administration does not appear to be unduly worried over body bags coming back home because the number is not colossal as was in the case of Vietnam nor the possibility of imminent defeat staring in the face of the Americans. This has perhaps emboldened Melvin Laird, US Defense Secretary at the fag end of the Vietnam war, to urge President Bush that Iraq war must carry the message that the US is fighting in Iraq to bring about freedom and liberty to those “yet unconverted” to western values, little realizing that the Orient is no longer an Antarctica of freedom nor is wedded to the values of communal benefit at the expense of individual liberty or what is touted as Asian values as opposed to Western values. This gives lie to the assertion of historian Bernard Lewis that democracy is a peculiarly western practice for the conduct of public affaires that may or may not be suitable for others.  Karb and Wadhams in their analysis of Bush administration’s fiscal year 2007 national security budget have revealed the offensive component (Department of Defense) has been allocated twenty times more than the prevention component (State Department). They further assert that the current administration spends twice the amount every month in Iraq than what has been allocated for Millennium Challenge Account. Though understandably Bush administration is remaining steadfast in pursuing the war on terror and its policy on Iraq as being inerrant because of its appeal, albeit less than before, to the American electorate who will be called upon to elect governors, senators and congress man and women in November, it is generally recognized that use by US of hard power (military and economic power) as defined by Harvard Professor Joseph Nye is not endearing the country to people both at home and abroad. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice has now acknowledged that the US’ prestige around the globe is now at an all time low. US disdain of international law as being too amorphous to merit US consent and too intrusive in the US domestic affairs has been reflected in the American refusal to join the International Criminal Court, sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the Enforcement Protocol of the Biological Weapons Convention, or the Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty or the Kyoto Treaty on global warming.

Contrary to common belief   fundamentalism does lie in Islam alone. Walter Russell Mead of the US Council of Foreign Relations (God’s country—foreign affairs—September/October 2006) has described the US, the only super power in the world today, as a nation where religion shapes its character, helps form America’s ideas about the world, and influences ways Americans respond to events beyond its shores. Currently three strains envelop the nation—a strict tradition that can be called fundamentalists; a progressive and ethical tradition which may be called liberal Christianity; and a broader evangelical order. These three competing streams often influence the ways about the US’ role in foreign policy. Though evangelicals straddle the divide between the fundamentalists and the liberals, they resemble the fundamentalists in many ways. Self-identified evangelicals accounted for 40% of votes for President Bush in 2004 and the white evangelicals voted 78% in the same election. They also wield considerable influence in the Congressional and Senate elections with the result that self-identified evangelicals in the Congress have risen from 10% in 1970 to 25% in 2004. On the  question of Israel increasing evangelical political power have translated into deepening US support for Israel in the US administration and Congress as opposed to liberal Christian establishment who prefer to take a moderate view of the crisis in the Middle East. This support for Israel is not a recent phenomenon. In the nineteenth century the evangelicals repeatedly requested the US administrations to establish a refuge in the holy land for the Jews to escape European and Ottoman Empire’s persecution. This support for the Jews was rooted in the belief of the evangelicals that the Christians are the new and true children of Israel and that the Jews have a place in God’s plan in the sense that the Jews would return to the holy land before the triumphant return of Jesus Christ. In the interregnum the Jews would continue to reject Christ, a belief that reduces tension between the Christians and the Jews. “For evangelicals” writes Mead “the fact the Jewish people have survived through the millennia and that they have returned to their ancient home is proof that God is real, that the Bible is inspired, and that the Christian religion is true... They see in the weakness, defeat, and poverty of the Arab world ample evidence that God curses those who curse Israel”. Important evangelical leaders like John Hagee advocates that should Iran moves to attack Israel the US must be prepared “to stop this evil enemy in its tracks”. The liberals, however, have come to sympathize with the Palestinian movement because of Israel’s human rights abuses in the occupied lands. But the liberal Christians and secular intellectuals have been losing ground simply because evangelicals have been increasing social and political power. In this scenario Marxian explanation of religion as an opiate to soothe the pain of existence or Freudian description of religious beliefs “ to exorcise the terror of nature; men’s efforts to reconcile to the cruelty of fate, particularly as shown in death, and (that) they must compensate them for the sufferings and privations which a civilized life in common has imposed on them” have been totally displaced from people’s mind and consequent political discourse.

In Europe, however, despite collective guilt still felt by the Europeans for the holocaust they are by and large more just and equitable in their judgment on the Middle East crisis. The Europeans have been more strident in their denunciation of Israeli wanton aggression of Lebanon. In the recently held G-8 summit at St.. Petersburg in Russia Jacques Chirac had frankly described the Israeli mission was to destroy the Lebanese economy by destroying its infrastructures. At the summit President Bush appeared to be lone voice of discord in support of Israel while the rest, in varying degrees, were critical of the Israeli aggression. While one would not support Hezbollah’s kidnapping of the two Israeli soldiers and its terrorist activities, the world community cannot condone Israel’s indiscriminate destruction and murder of civilians.

But then the Muslim world could, perhaps, try to mitigate the clash of two competing ideologies within the Islamic world and disengage the clash of civilizations between Islam and Christianity now being propagated.  One way could be further democratization of the Muslim society.

Though doubts remain about bush administration’s sincerity about bringing democracy to the Islamic world it is, however, believed that the Bush administration has come to the conclusion that “democracy deficit” tolerated by the successive US administrations responding to the situations demanded by the cold war resulted in dictatorial regimes in many Muslim countries where dissent often meant being sent to the gulags while profligate elites lived life of moral degeneration ultimately affecting adversely Western interest. At the same time there was the conviction of the liberal thinkers and embraced by the neo-cons that democracies do not go to war against one another simply because waging war by a democracy would need distilled approval of different branches of the administration thus making it a difficult venture.  The Western world, therefore, has now realized that policies followed hitherto had given birth to failed states in the vacuum left by the cold war which helped incubate the vitriolic contagion of al-Qaida variety. Unfortunately the panic following the 9/11 events new cold war warriors equated Islamic fundamentalism with political Islam. 

Question has, however, arisen whether democratization of Muslim societies would necessarily reduce terrorism and prevent fresh recruits to the terrorist outfits. Vermont University Professor Gregory Gause holds the view that in the absence of data available showing a strong relationship between democracy and absence or reduction of terrorism, the phenomenon appears to stem from factors other than regime type. He argues that since the al-Qaidists are not fighting for democracy but for the establishment of what they believe to be a purist version of an Islamic state there is no reason to believe that a tidal wave of democracy would wash away terrorist activities. Political reforms, therefore, has been suggested by some as a possible solution to get out of the so-called clash of civilizations.  But liberal thinker Paul Berman states that this approach may not succeed as al-Qaida ideology and radical Islam are driven by a fear and hatred of liberal Islam which they see as a “hideous schizophrenia” of the West that divides the state from religion and promotes individual freedom. Some believe that modernity rather than democracy should be used as the most important tool to fight global terrorism. Since modernity involves more than improved material conditions and entails a transformation in beliefs and philosophies, al-Qaedists with their narrow interpretation of religious dogmas would lose their appeal. But then again it has also been argued that al-Qaedist appeal is not due to lack of modernity in the Islamic society but due to its excess which in the view of so-called purists is instrumental in contributing to social “degeneration” of the Western culture having contagion-effect on Muslim societies. 

 It is sometimes said that the Arabs and the entire Muslim world have a keen sense of history as they are reminded of Samuel Huntington’s observation: “the West won the world not by superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by the superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-westerners never do”.

In the context of the above one is not certain whether the Bush administration’s current interaction with Islam and Muslim countries is not so deeply enveloped in self-interest that the old cold war policy of coalescing with quasi-military or oppressive regimes is no longer regarded as a contradiction of principles and morality which the Bush administration is preaching. One suspects, as in the case of Bangladesh, the repression let loose by the authorities on the political programs of the opposition political parties and the obduracy shown in the face of collective protests by the saner sections of the society regarding the incompetence of the Election Commission in preparing a flawless voters’ list and apprehension expressed about the possible partisan role which could be played by the next head of the caretaker government, is not lost in the indifference of the US policy makers to the lot of peoples like those living in Bangladesh.