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Commentary No. 75, Oct. 15, 2001
"The Dilemmas of a Superpower"
President Bush and his associates have obviously been debating intensely how they should deal with the challenge to U.S. power and security that the Sept. 11 attacks have posed. They seem to be doing this carefully, and are probably quite dismayed at the negative consequences of most of the ways in which the U.S. government might react.
The first problem they have faced is the breadth of the "coalition" that the U.S. wishes to assemble in its "war on terrorism." The world press reports constantly that there are two quite different views within the U.S. government. Option A seems to be broad coalition and narrow definition of objectives. Option B seems to be narrow coalition and broad definition of objectives. The press indicates that Colin Powell is the most prominent spokesperson for Option A, and the Undersecretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz, the most prominent spokesperson for the Option B. For the moment, it seems that President Bush, Vice-President Cheney, and probably Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld have come down on the side of Option A, and that is what the U.S. in initially pursuing.
What does Option A involve? It involves trying to get virtually every government in the world to endorse the objective of pursuing bin Laden. That is of course not difficult since bin Laden and al-Qaeda seem to have negative views about virtually every government in the world, with the exception of the Taliban. They denounce the U.S. first of all of course, and Israel too of course. But they also denounce Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt, and Iran. They do not like the Iraqi regime. Small wonder that virtually all of these governments return the compliment. The objective, "bringing bin Laden to justice," gets rapid endorsement.
But how does one bring bin Laden to justice? It seems that the answer is by pressure on the Taliban, who are the de facto (if not the de jure) government of Afghanistan. What kind of pressure? Well, bombing. A little bombing has won at least tacit support from the "coalition." A lot of bombing? We shall have to see. And extending the bombing to include Iraq, as proponents of Option B wish to do? Very few governments would endorse that.
The United States has not ruled out Option B. They seem merely to have decided to try Option A first. President Bush has been careful to add sentences to his statements which leave the door slightly open to Option B. They have also left the door open in a second way. The coalition may be as wide as conceivable, but the military action includes only two countries, the U.S. and Great Britain.
This is no accident. At the time of the Gulf War, the first President Bush asked for United Nations authorization. The U.S. found that this meant that they had to clear various matters along the route with too many others. So, when Kosovo came along, President Clinton was careful to leave the U.N. out and ask only for NATO authorization. It turned out that even NATO tied U.S. military hands too much for the taste of the U.S. government. This time, when NATO offered its military help, the U.S. said no. Germany is said to have been particularly peeved. Doing it this way, however, means that, if the U.S. decides to move to Option B, it has to clear this at most with Tony Blair. (The press suggests, however, that even Blair might not be enthusiastic about extending action to Iraq.)
What is this all about? Since bin Laden has openly challenged U.S. military prowess, the U.S. is determined to reassert this. It's not merely a matter of protecting U.S. citizens and residents from attack, but of re-establishing worldwide belief that the U.S. is an invincible superpower. Can the U.S. do this?
The problem with Option A is that bombing raids on Afghanistan are not going to accomplish too much. Probably the next step will be sending in special forces. Bin Laden knows that, and indeed looks forward to it. He seems convinced that the Afghans defeated the Soviet Union and brought down its system. Of course, the U.S. believes it brought down the Soviet Union, but that is not bin Laden's view. Bin Laden clearly hopes, and expects, that the U.S. will meet the Soviet fate in Afghanistan, and that as a consequence he will "bring down" the United States as a superpower. It seems a fantastic idea, but then bringing down the Twin Towers in New York would have been considered a fantastic idea a mere two months ago.
Bush, Rumsfeld, and Blair have been repeating, almost as a litany, that the war will be "long," and by that they seem to mean at the very least a year (or two or three?). They are thus "preparing" U.S. and world public opinion for the fact that instant victory is not at hand. The problem with a "long" war is that the very length of it works in favor of bin Laden's objective, exposing the clay feet of a superpower. If the war is long (and begins to be costly in lives), without clear military achievements, a number of things will happen. The "coalition" will fritter, and particularly the degree of support the U.S. will be able to get from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. A "peace movement" will begin to emerge in the U.S., the Western world more generally, and the rest of the world as well.
But perhaps worst of all for the Bush administration, it itself might begin to be torn apart. The proponents of Option B will become more vocal and more denunciatory of the proponents of Option A. Who knows who would then resign? But such a development cannot be politically healthy for President Bush. If in addition, there were one or two coups in Middle Eastern states, bringing to power governments less friendly to the U.S., this would only exacerbate things. And if violence escalated on other fronts (not only Israel/Palestine, but say northern Ireland, Indonesia, and who knows where else?), the idea that bin Laden was the singular most evil "terrorist" in the world would begin to seem implausible.
This is of course a dismal picture from the point of view of the U.S. government. The proponents of Option B will say that this is by no means inevitable. They will urge not only Option B but perhaps an enhanced version, say using tactical nuclear weapons somewhere or other. This is not an impossible scenario. If carried out, however, it could isolate the U.S. diplomatically in a dramatic way. On the other hand, the U.S. could find itself less capable of maintaining diplomatic support even if it stayed with Option A but were not able to eliminate bin Laden.
The United States is playing for very high stakes. It had lured itself into thinking, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, that it was truly a superpower, and that no force could stand in its way. It misinterpreted its very limited victory in the Gulf War and in Kosovo as evidence that this was true. It may well find that this isn't really true. And if it does find that, then it may have to reassess quite dramatically how it relates to the rest of the world. Bin Laden claims to speak for long-standing grievances of the Islamic world. He envisages a replacement world in which very few of us could find a place, or would find livable. It would not at all be a better world, even for Muslims. But bin Laden is a clever man as well as an ideologically-committed man, who is taking great advantage of the structural weaknesses of the U.S. position as a declining hegemonic power. And it is not at all clear that the U.S. governments (either of Bush or Clinton before him) have understood geopolitical realities as well as he and al-Qaeda have. In war and diplomacy, there is no room for self-deception.
Immanuel Wallerstein
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