'Unchastened colossus'
Posted on Sunday, September 21 @ 09:06:40 EDT
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History is made by great men. The trouble is that great men, because they wield great power, are also the ones who do the most harm
Iraq is a mess. So of course is Afghanistan and Palestine. A changing American mood spells trouble for the White House administration. "But yesterday the word of Caeser might have stood against the world; now lies he there, and none so poor to do him reverence." Will that be the epitaph of George Bush after the next election?
Did the president and his advisors ('all honourable men' in Mark Antony's words) not know, how rapidly the supreme self-assurance of Lady Macbeth ('A little water clears of this deed; how easy is it then!') can transform to harrowing despair ('Here's the smell of blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand!')
I think back to those umpteen press conferences of Donald Rumsfeld just a few months ago. The playful smirk could barely hide the contemptuous manner in which he dealt with the international press. Strange that he is hardly visible nowadays. And what about those gleeful analysts on Fox News, their incandescent halo of patriotism on glittering display, vying with each other in trashing the UN, the French, and the Germans, what's happened to them, I wonder? Where is that jaunty insouciance and cockiness of yesterday?
Was it poetic justice that Mr Wolfowitz was chosen to make the administration's embarrassing case for patience and more money before the House Armed Services Committee? The harried look and the mumbled words to which he was reduced -- so eloquently captured by the TV cameras -- when Senator Kennedy bitingly reminded him of some of the more optimistic past pronouncements of the administration, will not be remembered as Mr Wolfowitz's finest hour in the spotlight. He clearly was not amused. Many were. Even the president himself, in his address to the nation, has been forced to up the ante and resort to blatant scare-mongering to keep his blinkered vision from rapidly becoming a personal nightmare.
How does one begin to understand such devastating short-sightedness in such 'honourable men'?
I will say nothing of the president. He is just your average politician who was simply sold a 'dummy' by his inner coterie: strike the heroic pose of a man of destiny, win some cheap and easy victories over the nasty lot and secure the next election on a wave of patriotic fervour. As we now know, the advisors had their own reasons for urging such a policy on the president. These men, of a somewhat different calibre than most of our worthy ministerial non-entities, may have unrealistically audacious goals but they are certainly no fools. What puzzles me is how and why they could make such simple errors of judgement.
Lest all this be thought a product of hindsight, I quote from what I wrote back in March: "Does anyone have a clear idea at the moment of all the wide and deep political consequences of this war? Consequences for the Middle East and Iran not to mention Iraq itself? ... For how long can the Americans continue and sustain their go-it-alone policies? They will have to significantly soften their present disdainful stance towards the UN and the major powers..." Similar views were expressed by many others.
So how is it that so many ordinary people had a better idea of how events were likely to unfold than all those intelligent professional policy makers? We rely on common sense and some intelligent guesswork, while they have the luxury of a mine-load of information and limitless resources to simulate, explore and debate all possible outcomes.
The uncomplicated answer is the lack of humility in most of those who attain the pinnacles of power. A driving self-confidence is what probably got them there in the first place. That wonderful human quality, the antithesis of Hamlet-like self-doubt, provides the adrenaline rush to downplay the risks when a momentous but dubious venture is contemplated. The will to succeed brooks no obstacles.
It is the 'stuff' of great men and, as my friend our ex-Foreign Minister Sardar Assef Ali said to me the other day, History is made by great men. The trouble is that great men, because they wield great power, are also the ones who do the most harm. Throwing money at a problem is a classic American solution. I think of the hundreds of billions (trillions?) this 'war on terror' has cost the world, directly and indirectly. A fraction of that money directed towards social and economic uplift may have been far more productive for everyone's long-term security.
Of course the story is not over yet. There is no hint of a breeze to blow away this dark cloud of the 'war on terror' which blocks the sunlight. The president will get the extra money needed, the Americans are not about to leave Iraq or Afghanistan, or pressure Israel, and the UN and others will -willy-nilly -- eventually join the act.
President Bush may even be re-elected. For the reality is that America is so powerful and so indispensable for the rest of the world, it can simply shrug off a major miscalculation. Instead Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and others will pay the inevitable price in the shape of violence, turmoil, and political instability, for a long time to come yet. That's realpolitik for you. A concept utterly familiar to every generation of Pakistanis. The parallel between our own armed forces and the self-righteous American colossus is quite irresistible. |
