The world according to America
" Aggressive militarism has been openly endorsed by America's corporate
and media establishment. Mainstream commentators in the U.S. press now argue
that, given its awesome military might, American ambition has up to now been insufficient. "
Jan. 31, 2003, 8:45PM
chron.com
By PERVEZ HOODBHOY
STREET opinion in Pakistan, and probably in most Muslim countries, holds that Islam is
the true target of America's new wars. The fanatical hordes spilling out of Pakistan's
madrasas are certain that a modern-day Richard the Lion-Hearted will soon bear down
upon them. Swords in hand, they pray to Allah to grant war and send a modern Saladin,
who can miraculously dodge cruise missiles and hurl them back to their launchers.
Even moderate Muslims are worried. They see indicators of religious war in such things as
the profiling of Muslims by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the placing of
Muslim states on the U.S. register of rogues and the blanket approval given to Israeli
bulldozers as they level Palestinian neighborhoods.
But Muslims elevate their importance in the American cosmography. The United States has
aspirations far beyond subjugating inconsequential Muslim states: It seeks to remake the
world according to its needs, preference and convenience. The war on Iraq is but the first
step.
High ambition underlies today's American foreign policy, and its boosters are not just in
Washington. Aggressive militarism has been openly endorsed by America's corporate and
media establishment. Mainstream commentators in the U.S. press now argue that, given its
awesome military might, American ambition has up to now been insufficient.
Max Boot, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a former Wall Street Journal
editor, wrote in The Weekly Standard that "Afghanistan and other troubled lands today cry
out for the sort of enlightened foreign administration once provided by self-confident
Englishmen in jodhpurs and pith helmets." Washington Post editorial writer Sebastian
Mallaby, writing in Foreign Affairs magazine, noted that the current world chaos may point
to the need for an "imperialist revival," a return to the day when "orderly societies (imposed)
their own institutions on disorderly ones." Atlantic Monthly correspondent Robert Kaplan,
in his book Warrior Politics, suggests that American policy-makers should learn from the
Greek, Roman and British empires. "Our future leaders could do worse," he writes, "than
be praised for their ... ability to bring prosperity to distant parts of the world under
America's soft imperial influence."
Although many Americans still cling to the belief that their country's new unilateralism is a
reasonable outgrowth of "injured innocence," a natural response to terrorist acts, empire
has actually been part of the American way of life for more than a century. The difference
since Sept. 11 -- and it is a significant one -- is that, now that there is no other superpower
to keep it in check, the United States no longer sees a need to battle for the hearts and
minds of those it would dominate. In today's Washington, a U.S.-based diplomat recently
confided to me, the United Nations has become a dirty term. International law is on the way
to irrelevancy, except when it can be used to further U.S. goals.
So although extremists on all sides -- from Islamic warriors to Christian fundamentalists
such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson to the leaders of Israel's right-wing parties -- may
yearn for another crusade, the counter-evidence to a civilizational war is much stronger.
Examining the list of America's Muslim foes and friends over the years makes clear that it
is perceived self-interest rather than ideology that has dictated its policy toward Muslim
nations.
During the 1950s and 1960s, America's primary foes in the Muslim world were secular
nationalist leaders, not religious fundamentalists. Mohammed Mossadeq of Iran, who
opposed international oil companies grabbing at Iran's oil resources, was overthrown in a
coup aided by the CIA. President Sukarno of Indonesia, accused of being a communist, was
removed by U.S. intervention. Gamal Abdul Nasser of Egypt, who had Islamic
fundamentalists such as Sayyid Qutb publicly executed, fell afoul of the United States and
Britain after the Suez crisis. On the other hand, until very recently, America's friends were
the sheiks of Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf states, who practiced highly conservative
forms of Islam but were the darlings of Western oil companies.
In Afghanistan during the early 1980s, the United States aided Islamic fundamentalists on
the principle that any opposition to the Soviet occupation was welcome. Then-CIA Director
William Casey launched a massive covert operation after President Reagan signed National
Security Decision Directive 166, which explicitly stated that Soviet forces should be driven
from Afghanistan "by all means available."
Washington now acknowledges that "mission myopia," as such strategic errors have come to
be known, helped contribute to the growth of a global jihad network in the early 1980s.
But the cost of America's mistakes has been vastly greater than most policy-makers care to
acknowledge. The network of Islamic militant organizations created primarily out of the
need to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan did not disappear after the immediate goal was
achieved: Rather, like any good military-industrial complex, it grew stronger from its
victories.
The resulting damage has been far greater to Muslims than to the Americans who
unleashed it. Acts of jihad -- killing tourists, bombing churches and the like -- not only rob
Muslims of moral authority, they are a strategic disaster. Even the Sept. 11 operation,
although perfectly planned and executed, was a colossal strategic blunder. It vastly
strengthened American militarism, gave Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon a license to put
the Palestinian territories under virtual lock down, and allowed pogroms directed at
Muslims in the Indian state of Gujarat to occur with only a hint of international
condemnation.
The absence of a modern political culture and the weakness of Muslim civil society have
long rendered Muslim states inconsequential players on the world stage. An encircled,
enfeebled dictator is scarcely a threat to his neighbors as he struggles to save his skin.
Tragically, Muslim leaders, out of fear and greed, publicly wring their hands but collude
with the United States and offer their territory for bases as it now bears down on Iraq.
Significantly, no Muslim country has proposed an oil embargo or a serious boycott of
American companies.
What, then, should be the strategy for all those who believe in a just world and are appalled
by America's war on the weak? While the strong can get away with anything, the weak
cannot afford missteps. They must hew to a stern regard for morality. Vietnam, to my mind,
offers a uniquely successful model of resistance. Even though B-52s were carpet-bombing
his country, North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh did not call for hijacking airliners or
blowing up buses. On the contrary, the Vietnamese reached out to the American people,
making a clear distinction between them and their government. The country's leaders
didn't assume -- as Osama bin Laden undoubtedly would -- that Americans spoke with one
voice. Jane Fonda, Joan Baez and other popular figures were invited to come and see for
themselves what was happening in Vietnam, and they took what they learned back to the
people at home. Had Ho thought and acted like bin Laden, his country would surely now
be a radioactive wasteland, rather than a unique victor against imperialism.
Only a global peace movement that explicitly condemns terrorism against noncombatants
can slow, and perhaps halt, George Bush's madly speeding chariot of war. Massive antiwar
demonstrations in Washington, New York, London, Florence, Italy, and other Western cities
have brought out tens of thousands at a time. A sense of commitment to human principles
and peace -- not fear or fanaticism -- impelled these demonstrators.
It is time for people in my part of the world to ask themselves a question: Why are the
streets of Islamabad, Cairo, Riyadh, Damascus and Jakarta empty? Why do only fanatics
demonstrate in our cities? Let us hang our heads in shame.
Hoodbhoy is professor of high-energy physics at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad,
Pakistan. |
