The consensus on Iraq
Lawrence Solomon
Financial Post
Wednesday, March 12, 2003
Most Americans want Saddam Hussein disarmed by force. Most citizens of most other countries oppose war.
And in coming to their views, most citizens of all countries are acting out of the same basic human instinct: They are calculating the course likeliest to save their own skin.
Americans, like just about everyone else, expect terrorism to increase after a war with Iraq breaks out. This is the official assessment of the CIA in the United States and of intelligence agencies in other nations; as polling shows, this is the assessment of the public in all Western nations; and this is the assessment of terrorists themselves.
But unlike the public in Canada, Europe and most other countries, a large number of Americans see Saddam as a direct threat to themselves -- 79%, according to an ABC News poll released earlier this week. And following Sept. 11, all Americans know that they are the terrorists' target of choice. The drive to survive tells most Americans that they must act, despite the threat of increased terrorism: As put by President Bush, the risk of inaction exceeds the risk of action.
The same drive to survive tells most Canadians, Europeans and others to keep their heads down. Americans top the Islamic terrorists' most-wanted list, non-Americans agree. Why attract the terrorists' ire by standing with the United States? The risk of action, most non-Americans reason, exceeds the risk of inaction.
Yet many recognize that Saddam is not risk free, even if they find his link to terrorism murky. They recognize him for the tyrant he is and, pacifists aside, do not oppose the war on principle. If they could support the United States by stealth -- under cover of a UN resolution that makes war an anonymous affair by stripping it of national responsibility -- many would. Polls show that support soars among the anti-war majority for such a war. Prime Minister Chrétien, resolutely representing the conflicted Canadian view, has implied for months that he would lead Canada to war against Iraq under the United Nations banner. The same war against the same tyrant, but backed by countries that singled themselves out as members of a Coalition of the Willing, was not on.
Americans are surprised at the failure of the world to act multilaterally against so clear a menace. They shouldn't be. Americans, more than most, proclaim the virtue of acting when it is in the American interest to do so, and of otherwise holding their peace. Other nations, though cloaking their actions in higher-sounding rhetoric, are only doing as the Americans say. The other nations perceive, rightly or wrongly, that Saddam and all he represents is not a major menace to them, but that terrorists among the large Muslim populations in their midsts are. Just this week, a Frankfurt court sentenced four Muslim terrorists, of French and Iraqi origin, who had planned to attack a Strasbourg Christmas market in December, 2000. Had it succeeded, the head judge stated chillingly, the result would have been "a horrific blood bath ... that could have hit anyone, including unsuspecting, defenceless people."
Unlike North America, Europe is not a multicultural melting pot, and Muslims there are second-class citizens. Muslim resentment boils at open discrimination, and for good reason. Non-Muslim Europeans fear it may explode if they provide, through Iraq, a pretext for terrorism. Europe's leaders have another reason for squeamishness, too: While they exhort their populations to demonstrate in favour of multilateralism in disarming Saddam, they practice unilateralism in arming him. Russia, France and Germany are all thought to be profiting through Iraqi arms sales, in violation of UN sanctions.
Ironically, despite America's stated virtue of acting unilaterally, it has practiced multilateralism: Most of this century's noble multilateral experiments -- from the League of Nations to the United Nations, from GATT to the WTO, from the World Bank to the IMF -- are essentially American creations. America's pursuit of its own self-interest more resembled an enlightened self-interest: It sought long-term gain by promoting, at its immediate expense, freedom and free markets around the world, generally through multilateral organizations.
Now America will pursue Saddam without further illusion about the citizenry in Western countries or about the United Nations Security Council, however it ultimately votes. The two President Bushes were the only American presidents to ask the UN to take military action in 50 years; an American president is unlikely to repeat the experience in the next 50 years, even if the UN, in weakened form, survives the war on Iraq. Other UN institutions, such as UNESCO and UNDP, could also find themselves diminished. As could the World Bank, the IMF and other multilateral organizations that fail in future to give the United States full bang for its buck. The United States has already begun to negotiate one-on-one with other countries. "We're talking to people about their interests," U.S. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice says.
After World War II, the United States rebuilt Germany, nurtured Japan and guaranteed the peace against an expansionist Soviet Empire. After the War on Terrorism, the United States will again help rebuild the foes it conquers, but it may be less charitable with some of its friends. "Those who are not with us are against us," President Bush said, even before he realized how small a return America had earned following decades as Europe's liberator and the free world's protector.
nationalpost.com{D81878D8-EBBC-4BBE-B244-104E2E97D9A5} |
