From Aljazeerah.......an interesting read!
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Regime change scorecard — Bush 2 1/2, Osama 1
Rami G. Khouri
Jordan Times, Wednesday, March 17, 2004
THE CYCLE of regime change and preemptive war that George Bush and his neoconservative friends launched two years ago has come full circle with the events in Spain during the past week. There is no other or more elegant way to say this: if Al Qaeda or some group associated with it planted the bombs that killed 200 and injured over 1,400 in Madrid last week, then we have just witnessed the first case of Al Qaeda using tactics to bring about regime change in a Western democracy. Bush has used force to change two and a half regimes in recent years (Afghanistan, Iraq and half in Palestine) and Osama Ben Laden has changed one regime (Spain). The change of Spanish government, due to the elections Sunday, will be heavily debated, as it should be, at the level of both ideology and morality. We have already heard charges that the new Spanish government, headed by the Socialist Party's Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, has succumbed to the politics of “appeasement” in its decision to withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq by July, unless they remain there under a formal UN mandate.
The appeasement accusation will grow stronger and get uglier in the weeks and months ahead. It deserves a full and fair hearing, and nobody should shy away from it or be intellectually terrorised by the charge. The fast cycle of events of the past week may provide that important opportunity for a full debate on the several related issues here that must be addressed in an integrated and honest manner: terror against targets in the Middle East, Asia, Europe and the US, the war on Iraq and the consequences of the regime change there, the impact of the foreign policies of states such as the US, Israel, the UK, Spain and others, and the role of Western public opinion in formulating those foreign policies.
We are in for a very rough ride if terror groups are now to become emboldened and attack civilians in Western countries in order to change their governments through democratic elections, as happened in Spain. On the other hand, it could be argued that the right-wing Spanish government of former prime minister Jose Maria Aznar was the anomaly that was grotesquely out of touch with its public opinion, given that a vast majority of Spaniards opposed their government's joining the US and UK in attacking Iraq. Here's another question that should be added to the appeasement debate: did the new Spanish government appease Islamist terrorism, or did the former Spanish government first appease American neoconservatism?
The universal horror and brutality of terror against civilians — whether Americans, Europeans, Israelis or Arabs — tends to cloud the analytical weapons that are needed to fight and defeat this scourge. The Spanish situation may be an important milestone on the road to a more effective global battle against terror; this must start with a more accurate and realistic analysis of why terror happens, and how ordinary human beings become terrorists and mass killers.
In the past decade of terror attacks against targets throughout the world, the American-led “war against terror” seems to have incited terrorists to carry out new attacks as much as it has broken up and curtailed terror networks. The jury is still out, for example, on the rather important question of whether the war on Iraq has dampened or heightened terror against Americans and others.
For most of the past decade, that debate has been largely defined by the United States, both through the spin-doctoring capabilities of its global leadership status and through the dominance of the global media by American commercial television, notably CNN. The last few years have seen significant, even historic, reversals in these two trends: most of the world, including most Western democracies, opposed the unilateral Anglo-American war in Iraq, and a veritable legion of quality television, radio and Internet services is now available to offer a more nuanced and truthful view of the world than is offered by American commercial media.
The result now will be visible in the debate that will occur about the events in Spain, and this is a healthy development. There is no doubt about the universal condemnation of terror against civilians. All countries in the world, without exception, are engaged in collective police and intelligence activities to fight terror. There is no debate here, only a strong common conviction to fight terror. The differences appear at two levels: why does terror happen? What is the best way to eliminate or prevent it? On these two points, the debate and the differences are huge, as the discussion on Spain's alleged appeasement of terrorists will now reveal.
We should all encourage a rational, useful debate that is more scientific than ideological. Bush, Blair, Aznar and others have had their moment. We've seen the results of their policies of pre-emptive war for regime change and a global war against terror that relies heavily on military means. Their approach seems not to work very effectively. In the same manner, the Israeli approach to defeating Palestinian legitimate resistance and terror against civilians is a colossal, continuing failure.
The regime change that just happened in Spain is also a stunning reply to the Bush administration's adolescent attempt to paint a complex world in black and white. Bush wanted the world to accept his brand of global ideological bronco-busting that was premised on the non-negotiable idea that “you are either with us or against us”. The events in Spain are the first, delayed, significant mass political response to Bush's simplemindedness. The Spanish people took to the streets in their millions to say that they are against terror and will fight it vigorously; they also said that the policy chosen for this end by their former government is a failed policy. Most of the world, in fact, takes this view.
The urgent challenge remains: to defeat terrorism by devising a mix of political, economic, social, and military policies that are based on accurate analysis and diagnosis, effective actions and a realistic prognosis. Spain has highlighted the tragic consequences of terror, and perhaps it will help lead the way to policy response that works.
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