This is a long but extremely well reasoned editorial by Shlomo Ben-Ami former Foreign Minister of Isreal. While I don't agree with everything he says, it is worth a read.
(Note: this was translated from Hebrew to English)
Sep. 5, 2002
9/11 ONE YEAR LATER: Force won't work, By Shlomo Ben-Ami
Heeding the language used by politicians, specifically in the US, and particularly by President George W. Bush and his close circle, one concludes that the post-September 11 world in no way resembles that which preceded the murderous attack on the WTC. In their opinion, we are in the throes of a world war that has totally shaken up the old order, the international agenda included.
This is but gross exaggeration.
The world before and after September 11 is exactly the same; the problems and challenges we faced prior to the attack remain as they were: recession, particularly in hi-tech, which slid to the low point of the business cycle even before September 11; poverty and hunger in much of what is patently an unequal society; economic and political crisis in South America; global environmental deterioration; the unsolvable Israeli-Palestinian conflict; India and Pakistan honing their nuclear swords; Russia's inexorable, criminal transformation from a dictatorship to anarchic capitalism; the ongoing struggle between conservatives and reformers in steadily nuclearizing Iran; Iraq's continuing evasion of international supervision of its development of mass-destruction weapons; ever-increasing fundamentalism among millions of Muslims in answer to dictatorship and corruption in places still known for some reason as "moderate" - Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Palestinian Authority, Algeria - not to mention the radical Muslim nations.
Yes, and Europe, both before and after September 11, is busy with its own affairs: stabilizing the euro, expanding the EU, and its failed struggle for a common foreign policy.
Al-Qaida is a small, evil terrorist organization, a far cry from the global terror superpower the American administration would have us believe. I submit that this balloon has been blown out of all proportion by a US president in search of an agenda: politically motivated, power-motivated.
The Bush administration, assuming office as it did, bruised and nearly delegitimized following the most bizarre election in American history, and staggering along for the first nine months in office, until September 11, without agenda or direction, and with no central issue of any interest to America or the world, clutched at al-Qaida as an unexpected agenda. For if al-Qaida is really such a tentacled terror superpower, how could all of American intelligence have failed to take note of it; and if its members are so vicious, why haven't they perpetrated any violent attack since September 11?
Osama bin Laden saved the Bush administration from flailing around in a morass of irrelevance, and injected vision into an administration that didn't really know what to do with the world placed on the shoulders of the newly elected president. From now on the vision was very simple: a return to the Reagan era and its Manichean binary opposition of Western democracies versus the evil Soviet empire. All Bush had to do was cast al-Qaida in the role of the Soviets.
The problem is that the two are radically different: al-Qaida is not a rotten superpower on the verge of collapse, as the Soviet Union was. It is, rather, a small, largely amorphous body, and the essential problem it reflects stems from the frustration Islam experiences vis- -vis Western civilization. There's nothing there to strike at, nothing to overthrow.
THE SOLUTION does not lie in vying for supremacy over the rival bloc, or in the kind of arms race that broke the USSR's neck. We are dealing with Islamic civilization which for centuries has failed in finding its way to socioeconomic modernity or democracy; a civilization that has not been able to develop a civic society and freedom of speech, and which is rebelling now against globalization perceived as the reflection of American cultural hegemony. No force of any kind will solve the complex problems of Islam and Muslim societies. This was as true before September 11 as it is now: the solution has to be a long-term one, rooted in a historical perspective of changes of regime, economic development, the emergence of a middle class, and gradual adaptation to a culture founded on trust, transparency, and a civic society.
It will take years.
The emphasis placed by the Bush administration on the need for democracy in the Arab world is, in principle, the correct approach. But in practice, it becomes apparent that there is very little maneuvering room for change; moreover, American policy is woefully inconsistent. Democracy is not a matter to be decided by presidential decree. Democracy emerges from depth processes. In the Arab and Muslim world, the alternative, unfortunately, does not lie between democracy and dictatorship. The only alternatives are secular dictatorship such as those of Hosni Mubarak, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, Mohammad VI, Muammar Gaddafi, Yasser Arafat, and Saddam Hussein - or Islamic democracy, i.e., a fundamentalist regime.
Once Arafat is deposed, it is inevitable that Hamas will rise to power, and the fall of Mubarak's regime will bring in its wake either a more severe military dictatorship or outright Islamic rule. We were afforded an example of this in Algeria, in the early Nineties, when an attempt was made at establishing democracy, but free elections brought the Islamic Front-FIS to power in a clean democratic process. The outcome was a military coup that overturned the ballot boxes and scattered the will of the people to the winds.
One of the most serious consequences of September 11 and the disproportionate American exaggeration of al-Qaida is the carte blanche the US gave to various regimes of oppression and evil to "fight terror," simply because they are "on our side." A dictator the likes of Pervez Musharraf, with his finger on Pakistan's nuclear button, who has just buried the democratization of his country yet again by deferring elections and extending his term of office by five more years - why isn't he required to establish democracy? - harbors Islamic terrorists in Kashmir.
Vladimir Putin, in Russia, grows increasingly autocratic and unfettered in the war of extermination he is wielding in Chechnya. True, mutatis mutandis, Ariel Sharon too was given a free hand to recapture the territories and join Arafat in a silent pact to obliterate, together, any chance of an agreement.
The US persists, even after September 11, in its appeasement policy toward the Saudi regime. Feudal Saudi sheikhs who generously fund Wahabi Islam and the Islamic terror organizations are not required to introduce democracy. The reason: they sell oil to the West, and buy weapons with colossal largesse.
WHAT, precisely, has changed, compared to pre-September 11? The "moderate" regimes in the Arab world follow the same fixed route: no democracy, corruption, seeking stability by channeling frustration and popular anger toward the US and Israel. In fact, the mystification of al-Qaida has played right into the hands of these regimes, since the threat of fundamentalism was always the ultimate rationale for oppression and the iron fist in the Arab world. Unfortunately, September 11 was not the true watershed that would signal the start of a mediation process between the political elites of the Arab world, which are pro-West for the most part, and the masses, usually anti-West.
This has not happened. For this to happen, the US, and the West in general, must correct the prevailing perception in the Middle East, according to which the West is a partner in a conspiracy with their corrupt, tyrannical rulers.
September 11 intensified the Bush administration's obsession with Iraq. Let it be said immediately that Iraq certainly presents a vital threat to the West, and Saddam's reign of evil is certainly endangering the region, and beyond. But it is equally true to say that he poses no greater a threat than the nuclear apocalypse of the frightening encounter between the military dictatorship in Pakistan and an India ruled now by a nationalistic-religious party whose fingers are also itching the nuclear-war button.
The US doesn't appear to be expending the same presidential energies in the Indo-Pakistan arena as in confronting Iraq. It is to be hoped that the Bush administration will not be tempted to let itself be persuaded by its own rhetoric to launch an all-out offensive against Iraq; there would be no justification for it in the eyes of Arab regimes or their public. In 1990, the case was cut-and-dried: Iraq invaded a sovereign neighboring state, though even at that time, the coalition's attack sparked angry demonstrations throughout the Arab world.
Today, with no such clarity - there is no proof of nuclear weapons in Iraq, and Saddam is waging a sophisticated preventive diplomatic battle - the US is obviously in no position to form a coalition with the nations of the Middle East and their rulers (who would never support what is, at bottom, a pre-emptive strike against Iraq). And the European Union is letting itself dwindle into a military midget and almost certainly won't join the attack, so there is no doubt that an American offensive against Iraq will unleash anti-American and anti-Israeli feelings throughout the Arab world, on an apocalyptic scale.
At such a time, bin Laden and al-Qaida will return, and fundamentalist Islam will become the driving force behind every frustrated and humiliated young Muslim. The publicity awarded al-Qaida by the Bush administration's obsessive rhetoric, along with the Internet, the broadcasting of videotapes, and of course the collapse of the WTC, turned al-Qaida into the dream of innumerable young men and women in the Muslim world. An offensive against Iraq will give this process added momentum which will hit hard at the foundations of Arab nations too. The American experience in Afghanistan - the single piece of reality to date in the war on terror - was not an overwhelming success, and it is doubtful whether it augurs well for further and more intricate adventures in Iraq.
The Taliban was overthrown - but its successors are rapidly losing legitimacy. Hamid Karzai is an American puppet surrounded by foreign bodyguards.
IN IRAQ the situation threatens to be even more complex, for there, unlike in Afghanistan, there is no equivalent of the Northern Alliance; the Americans will be forced to impose direct rule there which will ultimately fail. This would be the blow of death to their prestige in the area. The secret of deterrence lies in not using it; Iraq has the ability to expose the weaknesses of American deterrence.
A US offensive against Iraq would deal a severe blow to the stability of pro-West countries in the region. Mubarak cannot allow himself to get on a collision course with rioters at mass demonstrations for fear of being condemned as an American puppet. Abdullah II's monarchy in Jordan risks fatal upheaval; for Israel, his fall would be a threat no less potent than that posed by Saddam.
Undermining Mubarak, or deposing the Hashemites in Jordan, pose an existential threat to Israel, one we would be wise to recognize even if we are dissatisfied with Mubarak's Israel policy. If it weren't for Mubarak's restraining leadership, the Arab world might have been tempted to enter the conflict, and perhaps even launch total war on Israel, in the early days of the intifada.
The blame for the lack in Iraq of a counterpart of the Afghan Northern Alliance's sort rests squarely with the US. During the Gulf War, the US refrained from nurturing a democratic alternative to Saddam. The US anticipated a change of regime by military coup which would raise a friendly tyrant to power, and - by its own action or inaction - it denied aid that could have saved the rebel movement in north and south Iraq, as Saddam was butchering them. In doing so, the US abandoned its allies, leaving behind the perception in the region of an American tendency to rely on dictators, while remaining equally impervious to their cruelty and to whether they are for or against the US. Any "son of a bitch" is legitimate, provided he's "our son of a bitch."
September 11 laid bare a major challenge: will the terrible trauma of the event spur the US and its allies to develop a broad consensus for introducing a new, better world order? This would have been the requisite response to September 11. But it has not yet been made - and it doesn't seem that the American leadership is rising to the challenge.
It all begins and ends with the war in Afghanistan - whose outcome, I repeat, is dubious - and the issue, whether to attack Iraq or not. The military, operational focus, as vital and important as it may be - is not the correct response to the challenge. The correct response must have a threefold foundation:
* Proactive, preventive military measures against terror, with heightened international cooperation.
* The development of joint international mechanisms for increased equality in the global economy.
* The development of international mechanisms for conflict-resolution in those cases where the parties have proved beyond doubt that they cannot reach a solution on their own, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict being a case in point.
THE US has yet to turn September 11 into a real lever for positive global change, since it is hesitant to adopt a broad strategy of this kind. Republican unilateralism of the pre-September 11 era remains unchanged; it has not turned into coherent multiculturalism. The US has even ignored NATO's call for the principle of collective defense when it went to war with Afghanistan.
American unilateralism prevents the US - truly the indispensable nation - from developing the proper tools for a better world order based on international cooperation. For in the grim deterioration in everything concerning our planet and the environment, it was the US which led the rebellion against the Kyoto Protocol for the prevention of pollution caused by the emission of poisonous gases; it is also the US, by the way, which is discouraging agreements concerning control and limitations of weapons stockpiling.
The US was the only country among the signatories of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty which refused to take part in a convention of the countries that signed and ratified the agreement. And the US blocked every multilateral effort to impose the convention against development and possession of biological weapons.
In fact, it may be said that the unilateral drive of the Bush administration has not changed in any essential way following September 11. Bush's chief concern continues to be shrugging off any limitations on America's short-term freedom of action, at the price of losing allies and partners in a better world order over the long term.
The US is a big nation; it has to be the pivot of a better world order.
The power and morals motivating the US, as the only country in history to be born out of, and for the idea of freedom, make it a sought-after potentate. The nation that has never known any threat to its existence checked the threat totally and absolutely when it reared its head against the USSR during the Cold War.
The leadership of this great nation is as indispensable today as it was during the three world wars - World War I, World War II, and the Cold War - when it saved the free world. But the US must understand that the amorphous issue known as "international terror" and the threat of Muslim fundamentalism are not a military challenge, and certainly cannot be neutralized solely by an arms race, as with the USSR.
A world war cannot, and should not, be conducted against an invisible enemy whose frustration is fueled by quintessentially cultural and religious issues. The available means for confronting such an enemy lie in improving the global economy, developing cooperation, and nurturing the division of wealth by something along the lines of a social-democratic globalization.
It is necessary to attend to cultural nuances, to the malaise of civilizations. What is needed is the Clintonian readiness and commitment not only to peacekeeping, but to peacemaking as well. A move towards peacemaking of this kind is called for in the Middle East.
THERE is no need to adopt the fallacy according to which international terror is the answer to the supposedly one-sided American policy in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to agree that this conflict is a major cause of instability in the region, and a convenient platform for mass hysteria throughout the Arab and Muslim world.
It is equally clear by this time that a peace agreement to be arrived at by open negotiations between the parties is an impossibility. The solution must therefore be international, albeit led by the US - or not be at all. The Palestinian issue thus becomes a central test-case of the stability of a new world order founded on international cooperation, not just for fighting terror but for constructing agreed-upon mechanisms for conflict-solving.
Clearly, an Israeli-Palestinian agreement driven by the US is but a single, vital element in the proper world order.
There are other vital needs: The international community must ensure that Saddam's regime is overthrown, without entering a military adventure with possibly destructive consequences. This can be done by increasing pressure; by restoring international supervision; by openly encouraging and fostering the opposition, and by tantalizing the Iraqi people with the advantages of the post-Saddam era. Overthrowing the tyrant on the Tigris can unloose processes of vital depth-change in the region which will also increase the international community's leverage against the nuclearization and terror coming from Teheran.
Likewise, an understanding with President Vladimir Putin must provide for Russia's inclusion in any principles of international discipline and stability. The US, along with the international community, must make it clear to Russia that the war on terror is not a green light for the cruel oppression of minorities. The Russians must also be required to stop seeking friends among the world's pariahs, be it the Myanmar military sect or the ayatollahs in Iran.
International order means that Russia must cooperate in checking Iran's nuclear plans and its involvement, up to its neck, in international terror. Too many leaders - Putin, for example, and Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf - benefit from that superficial concept which was strengthened after September 11, namely, "my enemy's enemy is my friend." Nor would it be right to turn a blind eye to China's human-rights infringements, or, as I have already pointed out, to Russia's heavy-handed tactics in Chechnya.
ONE MAJOR task still remains, namely clearing the air between Europe and the US, with the rift between them deepening after September 11 due to the Bush administration's brash unilateralism. The essence of the rift is the following: Europe is currently on a journey toward a quasi-federal pan-Europe, and is positing its security and the new world order on international law; international cooperation; increased weight for central international agencies such as the Hague Criminal Court; international frameworks for environmental action, etc. It is the US, which, unlike European countries, lacks the history of a classic nation-state, which is stressing, after September 11, America's claim for national sovereignty and freedom to make independent decisions, versus Europe's aspiration for a world order founded on international cooperation and binding rules for all.
If the US and its European allies fail to decide in favor of a fair compromise between European internationalism, on the one hand - frequently a sign of weakness, even of appalling incompetence - and over-energetic American proaction, a one-sidedness that might turn into the clumsy, destructive movements of a bull in a china shop, on the other, the internal split within the West will become an additional element in world chaos, instead of what it should be: a pivotal, vital force in new world order following the trauma of September 11.
In this world order, I have claimed here, there must be a threefold foundation: a joint, coordinated fight against world terror; coordinated mobilization of international energies for conflict-solving with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a case in point; and globalization notched up towards a more equal, more sensitive approach to cultural nuances, with an end to mitigating the opposition of various civilizations to the threat perceived in the cultural monolith that is such a central - and such an objectionable - element in globalization as we know it.
The writer, a modern-era historian, served as foreign minister in the Ehud Barak administration
Translated by Sara Friedman
(Note: this was translated from Hebrew to English)
Sep. 5, 2002
9/11 ONE YEAR LATER: Force won't work, By Shlomo Ben-Ami
Heeding the language used by politicians, specifically in the US, and particularly by President George W. Bush and his close circle, one concludes that the post-September 11 world in no way resembles that which preceded the murderous attack on the WTC. In their opinion, we are in the throes of a world war that has totally shaken up the old order, the international agenda included.
This is but gross exaggeration.
The world before and after September 11 is exactly the same; the problems and challenges we faced prior to the attack remain as they were: recession, particularly in hi-tech, which slid to the low point of the business cycle even before September 11; poverty and hunger in much of what is patently an unequal society; economic and political crisis in South America; global environmental deterioration; the unsolvable Israeli-Palestinian conflict; India and Pakistan honing their nuclear swords; Russia's inexorable, criminal transformation from a dictatorship to anarchic capitalism; the ongoing struggle between conservatives and reformers in steadily nuclearizing Iran; Iraq's continuing evasion of international supervision of its development of mass-destruction weapons; ever-increasing fundamentalism among millions of Muslims in answer to dictatorship and corruption in places still known for some reason as "moderate" - Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Palestinian Authority, Algeria - not to mention the radical Muslim nations.
Yes, and Europe, both before and after September 11, is busy with its own affairs: stabilizing the euro, expanding the EU, and its failed struggle for a common foreign policy.
Al-Qaida is a small, evil terrorist organization, a far cry from the global terror superpower the American administration would have us believe. I submit that this balloon has been blown out of all proportion by a US president in search of an agenda: politically motivated, power-motivated.
The Bush administration, assuming office as it did, bruised and nearly delegitimized following the most bizarre election in American history, and staggering along for the first nine months in office, until September 11, without agenda or direction, and with no central issue of any interest to America or the world, clutched at al-Qaida as an unexpected agenda. For if al-Qaida is really such a tentacled terror superpower, how could all of American intelligence have failed to take note of it; and if its members are so vicious, why haven't they perpetrated any violent attack since September 11?
Osama bin Laden saved the Bush administration from flailing around in a morass of irrelevance, and injected vision into an administration that didn't really know what to do with the world placed on the shoulders of the newly elected president. From now on the vision was very simple: a return to the Reagan era and its Manichean binary opposition of Western democracies versus the evil Soviet empire. All Bush had to do was cast al-Qaida in the role of the Soviets.
The problem is that the two are radically different: al-Qaida is not a rotten superpower on the verge of collapse, as the Soviet Union was. It is, rather, a small, largely amorphous body, and the essential problem it reflects stems from the frustration Islam experiences vis- -vis Western civilization. There's nothing there to strike at, nothing to overthrow.
THE SOLUTION does not lie in vying for supremacy over the rival bloc, or in the kind of arms race that broke the USSR's neck. We are dealing with Islamic civilization which for centuries has failed in finding its way to socioeconomic modernity or democracy; a civilization that has not been able to develop a civic society and freedom of speech, and which is rebelling now against globalization perceived as the reflection of American cultural hegemony. No force of any kind will solve the complex problems of Islam and Muslim societies. This was as true before September 11 as it is now: the solution has to be a long-term one, rooted in a historical perspective of changes of regime, economic development, the emergence of a middle class, and gradual adaptation to a culture founded on trust, transparency, and a civic society.
It will take years.
The emphasis placed by the Bush administration on the need for democracy in the Arab world is, in principle, the correct approach. But in practice, it becomes apparent that there is very little maneuvering room for change; moreover, American policy is woefully inconsistent. Democracy is not a matter to be decided by presidential decree. Democracy emerges from depth processes. In the Arab and Muslim world, the alternative, unfortunately, does not lie between democracy and dictatorship. The only alternatives are secular dictatorship such as those of Hosni Mubarak, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, Mohammad VI, Muammar Gaddafi, Yasser Arafat, and Saddam Hussein - or Islamic democracy, i.e., a fundamentalist regime.
Once Arafat is deposed, it is inevitable that Hamas will rise to power, and the fall of Mubarak's regime will bring in its wake either a more severe military dictatorship or outright Islamic rule. We were afforded an example of this in Algeria, in the early Nineties, when an attempt was made at establishing democracy, but free elections brought the Islamic Front-FIS to power in a clean democratic process. The outcome was a military coup that overturned the ballot boxes and scattered the will of the people to the winds.
One of the most serious consequences of September 11 and the disproportionate American exaggeration of al-Qaida is the carte blanche the US gave to various regimes of oppression and evil to "fight terror," simply because they are "on our side." A dictator the likes of Pervez Musharraf, with his finger on Pakistan's nuclear button, who has just buried the democratization of his country yet again by deferring elections and extending his term of office by five more years - why isn't he required to establish democracy? - harbors Islamic terrorists in Kashmir.
Vladimir Putin, in Russia, grows increasingly autocratic and unfettered in the war of extermination he is wielding in Chechnya. True, mutatis mutandis, Ariel Sharon too was given a free hand to recapture the territories and join Arafat in a silent pact to obliterate, together, any chance of an agreement.
The US persists, even after September 11, in its appeasement policy toward the Saudi regime. Feudal Saudi sheikhs who generously fund Wahabi Islam and the Islamic terror organizations are not required to introduce democracy. The reason: they sell oil to the West, and buy weapons with colossal largesse.
WHAT, precisely, has changed, compared to pre-September 11? The "moderate" regimes in the Arab world follow the same fixed route: no democracy, corruption, seeking stability by channeling frustration and popular anger toward the US and Israel. In fact, the mystification of al-Qaida has played right into the hands of these regimes, since the threat of fundamentalism was always the ultimate rationale for oppression and the iron fist in the Arab world. Unfortunately, September 11 was not the true watershed that would signal the start of a mediation process between the political elites of the Arab world, which are pro-West for the most part, and the masses, usually anti-West.
This has not happened. For this to happen, the US, and the West in general, must correct the prevailing perception in the Middle East, according to which the West is a partner in a conspiracy with their corrupt, tyrannical rulers.
September 11 intensified the Bush administration's obsession with Iraq. Let it be said immediately that Iraq certainly presents a vital threat to the West, and Saddam's reign of evil is certainly endangering the region, and beyond. But it is equally true to say that he poses no greater a threat than the nuclear apocalypse of the frightening encounter between the military dictatorship in Pakistan and an India ruled now by a nationalistic-religious party whose fingers are also itching the nuclear-war button.
The US doesn't appear to be expending the same presidential energies in the Indo-Pakistan arena as in confronting Iraq. It is to be hoped that the Bush administration will not be tempted to let itself be persuaded by its own rhetoric to launch an all-out offensive against Iraq; there would be no justification for it in the eyes of Arab regimes or their public. In 1990, the case was cut-and-dried: Iraq invaded a sovereign neighboring state, though even at that time, the coalition's attack sparked angry demonstrations throughout the Arab world.
Today, with no such clarity - there is no proof of nuclear weapons in Iraq, and Saddam is waging a sophisticated preventive diplomatic battle - the US is obviously in no position to form a coalition with the nations of the Middle East and their rulers (who would never support what is, at bottom, a pre-emptive strike against Iraq). And the European Union is letting itself dwindle into a military midget and almost certainly won't join the attack, so there is no doubt that an American offensive against Iraq will unleash anti-American and anti-Israeli feelings throughout the Arab world, on an apocalyptic scale.
At such a time, bin Laden and al-Qaida will return, and fundamentalist Islam will become the driving force behind every frustrated and humiliated young Muslim. The publicity awarded al-Qaida by the Bush administration's obsessive rhetoric, along with the Internet, the broadcasting of videotapes, and of course the collapse of the WTC, turned al-Qaida into the dream of innumerable young men and women in the Muslim world. An offensive against Iraq will give this process added momentum which will hit hard at the foundations of Arab nations too. The American experience in Afghanistan - the single piece of reality to date in the war on terror - was not an overwhelming success, and it is doubtful whether it augurs well for further and more intricate adventures in Iraq.
The Taliban was overthrown - but its successors are rapidly losing legitimacy. Hamid Karzai is an American puppet surrounded by foreign bodyguards.
IN IRAQ the situation threatens to be even more complex, for there, unlike in Afghanistan, there is no equivalent of the Northern Alliance; the Americans will be forced to impose direct rule there which will ultimately fail. This would be the blow of death to their prestige in the area. The secret of deterrence lies in not using it; Iraq has the ability to expose the weaknesses of American deterrence.
A US offensive against Iraq would deal a severe blow to the stability of pro-West countries in the region. Mubarak cannot allow himself to get on a collision course with rioters at mass demonstrations for fear of being condemned as an American puppet. Abdullah II's monarchy in Jordan risks fatal upheaval; for Israel, his fall would be a threat no less potent than that posed by Saddam.
Undermining Mubarak, or deposing the Hashemites in Jordan, pose an existential threat to Israel, one we would be wise to recognize even if we are dissatisfied with Mubarak's Israel policy. If it weren't for Mubarak's restraining leadership, the Arab world might have been tempted to enter the conflict, and perhaps even launch total war on Israel, in the early days of the intifada.
The blame for the lack in Iraq of a counterpart of the Afghan Northern Alliance's sort rests squarely with the US. During the Gulf War, the US refrained from nurturing a democratic alternative to Saddam. The US anticipated a change of regime by military coup which would raise a friendly tyrant to power, and - by its own action or inaction - it denied aid that could have saved the rebel movement in north and south Iraq, as Saddam was butchering them. In doing so, the US abandoned its allies, leaving behind the perception in the region of an American tendency to rely on dictators, while remaining equally impervious to their cruelty and to whether they are for or against the US. Any "son of a bitch" is legitimate, provided he's "our son of a bitch."
September 11 laid bare a major challenge: will the terrible trauma of the event spur the US and its allies to develop a broad consensus for introducing a new, better world order? This would have been the requisite response to September 11. But it has not yet been made - and it doesn't seem that the American leadership is rising to the challenge.
It all begins and ends with the war in Afghanistan - whose outcome, I repeat, is dubious - and the issue, whether to attack Iraq or not. The military, operational focus, as vital and important as it may be - is not the correct response to the challenge. The correct response must have a threefold foundation:
* Proactive, preventive military measures against terror, with heightened international cooperation.
* The development of joint international mechanisms for increased equality in the global economy.
* The development of international mechanisms for conflict-resolution in those cases where the parties have proved beyond doubt that they cannot reach a solution on their own, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict being a case in point.
THE US has yet to turn September 11 into a real lever for positive global change, since it is hesitant to adopt a broad strategy of this kind. Republican unilateralism of the pre-September 11 era remains unchanged; it has not turned into coherent multiculturalism. The US has even ignored NATO's call for the principle of collective defense when it went to war with Afghanistan.
American unilateralism prevents the US - truly the indispensable nation - from developing the proper tools for a better world order based on international cooperation. For in the grim deterioration in everything concerning our planet and the environment, it was the US which led the rebellion against the Kyoto Protocol for the prevention of pollution caused by the emission of poisonous gases; it is also the US, by the way, which is discouraging agreements concerning control and limitations of weapons stockpiling.
The US was the only country among the signatories of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty which refused to take part in a convention of the countries that signed and ratified the agreement. And the US blocked every multilateral effort to impose the convention against development and possession of biological weapons.
In fact, it may be said that the unilateral drive of the Bush administration has not changed in any essential way following September 11. Bush's chief concern continues to be shrugging off any limitations on America's short-term freedom of action, at the price of losing allies and partners in a better world order over the long term.
The US is a big nation; it has to be the pivot of a better world order.
The power and morals motivating the US, as the only country in history to be born out of, and for the idea of freedom, make it a sought-after potentate. The nation that has never known any threat to its existence checked the threat totally and absolutely when it reared its head against the USSR during the Cold War.
The leadership of this great nation is as indispensable today as it was during the three world wars - World War I, World War II, and the Cold War - when it saved the free world. But the US must understand that the amorphous issue known as "international terror" and the threat of Muslim fundamentalism are not a military challenge, and certainly cannot be neutralized solely by an arms race, as with the USSR.
A world war cannot, and should not, be conducted against an invisible enemy whose frustration is fueled by quintessentially cultural and religious issues. The available means for confronting such an enemy lie in improving the global economy, developing cooperation, and nurturing the division of wealth by something along the lines of a social-democratic globalization.
It is necessary to attend to cultural nuances, to the malaise of civilizations. What is needed is the Clintonian readiness and commitment not only to peacekeeping, but to peacemaking as well. A move towards peacemaking of this kind is called for in the Middle East.
THERE is no need to adopt the fallacy according to which international terror is the answer to the supposedly one-sided American policy in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to agree that this conflict is a major cause of instability in the region, and a convenient platform for mass hysteria throughout the Arab and Muslim world.
It is equally clear by this time that a peace agreement to be arrived at by open negotiations between the parties is an impossibility. The solution must therefore be international, albeit led by the US - or not be at all. The Palestinian issue thus becomes a central test-case of the stability of a new world order founded on international cooperation, not just for fighting terror but for constructing agreed-upon mechanisms for conflict-solving.
Clearly, an Israeli-Palestinian agreement driven by the US is but a single, vital element in the proper world order.
There are other vital needs: The international community must ensure that Saddam's regime is overthrown, without entering a military adventure with possibly destructive consequences. This can be done by increasing pressure; by restoring international supervision; by openly encouraging and fostering the opposition, and by tantalizing the Iraqi people with the advantages of the post-Saddam era. Overthrowing the tyrant on the Tigris can unloose processes of vital depth-change in the region which will also increase the international community's leverage against the nuclearization and terror coming from Teheran.
Likewise, an understanding with President Vladimir Putin must provide for Russia's inclusion in any principles of international discipline and stability. The US, along with the international community, must make it clear to Russia that the war on terror is not a green light for the cruel oppression of minorities. The Russians must also be required to stop seeking friends among the world's pariahs, be it the Myanmar military sect or the ayatollahs in Iran.
International order means that Russia must cooperate in checking Iran's nuclear plans and its involvement, up to its neck, in international terror. Too many leaders - Putin, for example, and Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf - benefit from that superficial concept which was strengthened after September 11, namely, "my enemy's enemy is my friend." Nor would it be right to turn a blind eye to China's human-rights infringements, or, as I have already pointed out, to Russia's heavy-handed tactics in Chechnya.
ONE MAJOR task still remains, namely clearing the air between Europe and the US, with the rift between them deepening after September 11 due to the Bush administration's brash unilateralism. The essence of the rift is the following: Europe is currently on a journey toward a quasi-federal pan-Europe, and is positing its security and the new world order on international law; international cooperation; increased weight for central international agencies such as the Hague Criminal Court; international frameworks for environmental action, etc. It is the US, which, unlike European countries, lacks the history of a classic nation-state, which is stressing, after September 11, America's claim for national sovereignty and freedom to make independent decisions, versus Europe's aspiration for a world order founded on international cooperation and binding rules for all.
If the US and its European allies fail to decide in favor of a fair compromise between European internationalism, on the one hand - frequently a sign of weakness, even of appalling incompetence - and over-energetic American proaction, a one-sidedness that might turn into the clumsy, destructive movements of a bull in a china shop, on the other, the internal split within the West will become an additional element in world chaos, instead of what it should be: a pivotal, vital force in new world order following the trauma of September 11.
In this world order, I have claimed here, there must be a threefold foundation: a joint, coordinated fight against world terror; coordinated mobilization of international energies for conflict-solving with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a case in point; and globalization notched up towards a more equal, more sensitive approach to cultural nuances, with an end to mitigating the opposition of various civilizations to the threat perceived in the cultural monolith that is such a central - and such an objectionable - element in globalization as we know it.
The writer, a modern-era historian, served as foreign minister in the Ehud Barak administration
Translated by Sara Friedman
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