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CounterPunch
September
16, 2002
American Primacy at Bay
by Ahmad Faruqui
The United States of America, accounting for a
twentieth of the world's population, generates a third of its
gross domestic product, and owns about half of its financial
wealth. Militarily, it has no equal. Culturally, it is the world's
leading film and television exporter, and its colleges and universities
attract the most foreign students each year. But, as noted by
Harvard's Joseph Nye in his new book, The Paradox of American
Power, "the largest power since Rome cannot achieve its
objectives unilaterally in a global information age."
A year ago, terrorists attacked symbols
of American primacy in broad daylight on American soil, causing
massive loss of human life and property. Their barbaric acts
were condemned throughout the world, and garnered empathy for
America's plight. In many ways, they helped soften the image
of a superpower that was perceived by many as being arrogant,
unilateralist and self-centered.
A year later much of the goodwill generated
by the attacks appears to have dissipated. According to Sebastian
Rotella of the Los Angeles Times, the accumulation of this goodwill
may have been "a mere pause in a steady rise of disillusionment
with the world's only remaining superpower. With a few important
exceptions, foreign leaders and voters say the US may have missed
a historic opportunity to forge a broad international coalition
and revamp its increasingly negative image."
Why did this happen? Initially, the war
in Afghanistan appeared to be a spectacular success. Precision
weapons and new tactics resulted in the removal of the tyrannical
Taliban regime from power in record time, and in the apparent
destruction of the al-Qaida. In a few months, it became evident
that most of the senior leaders of al-Qaida were still at large,
as was Mullah Omar. Then came a report from Professor Marc Herold
of the University of New Hampshire that documented the number
of Afghan civilian casualties during the first three months of
the war at 3,767, exceeding the number killed on 9-11.
In the past several months, the US campaign
in Afghanistan has begun to look like a failure. General Musharraf,
perhaps the strongest ally of the US in the region, has openly
voiced his concerns about the manner in which the US is prosecuting
the war. Hamid Karzai's authority is increasingly under attack,
and it seems to not extend beyond the boundaries of Kabul. Without
his American bodyguards, he would be a dead man.
Others have begun to question the moral
premises of fighting such a war. Appearing on Fox TV, the editor
of a major British magazine noted recently that the IRA's terrorist
activities had resulted in more than 4,000 deaths over the past
several decades. He said there was ample evidence that much of
the financing for the IRA's terror campaign had come from areas
in New England, and asked rhetorically whether the UK would be
justified in sending in the Royal Air Force to bomb Boston.
The US has lost further goodwill by adopting
an increasingly strident tone on seeking "regime change"
in Iraq. Writing in the Independent, London Mayor Ken Livingstone
has observed that U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East "is
breathtaking in its hypocrisy" and is totally counterproductive.
He notes that the much awaited peace dividend since the Cold
War has been lost as the world's only superpower has made its
overriding objective the creation of a global system in which
its will goes unchallenged. According to him, this is the only
reason that the US is pushing ahead with Missile Defense.
Frustration has turned out to disillusionment
as the world has seen the US abandoning one global institution
after another. A key example is the decision by the Bush administration
to "unsign" the treaty establishing the International
Criminal Court. This has drawn much criticism even within the
US. For example, Congressman Joseph Crowley and 44 of his congressional
colleagues wrote to President Bush asking him to reverse his
decision.
Another prominent US decision that drew
international disapproval was the rejection of the protocol to
the Biological Weapons Convention. This protocol was designed
to fill a major gap in international arms control and security
arrangements, and had the support of every US ally and all of
Europe, Latin America, Japan and many other countries. US officials
said they treaty would have put US bio-defense and business interests
at risk, but the chief US negotiator was not able to come up
with a valid example of treaty provisions that would have endangered
the US.
Earlier, the Bush administration had
rejected the Kyoto Protocol. What was worse than the rejections
was the reasoning behind them. Washington argued that the Kyoto
Protocol was "fatally flawed," because it would have
been expensive to implement and did not apply to developing nations.
The protocol to the Biological Weapons Convention would not catch
all cheaters, and the International Criminal Court might be used
to harass US citizens.
To make matters worse, US trade policy
has become increasingly protectionist. The US decision in March
to impose tariffs of up to 30% on imported steel has led to a
barrage of complaints to the World Trade Organization. Two months
later, President Bush signed into law a bill awarding US farmers
up to $180 billion in subsidies over the next decade. The European
Union has warned of retaliation, and the subsidies have been
criticized by Australia and Canada. A WTO arbitration panel has
suggested that $4 billion of trade sanctions should be imposed
on the US.
There is increasing apprehension over
America's insistence that all nations play by US rules. The backlash
against US unilateralism has begun. In May 2001, the US was voted
off the UN Human Rights Commission, a body that it helped found.
The US lost its bid for a third term on the International Narcotics
Control Board. In the same month, a top-level delegation from
the European Union had to step in for the absent US in negotiations
with North Korea.
Washington, with a proud tradition of
democracy, has long advocated that all states with a "command
and control" type of government make a transition to democracy.
If a majority of a state's citizens can be empowered to determine
its policies, it follows that a majority of the world's states
should be empowered to determine global policies since all human
beings are created equal.
If Iraq is in violation of UN resolutions,
and poses a threat to regional and international security, then
it is the UN that should authorize an attack on Iraq. The US
needs to persuade a majority of the world's countries to go along
with its decision. That is the only way for it to sustain its
primacy.
Ahmad Faruqui,
an economist, is a fellow with the American Institute of International
Studies and the author of Rethinking the National Security of
Pakistan. He can be reached at faruqui@pacbell.net
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September
14 / 15, 2002
Ben Tripp
Notes for
Future Historians:
The Bush Administration Explained
Tom Crumpacker
Democracy & US Policy on Cuba
David Vest
Neither-Handed
Behzad Yaghmaian
A Letter
from Istanbul
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Fire Next Time:
Nuclear Plants & Terrorism
Anis Shivani
The Warped
World of
Bernard Lewis
Uri Avnery
A Witness from the Past
Robert Fisk
Bush Across
the Rubicon
Josh Frank
Lacking Tenacity
Christini, Alam, & Krieger
Poems
September
12, 2002
Paul de Rooij
A Glossary
of Occupation
James C.
Faris
Riefenstahl
at 100:
The Fascist Aesthetic
Gary Leupp
Presidential
Honesty on Iraq
Tarif Abboushi
A Conversation
with My Arab-American Self
Ron Jacobs
Shelter
from the Storm
Rick Giombetti
Paxil
and Addiction
Krystal Kyer
From NAFTA
to CAFTA
Another Rotten Trade Deal
John Jonik
Overcome
in Philly
September
11, 2002
Anis Shivani
How to
Survive in Ashcroft's America
Pierre Tristam
Abusing
the Sorrows of 9/11
David Krieger
Resisting
Bush's
"Relentless War"
Jerre Skog
9/11 One
Year Later:
Remember the Others, Too
Dave Marsh
Illegal
Music?
A Sampler's Delight
Norm Dixon
How the
Warmongers Have Exploited 9/11
September
7 / 8, 2002
Bill Christison
A
Year Later: It's Happening Here
Alexander
Cockburn
The
Tenth Crusade
Susan Davis
Mr. Ashcroft's
Neighborhood
Bruce Jackson
When
War Came Home
David Krieger
Looking
Back on September 11
Mike Leon
Bush and War
Peter Linebaugh
Levellers
and 9/11
William McDougal
September 11 One Year On:
That's Entertainment!
Riad Z. Abdelkarim
and Jason Erb
How American Muslims Really Responded
to 9/11
Jeffrey St.
Clair
The Trouble
with Normal
Tom Stephens
Rise Up...Dump Bush
September
6, 2002
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Stolen
Trust
Gale Norton, Indians and the Case of the Missing $10 Billion
September
5, 2002
Ben Tripp
Jesus vs.
George the Second
William Hughes
McKinney's
Defeat:
Undue Meddling
Gavin Keeney
Beaux
Reves, Citoyens!
Wayne Saunders
War
Begins; Nobody Notices
Irit Katriel
Drunk
with Power:
Israeli Chief of Staff Calls Palestinians a "Cancerous Demographic
Threat"
Gary Leupp
Who's Afraid
of Iraq?
Resources:
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About 9/11
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Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By
Alexander Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
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