The new world order in Iraq after the war

The new world order in Iraq after the war

Hilman Adil, Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), Jakarta,
hilman_adil@hotmail.com

One of the most notable features of international politics
after Sept. 11 is how the United States has become both dominant
and isolated. Following the tragedy there was massive spontaneous
support for the U.S. But with the demonstration of American
military superiority that came with the elimination of al-Qaeda
and the Taliban from Afghanistan and the Bush doctrine of
preemptive strikes against the "axis of evil" powers, new
expressions of anti-Americanism became widespread.

For the rest of the world, it is American power, and not
weapons of mass destruction, that is destabilizing the world. And
nowhere are these views held more strongly than among America's
European allies which became more united after the war. The
issues raised in the U.S.-European dispute since the "axis of
evil" by Bush revolve for the most part around American
unilateralism and international law. The most serious act of U.S.
unilateralism not only in European eyes but also for a large
majority of the world is its intention to bring about regime
change in Iraq, if necessary through a go-it-alone invasion.

By trying to build a rule-based international order and by the
announcement of a virtually open-ended doctrine of preemption
against terrorists or states that harbor terrorists -- now
extended to regime change in states stockpiling weapons of mass
destruction -- concerns over further American military expansion
are increasing.

Today's speculation is whether the next target of American
military aggression will include Syria, Iran, and North Korea. To
the world at large it is now obvious that the U.S. is in the
process of establishing a world order on its own terms, thereby
inflicting serious damage to the United Nations' function as a
peacekeeping organization.

For the unilateralists in the Bush administration, a weakened
UN and the European Union should be seen as an essential element
in the new world order. Though these American unilateralists
claim that the Security Council failed them by not sanctifying
the war in Iraq, the truth is that they were delighted to be
supplied by evidence of their prejudices about the uselessness of
the UN. In their view what matters now is only American
interests.

The world is now anxious to see how the Bush administration
has been influenced by its military victory in Iraq and what kind
of superpower it wants the U.S. to be in the post-war world.
However, it is now crystal clear, at least in the short term,
that the speed of the military victory and the relatively small
U.S. combat casualty figures have strengthened the hand of the
ideological hawks, like Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Under Secretary of Defense Paul
Wolfowitz, and Karl Rove, Bush's foreign policy adviser.

On the opposite side in the Bush administration, are the
multilateralists, centered in the State Department under Colin
Powell as well as some key European powers, like France, Russia,
Germany, and in Asia, China. They strongly support the
involvement of the UN as an instrument for maintaining
international peace and security in accordance with the UN
Charter.

In some circles there is concern that the UN has now become
irrelevant. But in the past, the UN Security Council had to face
similar special cases where there were also disagreement among
the great powers, like the Suez in 1956, the Congo in the early
1960s and Kosovo in 1999, all accompanied by dreadful predictions
about the UN's future.

However, in these cases, the U.S. felt that its own vital
interests were not involved and in none of these cases did it
feel so publicly humiliated as it did after Sept. 11 and after it
did not get a UN mandate to attack Iraq. Therefore, Iraq will
probably not go down as another "special case".

Formulas for replacing or marginalizing the UN are already
circulating around neoconservative circles in the Pentagon that
first drew up the case for war in Iraq in the late 1990s headed
by Paul Wolfowitz. It is based on a plan that the U.S. should
take its war on terrorism to other "evil" regimes beyond Iraq and
it is prepared to dispense with the legitimacy conferred by a
Security Council resolution.

The speed of the victory in Iraq has created a mood of
euphoria among the neoconservatives in Washington, who now see
Iraq as only the first step in a rolling program of regime change
in the world. The U.S. as the sole superpower and Secretary of
State Colin Powell and the State Department sidelined, with
Donald Rumsfeld as the "vicar" of American foreign policy with
the support of the neoconservatives, apparently have already
drawn their own design of a new world order sustained by a leap
forward in America's projection of military muscle with a ring of
steel around the globe by establishing more military bases.

For the past two years there has already been an expansion of
American deployments, from the Balkans to the Chinese border and
taking in the Caucasus, central Asia, the Middle East and the
Indian subcontinent. The need for alternative bases has also been
felt by the inability to use Turkey as a launchpad for U.S.
troops entering Iraq during the war.

The Pentagon has been talking about Syria in the same terms it
used for Iraq and has reportedly been working on such a scenario.
However, the White House, supported by the State Department,
decided that two wars in Islamic states in the president's first
term has been enough.

Iran has never been seriously considered as a candidate for
military action. North Korea is another matter as it remains
defiant over its military program after the failure of the
trilateral meeting between the U.S., China, and North Korea.
There is already increasing pressure from neoconservatives in
Washington to put newly won U.S. credibility to the test and
build up troop numbers in Asia.

The international community must now decide what kind of world
order it wants in the wake of postwar Iraq. The multilateralists
are insisting that the international community must determine the
architecture of international security on the basis of democracy
and equality, and take into account each others' interests as the
U.S. chooses to ignore opposition around the world in dealing
with international problems.

The real threat to world stability is too much military power
and financial power coupled with too little moral power, and such
a combination is particularly dangerous on the part of a sole
superpower.

Increasingly, as the world sees it, U.S. values, expressed in
high-minded terms such as "democracy" and "freedom" are sounding
more like empty slogans. Real freedom and real democracy has been
taken away from much of the world by U.S.-imposed globalization.

It stems from a mentality of arrogance of power for which the
U.S. has been criticized by many countries. U.S. moral
imperialism demands not only submissiveness from its victims, but
also loyal vocal support as we have witness during the debates in
the UN Security Council and in the aftermath of the war in Iraq.

Dr. Hilman Adil is research professor at the above institute.