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.