U.S. Intervention Backfires
- Everywhere
by Ivan Eland
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Most of the problems associated with the Bush administration's collapsing
foreign policy stem from one central flaw: the attempt to socially engineer
the world using military power or intimidation.
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In a speech to the nation laced with presumptive rhetoric, the president
demanded that allies, Middle Eastern nations and members of the United
Nations share the responsibility of bailing the United States out of its
self-inflicted quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan.
With a resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan, frequent bombings of oil
pipelines and other prominent targets in Iraq, an Iraqi infrastructure still
in shambles from the war, and an excruciating $166 billion over a two-year
period (at the least) for both occupations, you'd think the president would
have asked (or perhaps begged) for, rather than demanded, the help of other
nations. But the hubris of a superpower and its leader - even when they have
their backs to the wall - should never be underestimated.
That same high-handedness got the Bush administration into this bind in the
first place. The administration took advantage of the attacks on September
11 to imply - without any evidence - that Saddam Hussein had some complicity
in them and then proceeded - in contravention of the U.N. charter - to
invade a sovereign nation without a convincing self-defense rationale. The
invasion was designed to intimidate other "evil doers" - for example, Iran,
North Korea and Palestinian groups, such as Hamas - into being more
compliant with U.S. wishes.
Yet all aspects of Bush's combative foreign policy are now collapsing.
Administration neo-conservatives - habitually accusing liberals of being
Pollyannas - exhibited a healthy dose of naiveté themselves by asserting
that democracy could be brought easily to Iraq at gunpoint and that it would
subsequently flower throughout the Middle East. The Bush administration
failed to understand how hated the United States is in the Middle East - a
state of affairs resulting from many years of supporting authoritarian
dictatorships in the region, while paying only lip-service to democracy.
Many in the Middle East still remember how little democracy exists in Kuwait
today, despite being "liberated" by the former President Bush in 1991.
Also, the brash neo-conservative, interventionist civilians in charge of the
Pentagon foolishly denigrated the expert opinion of the Army's chief general
that many more troops would be needed to pacify Iraq than they planned to
use in the invasion. The general knew that they were naïve to try to subdue
a country the size of California with forces that would fill only the
stadiums at Stanford University and the University of California at
Berkeley.
As the United States has done in NATO for many years, it is bullying
friendly nations to commit more troops and resources in Iraq, while
remaining in control. France and Germany - unsupportive of the invasion of
Iraq from the start - probably couldn't send more troops there even if their
governments so desired. Public opinion in those countries is still running
high against the U.S. occupation. In addition, French and German troops
available for peacekeeping are tied up elsewhere in the world. Even if
nations of the U.N. Security Council could agree on another resolution,
administration officials are pessimistic about the number of additional
foreign forces they could garner. At most, they admit that they could get
only between 15,000 and 30,000 additional troops from countries such as
India, Pakistan, and Turkey.
With the chaos in Iraq negatively affecting the president's popularity, he
must keep the lid on the violence in Iraq during next year's presidential
campaign but is unlikely to get large numbers of competent foreign forces to
aid him in that task. He will then be faced with the ominous political
decision of throwing more American troops into the fray. That sounds like
Vietnam all over again - only with much less public support for the initial
stages of escalation. As hard as it might be, a better decision would be to
declare victory, cut American losses, withdraw the U.S. military from Iraq
and turn the country over to the Iraqis. In Vietnam, the political elites of
an arrogant superpower were reluctant to pull out U.S. forces because they
thought U.S. prestige would be impaired. The ensuing quagmire and eventual
withdrawal, however, tarnished America's prestige even more. The same likely
will be true in the morass in Iraq.
Meanwhile, Iran and North Korea - both now fearful of an eventual American
attack - are using American preoccupation with occupation in Iraq and
Afghanistan to accelerate their nuclear programs. With the United States
tied down in those hellholes, Iran and North Korea figure that the chances
of a U.S. invasion in the short- to medium-term are remote. They are using
the time wisely to obtain or enhance the ultimate deterrent to American
adventurism. The administration recently was forced to soften its hardline
negotiating stance with North Korea.
And remember neo-conservative boasts that an invasion of Iraq would give the
United States so much prestige and leverage that the problem of Palestine
would practically solve itself? Once again, the Bush administration
overestimated what a superpower could accomplish and underestimated
anti-U.S. loathing in the Middle East.
In its bid to "democratize" the Middle East, the United States decided to
have nothing more to do with Yasir Arafat, the elected leader of the
Palestinians. Instead, the Americans pressured Arafat to appoint as prime
minister Mahmoud Abbas, who had no legitimacy in the eyes of Palestinians.
Perceived as being an American lackey, the forced appointment of Abbas
merely shored up Arafat's declining stature among Palestinians, did nothing
to stop the violence, and further mired America in the swamp of the Middle
East peace process. Abbas has now resigned, throwing the process into
turmoil.
All of which leaves us with the remnants of a failed interventionist policy
- and nowhere to go.
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– Ivan Eland, c/o BackTalk@AntiWar
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