[Dialogue] The empire's last warrior

Thu Apr 6 14:00:09 EDT 2006

The empire's last warrior

The Bush administration, writes Ayman El-Amir*
<http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/print/2006/789/op5.htm#1> , has replaced
politics with PR 

The Bush administration has deployed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice,
its latest salesperson, to pitch to an increasingly skeptical American
public -- not to mention the world at large -- a story of moral, if not
military, success in Iraq and the dawning of a new age of democracy in the
Middle East. Rice's self- righteous admission in London this week that
"thousands of mistakes" had been committed in Iraq, though all for the right
cause -- i.e. the ouster of Saddam Hussein, did not go down as well as she
would have hoped. The anti-war demonstrators she faced, and pretended to
ignore, in London and, later, during her brief visit to Blackburn, drove the
point home. Her surprise visit to the ravaged Arab country with British
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw to unlock the sectarian political logjam that
continues to paralyse the country has yet to show tangible results. At a
time when Iraq is staggering towards the precipice of civil war, terrorism
is rife in the region and President Bush is facing calls in Congress for
censure, Rice's public relations stunt is hardly the answer to a festering
situation. 

With the senior architects of the invasion of Iraq either departed or
discredited the administration badly needs a success story. Vice- President
Dick Cheney's influence over policy has been undermined by the scandal
involving his chief of staff. The combative secretary of defense, Donald
Rumsfeld, has used up all his ammunition defending the military misadventure
that was the invasion of Iraq. The Bush administration, facing domestic and
international siege, is obviously feeling the need to raise its sunken
profile and shore up its image, most notably in the Middle East. A success
story would help soften the impact of President Bush's dismal ratings in
recent public opinion polls. Yet three years after the fall of Baghdad Iraq
is further than ever from being the model of democracy that was supposed to
spread benignly throughout the Middle East. Washington's confrontation with
Iran is also heating up while the administration's once full-throated
serenade to the cause of democracy in the Middle East has now been toned
down to a whisper.

Rice has often been touted as the brightest member of the Bush
administration's otherwise lacklustre team. Dubbed "the warrior princess",
she is considered a brilliant academician, a persuasive negotiator, a suave
socialite, a loyal friend to the Bush family, a knowledgeable expert on
European affairs and, most importantly, a reliable ally of Israel. She has
defended the president's policies with gusto, particularly when they started
to go wrong. She has justified Guantanamo Bay, denied the existence of
secret interrogation centres in Europe and supported domestic eavesdropping
on US citizens. She has even been trailed as a possible candidate in the
2008 presidential elections, though she quickly scotched any suggestion that
she had ambitions for the White House. 

She is, in short, an articulate spokeswoman for a failed policy -- a fact
that may well lead to her credibility being undermined. She has been the
most outspoken supporter of the offensive against Afghanistan and the US-led
invasion of Iraq. Many will recall that, as President Bush's national
security advisor, Rice was one of the most ardent proponents of the claim
that Iraq had caches of weapons of mass destruction, that Saddam Hussein was
pursuing the development of nuclear weapons and that his links to Al-Qaeda
were "indisputable". These were the three justifications for the 2003
invasion of Iraq, and all of them were proved untrue. Three years later,
they have been replaced by the worthy cause of overthrowing a dictator.
Given the audacity of the U-turn political analysts must wonder how much
credibility they should lend current US claims about Iran's nuclear
intentions.

Under the Bush administration stewardship has been replaced by salesmanship.
Radio Sawa, Al-Hurra satellite channel, the "embedding" of correspondents,
the pre-packaging of TV stories with a positive spin, prepared under the
guidance of White House communication experts for aering on national
television networks as independently-gathered stories, and the creation of
Karen Hughes's high-profile position as undersecretary of state for public
diplomacy, are integral parts of this promotional strategy. The current
administration, more than any other, espouses public relations as an
instrument of policy. It is an instrument, though, of limited value when it
comes to defending military invasions or trying to destabilise the regimes
of Syria and Iran. So far, it does not seem to have swayed many Americans,
let alone Middle Easterners.

In this troubled region, Iraq and the Palestinian question remain the most
daunting challenges to US foreign policy. Looking at both situations from
the perspective of "the global fight against terrorism" misses the point. In
Iraq the US-led invasion has resulted in fragmentation of the country into
sectarian and ethnic enclaves. US Ambassador in Iraq Zilmay Khalilzad
recently admitted as much when he described the invasion as opening up a
Pandora's box. Before the Anglo-American invasion Iraq, under the secular,
albeit brutal, regime of Saddam Hussein was much like the former Yugoslavia
under Josip Broz Tito -- a motley patchwork of ethnic pieces held together
by a dictatorial grip. While military intervention has loosened the grip, it
has disingenuously caused Iraq what Slobodan Miloöevic insidiously brought
on the former Yugoslavia: it lifted the lid on the pressure-cooker. The lid
cannot now be replaced and the contents of the pan are boiling over. 

While it is true that the Iraqis had the chance to vote three times to
choose a president, approve a constitution and elect a legislature, each
time they did they voted from an ethnic or sectarian perspective. The Iraqis
so far do not seem able to resolve their differences and form a government.
Can Secretary Rice put the jigsaw pieces together?

The Palestinian-Israeli confrontation has continually escalated during the
Bush presidency. By boycotting the democratically-elected government of
Hamas, the White House is abetting Tel Aviv's unbridled expansionist
ambitions. One consequence of the mounting pressure on the Palestinians will
be to push them back into the inescapable corner of armed resistance. In the
Bush lexicon this is a synonym for terrorism. The vicious circle of the
fight against global terrorism will roll on, providing a political
environment favorable to the new Israeli government's attempts to
unilaterally impose final borders and in the process gobble up as much
territory as it can. 

Democratic forces in the Middle East now consider the Bush administration's
commitment to democratic transformation in the region as a charade. For an
embattled administration facing challenges on multiple fronts, it feels more
comfortable working with the devils it knows rather than risking overturning
the apple cart. The Bush administration now needs to mobilise its
traditional regional allies to isolate Iran, exercise pressures on Syria,
Sudan and Hamas and contain the fall out from a disintegrating Iraq. For
now, the cause of democracy has to take a back seat.

* The writer is former Al-Ahram correspondent in Washington, DC. He also
served as director of United Nations Radio and Television in New York. 

Al-Ahram Weekly Online : Located at:
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2006/789/op5.htm 

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