American Global Strategy and the 'War on Terrorism'

Hall Gardner

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781138426627
• eBook ISBN: 9781351959353
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political Advocacy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Contemporary international events, and indeed even the US presidential election, demonstrate the continuing need for debate and discourse over the direction and emphases of US foreign policy. Following the success of the original hardback publication, this revised and updated paperback re-conceptualizes the 'war on terrorism' and analyzes the nature of American domestic and international policy-making within the context of historical and structural constraints upon US policy. American Global Strategy and the 'War on Terrorism' addresses a wide range of themes that are crucial to understanding the 9/11 crisis and to formulating an affective American and global foreign and security policy to deal with that crisis. This study should be read by contemporary policy makers and scholars of foreign policy.

Chapter 1
Reflections upon the 11 September Attacks and “Pre-Emptive” War in Iraq

It is possible that had the United States heeded the warnings and counsel of Mikhail Gorbachev (in respect to American support for the Afghan mujahedin, who were once upon a time depicted as “freedom fighters”), the horrors of the 11 September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon might never have taken place. Certainly, had the US shaken hands with Mikhail Gorbachev in the late 1980s over Afghanistan, it is dubious that the Taliban would have come to power. Instead, the US, having initially taunted Moscow into intervention in 1978–79,¹ turned its back once the Soviet Union was forced out, largely indifferent to the fate of the Afghan people, and what kind of regime might take control. It is also possible that had the US really shaken hands with Gorbachev, the specter of terrorist actions, as well as the threats posed by proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), would probably not have reached quite the same order and magnitude as today. Not only did the US taunt the Soviet Union into intervening, but also, contrary to its stated policy on non-proliferation, it looked the other way as Pakistan sought to develop a nuclear weapons capacity.² (See Chapters 4 and 5.)

There is, of course, no way to know for certain what could have happened had a different path been taken. And such speculation should absolutely not be interpreted as nostalgia for that grotesque, ideologically charged era dubbed the “Cold War” with its superpower cravings.³ More pertinently, there should be a clear-headed recognition that the collapse of the bipolar world order has led to the emergence of a new global disequilibrium—in which the US has now seized the predominant role, yet without adequately formulating the new rules for the global system—and without offering new goals for an emerging global society.

It was evidently not the first, nor the last, time that the US would fail to heed friendly advice. In late 2001, the US did obtain UN Security Council (UNSC) support for the war against al-Qaida, which had allied with the Taliban in Afghanistan. In the period 2002–03, the US initially appeared to engage in a multilateral approach through the UN summitry, but Washington refused to heed the friendly counsel and warnings of its own allies, France and Germany, as well as that of Russia, in respect to the potentially destabilizing regional and global consequences of military intervention in Iraq. In chastising France in particular for its opposition to so-called “pre-emptive” US-UK military intervention in Iraq (in pointing to UN Resolutions 687 and 1441 as the legal pretext), Washington largely ignored the fact that it was the Quai d’Orsay that had first led the charge to Kabul in October 2001 in support of UN Resolution 1368. The latter had provided international legitimacy for a military operation in Afghanistan led essentially by the US with more limited assistance from the UK, Germany and France.

Once Washington had opted for intervention in Iraq against the counsel of some of its own allies, US and European relations subsequently became more fractious as US policy tended to play the UK, Spain, Italy, and eastern European states, particularly Poland, against France, Germany and Belgium, taking advantage of already existing political-economic disputes within the European Union. These US actions appeared intended to impede European efforts to achieve unity, and risked the alienation of Russia as well. Yet much as the two Cassandras of the “old Europe,” Germany and France, forewarned, the US and its Coalition partners would soon sink deep into Mesopotamian quicksand.

As of 30 December 2005, the Congressional Budget Office estimated total spending for combat and support operations in Iraq to be $251bn, while total direct costs were projected to reach $500bn (plus $82bn for Afghanistan and $24bn for related foreign operations). Part of this request was to establish fourteen “enduring bases” in Iraq, in the not absolutely certain assumption that the new Iraqi government would permit a long-term US military presence, or that the US would not ultimately pull out. Other estimates ranged from $700bn to $2 trillion in indirect costs, depending upon whether troops remained until 2010 or 2015.⁴ Moreover, by the law of “opportunity cost,” this extra expenditure cut into other ways to spend those same funds on domestic US security and economic concerns, international development assistance (such as the UN Millennium Development Goals, the 2004 Global Peace Operations Initiative, and future funding for democracy, development, and political transitions),⁵ among other initiatives—such as the crucial development of alternative energy resources and technologies.

In addition, these costs do not indicate the detrimental effects of higher oil prices upon the world economy: In addition to increasing Indian and Chinese demand, plus a lack of refining capacity in the US, not to overlook political-economic instability in Nigeria and Saudi Arabia, oil prices averaged about $10–15 per barrel higher as a result of speculation and sabotage in Iraq—than they would have otherwise.⁶ Neo-conservatives had believed that low cost high quality Iraqi crude would come pouring onto the world market just after the war (despite the need for billions in investment), and that the subsequent privatization of Iraqi oil (and abolition of the state-run Iraq National Oil Company) was a “no brainer” that would help break the OPEC cartel. Yet the “foreign threat” to privatize Iraqi assets and resources, coupled by efforts of primarily Kurdish and Shi’a regions to make separate future oil deals with multinational companies that sought to exclude the national government (and thus exclude Sunni regions without oil), have represented major factors fueling resistance among Iraqi insurgents (who are not necessarily linked to al-Qaida). Concurrently, the northern Kurdish regions have feared that the Shi’a dominated Iraqi parliament will tend to place its priority on the development of oil fields and resources in the south of Iraq.⁷

Contrary to neo-conservative fantasies, any respectable Iraqi government would press OPEC for higher oil prices to pay the massive costs of political, social and economic reconstruction and seek a reduction, if not the repudiation, of what it considers “odious” debts, which had largely been forced upon the country by Saddam Hussein in the 1980s (with the support of the US, France and Russia) during the war with Iran—thus augmenting world-wide economic losses.⁸

11 September and Pearl Harbor

The 11 September 2001 attacks by pan-Islamic militants on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, two of the primary US symbols of power and influence, has consequently raised an acrimonious debate within the US as to who was responsible for letting such attacks take place and how best to deter and prevent such acts from taking place in the future. There were those who argued that the 11 September catastrophe was much like Pearl Harbor in that Washington had more evidence of plans to attack than it was willing to reveal. But there has been no smoking gun to prove that the Bush administration had possessed hard evidence of an imminent attack to take place on the day of 11 September. Certainly, there were clues that the Federal Aviation Administration could, and should have, been more thoroughly investigated; the FBI, CIA, DIA, NSA, among other agencies, could have done a better job in communicating with one another.⁹ In the cases of both 11 September 2001 and 7 December 1941, it does appear that a shortage of translators prevented critical information from getting into the right hands at the right time. At the same time, 11 September conspiracy theories across the political spectrum abound, while the Pearl Harbor analogy raises even more portentous concerns for the future of this conflict—that has now re-awakened the “Sleeping Giant.”¹⁰

The debate over 11 September and US foreign policy then became even more acrimonious following the Bush administration’s decision to opt for “preemptive” (really preclusive) war with Iraq in March 2003 in order to eliminate the possibility that Iraq may have acquired, or would acquire, WMD. After chasing the Taliban from Kabul (but without thoroughly eradicating the al-Qaida leadership or the Taliban for that matter), the Bush administration continued to focus almost obsessively on Iraq, presumably in the belief that Saddam Hussein would eventually seek revenge for his defeat in the 1990–91 Persian Gulf War. Deputy Secretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz, argued that multilateral diplomacy and sanctions would not prevent the Iraqi regime from ultimately developing nuclear weaponry—and that even if Hussein did not possess nuclear weapons or other WMD at that time, he would ultimately possess such capabilities.¹¹

The Iraqi threat thus began to take precedence over efforts to track down and eliminate al-Qaida—in respect to the significant amount of financial and military resources that were used to pressure, and then overthrow, Saddam Hussein. “Regime change” represented an option that the administration of George Bush, Sr. had first considered, but then ruled out in 1991. President Clinton, rather than intervening in Iraq directly, engaged in two coup d’état attempts; both, unfortunately, failed.¹² The passage of the 1998 Iraqi Liberation Act—pushed by neo-conservative lobbyists—additionally impelled the Clinton Administration to confront the issue.¹³ President Clinton consequently sought to contain Iraq by preventing Hussein’s military machine from functioning effectively through a devastating bombing campaign in 1998. General Anthony Zinni, Commander in Chief of the US Central Command from 1997–2000, argued, “The sanctions were working. The containment was working. He had a hollow military, as we saw. If he had weapons of mass destruction, it was leftover stuff—artillery shells and rocket rounds. He didn’t have the delivery systems. We controlled the skies and seaports. We bombed him at will. All of this happened under U.N. authority. I mean, we had him by the throat. But the president was being convinced by the (neoconservatives) that down the road we would regret not taking him out.”¹⁴

Neo-conservative factions within George W. Bush’s administration, however, argued that Clinton’s strategy had totally failed. Despite the frequent and effective US-UK bombing of Iraqi military facilities after November 1998, the neo-conservatives argued that direct military intervention represented the only available option. The Bush administration consequently waged a propaganda campaign to convince American and world opinion that Iraq possessed considerable WMD capabilities; yet the truth of the matter was that Saddam’s brutal military machine was not so gradually crumbling; his threat to acquire nuclear weaponry was largely bluff.

The Bush administration, and Defense Department in particular, likewise manipulated the 11 September attacks by linking Iraqi support for various terrorist activities with al-Qaida—in what has been dubbed a “noble lie” in neoconservative circles (see Chapter 2). Although Saddam Hussein’s intelligence services and al-Qaida may have engaged in some tenuous contacts, it appears dubious that Saddam had infiltrated the organization or coordinated planning in any way with bin Laden’s group. In effect, the Bush administration was able to take advantage of the 11 September attacks to expand the “war on terrorism” to a war on “rogue states”—but without any clear end to either conflict in sight. The specific nature of counter-reaction and counter-terrorism is largely dependent upon how state elites in power at the time of the attacks choose to manipulate those attacks for domestic and international political purposes. It is quite possible that, as the wars on “terrorism” and on “rogue states” continue to drag on with no clear “victory” in sight, that one side or another might ultimately opt to utilize some form of WMD as the US itself did in revenge for Pearl Harbor and for other Japanese actions during World War II.

Here, the analogy to Pearl Harbor possesses political-ethical ramifications that are even more ominous. From a historical perspective, major acts of “anti-state terrorism” have often resulted in significant overreaction by those states attacked. (See Chapter 3.) In fact, al-Qaida’s own expectations of overreaction were based upon President Clinton’s actions in striking targets in both the Sudan and in Afghanistan with multimillion dollar cruise missiles in response to the bloody, yet largely “symbolic,” bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. While al-Qaida operatives expected US counter-attacks on Afghanistan (and even predicted that the Pentagon would use nuclear weaponry!), they did not expect the US intervention against Iraq. The latter was considered a godsend, a “gift from the heavens for Al-Qaida.”¹⁵ (One can add: It was a gift for Iran as well.)

It is also possible that other states, following in American footsteps, could take up the banner of “pre-emption” or else use brutal tactics in their efforts to eradicate “terrorists” or other political opponents. After the US intervention in Iraq, for example, India initially threatened to engage in preemptive strikes—if Islamabad did not stop its support for jihadi “terrorism.” (See Chapter 5.) At least since September 2004, Israel has threatened to intervene in Syria or Iran (much as it had previously threatened to intervene in Iraq as early as 1985–86)—that is, if the US did not act to stop Iran from developing WMD. After the September 2004 hostage crisis in Beslan, Northern Ossetia (which helped forge the December 2004 NATO-Russian Council ‘Action Plan on Terrorism’), the Russian military chief of staff threatened to “take preventive strikes against terrorist bases in any region” while Russia simultaneously modernized its multiple warhead ICBMs. (See Chapter 6.) US military intervention in Iraq likewise appears to have convinced the other “axis of evil” states, North Korea and Iran, that the possession of WMD represents a form of prestige that will ostensibly bring greater international respect. These weapons, regardless of their costs, could consequently serve as a deterrent against a potential attack—and as leverage to permit these countries to pursue their regional interests—if they are not fully convinced that such weaponry will prove to destabilizing by instigating new regional arms build-ups and “security dilemmas.”

Moreover, the US intervention in Iraq has become a rallying point for jihadi groups throughout the Arab/Islamic world, as well as among European Moslems. Al-Qaida, which ostensibly aligned with the partisan group of the Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in October 2004 in attacking US and Coalition forces in Iraq, has warned of repeating major attacks in the US or Europe. Bin Laden’s apparition on Al-Jazeera television, just before the November 2004 US presidential election, symbolically indicated that the US had not yet captured the world’s most wanted man—contrary to ubiquitous pre-election rumors that bin Laden had already been imprisoned and that the Bush administration was waiting to display him to the world media just a few weeks before the American elections. (By contrast, while Saddam Hussein was captured, his trial and sentence to death by hanging could turn him into a martyr, at least in the eyes of his supporters.)

From Indifference to ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• About the Author
• Introduction Labors of Hercules Without End in Sight
• Chapter 1 Reflections upon the 11 September Attacks and “Pre-Emptive” War in Iraq
• Chapter 2 The Roots of American Neo-Conservatism: Neo-Timocrats or Moralizing Politicians?
• Chapter 3 The Question of State versus Anti-State “Terrorism”: Who is “Terrorizing” Whom?
• Chapter 4 The Risks of Nuclear Proliferation
• Chapter 5 Manipulating US Global Power: Pakistan, “War on Terrorism” and Strategic Leveraging
• Chapter 6 The Global Ramifications of American Military Expansionism
• Chapter 7 “Clash of Democracies” or New Global Concert?
• Chapter 8 Transcending the International Disequilibrium
• Notes
• Selected Bibliography
• Index