Clinton, New Terrorism and the Origins of the War on Terror

Chin-Kuei Tsui

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781138841727
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317553526
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

A frequent assumption of the American-led 'war on terror' and its accompanying discourse originated largely with the George W. Bush Administration, and that there was a counterterrorism policy revolution in the U.S. political arena. Challenging these assumptions, through a genealogical analysis of U.S. terrorism and counterterrorism discourses, this book demonstrates a distinct continuity (and lack of change) of U.S. counterterrorism policy, from Ronald Reagan, to Bill Clinton, and through to George W. Bush.

The book focuses on President Clinton's discursive construction of 'new terrorism', or 'catastrophic terrorism', and the counterterrorism practices implemented by the Clinton Administration, while simultaneously comparing it with President Reagan's and President George W. Bush's approaches to counterterrorism. It shows how the war on terror can be traced to earlier periods, and that the so-called Bush revolution was largely built upon the existing framework established by President Reagan and President Clinton. Prior to the 2001 terrorist attacks, Clinton had expanded Reagan's first 'war on terrorism' discourse and constructed the 'new terrorism' discourse, characterised by the notions of borderless threats, 'home-grown' terrorism, WMD-terrorism, cyberterrorism, and rogue states. Clinton's 'new terrorism' discourse provided a useful framework for George W. Bush to discursively respond to the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001.

Aiming to uncover the myth of President George W. Bush's foreign policy revolution and contribute to a deeper historical understanding of the U.S.-led war on terror, it will be of great use to postgraduates and scholars of US foreign policy, security studies and terrorism studies.

1
The origins of the war on terror and the myth of President George W. Bush’s foreign policy revolution

Since the tragedy of 11 September 2001, there has been considerable growth in the literature discussing the US-led war on terror, and a body of work continues to develop on President George W. Bush’s discursive construction of the ‘war on terror’. Among the existing literature, scholars and academics (Collins and Glover, 2002; Silberstein, 2002; Murphy, 2004; Krebs and Lobasz, 2007) tend to assume or at least imply that the war and its discourse originated with the George W. Bush administration. Besides this assumption, one of the frequent arguments is that the 2001 terrorist attacks significantly changed the worldviews of Washington’s elites and profoundly affected the US administration’s subsequent foreign and security policies (Daalder and Lindsay, 2003; Leffler, 2003, 2004; Mann, 2004). However, in contrast to such an orthodox understanding, this book, through tracing the discursive origins of the ‘war on terror’, attempts to demonstrate a distinct continuity of US counterterrorism policy from President Reagan, to President Clinton, and, later, through to President George W. Bush. I argue that, based on President Reagan’s first ‘war on terrorism’, President Clinton rhetorically framed and created so-called ‘new terrorism’, or ‘catastrophic terrorism’, which is defined not only by its borderless character, but also by the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) utilised by terrorists and rogue states. As a consequence, President Clinton’s discourses on terrorism and counterterrorism provided a useful and readily available discursive framework for President George W. Bush to respond to the 2001 terrorist attacks. Importantly, the language and discourse used by these US administrations not only constructed, but also constrained, the way in which the subjects of ‘terrorism’ and ‘terrorists’ could meaningfully be comprehended and discussed and how they might be addressed.

To problematise the existing literature and find a research gap, in this chapter, I first examine the current discussion of President George W. Bush’s foreign policy revolution, particularly focusing on neoconservative worldviews and the Bush Doctrine. I argue that President Bush’s foreign policy largely followed that of his predecessors, and suggest a long continuation rather than a revolutionary shift of US counterterrorism policy after 11 September 2001. Following this argument, a review regarding the discursive dimension of the ‘war on terror’ and a study of the Clinton administration’s counterterrorism initiatives are examined and discussed in greater depth. This literature review shows a persistent lack of research on President Clinton’s terrorism discourse and his counterterrorism initiatives, thereby meriting further research.

The myth of Bush’s foreign policy revolution: neoconservative worldviews and the Bush Doctrine

Since the 2001 World Trade Center bombings, issues regarding terrorism and counterterrorism have been widely discussed in the scholarship of international relations (IR). There is also a considerable literature elaborating on President George W. Bush’s global war on terror and the transformation of US foreign and security policies. The frequent argument in the existing literature is that the war and its discourse originated with the George W. Bush administration and that a distinct foreign policy revolution occurred in the US political arena after 11 September 2001. For example, Mann (2004: xii) indicates:

The administration’s distinctive approach to the world became considerably more pronounced after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. Over the following year the Vulcans put forth a remarkable series of new doctrines and ideas, ones that represented a dramatic break with the foreign policies and strategies of the past.

Similarly, Leffler (2003: 1046) argues that ‘the Bush doctrine departs radically from the ways in which American administrations of the twentieth century have conceptualized and articulated appropriate responses to acute dangers’. Daalder and Lindsay (2003: 2) also emphasise that President George W. Bush’s foreign policy revolution ‘was not a revolution in America’s goals abroad, but rather in how to achieve them’.

Additionally, while accepting an interview with the NBC News, Dick Cheney, Vice President of the United States, mentioned unequivocally:

9/11 changed everything. It changed the way we think about threats to the United States. It changed about our recognition of our vulnerabilities. It changed in terms of the kind of national security strategy we need to pursue.

(cited in Hurst, 2009: 159)

Elites’ concerns of America’s national security were clearly articulated in the National Security Strategy (NSS) published by the Bush administration in 2002, in which President Bush indicated that ‘the United States can no longer solely rely on a reactive posture as we have in the past. … We cannot let our enemies strike first’ (NSS 2002: 15). The articulation of US national strategy shows and implies that the conventional strategies broadly utilised in the Cold War, namely, deterrence and containment, were perceived as ineffective by the Bush administration while tackling the ‘imminent threats’ posed by terrorism, terrorists, rogue states and the spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). Instead, preemptive strikes supported by America’s military superiority were argued and interpreted as indispensible for America’s national security in the post-9/11 world. As the NSS noted:

The United States has long maintained the option of preemptive actions to counter a sufficient threat to our national security. The greater the threat, the greater is the risk of inaction – and the more compelling the case for taking anticipatory action to defend ourselves, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy’s attack. To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively.

(NSS, 2002: 15)

Hurst (2009) argues that the rejection of containment and deterrence and the assertion of preemptive use of America’s military forces, including preventive wars, is unassailably one of the significant aspects of Bush’s foreign policy revolution. Other scholars, such as Daalder and Lindsay (2003), Leffler (2003), Mann (2004), Parmar (2005) and Miller (2010) also claim that the tragedy on US soil in 2001 not only prompted Washington’s elites to rethink America’s global role in the post-9/11 era, but also provided an opportunity for the Bush administration to formulate a new US national security strategy to address the threats from terrorism, terrorists, and so-called ‘rogue states’.

Moreover, to understand the Bush-led war on terror fully, Mann (2004), Mearsheimer (2005) and Schmidt and Williams (2008), among others, indicate that a neoconservative account of world order and US foreign policy is indispensible. For example, Mann (2004) and Singh (2009) have argued that President George W. Bush’s global war on terror – in particular, regime change in Iraq and democracy promotion in the Middle East – is based on the specific political ideal of ‘US primacy’ shared by neoconservatives, most of whom were, at the time, serving as opinion-shaping leaders and policy-making elites under the George W. Bush administration. When President Bush took office in 2001, approximately 20 neo-conservatives served in the US government. Most of them were junior members of the Bush administration; and, perhaps, the highest-ranking official was Paul Wolfowitz, President Bush’s first-term Deputy Defense Secretary (Singh, 2009: 37). Besides, similar to other politically active Americans in Washington, neo-conservatives have interconnections, favoured think tanks and journalistic homes, dependable financial sponsors and discrete agendas (ibid.). With regard to their worldview and political ideology, the neo-conservatives were fiercely patriotic and loyal to the United States (Parmer, 2005: 8); they view the United States as a ‘good’ and ‘benevolent’ country in world affairs (ibid.). For many neo-conservatives, America’s superior and distinct military might enables the United States to shape and dominate the world in accordance with the interests identified by policy-making elites (Mearsheimer, 2005).

The neoconservative worldview, which is also known as the Bush Doctrine, is characterised by its unambiguous commitment to America’s international leadership: that is, the US is the sole superpower in the post-Cold War world and seeks to preserve its hegemonic position for the indefinite future (Schmidt and Williams, 2008: 193). Other commitments embraced by neoconservative pundits, such as the preemptive use of military force, the maintenance of a unipolar international system dominated by the United States, and the promotion of democracy, were also defined as central elements of the neoconservative Bush Doctrine. In short, for neoconservatives, as William Kristol and Robert Kagan (1996: 23) emphasise, ‘American hegemony is the only reliable defence against a breakdown of peace and international order’. Moreover, a world dominated by the United States would support US national interests.

The Bush Doctrine was explicitly articulated in the public discourse of US elites and official documents. For example, in 2004, while accepting an interview on CNN’s Larry King Live, President Bush expressed his ‘deep desire to spread liberty around the world as a way to help secure [the US] in the long-run’ (quoted in Monten, 2005: 112). He continued that ‘democracy and reform will make [Middle Eastern states] stronger and more stable, and make the world more secure by undermining terrorism at its source’ (quoted in ibid.). President Bush’s statement shows that after the 2001 terrorist attacks, exporting democracy and transforming the Middle East into a zone of democracies were seen as a key preoccupation of the Bush administration’s foreign policy, one firmly supported by neoconservative elites as a possible solution to terrorism.

Additionally, the neoconservative worldview, characterised by the political ideal of US primacy and the promotion of democracy, was deeply embedded in the George W. Bush administration’s 2002 NSS:

The United States will use this moment of opportunity to extend the benefits of freedom across the globe. We will actively work to bring the hope of democracy, development, free markets, and free trade to every corner of the world.

(NSS, 2002)

The NSS provides an overview of the George W. Bush administration’s post-9/11 security strategy. It outlines the major security concerns of the United States – terrorism, terrorists, and rogue states – and illustrates the ways in which the United States would address the identified threats. To tackle them, the United States had to act decisively and immediately, as the NSS suggests that ‘we [the US] cannot let our enemies strike first’ and that ‘to forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively’ (2002: 15). Notably, prior to the articulation of NSS, in November, 2001, President Bush had mentioned and implied in his speech given at the Warsaw Conference that ‘we will not wait for the authors of mass murder to gain the weapons of mass destructions. We act now, because we must lift this dark threat from our age and save generations to come’ (quoted in Daalder and Lindsay, 2003: 118). Donald Rumsfeld, President Bush’s Secretary of Defense, also argued that a new security strategy based on the idea of preemptive strikes is compulsory. He further stressed: ‘the best, and in some cases, the only defense, is good offense’ (quoted in ibid.: 120). Clearly, the assertion of preemptive use of military force was confirmed and justified by the George W. Bush administration in order to deal with the potential threats and enemies that might challenge the United States, in particular, al Qaeda and Iraq’s Saddam Hussein regime. The Bush Doctrine, distinguished by its declaration of a preemptive use of force, was thus perceived as an obvious US foreign policy shift.

In fact, President George W. Bush – in sharp contrast to his predecessor, President Bill Clinton – along with Bush’s national security advisors, stressed the importance of a foreign policy based on the preponderance of US military power (Mann, 2004: xii; Mearsheimer, 2005: 1–2). Specifically, America’s superior military capacity, as the neoconservatives averred, provided a robust instrument for the US administration to transform the world into one that fits US national interests and to spread its core values, such as freedom, democracy and human dignity, to the rest of the world. In 2002, while giving a speech to the graduates at West Point, President Bush (2002) noted that ‘America has and intends to keep military strengths beyond challenge, thereby making the destabilizing arms races of other eras pointless, and limiting rivalries to trade and other pursuits of peace’. While making a comment on the Bush Doctrine, John Mearsheimer (2005: 1) also argued that the Bush Doctrine ‘has an idealist strand and a power strand: Wilsonianism provides the idealism, an emphasis on military power provides the teeth’.

Nevertheless, it can be argued that the Bush Doctrine is actually not a revolutionary shift of US foreign and security policies, because sustaining democratic peace and spreading America’s core values – the central core of the Bush Doctrine – fits within traditional themes in US history. As Leffler (2004: 22) highlights, the goals of George W. Bush’s foreign policy:

rekindle Thomas Jefferson’s vision of an empire of liberty. They were integral to Woodrow Wilson’s missive that ‘the world must be made safe for democracy’. They flow from Franklin Roosevelt’s four freedoms. They echo the notable rhetoric of John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address, to ‘oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty’.

In addition, since the days of the Founding Fathers, the United States has acknowledged that, if necessary, the United States would act unilaterally in the international arena. For example, at independence, the United States explicitly distinguished itself from the ‘Old World’. Even in the Cold War period, although US administrations publicly affirmed a commitment to collective security and multilateralism, privately, however, they never renounced the ambition to act unilaterally (ibid.: 22–3). In terms of the assertion of preemptive war, critics have argued that the unilateral use of military force was not seen as the only tool for the George W. Bush administration in order to tackle potential threats, and the 2003 US invasion of Iraq was actually a war of choice (ibid.: 23). In contrast to the Iraq war, while addressing the threats from Iran and North Korea, the Bush administration did not act unilaterally and preventively as it asserted in the 2002 NSS, due to political calculation and pressure from the international arena (ibid.). Further, as Patman (2009: 221) argues and illustrates, it was multilateral diplomacy rather than forceful unilateralism which played an important role in the American-led war against Afghanistan’s Taliban regime and bin Laden’s al Qaeda. The Bush administration embraced unilateralism and abandoned its belief on multilateralism until the goal of regime change was achieved in Afghanistan in late 2001 (ibid.).

Other research (Freedman, 2009; Mearsheimer and Walt, 2007) also shows that prior to the 2001 terrorist attacks, the neoconservatives argued for the overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime; they also contributed to the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act aimed at toppling Saddam’s regime and establishing a Western democracy in Iraq (Mearsheimer and Walt, 2007: 244). It has also been argued that in the past decades, regime change has indeed been discussed and implemented by US administrations. For example, in the 1950s, the Eisenhower administration sought to overthrow the Mohammed Mossadegh regime in Iran; in the 1980s, the Reagan administration supported Nicaraguan contras to topple the Sandinistas; and, in the 1990s, the Clinton administration assisted Serb opposition forces in ousting the Slobodan Milosevic regime (Daalder and Lindsay, 2005: 14). Additionally, during the years of Clinton’s presidencies, the preemptive use of force was adopted by US administration in order to combat terrorism and was articulated in Presidential Decision Directive (PDD) 39 regarding counterterrorism (Leffler, 2004: 24). And, to respond to the bombings of the United States’ African embassies in 1998, the Clinton administration authorised a series of attacks ag...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 The origins of the war on terror and the myth of President George W. Bush’s foreign policy revolution
• 2 Framing the threat of new terrorism: the invention of US terrorism discourse and President Clinton’s counterterrorism approach
• 3 Conceptualising terrorist attacks: metaphors, frames and President Clinton’s counterterrorism initiatives
• 4 Framing the threat of rogue states: Iraq, Iran and Clinton’s dual-containment approach to Middle East peace
• 5 Writing American national identity: narratives and the social construction of terrorism as a negative ideograph
• 6 Rethinking the discursive construction of terrorism and counterterrorism: theoretical reflections and implications
• Conclusion
• Index