Yes to American statesmanship, no to showmanship
Daily Star Lebannon
23rd of July 2003
The renewed American warnings to Syria and Iran Monday by President George W. Bush followed Secretary of State Colin Powell’s own admonishments a few days earlier, on issues such as weapons of mass destruction, terror, support for Hizbullah and Arab-Israeli peacemaking. This American campaign against Damascus and Tehran is not to be taken lightly, however thin may be the evidence offered to support the American accusations. One pays attention when the total number of US military bases around the world hovers around the 150 mark and continues to rise, and Washington liberally engages in armed attacks and wars in its self-appointed role of global cop.
Yet the more we see of America as worldwide enforcer, the more clear become the fault lines that define America’s interaction with the world. Five separate issues should be disentangled from one another and addressed prudently.
1. The policies of the Syrian and Iranian governments. It is perfectly fair to ask that Damascus and Tehran abide by the reasonable international norms that have been agreed upon by the community of nations.
Should these or any other states pursue policies that really threaten others, they should be dealt with through the available legitimate mechanisms. Such a case has not been proven here, and so the unilateral, threatening American policy toward Damascus and Tehran has elicited little support. Instead, we see considerable worldwide disdain and even contempt for this American foreign policy approach defined by frustration, arrogance, threats, and a quick trigger finger.
2. The issue of legitimate enforcement of international norms. If Syria, Iran or Hizbullah are doing evil things and threatening others, that should be determined by one of many available international mechanisms, especially through the UN system, respected international non-governmental organizations, and even impartial, credible research and analysis institutions. The civilized world, as George Bush and Colin Powell call it, has developed means to identify, verify, contain, and end potential threats to peace; but the unilateral ideological and military exuberance of George Bush and Colin Powell are not among those means.
3. The issue of equal, consistent enforcement of international norms. The US again generates worldwide criticism because it is seen to be applying a transparent double standard in deciding that some countries can develop sophisticated weapons systems and others cannot. The message from Washington is titanic in its hypocrisy, and so it elicits proportionately strong resistance.
4. The nature of American interaction with the rest of the world. The US government’s post-Sept. 11 tendency to pursue a global policy comprising a combination of hypocrisy, militarism, unilateralism, selective lies, and cooking the books of intelligence data raises widespread fears. When experienced from beyond the shores of the United States, a unipolar world also looks like a lawless world. As the US expands its worldwide military bases and operations, and makes fighting terror rather than promoting human dignity and decency its main policy goal, it highlights a dilemma that has plagued the US since its inception: Do Americans interact with others in this world as equal human beings, with shared interests, or as superior beings with a divine mandate and a special calling? America’s self-perception as mighty and noble global enforcer of All Things Good and Decent elicits from the rest of the world only perplexed chuckles and, more recently, a readiness to dive for cover when the Marines appear. Yet, paradoxically, many people around the world also call for US troops and assistance (e.g., Liberia), suggesting that the US should devise policies that maximize its constructive interventions that win it friends and allies, and minimize destructive ones that earn it only scorn and fear.
5. The complex relationship between domestic and foreign policy in the US. One of the hard lessons we learn these days is about the distortions in an otherwise fine American democratic system of federal republicanism. The ability of special interest groups and narrow lobbies inside the US to steer American foreign policy onto its current course is a problem for Americans to resolve though the consequences of this problem touch the rest of the world. The fact that soldiers, rather than businesspeople, tourists or diplomats, are fast becoming the leading symbol of America’s interaction with the world should make ordinary Americans more worried, rather than more secure.
Iran and Syria are fascinating places, ancient cultures with thousands of years of human experience, rich moral and political legacies, great food, wonderful cities, some of the warmest, kindest people in the world, precarious economies, and stressed governance systems experiencing internal and regional pressures to evolve, open up, democratize, and modernize.
Bush and Powell would be well advised to drop the Lone Ranger behavior, and instead opt for a more legitimate and constructive approach to valid global issues that would benefit from greater American statesmanship, and less showmanship.
Rami G. Khouri is executive editor of The Daily Star
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/opinion/23_07_03_c.asp