Posted on 28-12-2003
A
year of thwarted ambition
Martin Jacques
Saddam Hussein's arrest provided a long overdue, and desperately
needed, morale-booster for the American and British governments.
The fact that they had succeeded in finding neither Saddam nor
Osama bin Laden had lent an air of ridicule to American military
grandiloquence. The failure to capture Saddam spoke eloquently
of an occupation that had veered far off course from the confident
predictions that had been made at the time of the invasion.
We will have to wait and see what the longer-term effect of
Saddam's arrest proves to be. Combined with Libya's new contrition,
it should, for a period at least, ease some of the domestic
pressure on Bush and perhaps even Blair. But it seems unlikely
that it will change much, especially where it matters most,
on the ground in Iraq.
It is salutary to reflect on how the invasion of Iraq and the
subsequent course of the occupation have tempered the ambitions
and expectations of the Bush administration. We may now live
in the era of American hyperpower and a new kind of American
imperial ambition, but Iraq has served to demonstrate some of
the likely limits to that power.
First, American unilateralism has come at a price. Far from
commanding more or less universal acquiescence in its power
and message - as happened with the first Gulf war - the invasion
has provoked a reaction which has resulted in the appearance
of new global fault lines. The most dramatic of these has been
the schism between France and Germany on the one hand and the
US on the other, a divide which calls into question the purpose
and durability of the western alliance. Few would have thought
that France and Germany would have had the courage or independence
of mind and spirit to oppose the US, but that is exactly what
they did.
Opposition, moreover, was not confined to the European powers.
Russia was of similar mind, notwithstanding the fact that ever
since the days of Boris Yeltsin, a man of ignominious and tainted
memory, it had chosen to side with the US on issues of major
import. China trod the same course, wearing Hush Puppies, desperate
not to be noticed, because while there could be no doubt where
China's true sentiments lay, the world's next superpower is
playing a very long game, one of the longest history has ever
known, subordinating temptation and instinct to its strategic
desire not to alienate the US in the course of its breathless
economic transformation.
Nor should we forget the manner in which the invasion has polarised
public opinion in the vast majority of the countries of the
world - including those nations like Italy, Spain, Japan and
South Korea, whose governments supported the coalition partners
- against the US, such that it is now more unpopular than it
has ever been in the theatre of global opinion.
Second, the military opposition to the American occupation
has confounded all expectations: no sooner had President Bush
declared the war over and Iraq subdued than the real war seemed
to start. The full repertoire of imperial responses to rebellion
by a local population has been rehearsed: that these were the
remnants of Saddam's regime, or criminals, or al-Qaida sympathisers
who had slipped over the border. As with Eoka, the Mau Mau,
the Vietcong, the IRA, and countless others before, there has
never been any admission that the guerrilla forces, motley,
primitive and disorganised as they may be, enjoy popular support,
bear the imprimatur of legitimacy invested in those nationalist
forces who resist invading powers.
As time has passed, and the intensity of the opposition has
grown, it has become clear that the opposition is far more diffuse
and homegrown than has been admitted, enjoying widespread support,
especially in central and northern Iraq. Saddam's capture is
unlikely to make much difference to this.
And who should be surprised? The second half of the last century
was the era of successful anti-colonial struggles, culminating
in the Vietnamese liberation movement. People do not like being
occupied from afar by countries of different cultures and races,
though the new American imperial hubris - like many before -
convinced the Bush administration and our own prime minister
that the coalition troops would be greeted like a liberating
army, that the people of Iraq yearned for our values and our
way of life.
Iraq has already demonstrated that American public opinion
does not have the stomach for a prolonged occupation, that the
Bush administration cannot afford the body bags, and that therefore
their Iraqi appointees will have to assume, sooner rather than
later, many of the frontline responsibilities. The occupation
of Iraq has taught the US, not to mention the world, that overweening
military power is not invincible, but on the contrary, is as
vulnerable as ever when it tries to occupy another people's
country. Such was, and remains, the lesson of anti-colonial
struggle.
Third, it seems possible, even probable, that further American
imperial ambitions - as encapsulated in the so-called "axis
of evil" - have been laid to rest, at least for the time
being, in the streets of Baghdad, Samarra, Tikrit and neighbouring
towns. There was much speculation in the early part of this
year about which country would be next - Iran or North Korea.
With the occupation of Afghanistan looking increasingly fragile
- and more and more vulnerable - and the Iraqi guerrilla opposition
obliging an imminent American retreat, at least of a kind, it
is difficult to imagine the Americans taking on either of these
regimes in the near future. Indeed, there has already been a
marked shift in the mood music from the days of Rumsfeld's high
noon, with the Americans increasingly looking to China to assist
with North Korea, and a clutch of other countries to defuse
Iran's nuclear ambitions.
Fourth, as with all imperial endeavours, there has been much
moralising about democracy, human rights and justice. It was
ever so, but no more so than now. Yet these values have, as
in the past, been the first casualties of imperial ambition.
There are countless stories of the way in which American troops
shoot first and ask questions later. The Americans don't even
bother to count the number of Iraqi dead. When Bush and Blair
insist that the Iraqis should determine Saddam's fate, by Iraqis
they mean their own quisling Iraqi regime. The Guantanamo camp
is an affront to human rights worldwide. Civil rights have been
rolled back in the US in the name of the fight against terror.
And, of course, there are no weapons of mass destruction: truth
is the first casualty of war - and imperial ambition. It is
difficult to imagine the US and Britain ever enjoying the same
kind of respect again in their claim to be the mantle of democracy
and human rights.
None of this is to suggest that we do not live in the age of
the American imperium. Following 9/11, we have witnessed the
birth of a new American unilateralism and self-interest to which
every country in the world has been, and is being, obliged to
respond and relate. Iraq is the first true test of that American
imperial ambition and it has already served to suggest some
of the limits to that power.
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