American National Security in the Age of Insecurity - Part 2

By Dr. Habib Siddiqui

Part 4: Global War On Terror: Where it is heading?

While the USA has given us capitalism, modern technology, presidential form of democracy, she has also given us the most lethal practice of arms conceivable.

In a joint statement on November 21, 2001, Presidents Bush and Putin declared, “The United States and Russia have overcome the legacy of the Cold War. Neither country regards the other as an enemy or threat.” And yet the buildup of nuclear arsenal continues unabated! According to a report published in the USA Today, in 2007 America possessed some 7000 nuclear weapons compared to Russia’s 7800. And yet all those nuclear bombs and missiles were of no use to protect the USA on the fateful day of 9/11/01. Truly, America’s definition of its role in the world was altered not by the challenge of a mighty rival like Russia or China but by the suicidal act of a few unknown terrorists inspired and supported by a remote but zealous underground group lacking any of the attributes of a modern state power. National security has, therefore, become a very important issue in America.

When President Bush launched the GWOT after the 9/11 attack, few Americans needed much explanation of its purpose. They wanted the threat eradicated and perpetrators responsible for causing America’s greatest tragedy in the post-Cold War era captured or killed. Emboldened by military success in Afghanistan, Bush exploited Americans’ fear of potential terrorism on their soil by citing that Iraq was posing a direct threat to the USA. His administration contended that Saddam Hussein had acquired weapons of mass destruction – chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, and thus, justified pre-emptive invasion of Iraq in 2003. He and his advisers also claimed that Saddam Hussein had ties with al-Qaeda. After the occupation of Iraq, years of frantic and thorough search proved all such assertions wrong. The President and the members of his cabinet, as it is very obvious now, had deliberately lied and misled the nation and world community to forcefully remove the regime in Iraq, much to the blueprint of the neoconservative hawks that had preached the wisdom of regime change and American hegemony in that part of the world.

Seven year after 9/11, after a disorienting detour into Iraq, the clarity on GWOT is gone. Most Americans are asking: what is the exit strategy? How and when will they know that the goals are met? Not only has the Bush Administration failed to eradicate terrorism, the Iraq War has failed to reward America thus far and instead is responsible for the largest budget deficit in American history—a hefty figure of approximately half a trillion dollars. The war has had a broad destabilizing consequence across much of the Middle East. Much to the embarrassment of the planners and promoters of the war, Iran has come out a clear winner from the political change in Iraq. Because of lawlessness in Iraq, millions of Iraqis have fled the country and taken temporary shelter in neighboring countries. Syria alone has more than a million of Iraqi refugees. Sectarian violence, something that was unknown during decades of the Ba’athist rule, is now a common feature in American-occupied and controlled Iraq, with blames squarely put against the Americans for initiating some of the early cases of violence there. Worse still, the elected leaders of Iraq have failed to find a working formula for reconciliation that would strengthen the federal state. Kurdish autonomous region in Iraq, already a de facto entity, appears to move closer towards a separate statehood, thus destabilizing the entire region further. The call by Kurdish politicians to include the multi-ethnic Iraqi city of Kirkuk to become part of the Kurdistan region has already stoked tensions with the city’s Arab and Turkmen communities, and can lead to civil war in the city. Israel is also known to have silently spread her influence in Kurdish territory, which is bound to create more problems in the neighboring states of Turkey and Iran.

What It Would Take to Win in the Muslim World?

James Baldwin wrote in 1985: “The American Jew … makes the error of believing that his Holocaust ends in the New World, where mine begins. My Diaspora continues, the end is not in sight, and I certainly cannot depend on the morality of this panic-stricken consumer society to bring me out of Egypt.” (The Price of the Ticket)

In the wake of 9/11, America needs to examine, carefully and calmly her complex relationship with the world of Islam. That is the pre-requisite to any effective long-term American engagement in pacifying the twin dangers of terrorism and proliferation of weapons. The USA cannot allow militant supporters of Israel within the State Department to underwrite American foreign policy for the Middle East. After all, what happens in the Middle East affects the rest of the Muslim world.

There is no escaping from the hard, bitter truth that most of the crises that have plagued the world in the last hundred years grew out of western world’s two world wars. For its selfish sense of security, the West seeded poisonous plants of permanent insecurity in all the territories it once controlled, devastating our world with war and carnage that would become a recurring theme. People that were together were separated and people that were separated were forced to live together. 

Of all these political problems created by the West, the Palestinian problem is the single most important one that has rallied people from all walks of life, of all faiths, of all backgrounds demanding an equitable solution that would enable the Palestinian people to live as a free nation - much like any other nation of our planet - away from the ghetto, apartheid-like condition that they have been subjected to live for the past six decades. This problem is also at the heart of Muslim grievances against the West, especially the USA. Unfortunately, the Israeli attitude on resolving this major crisis has been one of delay tactics as if with the death of the first generation victims of dispossession and Israeli brutality, the problem would simply lose its momentum and there won’t be any living claimant for return to their home land. Through her draconian measures in the Occupied Territories, Israel has had made life of ordinary Palestinians miserable – often pushing them towards a non-peaceful response, which inevitably plays in well with the Israeli government providing her the necessary excuse to renege every treaty that she had ever signed towards a comprehensive roadmap to the Palestinian nationhood.

Bush’s roadmap for the Palestinian statehood has been a dismal failure also and will not produce anything positive within the remainder time of his tenure. In coming days, the current Kadima-led government in Israel is very likely to be replaced by Likud’s Benjamin Netanyahu, which is sure to worsen the Palestinian crisis further.

Without a viable and equitable solution to the Palestinian problem, a calming of the volatile situation in the Middle East is simply unrealistic.  And as we have noticed, this issue is extra-territorial with global impacts, and its solution can be a major factor in winning the GWOT. Therefore, it is prudent that the major western powers, especially the USA, rein on the Israeli government to ensure that the Palestinian people are not denied their legitimate right to live with dignity as any other free nation on earth.

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Part 5: The Technology Divide

Most Muslims think, and quite justifiably, that the western world, especially the USA and Christian Europe, likes to keep them technologically backward, more like consumers than producers of technology. Their claim is bolstered by the fact that the western world has been decisively uncooperative, and often hostile, to technology transfer in the Muslim world. This is grossly unfair to a region that is so rich with natural resources. This attitude of the West has been a recurrent theme since the colonial days when the then Bengal – known for her fine muslin and jute – would be sidelined from having any cotton and jute mill in its soil. All such factories had to be in the Great Britain, in places like Dundee. Even when in later years of British rule such industries were allowed to take root, those factories were mostly built along the Hooghly River in Kolkata of West Bengal and not East Bengal (now Bangladesh) that produced such raw materials.

Sadly, in the post-colonial era, that western mindset to deprive Muslim world of technology transfer has not receded. Thus, the Middle Eastern countries can produce bulk of the raw materials required for our highly technology-driven modern lifestyle, but they cannot have those industries that produce such amenities. They can supply oil and natural gas, but they are ignored by the major chemical and specialty chemicals companies from manufacturing petroleum derivatives – the building blocks for so much of our consumer and construction products today. Naturally, in spite of vast resources of oil and iron ore, there is not a single western car maker having a car manufacturing factory in places like Saudi Arabia. A Fortune 500 company that is dependent on energy supplies for manufacturing its goods would rather invest in China and India while nearby Indonesia and Malaysia (let alone Iran), with ample of energy resources, and cheap and skilled labor, are overlooked. Outside some investment banking companies now moving to places like Dubai, not much movement of technology has occurred in the Muslim world.

It is no accident that in spite of more than a trillion dollar market capitalization in the Gulf region — the UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Yemen – hardly a single Fortune 100 company (of western origin) has a manufacturing facility there. It is no accident that Pakistan and Dr. A. Q. Khan had to run the extra miles to develop its nuclear program. So, the current crusade that is led by the western governments to deny Iran of nuclear technology only reinforces the Muslim belief that the West is fundamentally opposed to seeing progress in the Muslim world. Muslims can buy a jeep, tank, plane and even a missile, but they cannot be allowed to manufacture any of these!

It is there that the USA and her allies need to reevaluate their position vis-à-vis Iran. The failure to adjust there would only foster hostility. The USA shouldn’t oppose Iran from her legitimate rights to exploring nuclear technology for energy needs while she herself plans to build more nuclear plants to meet her soaring energy needs. America has also been indifferent to Israel’s possession of 150 nuclear bombs, let alone arming Israel tooth and nail. This behavior is grossly hypocritical and irresponsible to the core. (The just approach would be to dismantle Israel’s nuclear arsenal and enforce a nuclear arms-free zone for the entire Middle East and, if possible, our entire planet.)

As America heads for the Presidential election, she must weigh in her options between militarism and changing the way America has been conducting her international affairs. Is military action against Iran desirable? For those undecided on this crucial issue, they may like to heed to the objective and unbiased advice from the IAEA chief.

In an interview with the Financial Times on 19 February, 2007, Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei of the IAEA said something which is still very relevant today. He said military action against Iran was not a solution and that it would be catastrophic and counterproductive. He explained, “And I said a hundred times you cannot bomb knowledge. So there is not really much to bomb. And if you [do] then [you] turn the Iranian drive or you put it in high gear for developing a nuclear weapon. We know that if you jolt a country’s pride, all the factions, right, left and centre will get together and try to accelerate a program to develop a nuclear weapon to defend themselves. That’s classic strategic thinking in any country, whether it’s a democracy, a theocracy, whatever… There is a fundamental choice people need to make, which is either you understand that there is a limit to military power, that these issues mask a sense of insecurity or even competition for dominance or influence but force is not the appropriate means to address these issues. Or [you] go for the military option and then either you’ll have a repeat of North Korea or you have a repeat of Iraq and these are not our greatest achievements as civilized human beings.”

As to the choices ahead for peaceful resolution of the crisis, Dr. ElBaradei cautioned against isolating Iran through further sanctions. He said, “If you create an environment in which Iran feels isolated, in which Iran is subject to further sanctions, then some of these worst-case scenarios could take place, because then you would put the hard liners in the driver’s seat, you would make the country feel more and more insecure and then some of these scenarios could happen. If there is another narrative, based on engagement, based on dialogue, based on reconciling differences, based on stabilizing Iraq, stabilizing Lebanon, opening up a trade agreement with the Iranians based on providing [them] with nuclear technology, western technology, as the six party offer [tabled last year by EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana on behalf of the UK, France, Germany, the US, China and Russia] promises, then this progression could be quite different, because first of all Iran would not necessarily fear that they would be attacked.”

Dr. ElBaradei cautioned against threatening regime change. As to what might have motivated Iran to enrich uranium, Dr. ElBaradie said, “Iran sees enrichment… sooner or later as a strategic goal because they feel that this will bring them power, prestige and influence. They feel that this will bring them into the company of some of the large and influential [states], the 12, 13 countries with enrichment processing, even if they don’t have a weapon, and to change that perception you need to then to look into the whole regional and global security position, because unfortunately a lot of that is true. A nuclear capability is a nuclear deterrent in many ways… When you see here in the UK the program for modernizing Trident, which basically gets the UK far into the 21st century with a nuclear deterrent, it is difficult then for us to turn around and tell everybody else that nuclear deterrents are really no good for you, it does not increase your security, because all the weapon states, without exception, are either modernizing, or thinking about developing new weapons not only for deterrence purpose, but actually usable [ones]. Statements have been made during the last couple of years about possible actual use, such as mini-nukes, bunker buster. So the environment is - do as I say not do as I do - and that is not sustainable.”

Dr. ElBaradie is absolutely right in his analysis of the problem surrounding Iran’s pursuit of nuclear technology. His suggestions for easing the tension, unfortunately, met deaf ears from Washington. From the very beginning the Bush Administration - mortgaged to the Israel Lobby, guided by the Jewish and Christian-Zionist neocons, and aided by the Israel Firsters within the Congress - embarked on a course that was all too confrontational with the ultimate goal of regime change in Iran.

Truly, had it not been for the overwhelming support that the Iranian government enjoys within Iran on the nuclear issue, Bush would have attacked Iran long time ago. The neoconservative groups like the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) have been advocating ‘regime change’ not only for the Arab counties like Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and with the Palestinian Authority but also for Iran for a number of years. JINSA’s board of advisors has included many Bush administration leaders: Dick Cheney, John Bolton, Richard Perle, James Woolsey and Douglas Feith. JINSA put a report out on April 12, 2006, called, “Iran, Iran, Iran and Iran” in which Iran was described as the “whole list of national security priorities.”

With looming sanctions and tough talks for war from the USA and Israel, Iran has been pushed further into isolation and forced, as it seems, to running more centrifuges today than a year before.
The Iran nuclear crisis is yet another example of Washington’s inability to learn from past mistakes and change the course for the better.

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Part 6: Changing the Mindset to War

Fighting terrorism will not be easy in this age of ours when the superpowers and their allies have all the necessary ammos to justify their terrorization of unarmed civilians while the have-nots have very little to lose through their mindless suicidal acts of vengeance or retribution.

As far as America is concerned, what is needed is thinking outside America’s paradigm to combat this menace. It is good to see that under a new leadership the Pentagon is realizing this fact. The 2008 National Defense Strategy, approved by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and released by the Pentagon on July 31 says that while the military’s top priority is to defeat al-Qaeda and other extremists, but winning the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan alone will not achieve that. Nor will the use of force alone accomplish the mission. The most important thing the military can do, the report says, is to prepare friends and allied nations to defend and govern themselves. Coming as it does from the Pentagon the report shows that the department is admitting the follies of strong arm tactics alone. Truly, without a combination of political measures that address the underlying root causes and economic incentives, it would be impossible to combat terrorism of the have-nots.

In this age of insecurity, America needs a total reevaluation of her position vis-à-vis the ‘other’ people of our world. And in that evaluation, she must weigh properly her actions in the Dar al-Islam. She must recognize that with the burial of the Caliphate, the Muslim world is fragmented and there is no leadership that speaks for all 1.5 billion Muslims that are spread all over the globe. The current leadership in most Muslim countries is utterly corrupt and spineless to have a meaningful dialogue with its counterparts in the West, especially the USA. It is that vacuum in leadership that has unfortunately brought to the fore individuals like OBL to speak about collective humiliation of Muslims in the post-Caliphate era. While most Muslims share those grievances stoked by OBL and his deputies, only an insignificant segment of the population share either their vision of politics or their ways and means. If American leadership fails to make this distinction between groups like al-Qaeda and nominal religious Muslims, it will only play into the hands of the very nemesis that it purports to defeat.

America must also take into consideration rising anti-American political and religious hostility produced by American unilateralism. As much as she must restrain her trigger-happy fingers from firing on civilians, and getting into uncalled fights with others, she cannot allow herself to be seen as awarding oppressive governments. She cannot allow Israel and other such rogue partners to use American weapons to kill unarmed civilians. She must set a higher standard of morality and fairness for herself in everything she does, including the military trials of rapist and murderous soldiers and the detainees of the Guantanamo Bay prison. She simply can’t afford Pharaohnic arrogance and Hamanic despotism.

So, will American leadership change its mindset that prefers war over negotiation?

In a debate on January 31, 2008, Senator Obama said: “I want to end the mindset that got us into war in the first place.” As Kevin Zeese (Director of Democracy Rising) has noted “if this statement is to be taken seriously it would mean a paradigm shift in U.S. foreign policy away from militarism towards diplomacy, foreign aid and cooperation with other nations. It will also mean shrinking the already too large defense budget creating the ability to invest in the new energy economy, U.S. infrastructure and the basic necessities of the American people. The vast majority of Americans – a growing super majority – opposes continuing keeping U.S. troops in Iraq, bombing Iran and wants a less military-based foreign policy. Now is the time for greater emphasis on negotiation, diplomacy, multilateralism and foreign aid. The people demand it. War is not the answer to any of these conflicts. The U.S. is not made more secure by creating new enemies and draining our treasury.”

Zeese is right. By ending the “mindset” that led to the Iraq War, it will allow for a re-prioritization of resources at home and abroad, moving the U.S. away from a military economy toward a civilian one. Now is the time to begin to end the mindset of war. Is Obama ready for that challenge?

In Berlin rally of July 24, 2008, in front of a crowd of some two hundred thousand people, Obama preached the wisdom of true partnership and true progress through trust and cooperation. He called on people to “tear down new walls” between races, countries and religions. He said, “The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand.  The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand.  The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand.  These now are the walls we must tear down. … Now is the time to build new bridges across the globe as strong as the one that bound us across the Atlantic.  Now is the time to join together, through constant cooperation, strong institutions, shared sacrifice, and a global commitment to progress, to meet the challenges of the 21st century.”

As America tries to come out of the shadow of Bush-Cheney era of deception, surely Obama’s speech is very refreshing, much like John F. Kennedy’s, offering some nuggets of hope in an otherwise hopeless world of ours. Only time would tell if such high-sounding, and yet not unrealistic, words can be put into practice by removing the curse of perennial war through shared expectations, cooperation and negotiation.

Presidential Accountability

As the adage goes – you do the crime, you must serve the time (in prison) – something must be done with accountability. When a criminal absconds from justice that day is a sad day for its victims. And when the most powerful man on earth abuses his authority and misleads his nation into war thus devastating the world, it is catastrophic for all. And that is what President George W. Bush has done in the last eight years of his office. He ruined American economy and destabilized the entire globe. He killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people overseas and brought about the death of thousands of his own countrymen, when it was not necessary. By deliberately overwriting international laws in matters of treatment of prisoners of war (the so-called enemy “unlawful” combatants) and ignoring human rights, he has essentially made all Americans traveling outside vulnerable to similar abuses that were meted out to prisoners in the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay prisons.

No President in American history has probably done more harm to America’s image than President Bush. It will take years, if not decades, to wipe that nasty bloody stain he leaves behind when he vacates the White House in January 2009. America ought to hold Bush and his inner circle of advisers accountable for committing the worst mass murder of this century.

By lying to the Congress, Bush violated U.S. Laws related to Fraud and False Statements, Title 18, Chapter 47, Section 1001 and Conspiracy to Defraud the United States, Title 18, Chapter 19, Section 371.

If Americans fail (which is a foregone conclusion) to send Bush to the World Court in The Hague for war crimes, the Congress owes it to its own electorates to at least impeach or try him internally per its own laws. [While on July 25, 2008 the House Judiciary Committee has opened up hearings on Congressman Dennis Kucinich’s impeachment resolution, it is highly unlikely that President Bush will be impeached by the Congress because of opposition from Speaker Pelosi.] As has been argued by former Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Vincent Bugliosi, Bush needs more than impeachment. He said, “For anyone interested in true justice, impeachment alone would be a joke for what Bush did.” In all fairness, Bush should be tried for crimes against humanity.

It goes without saying that Bush’s trial would be a solace to millions who lost their loved ones and were directly affected adversely by his criminal actions. It would also help to restore confidence in American leadership and heal the wounds caused by his administration. It would also enable people from outside to look upon the USA favorably with respect and admiration, and help not only to close the Atlantic divide but also along the global fault lines. People would know that no crime, big or small, goes unpunished in this nation we call the USA – the land of the brave (brave enough to put its own highest authority behind the bar for committing crimes against humanity). That trial would also be a sufficient deterrent for any would-be Hulagu Khan from embarking on an imperial trail and committing mass murder.

Is the Congress ready for that task? Or will political expediency sideline this major issue of our time?

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What Next? Politics as Usual?

Jean-Jacques Rousseau said, “The strongest is never strong enough to be the master unless he translates strength into right and obedience into duty.” However, American democracy and leadership are failing in that measure.
Journalist Jonathan Rauch observed in his book “Demosclerosis: The Silent Killer of American Government” that the American government probably has evolved into a sprawling, largely self-organizing structure that is 10% to 20% under the control of the politicians and voters, and 80% to 90% under the control of the countless thousands of client groups. Coming as it does from a veteran observer of American politics, such a prognosis is not a healthy one. Today, an American political candidate must raise millions of dollars to stand a chance in getting elected for a gubernatorial, senatorial or congressional post, let alone the presidential race. The candidates raise money in small increments from tens of thousands of individual contributors and Political Action Committees (PACs), whose agendas are less well publicized and less scrutinized. And it has produced a new group of power brokers: the fundraisers.

Fareed Zakariya has also noted in his book “The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad” that an American candidate must now spend the all-important year before the primaries winning the support of thousands of affluent contributors. As a result, raising money has become the fundamental activity of a political campaign, and performing well at fundraiser the first, indispensable skill for a modern American politician. Hence the sad spectacle of modern American politics, in which politicians ceaselessly appease lobbies, poll voters, genuflect before special interests, and raise money. Of course this does not produce good government – quite the contrary – and so the search for good government continues in America.

One can well imagine the hideous, devastating influence on politics when a PAC combines with the military industrial complex to push their shared agenda. This is exactly what has happened with the Israeli Lobby, which includes the Neocons, when it allied itself with the Christian Zionists and the war industry to exercise their “unmatched power” over U.S. government policies to push the country to war against Iraq. Such an unholy alliance is very harmful to the national interest of America and must be stopped for the greater good of America and humanity at large. 

It is known that legitimacy is the elixir of political power. Most politicians are now lacking that legitimacy. American public dissatisfaction with the effects of politics continues to grow. As duly noted by Zakariya, if these problems grow people will be more inclined to define democracy by what it has become: a system, open and accessible in theory, but ruled in reality by organized or rich or fanatical minorities, protecting themselves for the present and sacrificing the future. This is a very different vision from that of the enthusiasts of direct democracy.

The battle for the soul of American democracy must, therefore, continue. This, according to Professor Cornel West of Princeton University, in large part, is a battle for the soul of American Christianity; because the dominant forms of Christian fundamentalism are a threat to the tolerance and openness necessary for sustaining any democracy. As Americans try to choose their path, they must weigh between their new found fondness (or misadventure) with Constantine Christianity that pushes them toward an imperialistic identity and a Prophetic one that adds a moral fervor by caring for the poor, public service, tolerance and compassion. Which option will they choose?

In this regard, we should not be oblivious of the unpleasant truth that the vast majority of white American Christians supported the evil of slavery – and they did so often in the name of Jesus. And then there were also abolitionists who were Christians. There lies the classic case of American Christian schizophrenic experience!

How ironic it is also to see American Jewish lobby today to fuse with right-wing evangelical Christians whose anti-Semitism, past and present, is notorious and despicable, and whose support for the Jewish state is based on the idea that its existence paves the path for the second coming of Christ, who will slaughter them for their unbelief! As much as the majority Christians in the USA ought to sort their way out of the mess that they got into, the Jewish Americans cannot afford not knowing the danger of playing with the fire. They must distance themselves from the conniving foot soldiers of the Armageddon. The must also avoid being a party to American policy makings that are unjust, shortsighted and harmful in the long run.

As America introspects it is worth remembering that the embrace of communism and fascism in the 1930s did not seem as crazy at the time as it does now. If Americans fail to pick the right choice, signs are too clear to suggest that they may settle for fascism.

As the dust of 9/11 settles down and the bloodstains of Iraq dry up, American people will realize that it is not terrorism that is the greatest threat to their national security. But it is their very democracy - increasingly manipulated by a powerful coterie - that is the greatest threat to their national security.

In closing it is worth noting an observation from an American military historian Victor Davis Hanson: “The real hazard for the future, as it always has been in the past, is not Western moral decline or the threat of the Other now polished with the veneer of sophisticated arms, but the age-old specter a horrendous war inside the West itself, the old Europe and America with its full menu of Western economic, military, and political dynamism.” He continued, “Gettysburg in a single day took more Americans than did all the Indian Wars of the nineteenth century.”

More Americans have now died from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq than all those combined in 9/11. Is there something to learn from this experience?