What's at Stake
The Revolutionary vs. the Statesman
The
decision between Bush and Kerry will shape the world Americans live in during
the next four years. Even though Bush has been called the "CEO President," that
isn't how he has behaved. Bush has overthrown two governments and announced the
imminent demise of several others. Bush is a revolutionary in Asia, a Robespierre. At least one of Bush's
revolutions is now mired in its Terror phase. What a real CEO thinks about Bush
is obvious from the Paul O'Neill / Ron Suskind memoir of life on the Bush
cabinet. Kerry in contrast is a statesman committed to navigating the status quo
without producing unnecessary turbulence.
Since the United States is
essentially a vast island, three thousand miles across and two thousand miles
deep, its inhabitants often begin to think that they are unconnected to the
wider world. My friend John Walbridge suggested to me that most Americans may
not believe the rest of the world exists, as opposed to being something that one
occassionally sees on television.
September 11 was a reminder that even
the defenses of an island can be breached. It was also a signal that the old
foreign policy prerogatives of the United States government, to intervene as it
liked to impose its will on other regions, was no longer cost-free. In a world
of increasingly powerful technology, each individual is potentially much more
powerful, and this was a development that diabolical engineers in al-Qaeda saw
clearly and figured out how to use.
Al-Qaeda has ambitions beyond just
blowing a few things up, no matter how horribly. It is now a cadre organization,
that is, it consists of a few thousand committed fanatics. But it wants to be a
political party. That is the significance of Bin Laden's most recent videotape.
He is posing as a champion of "freedom" in the Muslim world (mainly freedom from
US hegemony, but he maintains also freedom from authoritarian and corrupt
regimes in the region backed by the US). Bin Laden is making a play not just to
be a cult leader but to succeed to the position of Gamal Abdul Nasser as an
anti-imperialist icon in the region. Ultimately al-Qaeda would like to get
control of entire states, and merge them into an Islamic superstate, a new
caliphate. It is a crackpot idea that will fail, but many crackpot ideas that
fail (e.g. the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia) do a great deal of damage along the
way.
George W. Bush has never been able to see clearly the nature of this
threat, which experts call asymmetrical. This word is a fancy way of saying that
small groups can now accomplish things that only states used to be able to. Bush
is trapped in Cold War thinking, where all major threats derive from other
states, from other countries. His first thought after September 11 was that Iraq
was behind it.
Bush invaded Iraq and occupied it rather than finishing
off al-Qaeda and putting Afghanistan on a proper footing. He has most of the
fighting units of the US military bogged down in a quagmire. His adventure in
Iraq, which had nothing to do with September 11, has the potential for
destabilizing the oil-rich Persian Gulf for some time to come, producing high
petroleum prices, high gasoline prices, and risking a major economic downturn
for the US and the world.
A second Bush administration will continue to
pursue iron fist policies in Iraq, which have obviously backfired. If Bush
overstays his welcome in Iraq, he risks creating a new kind of pan-Islamic
nationalism. It is not impossible for the Shiite leadership to join hands with
the Sunni clerics if both decide it is crucial to expel the Americans. I would
put the odds of an anti-American mass revolution in Iraq during a second Bush
term at 50/50. The aftermath will be further instability in the oil rich Persian
Gulf (see above).
If Bush is reelected, it is clear that he will continue
to attack his hit list, which is pre-announced. He will strike at Iran. His
infantry and armor are tied down in Iraq. But he could mount a naval blockade of
Iran, and he could strike it from the air. He could also intrigue with impatient
junior officers in Tehran in hopes of making a coup. It would probably fail. But
Bush will be tempted to try.
Iran already has lively internal politics
that are somewhat unpredictable, and the people dislike their regime. The best
interests of the US lie in letting that internal process take its course. Bush
will not keep his hands off. Iran is in his axis of evil, and he has decided
that the US will not countenance states that adopt an active posture of enmity
toward Washington. He will play up Iran's nuclear program, which is nowhere near
being able to produce a bomb. He will play up Iran's support for Hizbullah,
which the US views as an international terrorist organization but which in
recent years has mainly functioned as a Lebanese national liberation movement.
But his real motivation is to unlock Iran's economy for US investment and to
remove a foreign policy thorn from the US side.
The potential for Bush's
meddling in Iran to go wrong is great, as can be seen in his Iraq policy, which
has turned the latter country into the security equivalent of a vast forest
fire. Were both Iraq and Iran to end up destabilized, petroleum prices would go
sky high. There is also a danger of this instability spilling over to the
Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, where the petroleum is, and which is about
half Shiite.
Powerful figures in the Bush administration also very much
want to overthrow the other Baath regime, in Syria. The mostly likely successor
to that regime is a radicalized Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, the major Syrian
opposition group (it is not allowed to operate as a party). It would be an ally
of Hamas and hospitable to al-Qaeda. Syria is a Sunni-majority country chafing
under rule by a clique of Allawites, a Shiite sect, who control the secular
Syrian Baath. If Bush artificially causes the Baath to collapse in Damascus, he
could create a Muslim fundamentalist axis stretching from Lebanon through Syria
to Sunni Iraq.
Bush is not winning the war on terror because he does not
understand it. He has used the rise of al-Qaeda as a pretext for settling
Washington's scores with old enemies like Saddam. This projection of main
American force so far has paid no dividends whatsoever, in increased US security
or stability in the world. It has not even made money for US companies, with the
possible exception of Halliburton (and even it claims it has been hurt by bad
Iraq publicity).
The most frightening thing of all is that the Project
for a New American Century group, which has made an internal coup in the Bush
administration, ultimately has its sights on China. They want to surround,
besiege and break up Communist China, as they imagine the US did to the Soviet
Union. In many ways, the Bush administration uses North Korea as a proxy for
China, saying things about Pyongyang they really would like to say about
Beijing. In fact, China is currently increasingly tied to the US-led world
economic order and has every impetus to cooperate with the US on most issues.
The Chinese take in $80 billion a year more from the US than we make from them.
Picking a fight with Beijing, which is a very attractive option for the American
Right, would be disastrous.
The Bush administration is full of
revolutionaries. They are shaking up the world by military force. They are
playing a role familiar in modern history, pioneered by Napoleon Bonaparte, of
using overwhelming military superiority to establish new forms of hegemony by
appealing to desires for change among neighboring publics. Bonaparte promised
the Italians liberty on the French model, but in fact reduced the Italians to a
series of French puppet regimes and then he looted the country. So far Bush's
Iraq looks increasingly like Bonaparte's Italy in these regards.
At a
time of increased radicalization in the global South, at a time when mass
terrorism has been made possible by new technologies, the last thing the US
should be risking is destabilizing Asia by provoking a series of
revolutions.
Kerry is not a revolutionary, unlike Bush. He recognizes
that al-Qaeda is a real threat and needs to be the main focus of US security
thinking. Kerry will capture or kill Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri because he will
put the resources into that endeavor that Bush instead wasted in Iraq.
Kerry is worried about Iran's nuclear ambitions, but is highly unlikely
to resort to military force or connive at a coup in Tehran. He will use
diplomatic methods and more subtle military pressure.
Kerry will rebuild
the alliance with Europe, which is crucial for fighting al-Qaeda. He will
attempt to improve the US image in the Muslim world, which Bush has completely
shattered. His approach to China will be measured.
So the choices are
clear. Those who want a revolutionary who will risk further wars and
instability, should vote for Bush. Those who want someone who will use diplomacy
to manage the status quo and roll back asymmetrical threats should vote for
Kerry.