| |
Who will police the world's
policeman?
By Ehsan Ahrari
A
year after the terrorist attacks on the United States,
it is important to know how significant America's global
war on terrorism really is in the thinking of American
people. What are their views regarding the toppling of
Saddam Hussein, a topic that has occupied front pages of
the world's newspapers for several weeks? What are
people's views of unilateral and multilateral approaches
to resolving a number of heady global issues?
An
opinion poll, conducted by the prestigious PEW Research
Center, issued on September 5, does not exactly support
President George W Bush's highly touted resolve to take
military action against Iraq. In a general sense, public
opinion is ahead of its leadership on issues related to
transnational terrorism, the relevance and necessity of
taking military action against terrorists, against the
Iraqi dictator, and toward nation-building in
Afghanistan.
The terrorist attacks of September
11 have significantly altered people's thinking on
politics and national affairs - and 46 percent of the
respondents said so. They are paying more attention to
public and world affairs. However, among "those who say
they look differently at politics and policy, there is
no consensus as to how their views have changed".
Fear of terrorism is still uppermost in the
minds of Americans. Sixty percent of the respondents
stated that they are "very or somewhat worried" about a
repeat of terrorist attacks on the US. That percentage
went down significantly from last June, however, when 76
percent of the respondents thought about the recurrence
of terrorist attacks.
But if Bush wants his
countrymen to share his resolve to oust Saddam Hussein,
he is in for disappointment. "Increasingly, Americans
want the government to focus on homeland defense rather
than rooting out terrorist networks abroad." While 64
percent of the respondents support using military force
to topple Saddam, "support in the absence of allied
support withers to just 30 percent". When people are
asked to consider the issue of high casualties
associated with ousting Saddam, that previously cited 64
percent support dwindles dramatically to 42 percent.
Bush's failure to prepare the American people
for military action against Iraq is clearly reflected in
how little attention that issue is getting from the
public at large. Only 46 percent of the people have
indicated they have given "a great deal of thought to
whether the United States should go to war in Iraq". On
the contrary, in June 1991, another PEW Center survey
found that 66 percent of the respondents said "they had
given a great deal of thought to using force to drive
Iraq out of Kuwait". Fifty two percent of the American
people are of the view that Bush is not explaining
clearly the reasons to use force against Iraq, while
only 41 percent felt that Bush senior was not explaining
the reason to use force against Saddam in August 1990.
It should be noted, however, that people might
be receptive to Bush's determination to attack Iraq if
he can produce evidence that Saddam is making weapons of
mass destruction. Of those paying attention to politics,
68 percent "say it is very important that the United
States take military action against countries
developing" weapons of mass destruction.
The
September attacks have not made reclusive, introverted,
or isolationist broods out of the American people. On
the contrary, they want their country to remain "very
much" engaged in world affairs as a way of averting
terrorism (53 percent). That is a somewhat lower
percentage compared to the 61 percent figure of last
October.
American support for the use of the
military to fight global terrorism is still strong - a
clear endorsement of the Bush administration's
preference for use of the military. More to the point,
"In terms of specific ways for dealing with terrorism,
military options draw broad support but so are other
strategies". On this point alone, the American public is
clearly signaling its leaders not to confine the scope
of "war" on global terrorism only to use of the
military. Given the general hesitancy of Bush to the
issue of "nation-building" in the past, this aspect of
the poll is likely to be studied closely by the White
House. There are already indications that the modalities
of economic assistance are currently receiving careful
scrutiny.
A highly poignant aspect of this poll
is people's conclusions regarding the outcome of
America's war on terrorism in Afghanistan. Only 65
percent of Americans now believe - as opposed to 89
percent in January of this year - that the war in
Afghanistan is going well. Upon further disaggregating
that figure, only 15 percent feel that the war has been
a success, while about 12 percent label it as a
"failure". But an overwhelming majority - 70 percent -
say "its too early to tell".
People's perception
of the use of economic aid as a weapon in the war on
global terror is murky. There is reluctance to use this
weapon. But this reluctance is not at all present on the
issue of assisting Afghanistan. Fifty-six percent
Americans favor "coming to the aid of Afghanistan to
help it recover from the war and two thirds accept the
idea that the United states will have to continue to
deploy troops to maintain civil order" in that country.
Finally, Bush's preference for unilateralism and
his refrain from, if not disdain of, multilateralism
finds resonance among Americans. As Andrew Kohut,
director of PEW Research Center notes, "The public has
become much more supportive of a terrorism policy based
primarily on US national interests." Forty-five percent
of Americans back "a policy based mostly on US interests
while 35 percent believe the United States should
strongly take allied interests into account. This is a
major change since last October when the public, by
two-to-one (59 percent to 30 percent), favored taking
allied interests into account." He adds, "In fact,
support for multilateralism is even lower than it was in
early September 2001, just prior to the attacks, when 48
percent of Americans favored that approach."
What broad lessons should the Bush
administration draw from this poll? First and foremost,
no powerful message has emerged from it. People, in
general, remain highly wary of a potential repeat of
terrorist attacks in the United States. However, given
the continuous focus of the US government on that
possibility, no one should be surprised about that
message in the poll. The prominence of the use of
military force as an option is also a reflection of the
realities on the ground, in Afghanistan, the
Philippines, in the Central Asian republics and in the
Republic of Georgia, where American troops are either
engaged aiding local troops to fight terrorist groups,
stationed for the long haul, or training local military
to become efficient in fighting indigenous terrorists.
Regarding removing Saddam through the use of
force, Bush has a definite advantage. After constantly
hearing from the president, Vice President Dick Cheney
and from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, about how
"dangerous" Saddam Hussein really is to America's
interests, American people do not have an overwhelming
opposition to the use of force against him. In fact,
evidence is to the contrary, but clearly people still
would like to hear more concrete evidence from their
president than getting regular doses of militant
rhetoric from the two well-positioned hawks, Cheney and
Rumsfeld.
One of the most interesting aspects of
this poll is that Americans clearly prefer an America
engaged in world affairs and in fighting terrorism.
Undoubtedly, this administration will learn soon enough
that unilateralism in world affairs is neither an
unlimited option, nor a long-lasting one. If the United
States has to remain the chief problem solver of the
world - and that role it clearly deserves by the sheer
fact that it is the world's most powerful and vibrant
democracy - it may only play that role successfully and
effectively through multilateralism. No group of nations
may be browbeaten into accepting unilateral choices on
an entire spectrum of issues, even when the browbeater
is the world's lone superpower.
Ehsan
Ahrari, PhD, is a Norfolk, Virginia, US-based
strategic analyst.
(©2002 Asia Times Online
Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com
for information on our sales and syndication policies.)
|
| |
|
|
 |
|
