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Iraq: Real change requires regionwide
change
By Phar Kim Beng
HONG KONG - Because of the doctrine of preventive
war promoted by the administration of US President George
W Bush, observers are now examining the implications
of the imminent defeat of Iraq for the Middle East and
elsewhere. Is the Middle East really changing?
"Change" is not a concept that can be neatly
captured. In fact, the vocabulary to describe and
understand change in international system remains very
limited.
To the extent scholars talk about
change at all, the approach has strictly focused on the
profusion of a new cluster of influential actors. Hence,
change has strictly revolved on how non-governmental
organizations (NGOs), multinational enterprises (MNEs),
think-tanks and epistemic communities exert their impact
on the policy process of various countries and
multilateral institutions.
Beyond the addition
of newer actors, change is also conceptualized within
the context of polarities: Whether an international
system is unipolar; bipolar; tripolar or multipolar. In
turn, the polarities are investigated on the basis of
whether they tend to increase or decrease the
war-proneness of the international system. Kenneth
Waltz, a political scientist at Columbia University,
argues that bipolarity is more pacific as misperception
is reduced.
Traditional concepts of change, in
other words, have been measured from the quantitative
dimensions. That is, change is analyzed from the
standpoint in which it can affect the high and low
politics of international relations. A parallel increase
in the number of NGOs and MNEs, for instance, signals an
increase in the stakeholders. A state can no longer make
its policy without proper regard for the interest of
these two constituencies.
On the other hand, the
transition from bipolarity to unipolarity, as occasioned
by the end of the Cold War, signals the increase in the
preponderance of the United States in regions that had
hitherto relied on its presence as a stabilizer.
As can be seen above, change is seen or examined
in a metric manner. Nevertheless, change is a complex
topic that is deserving of greater attention for the
simple fact that the world is constantly undergoing
ideological and technological revolutions as well.
From the Enlightenment to the present
post-modern age, for instance, the world has witnessed
both the arrival and departure of different ideologies.
Their impact, familiar to any student of world history,
has been significant.
Nationalism, fascism,
communism and liberalism have each tried to exist
independently or in combination with others. The
progressive introduction of the telegraph, radio,
airplane, television and the Internet has also changed
the face of society. Technology and ideological
revolutions have often caused societies to experience
disruptions.
Robert Gilpin, a professor at
Princeton University, has provided a useful starting
point in any discussion of change. He distinguished
three levels or types of change: systems change,
systemic change, and interaction change.
Systems
change involves change in the organizing structure of
the international system itself, including the character
of the actors themselves. A shift in a system of empire
to nation-state constitutes systems change. This
occurred most profoundly in 1945, after the end of World
War II, where imperialism and colonialism were
invalidated.
Systemic change, on the other hand,
refers to change in the governance of an international
system, which means change in the international
distribution of power, the hierarchy of prestige, and
the rules and rights embodied in the system. In other
words, which country gets to be the top dog? This type
of change involves basic shifts in power arrangements
that facilitate or undermine the ability of hegemonic
states to "govern".
Interaction change is a
residual category. It refers to change in the relations,
processes, and specific agreements among states within
the system. It refers to the vast array of day-to-day
events in world politics, popularly known as
globalization.
In trying to draw any lessons
from the Iraq war, one would find that any so-called
change is merely cosmetic. The removal of Saddam Hussein
does not necessarily mark any change in the Middle East
or, for that matter, in international relations. This is
because US unilateralism has electoral limits. The
hawkish policy of the Bush administration can only have
another term at the most.
Nor is regime change,
a seemingly subversive idea, at all unique in the annals
of international relations. In fact, history is replete
with democracies removing dictators, only to install
other tyrants that favor the interest of democracies, an
act described by John Owen IV as the process of
"deposition" - in other words, the creation of congenial
regimes.
During the period 1815-2000 there were
110 depositions of leaders by foreign states as a result
of war or as a result of intervention in an ongoing
civil war to support one of the warring states.
Ninety-one depositions occurred in the 20th
century, including 29 brought about by the United
States, 17 by the Soviet Union (or Russia before 1917),
eight by the United Kingdom, five by France, nine by
Germany, and four by Italy. These are the most prominent
ones; there are other minor ones that include
depositions during World Wars I and II. The 110 cases
are only "successful" ones (as opposed to failed
attempts such as the US effort to change the regime in
Cuba, for example).
Writing in the New York
Times, Thomas Friedman has averred that the US war in
Iraq is unique in the Middle East in that the United
States is trying to export democracy to the Middle East
through Baghdad. In other words, the US is using its
military arsenal to transform radically the ideological
character of another state and, ultimately, surrounding
states as well.
Yet, on keener analysis, this
would be shown to be superficial. When Britain invaded
Iraq in 1917, it made the same claim, but no such thing
occurred. It remains to be seen whether the United
States will avoid repeating the United Kingdom's
mistake. This is doubtful, because to transform the
Middle East, the US has to contend with the fact that
none of the Arab countries are at present truly
democratic. In attempting to change Iraq, it has to make
the same aim to change other countries around Iraq,
without which the Middle East would still remain
volatile and vulnerable to the growth of terrorism.
Hence, what would make the US war on Iraq
distinct depends greatly on whether it has the will to
change the entire Middle East. This would inevitably
involve toppling Syria and Iran and pressuring the
monarchies in the Persian Gulf region to accept
democracy.
Since the US can only err on the side
of caution, its strategy in the region must be very
conservative at best. The Middle East will not be
transformed by this war any more than it was it
transformed by any of the other wars that have occurred
in this unstable region before. What will change is
merely the balance of power - in favor of the US and
Israel.
Inevitably, the combined presence of
Israel and the United States would only weaken the
legitimacy of Arab leaders, rendering it more shaky with
each growing day. The death of Arabism would also usher
in a higher degree of Islamism.
However, whether
Islamism will turn violent or otherwise would depend
very much on how the Arab leaders co-opt the younger
Islamic activists and the bulging youth population who
increasingly cannot tolerate the impotence of their
leadership in the face of naked US and Israeli
aggression.
(©2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd.
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