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COMMENTARY
Missteps in the US march
By Erich Marquardt
The continuing
failure to find significant quantities of chemical and
biological weapons in Iraq, coupled with increasing
domestic and international distaste over a forged
document used by the Bush administration to make its
case for invading Iraq, will make it much more difficult
for Washington to achieve the foreign policy objectives
envisioned following the September 11, 2001, attacks as
articulated in the September 2002 National Security
Strategy.
With the coming to power of the Bush
administration, a faction within the conservative
stratum in Washington - the neo-conservatives made up of
members from a variety of think tanks such as the
American Enterprise Institute and the Project for the
New American Century - gained much political clout. This
faction, its most noticeable member being Deputy
Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, put into motion a
broad foreign policy strategy in which the US would act
as a global hegemon and eliminate all possible threats
to its interests.
The purpose of such a policy
was to prevent American global economic hegemony from
being damaged, and, more importantly, to set the
foundation for an international framework revolving
around Washington that would project the US's massive
power far into the 21st century. As written in the
National Security Strategy, "The great struggles of the
20th century between liberty and totalitarianism ended
with a decisive victory for the forces of freedom - and
a single sustainable model for national success:
freedom, democracy and free enterprise."
One of
the major goals of this foreign policy was to "reshape"
the Middle East into a form suitable to Washington's
national and economic interests. The invasion of Iraq
was the first step towards this goal. The US was able to
easily eliminate the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq,
which was largely defenseless due to the extremely
strict UN sanctions established during the Bush
administration of the early 1990s and tightly enforced
through the eight years of the Clinton administration.
By removing Saddam - which was a policy
long-pushed by members of the current Bush
administration throughout their years working for
various think tanks during the 1990s - the Bush
administration was able to project US power into the
heart of the Middle East due to the ensuing occupation
of Iraq.
After having achieved the primary
objectives of removing Saddam from power and saturating
the country with US military personnel, the Bush
administration was then able to more directly continue
their broad objective of reshaping the Middle East. The
administration has continued to argue that Syria and
Iran - two countries critical of US foreign policy - are
threats to the US, its firm ally Israel, and, in
general, the "free world".
However, it is now
unlikely that this administration still has the
political leverage to continue a policy of "regime
change". While Washington never achieved international
political legitimacy to invade Iraq, it was able to
secure domestic political legitimacy, as most of the
American population supported the Bush White House
before, during and immediately after the march to
Baghdad. Yet with the failure to find the alleged
massive stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in
Iraq, in addition to embarrassing evidence demonstrating
that the Bush administration used forged documents in
their political case against Baghdad, the US has lost
nearly all international legitimacy it may still have
had, while at the same time is rapidly losing domestic
legitimacy.
The failure of the Bush
administration to prove its case for invading Iraq has
led to an awakening of the Democrats . Such obvious
gaffes currently being made by the administration have
given the party the perfect opportunity to find an issue
to use to weaken support for the current administration.
Furthermore, it cannot be forgotten that the Bush
administration barely won the presidential election of
2000 and failed to win the popular vote. Up until the
September 11 attacks, when the US as a whole receded
into an embryonic state of nationalism, the Bush
administration remained starkly unpopular, and the
president himself was a frequent object of ridicule
throughout US media and society. Much of this
administration's domestic and foreign policy successes
have been the result of the lack of debate and
disagreement within US society, mostly having to due
with the historical fear of criticizing an
administration during a time of war.
But now
that the White House's layer of protective political fat
is thinning and its future looks bleak. This ominous
turn of events for the Bush administration will make it
very difficult for it to achieve its spectacular foreign
policy objectives of reshaping the Middle East and
realigning the world in a form where US power is firmly
accountable to no other entity, not even the United
Nations. The continuing stagnation of the US economy,
the failure to stabilize Iraq and the growing domestic
debate over the White House's case to go to war will all
act to weaken the political power of the Bush
administration and work to greatly reduce the
possibility of Washington making controversial policy
decisions at home and abroad. Barring a great economic
upswing, or a flowering of Iraqi civil society under US
occupational rule, the Bush administration may have to
follow a more conservative national security strategy.
Published with permission of the Power and
Interest News Report, an analysis-based
publication that seeks to provide insight into various
conflicts, regions and points of interest around the
globe. All comments should be directed to content@pinr.com
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