WASHINGTON - What has been obvious for
some time now became establishment orthodoxy on
September 12. That was when one of the world's
most prestigious international security
think-tanks, the International Institute for
Strategic Studies in London, released its annual
"Strategic Survey", a review of world affairs.
It found that during 2007, the US suffered
a loss of international authority as a result of
the failure to impose order in Iraq. Leaders
and
groups around the world sought to take advantage
or to protect themselves from the consequences of
this loss of prestige.
This was, despite
the efforts of the George W Bush administration to
present a new, friendlier face to the world, "far
removed from the naked assertion of American power
that had been urged on the president by hardline
neo-conservatives following the 11 September 2001
attacks on the United States".
However,
restoring US credibility will not be easy. The
report found that "the damage to American standing
and credibility [is] likely to take years to
repair - especially as problems such as Iraq's
persistent violence and the Guantanamo Bay
detention camp [cannot] just be wished away".
For those old enough to remember, the
report echoes the condition of the United States
during the Vietnam War, when president Richard
Nixon warned of the US becoming a "pitiful,
helpless giant".
For a country that has
staked its geopolitical prestige on fighting a
"global war on terrorism" or, more narrowly,
defeating al-Qaeda, the news was glum. "The threat
from Islamist terrorism remains as high as ever,
and looks set to get worse," according to the
report. A resilient al-Qaeda can still plan and
carry out "spectacular" attacks in Western
countries even if it is harder to stage one on the
scale of September 11.
Specifically, there
is increasing evidence that "core" al-Qaeda is
proving adaptable and resilient and has retained
ability to plan and coordinate large-scale attacks
in the Western world despite the attrition it has
suffered. Second, a number of regional jihadist
groups, notably al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia and Qaeda
in the Maghreb, have not only formally sworn
formal allegiance to al-Qaeda but, more important,
have begun to demonstrate ambition beyond their
parochial concerns in support of al-Qaeda's global
objectives.
Third, the large number of
terrorist plots that have come to light in Europe,
Canada, the Arabian Peninsula and the Maghreb
region of North Africa point to a growing trend
toward radicalization within the Islamic world.
In short, "The United States and its
allies have failed to deal a death blow to
al-Qaeda; the organization's ideology appears to
have taken root to such a degree that it will
require decades to eradicate." Or, as the report
states, "The restoration of American strategic
authority [seems] bound to take much longer than
the mere installation of a new president."
As for Iraq and the surrounding countries,
the report found that this has been a year of
"unmitigated gloom in the Middle East and Persian
Gulf region". There appear to be no strategies in
place that can bring peace. Iraq remains trapped
in a complex web of violence, with Washington
apparently powerless to engineer a political
settlement.
The risk of regionwide
sectarian conflict seems to have risen, said the
report. After conflict in Lebanon in mid-2006, the
US made new diplomatic efforts toward Middle East
peace, but gained little traction - and this June,
Hamas seized control of Gaza.
In light of
the recent congressional testimony by the US
military commander in Iraq, General David
Petraeus, and Ambassador Ryan Crocker on how the
"troop surge" is working, the survey made the
point that much of the presumed success was due to
circumstances that the US had nothing to do with.
The survey found there was strong evidence
to indicate that the initial decline in violence
was largely due to a tactical decision by Muqtada
al-Sadr's militia. Muqtada himself fled to Iran
for the first five months of the "surge". His
Mahdi Army took its forces off the streets,
reducing its operations to avoid confrontations
with the US military.
The tactical
decisions to withdraw forces from US-dominated
areas meant there was no mass disarmament of those
responsible for the previous upsurge in killings.
(Instead, the Mahdi Army chose not to fight the
Americans and merged back into its host community,
retaining the majority of its weapons and its
coercive capacity.)
In regard to the
eastern part of Asia, the economic rise of China
and India dominated developments. While trade and
investment ties between China and the US became
ever closer, the relationship was characterized
simultaneously by closer engagement and verbal
fencing.
Although relations between Japan
and China thawed, the conflict in Afghanistan
showed signs of spreading into previously peaceful
areas, and Pakistan faced multiple problems,
including growing disaffection with the government
of President General Pervez Musharraf. Sri Lanka's
conflict worsened, while in Bangladesh the
prospects for democracy were uncertain after the
military acted to stem electoral chaos. The
outlook for restoration of democracy in Thailand
was unclear after last year's military coup.
And if the outlook for the present is
glum, the future is worse. The report concluded:
The world in 2008 will be doubly
consumed by the politics of parochialism -
sectarian rivalries and religious disputes - and
by the maneuvers of balance-of-power politics -
alliance politics and arms races ... In Europe,
the United States and Asia, big powers will talk
to each other about role, status, alliance,
deterrence, containment, and balance of power.
In the meantime, groups around the world will
fight those states and alliances ...
In
this "non-polar world", the space for aggressive
non-state actors to advance their particularist
strategic aims has grown. In 2008, managing
nuclear proliferation and terrorism will remain
the priorities.
But the unsettled
relations, rivalries and shifting strengths of
the powers that see themselves as custodians of
the state system will make the necessary
coordination of approaches to these threats
immensely hard.
David
Isenberg is a senior analyst with the British
American Security Information Council. He is also
a member of the Coalition for a Realistic Foreign
Policy, an adjunct scholar with the Cato
Institute, contributor to the Straus Military
Reform Project, a research fellow at the
Independent Institute, and a US Navy veteran. The
views expressed are his own.
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