LONDON – The new Bob Woodward book “Bush at War” tells us that the Bush entourage has been at times quite rattled by the criticism of its policies towards Afghanistan and Iraq. That gives me comfort. As a long time proponent of the thesis that the pen in the end is mightier than the sword it is good to know that some of the scribblers’ darts have found their target. Thus we critics should keep up our good work, particularly when we are so convinced the policy from Washington is both wrongheaded and counterproductive.
Yet and but. Perhaps for now we should be a little quieter. The United Nations has spoken and it has spoken at its highest level and with an amazing, almost unprecedented, unity on a matter of such dire consequence. Is not this what many of us in the critical camp have always yearned for- life being breathed into the moribund institution of the UN? I think it is, and the fact that for decades now the UN has been kicked around like a political football shouldn’t inhibit us today for seeing what a transforming event has taken place and what a chance it offers to put the UN into a central place in our political life for the next few decades, and perhaps even longer.
Over Kosovo, the Clinton administration (supposedly a pro-UN administration, but clearly, since its duplicitous and misleading behaviour over the UN operation in Somalia, in practice the reverse) blithely walked right round the UN and unilaterally lead the Nato bombing campaign, one that probably triggered the massive ethnic cleansing it said it was attempting to forestall. With the bombing of Afghanistan the U.S. likewise ignored all the strictures of the UN Charter which, whilst allowing members that are imperilled to act in self- defence, abjures them to bring the matter before the Security Council as soon as possible and get it to take up the baton of authorizing the fighting of a war if needs be.
This time round with Iraq, despite the arguments to circumvent the UN once again from deep inside the administration, from vice president Dick Cheney and defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld- all of whom we were told by insiders were the ones whom the president instinctively listens to- George Bush has decided to ignore them. It was not an easy decision for him. It didn’t fit with his visceral desire to get on with the job that had been decided on, to defang Saddam Hussein once and for all. But he decided to do it. He went through the UN and its tortuous hair splitting procedures and reminded us, as Anthony Blinken, a former U.S. National Security Council member, argued so well in Prospect magazine last year, why there is still more that binds Europe (and Japan and Canada, not to mention a host of other democracies) to the United States than divides it.
And the biggest unifying item of all is this question of a relatively free press and free debate. We too often take it for granted. But if, as the Nobel prize winning economist Amartya Sen has argued, it is the main reason why India the last fifty years has not suffered a major famine- because the bureaucrats can’t cover it up as in China- then it is very much the principal reason why Bush has turned 180 degrees on a dime. Somehow deep down, despite the shenanigans of the general election count, he is democratic enough to listen, or at least has the good sense to realize he owes his political future to the voters and the opinion makers.
So now perhaps we have to do our part and support Washington. Of course we can still see the weaknesses. We can see that the whole Iraq confrontation might be an unnecessary distraction from hunting down Al Qaeda. This requires, as it did with the pursuit of Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi exterminator-in-chief of the Jews, long term police work not massive bombing. The Clinton administration was offered Osama bin Laden by The Sudan and turned the suggestion down. The Bush administration could have run him down in Afghanistan if it had been clever instead of bombing the place to smithereens. And now, obsessed with Iraq, they have taken the eye of the ball, convinced themselves he was probably dead, only to find he is still there and the hydra has grown heads all over the world. You can only do one job of these proportions at a time and Iraq is a distraction, all the more so since very few believe Saddam has a nuclear weapon or could build one any time soon, and anyway if he did whom would he use these terrible weapons of mass destruction against- unless he was attacked?
But this is only half the point. The other half is that Security Council members solemnly and rationally considered the American argument and judged it as worthy of not their “no” or even abstention but a “yes”.
The U.S. has at last realized it may be the world’s only superpower but that it can only wield that strength if the world at large supports it. And countries such as Russia, China and France have likewise realized that the only way they can any longer bring influence to bear in Washington is to make it feasible for the U.S. to work through the UN. This is momentous progress, the most significant development since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Perhaps, after all, we will soon be saying, “We are all Americans now”.
I can be reached by phone +44 7785 351172 and e-mail: JonatPower@aol.com
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40th Anniversary of Amnesty International
“Like Water on Stone – The Story of Amnesty International”
