By Patrick
Seale
Published in Arabic by Al Hayat 26 March 2001
There is no longer
any mystery about the policies, both domestic and foreign, of the Bush
Administration. The policies are conservative, reflecting the thinking, not of
the moderate wing of the Republican Party, but of its extreme Right wing.
George W Bush was elected president by American conservatives, and he is now
rewarding them for their votes.
The word from
Washington is that President Bush – strongly encouraged and supported by
Republican activists and by right-wing members of his Cabinet -- is determined
to reassert America’s global hegemony, which he claims was eroded during the
Clinton years. He has made clear that he will not tolerate any challenge to
American power.
He wants US hegemony
in military power; hegemony in NATO; hegemony in the Pacific to contain the
growing power of China; hegemony in the World Bank, the International Monetary
Fund and other international financial institutions; hegemony in the Security
Council; and hegemony over oil supplies from the Gulf.
What does all this
amount to?
In foreign policy,
Bush is adopting a tough line towards Russia, China, North Korea, Iraq and
Iran, as well as towards America’s European allies. He wants the European
Union’s proposed Rapid Reaction Force to be fully under the control of NATO,
and therefore of the United States. Despite protests from around the world, he
is pressing ahead with his plans for National Missile Defence, to protect the
territory of the United States from missile attack and from nuclear blackmail
by ‘rogue states’. He wants to disengage from the Balkans and from the messy,
interminable Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Domestically, the
trend is also clear. To satisfy the so-called ‘pro-life’ lobby, Bush’s very
first act as President was to stop American funding for abortions for poor
women overseas. And, to satisfy
American mining companies, he has gone back on his campaign promise to impose
limitations on carbon dioxide (Co2) emissions, which most experts believe are
responsible for global warming.
Secretary of State
Colin Powell has tried to project a softer, more moderate, ‘nice guy’ image. He
is not a right-wing Republican. He is in favour of abortions for poor women in
Third World countries. He is concerned about global warming. He has suggested
he would like to pursue the Clinton policy of engagement with North Korea.
He has sought to
reassure America’s European allies that they will be fully consulted over
National Missile Defence and the Balkan crisis.
He has visited the
Middle East and indicated that the US will continue to facilitate peace-making.
But, on one issue
after another, Colin Powell has been defeated by hard-liners. His potential
ally in the Administration, the National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice, is
brilliant and black like himself. But she has no cabinet status. And, as a
Soviet specialist who made her name during the Cold War, she has been mainly
concerned with narrow technical issues of arms control.
Faced with Defence
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, his deputy Paul Wolfowitz and other powerful
hard-liners, Colin Powell may already have lost the battle for influence inside
the Administration. Vice President Dick Cheney, widely seen as the “Prime
Minister” of the Bush Administration, is himself a right-winger and a close
friend of Rumsfeld. Cheney has assembled a large foreign policy staff of his
own, which is bound to bring him into competition with both the State
Department and the National Security Council.
Warnings to Russia
and China
Bush is attempting
to be more assertive and less compromising towards Russia and China than former
President Clinton. The expulsion of 50 Russian ‘spies’ from the United States is
a signal to President Vladimir Putin (himself a former KGB lieutenant-colonel)
not to revert to Cold War tricks or attempt to rebuild Russia as a global
power. Washington has threatened Moscow with sanctions if it persists in
selling sophisticated weapons to Iran.
America’s tone is
also harsher towards China. In spite of Beijing’s strenuous objections, the
Bush Administration seems determined to sell advanced weapons to Taiwan, even
possibly anti-missile defences. Last February, the US State Department issued a
report sharply critical of China’s human rights record.
The radical
strategic review of America’s armed forces, ordered by President Bush and due
to be completed shortly, is expected to focus on standing up to China, seen as
America’s principal potential rival in the XXIst century.
How does this
hard-line US policy apply to the Middle East?
The Bush
Administration has been anxious to shift attention away from the
Israeli-Palestinian struggle, where American interests are only indirect, and
towards the Gulf, where access to oil resources is considered a vital American
interest. This switch of emphasis reflects a shift away from an Israel-centred
policy to an American-centred policy.
Israel remains, of
course, the strategic ally of the United States, but its influence on American
policy-making is today far less evident than during the Clinton years.
In the Gulf, the
Bush team is attempting to put back in place the old policy of ‘dual
containment’ towards Iraq and Iran – but with a difference. In the past,
friends of Israel had a big hand in devising and implementing the policy of
isolating and sanctioning Iraq and Iran. The prime aim then was to protect
Israel and its regional monopoly of weapons of mass destruction.
Today, the thrust
behind the policy is less to protect Israel – although that remains a given --
than to prevent either Iraq or Iran from challenging American hegemony in the
Gulf.
Israeli sources
report that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon brought back from his recent visit to
Washington a clear understanding of the limits of US support. He was told that
the US, anxious to rebuild support among ‘moderate’ Arabs, would not welcome
harsh Israeli action against the Palestinians or anything that might inflame
Arab opinion.
The situation is not
unlike that of ten years ago when Washington pressed Israel not to respond to
Iraqi SCUD attacks so as not to disrupt the anti-Iraqi coalition.
Towards Iraq, Bush’s
policy is to overthrow Saddam Hussein. This is the ultimate aim. In the
meantime, the policy is to contain Iraq militarily and to hit it whenever it
misbehaves. Bush initiated his presidency by bombing Iraq because its air
defences, improved with Chinese fibre-optic communications cables, seemed to
pose a threat to American military aircraft patrolling the so-called ‘no-fly
zones’.
Towards Iran, the
policy is twofold: first, to curb its growing military capabilities by
pressuring Russia, China and North Korea not to help with Iranian rearmament,
especially its missile and nuclear programmes; secondly, to try to check Iran’s
growing rapprochement with Saudi Arabia and other GCC member states, by
insisting that Iran remains a threat. The United States has encouraged GCC
member states to set up a joint air defence system able to protect them against
both Iraq and Iran.
Having failed to
prevent India and Pakistan from acquiring nuclear weapons, the United States is
determined to stop Iraq and Iran from joining the nuclear club.
Washington
recognises that it would be pointless, even perverse, to spend billions of
dollars on building a National Missile Defence system, while at the same time
failing to do everything possible to check the transfer of ballistic missile
technology and weapons of mass destruction to Iraq and Iran, against whom the
NMD system is primarily directed.
In his bid to rule
the world, however, President George W Bush is facing a good deal of
resistance.
In the Gulf, neither
Iran not Iraq is ready to lie down and surrender. In East Asia, a resurgent
China – whose economy has been growing at a compound annual rate of almost 10%
for the past 20 years – wants to assert its own hegemony. Vladimir Putin’s
Russia has ambitions to regain its former great power status. In turn, the
European Union is seeking to make its collective voice heard in matters of
defence and foreign policy. In the Security Council, China, Russia and France
are increasingly unhappy with America’s dictates. Indeed, much of the Third
World is disillusioned with the way the United States has turned the United
Nations into an adjunct of its own diplomacy. Meanwhile, across the globe there
is a rising tide of resistance to American-style ‘globalization’, especially as
the American economy itself is running out of steam.
The hard men in President
Bush’s Administration may wish to assert America’s global hegemony, but it will
not be an easy task. Perhaps US hegemony in space will be easier to achieve
than hegemony on earth.