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The great American disconnect

Hamid Ansari

U.S. President George W. Bush's speech to the U.N. General Assembly highlights the gap between his perceptions and the ground realities.

"PATIENT ACCUMULATION of partial successes" was Henry Kissinger's recipe for the achievement of American foreign policy goals in the post-cold war world. He did not visualise a landscape in which there would be an accumulation of failures, partial or total. The scorecard for the "war on terror," Iraq, respect for international humanitarian law and human rights, the Middle East Peace Process, the Greater Middle East Initiative, and Lebanon makes dismal reading.

September is the season on the global stage for fine-tuning the articulation of policy. The curtain-raiser, in the case of President George W. Bush, was his August 31 address to the American Legion. The choice in the Middle East, he said, is straightforward: rally the world to confront the ideology of terror. On September 15 a White House official described the region as "the central battleground" where the ultimate weapons would be justice, freedom, and opportunity. The same day, State Department Counsellor Philip Zelikow spelt out the policy imperatives at a prestigious think tank.

Mr. Zelikow announced a corrective: a `paradigm shift' in approach to detainee issues. He said ideas of Islamic radicalism would be confronted directly. He put the focus squarely on Iran: the goal of U.S. policy is to pose hard questions to Tehran about its intentions and national objectives "and oblige Iranian leaders to answer them and make hard choices." Conceding that "Arab moderates and Europeans" would not accept this approach without "some sense of progress and momentum" on the Arab-Israeli dispute, he said "an active policy" on the latter would be a sine quo non for their cooperation.

Mr. Zelikow refrained from suggesting specifics. Even so, Israel quickly dismissed the possibility of a linkage between the Iranian and Palestinian issues and described the speech as "an intellectual exercise."

No surprises

In this backdrop, it was unrealistic to expect surprises in the September 19 address of President Bush to the United Nations General Assembly; none, in fact, is discernable. The speech is focussed on Western Asia, reiterates the post-9/11 thesis, and touches upon Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Iran, Syria, Darfur, and Palestine as well as the democratisation process.

The President chose to speak directly to people over the heads of their governments. He described the pre-9/11 stability in the region as a "mirage." He derided as false the charge that the West is engaged in a war against Islam. He assured the Iraqis that they would not be abandoned. He complimented the Afghans for their achievements. He called Hizbollah "armed extremists who are undermining democracy." He told the Iranians that their rulers are "the greatest obstacle to their future" and that America has no objection to a truly peaceful nuclear power programme.

Towards the end of the speech, the Palestinians were favoured with the remark that achieving a two-state solution is "one of the great objectives of my presidency"; in the same breadth, Hamas was told to abandon terror, recognise Israel's right to exist, and honour agreements.

A presidential directive to the Secretary of State was made public: to engage moderate leaders across the region and support Israelis and Palestinians to resolve their differences. The term "moderate" had earlier been defined by Mr. Zelikow as "those Arab governments that believe outside their borders in peacefully constructing a future for their region instead of violently destroying the status quo and, second, states that within their borders are trying to chart a better future for their people that we think is struggling towards greater empowerment of their people." Friends of the United States would perhaps spend time deciphering its meaning!

The speech highlights the gap between the President's perception and the ground reality. A Moroccan proverb about fantasies may well sum up the audience reaction: "he has no trousers, but his belt is forty cubits long"! Nor are the sceptics confined to the region. A German poll earlier in the month showed a sharp decline in European confidence in U.S. leadership in world affairs. Even 58 per cent of Americans now disapprove.

It is a truism that the key to the problems of the Middle East lies in two unresolved issues: Palestine and U.S.-Iran relations. On the first, the Israeli reluctance to move on the peace process is matched by the Bush administration's disinclination to pursue the matter in a meaningful manner notwithstanding the rhetoric about the road map. On the second, the obsession about Iran is once again tending to isolate the U.S. at a time when the prospects for meaningful negotiations appear realistic.

Adventurism on Iran may be difficult given existing commitments and the difficulty of meaningful military action. Beleaguered politicians, however, are prone to gamble in a desperate bid to retrieve lost ground. Deployment orders to naval units and finalisation of airlift contracts by the U.S. Defense Department are suggestive of moves that were made prior to the invasion of Iraq. Mr. Bush has also reiterated his "all options" statement. This, of course, could be part of pressure tactics and brinkmanship.

Vice-President Dick Cheney has often had the last word on post-9/11 matters. He has described the `war on terror' "as a test of our strength, a test of our capabilities and above all a test of our character." The first was tested in Iraq, the second in the `global war on terror', and the third at Abu Ghraib, Fallujah, Guantanamo, and in the practice of rendition. The record speaks for itself.

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