| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Warhol" |
| Date: |
21 Feb 2005 12:01:50 AM |
| Object: |
No power on Earth will fight us, said Gog. Why Bush Will Fail . |
No power on Earth will fight us, said Gog. Does he forget the power of
Allah's son of man?????????? On your knees you stupid Rat, and start ask
forgiveness to Allah, you Magog Serpent
Why Bush Will Fail in Europe
The President has an enormous political gulf to bridge. The trouble is, he
doesn't even know it's there
by William Pfaff
President George W Bush arrives in Europe this week in the belief that the
European Nato allies can be persuaded to 'turn away from the disagreements
of the past' and open 'a new chapter' in transatlantic relations, as
Condoleezza Rice, on her European trip, advised them to do. He is likely to
go home without the concessions he wants.
He wants more help from the Europeans in Iraq, Afghanistan, and probably in
other places yet to be announced;
European backing for American policy on Iran (and Syria and
Israel/Palestine); and no European arms sales to China.
Those are Washington's priorities. There is a further list of secondary
issues, commercial as well as political.
His trip will fail because he and his administration do not understand what
really divides most continental European governments from the United States
today. At the same time, Europeans are mostly unwilling to confront these
issues, because of the trouble with Washington they imply. But,
unacknowledged or not, they count.
First is the definition of the crisis. Few Europeans believe either in the
global 'war on terror' or the 'war against tyranny', as Washington describes
them.
American claims about the threat of terrorism seem grossly exaggerated, and
the American reaction disproportionate and even hysterical. Three thousand
were killed in the Twin Towers, but most advanced societies have already
had, or still have, their own wars with 'terrorism' sustaining losses
proportionately as severe: the British with the IRA, Italians and Germans
with their Red Brigades, the Spanish with the Basque separatist Eta, and so
on. It has been a condition of modern political existence.
The American-led invasion of Iraq is widely regarded in Europe as irrelevant
to the reality of terrorism, overwrought in scale and destruction, and
perverse in effect, vastly deepening hostility between the Western powers
and Muslim society.
To most Democrats as well as Republicans, 11 September was the defining
event of the age, after which 'nothing could be the same'. Their
imperviousness to any notion that this might not be so astonishes many
abroad. Many European believe it is not the world that has changed, but the
United States.
The second cause of transatlantic disagreement is the American claim to
global domination, and its hostility to Europe's acquiring political or
military power commensurate with European economic power.
This claim rests on the argument that an international system in which there
is more than one major power is no longer acceptable. Two years ago,
Condoleezza Rice told the International Institute for Strategic Studies in
London that 'multi-polarity' in the past had been 'a necessary evil that
sustained the absence of war but did not promote the triumph of peace'. As a
theory of political society, she said, it stands for rivalry and
competition. 'We have tried this before. It led to the Great War ... '
This obviously is untrue. The simultaneous existence of major as well as
minor powers was the political reality throughout modern history, despite
efforts to overturn it, most recently by Hitler and Stalin.
A traditional diplomacy of 'balance of power', meant to keep the peace,
failed in 1914, and in 1938 the existing balance of power was deliberately
destroyed by a hegemony-seeking Germany - in part made possible by an
isolationist United States's refusal to intervene in Europe's affairs.
Speaking in Paris last week, the Secretary of State asked, 'why should we
seek to divide our capacities for good, when they can be much more effective
united? Only the enemies of freedom would cheer this division.' The
alternative she proposes is an American-led international system that
replaces Nato's principle of equality and collegiality with hierarchy.
Nato today has an internal multipolarity. The treaty requires consensus on
actions, which means that differences of opinion can block US initiatives.
The Bush administration prefers 'coalitions of the willing' to avoid this
problem, although the fragility of the Iraq coalition does not encourage its
use elsewhere.
The third basic disagreement is that the US has repudiated the system of
absolute state sovereignty that has governed international society since
1648, and is the basis of modern international law.
This was an early casualty of the Bush administration's National Security
Strategy, announced in 2002, which declared that preemptive attack had
become an American policy option in the war against terror. The US then
renounced, 'de-ratified', or simply abandoned a series of treaty
commitments. These included Geneva standards on the treatment of prisoners
and the prohibition of torture. The US has deliberately chosen to place
itself outside the regime of international law, to which all of the European
Union nations are committed.
The American claim to a dominating or hegemonic position in international
affairs is bipartisan. The Clinton administration made it; the Bush
administration makes it; John Kerry made it during last year's presidential
campaign. It says that America's power itself imposes a right or
responsibility to suppress terrorism, nuclear proliferation, and 'rogue
states', and to enforce international order.
Any challenge to American primacy by another state, or by the European
Union, is perceived a cause of international instability and therefore a
potential source of disorder or war.
This American role is avowedly benevolent, and in the eyes of many
Americans, certainly including President Bush, it is of divine origin
(Woodrow Wilson also believed this). Within the present administration,
there are those who believe cosmic forces are in play and responsible for
America's emergence as the sole superpower. The American belief in a divine
commission goes back to its religious origins in the 17th century, and is
not open to logical refutation. Even secular interpretations of American
destiny assert a moral claim, expressed thus in the 19th century: 'The
United States has achieved the highest possible form of political system and
that this great system can be extended to the rest of humanity ... Because
America is exceptionally good, it both deserves to be exceptionally powerful
and by nature cannot use its power for evil ends.'
Current transatlantic conflicts are thus not mere political disagreements.
They derive from the nature of the evolving relationship between the US and
a European Union that considers itself the sovereign legatee of the European
powers of the past, and has a conservative commitment to the preservation of
international order.
The claim America now makes is that destruction is a creative principle in
politics as well as economics. 'Creative destruction' produces new order.
This is a form of Utopianism.
The American challenge is to the fundamental claim of other nations to
sovereign autonomy. In the immediate future this is likely to be managed
rather than solved. Many European governments are undoubtedly willing to
accept Washington on Washington's terms, as has Tony Blair's Britain.
Some, as already happens, will resist those terms and attempt to develop a
European mid-term or long-term counter-power, which will not necessarily be
military.
But throughout history nations and other political forces have been disposed
to challenge claims to universal power. This is the source of current
tensions. It is the closest thing to a natural law that history can offer.
'Stuff happens', whether intended or not, to use Donald Rumsfeld's language.
Uneasy lies the crown, even for republics.
William Pfaff's most recent book is The Bullet's Song, Romantic Violence and
Utopia, published by Simon & Schuster.
L 2005 William Pfaff
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0220-22.htm
__________________
'All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are
endowed with reason and conscience and should act toward one another in a
spirit of brotherhood.'
UN Universal Declaration of
Human Rights, Article 1
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