Bush’s NWO and contradictions

Columnist M B NAQVI argues that despite the success in pushing his new World Order over the past year, there are now contradictions beginning to haunt this policy.

The heart of the new order being improvised by the US President George W. Bush —though it is not without a well-conceived priority — has gone famously during the last one year, having been greatly accelerated by the events of 9/11. American steps are dogged by many contradictions that are capable of frustrating his central design. The US is trying to meet the emergent situations by various short-term diplomatic and political stratagems that suggest themselves to it, again without a well-conceived methodology. Hitherto, substantial success has been achieved, the many contradictions notwithstanding. The question is, however, about the coming months and years: Would the contradictions go on worsening and cancelling the advances that America has made or those complexities and conflicting interests can be, if necessary temporarily, resolved without the main thrust of the American advance in Asia — which is where the main action is — being rendered fruitless. The latter event would necessitate a strategic retreat. No one needs jump to a preconceived conclusion as to what would finally happen.

The real action is not only in Asia but it must be noted that inferred American long-term purposes can only be regarded as definite or meaningful when international economic development somehow yield worthwhile gains for the US economy. That has to be kept in mind. To find the linkages between the economic facts of life and the imperatives of the US geopolitical decision-making is a tricky subject. People are apt to assign high importance to the acquisition of economic advantage. While in a general and broad sense the purpose of all geo-strategic gains can only be ultimately economic, no one should forget that small-scale economic sacrifices are willingly made when big decisions are to be made —- necessarily for higher stakes. Both from the point of view of long-range economic interests and geo-strategy, America’s position in the Middle East is pivotal. Indeed it is the fulcrum on which its recent trajectory through Afghanistan on to Central Asia began. Peace and stability in the Middle East under American aegis is the cornerstone of the American geo-strategy for Asia which for practical purposes, describes much of its current strategic interests. The biggest contradiction of this are two.

The first is about the major roadblock to ME peace and stability: it is the Arab-Israeli dispute or by its right name: the Palestine Problem. After all the frustrating years after both 1967 War and 1973 Ramzan War and 35 years long military occupation of the “promised” Palestinian territories on the West Bank (of Jordan river) and Gaza Strip are still in the grip of Israeli military forces. Palestinians refuse to accept the unending Israeli military occupation even after 35 years — as a result of Israel’s not-so-hidden agenda of gobbling up all the old Palestine lands and probably evicting the Palestinian Arabs by force or fraud. They are rebellious and want Israelis to quit their lands. The world has tried to help make peace between a purely aggressive colonial power and a weak, hapless, unarmed and stateless people. The latter depend on promises written on paper, as in Oslo accord of 1993 or any of the several beginning with the UNSC Resolution 242. The Israelis go on interpreting and re-interpreting in their own way of the agreements imposing ever new and more humiliating conditions, not to mention nibbling away, the total available land earmarked for Palestinians with ever tighter military control. On top of the creeping, indeed progressive, Israeli aggression that is taking heavy toll of Arab lives — men, women and children — and the conscience of the world has been outraged. That is all the world, except the US and its satellites like the UK, strongly disapproves the Israeli conduct but is helpless because the sole superpower effectively protects the Israelis, no howsoever shocking its actions.

But one result of Israeli behaviour is that Palestinians have become simply desperate. But they are not willing to give up their popular resistance against the overwhelming power of Israel. They have developed the technique that the ultimate in sacrifice and desperation: their youth has chosen to become suicide bombers. A cycle of strange violence has been going on in Israel and the occupied areas: an Arab suicide bomber goes and blows himself up amidst Israeli congregations or military outposts, killing as many Israelis as possible. The Israelis take immediate revenge by sending tanks and other heavy guns to kill a given number of unarmed Palestinians. Israelis shout that it is terrorism. They refuse to discuss the causes underlying this Palestinian violence — the preferred word without being apologetic about the incomparably greater and more murderous violence of their military forces. Israel has stopped even the pointless and dishonest negotiations it was supposedly conducting with Yasser Arafat-led Palestinians in the name of Palestinians’ violence. Unlimited murder seems simply unstoppable.

The most ominous development in ME is the US President George Bush’s long-awaited peace proposals for the area. They resurrected the theoretical right of the Palestinians —- on the West Bank and Gaza —- to have a state of their own. Mr. Bush has made an innovation: this will be a “provisional state”. Now the world was aware of provisional governments formed usually abroad. But for a state at the intended place and for the intended citizens to be provisional beats the imagination. What does this provisional mean? Is it not an echo of Ariel Sharon’s aside about a “temporary state” under tough conditionalities? Aerial Sharon has merely volubly toyed with the idea of murdering or exiling Yasser Arafat, the elected and charismatic leader of Palestinians. Mr. Bush lays down that Palestinians, in order to have this “provisional state”, must have a “new and different” leadership. This is not the place to discuss in detail the Bush Plan. Suffice it to say that the contribution made by Bush makes the Palestine Problem far more of a contradiction. The plan is a travesty of a state for Palestinians, for it will comprise separate isolated Bantustans under tight Israeli military control. Nor will it ever exercise sovereignty; it will be forced to live for ever under what will be more than suzerainty. One can be sure that Palestinians —- unless Israel goes the whole logical length on what it is embarked on and implements a final solution of the Palestinians Problem —- will never stop making trouble for Israel. The latter can perhaps keep them militarily contained at a price in blood. But the obviously unequal fight in which many more Arab lives are lost will go on firing the imagination of Arab masses. The solidly pro-western Sheikhs, kings and dictators who collectively provide easy passage to the US political and economic interests in ME run the risk of being overthrown. Israel is a stand in for the US in the ME, a future guarantee for protecting these Sheikhs and dictators —- and thus keep American interests safe —- will be rendered superfluous. The area might face turmoil as a result of what is now being done by the Palestinian Arabs: causing other Arabs to rise against their exploiters and oppressors. The US, in the plenitude of its unchallenged power, and in pursuit of making its proxy in ME secure, is undermining the basic US interests in area by its own myopic vision.

The inability of the Israeli state to win the confidence of other conservative and most loyal Arab sheikdoms and kingdoms in a workable manner can unravel many strands of US power structure. That is the difficulty. It is not that there is anything inherently wrong in the relationship between Egypt and Israel or Oman and Israel or any other relationship. All these regimes will happily live in peace and friendship with Israel, if only there had been no Palestinian problem. Insofar as can be ascertained, there are no contradictions between the American motivation and that of Israelis. But the exigencies of the problems between Israel and various Palestinian factions and

so-called Palestinian Authority create situation and issues on which occasional differences do crop up between Washington and Tel Aviv. None of these is really serious, to be sure; both sides are quite flexible and in one way or another most of the adjustments that are required to be made are done by the US, though it is Israel which has a client status but the why of it is not germane here.

The heart of the matter between the Palestinians and the Israelis is that the Palestinians have defied all expectations of the major western powers and of course of Israel. Their earlier expectation was that like most Arab masses the Palestinians too would submit to the argument of force. Israelis were and are prepared for a certain amount of resistance and were prepared to use force and discretion in varying combinations to buy time and to fix things up. Among the various uncertainties there is also one great uncertainty that has nothing to do with Palestine. It is to deal with the Israelis themselves. Until a few decades ago Israel was a democracy where varying schools of thought flourished and there were serious differences about the ultimate dispensation that Israel wanted to impose on what historically was Palestine. But ever since the 1970s and the Presidency of Richard Nixon, ably assisted as it was with Dr. Henry Kissinger with his vision and mission, Israel has been lurching continuously rightward. The ultimate aims of the Israelis remain uncertain. Maybe it is, under Aerial Sharon, a permanent occupation of all the West Bank and Gaza areas, except in name with the use of polite fiction of ‘temporary’ Palestinian state —- whatever it might mean. May be the other religious fanatics in Israel will make for another lurch to the right, making the Israeli objective to be to drive all the Palestinians out of the West Bank and or Gaza areas and create what they all want ultimately: greater Israel or Erstz-i-Israel. Considering the difficulties of driving them out, one sometimes in darker moments fears, that history might inflict a supreme irony and men like Sharon or Bin Netanyahu might evolve a Final Solution of the Palestine problem. There appears to be growing relevance of the last chapter admirably depicted by George Orwell in his Animal Farm. Anyhow it is pointless to speculate, though it might not be altogether useless to try and read the tendencies in others thinking.

Israel would happily live with this situation if it could endure it provided only it would not keep on exploding into the media. Which is where the Palestinians are succeeding and may in fact be working toward their final success. Strange as it may sound that the militarily powerful Israel has a soft side to it also: it is the national morale. Hitherto the Israeli opinion has gone along with men like Netanyahu and Sharon —- the two are incidentally competing into ever greater measure of heartinessness towards Palestinians. But there is also a fickleness thing: If the Arabs can sustain the current level of defiance and resistance, suicide bombing and all, Israeli will weaken. And once it begins weakening the process can become uncontrollable. The threat of a large number of Israelis leaving Israel for greener and safer pastures in America and elsewhere is a real one to hardliners in Israel. That is another worry for the Americans.

This is, however, not the only contradiction. There is another. It is South Asia. It can get worse than Middle East. The India-Pakistan contradiction is not easy to die out. The complexities and the problems that inherit the situation in South Asia are so grave that the consequences and potential of this contradiction that the American experts can go on burning midnight oil. Here it is unnecessary to go into details. For one thing, the readers are only too well aware of the complexities of the Indo-Pakistan relationship and of course of its potential. This too does not enhance the long-term durability of the grand advance that America has already made. Indeed the next bus stop was Kabul.

The Americans have achieved near total military victory over the Taliban regime — along with Turkey, India and Pakistan under their belt in the process. But the American design of taking the least trouble and incurring the least expense has meant that they have to rely on others’ shifting strategems. It was assumed that Taliban can be bombed out of existence which of course has happened. After that a regime for Kabul could be cobbled together comprising its own nominees. That too has been achieved. These experiences underline several factors: first was the presence of American armed troops and equipment nearby which can keep the new made-in America government propped up. The other elements were that Kabul government has to rely on patronage and international support to survive and also by keeping the tribal elders and other leaders in good humour, if necessary by playing some against the others. The contradiction within this Afghanistan design is that the Afghans are not always as predictable as the American experts had written or even now are of the opinion. Even the Afghans, many of them having lived as refugees elsewhere, have acquired new ideas and urges for change. Many of them do not agree with the game that the Americans have played. Not all Afghans can be bought with money, either. The presumed presence of Osama bin Laden and Mulla Omar in Afghanistan or in the Pushtoon belt of Pakistan proves that the price tag of $ 25 million or 50 million do not always make Afghans give up their chosen friends. The American intelligence has picked up indications that a new anti-American resistance is starting, initially with small steps. Even the initial steps have already meant catastrophies for law enforcement agencies of Pakistan not to mention the armed forces in Afghanistan. The earlier idea of the Americans that internal peace can be cobbled together with the help of their nominees in the Kabul was to be the basis of many advantages eventually further north.

Further north from Afghanistan there are dark and inscrutable forces. In fact nearly a dozen former Soviet Union republics have to be dealt with not to mention the Chinese. There are also both China and Russia. Americans have adopted a technique of calibrated aloofness from Russia together with a partnership at the same time. The US goes on doing things that are fundamentally against Russian strategic thinking such as converting the Warsaw Pact countries into NATO members and allowing NATO to reach the very borders of Russia. On the other hand, Russia has been made something like as associate member of NATO itself. It might not vote, may have no veto in any thing but it will have a ceremonial presence. It will not be required to fight along with the rest of the members if the shove comes to the push. The Russian need for American support for frequent financial accommodation has forced Russia to accept a position of virtual encirclement and a bogus and unequal friendship with America.

In the rest of the former Soviet republics the Americans are pursuing what may be called a forward American policy. It is still in its initial stages. But it does involve the presence of military forces in strategic places. It has acquired bases in Kyrghystan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Elsewhere they have their military advisors and American experts galore. The policy involves a charm offensive, fortified by liberal use of funds and a policy of inducement. New uncertainties here are more likely to be produced by American presence itself and their policies than what already are in existence. What was in existence is nationalist rivalries, based on demographic or racial differences? The fear is that the Americans are pursuing a hardheaded economy policy also. The pay off for the American strategic advances to the very heart of Asia is expected to be the creation of new markets for surplus American capital. The rich resources of former Soviet republics, particularly in hydrocarbons and other minerals, are beckoning. A lot of oil and gas can be prospected and taken out which can be transported to ports for carrying it to elsewhere. It would be a rich enough market, perhaps not as big as Middle East but still big enough. Oil and gas are key resources, the control of which confers geopolitical advantages —- and not to mention the profits all along the line in prospecting, finding, extracting, pipelining, refining and marketing. It is hard to describe the new problems and contradictions that are likely to be produced at various stages of these developments.

Among the advances that America has made one has had occasion to notice that the Chinese are being pre-empted from many of the former Soviet republics. This has more or less happened, though not 100 per cent. The Chinese, with some discreet help from the Russians, have counter-attacked. The Russians are trying to work both sides of the street by being good friends of the Americans as well as trying to implement as much of the strategic partnership with the Chinese as possible. The Chinese have revived the Shanghai Five that had become Shanghai Six. Indeed they have now converted it into a regional economic cooperation organisation which also has non-economic purposes. The real significance of it is mutual consultations, whether or not it could be called a formal alliance.

It is an interesting triangular game in Central Asia. The Russians are an uncertain factor because of their economic weakness and inability to maintain their still existing military forces in top form. But China is in a different category, though no Chinese or Americans can conceive of a situation in which they will have to fight. A military confrontation is not in anybody’s calculation, though eventually everyone is getting ready for the day when a clash cannot be avoided. But they all will try to avoid it first. China’s relatively smaller power, in relation to America, is backed by a solid economic foundation and a financial and economic prowess that has to be respected by all. The Chinese publicists too play a discreet but strong hand. It is premature to speculate upon the ultimate shape of things to come in Asia because the number of factors that would influence the outcome is too great. But the situation is not likely to be plain sailing for the Americans, though no hard setbacks can be foreseen for the immediate future.