The yawning new world disorder

Colmunist Sultan Ahmed says that the new world order is in disarray.

Father George Bush as President of the US in early 1990s spoke of New World Order at the end of the long cold war and debacle of the Soviet Union with its Communist ideology. It was to be based on freedom, free market economy, international equity and justice for all the people in the world.
And his son George W. Bush, after winning the presidential election marginally, is bringing in a new world disorder which makes not only the small nations of the world feel insecure but also states known hitherto as the great powers, like France and Germany on one side and Russia and China on the other, which belonged to the socialist bloc.
The new world order was to be built around the UN with its will prevailing in international disputes. Instead, we now see the birth of an international disorder in which the will of the lone superpower in the world will prevail, if necessary through military we see in Iraq now. Other states have either to align themselves with it or be regarded as against it by it.
Not that the US had great regard for the UN system before the second Iraqi war. Earlier, it had walked out of the UNESCO and ILO, and did not pay the full subscription of the UN. It has the monetary muscle to cripple any international institution and it uses that when it regards that as essential or desirable for itself.
But what we see in Iraq now is an act of frightful excess by the US with Britain and a few other states supporting it. This kind of blatant unilateralism on the part of a superpower the world has not seen for a long time. And that is a unilateralism which is fatal for the peace of the world, or an international order based on justice and fair play.
Now the US, asking a number of countries in the world to expel Iraqi diplomats even when they have not joined the war against Iraq. And it has asked Bangladesh to reduce the number of Iraqi diplomats in Dhaka which it has politely declined to do.
It has asked Syria, a neighbour of Iraq and a fellow Muslim state, not to supply any military assistance to Iraq, including night vision goggles, and threatened it with dire consequences if it continued to assist Iraq.
It has also warned Iran against letting Iraqi rebels in Iran helping the Iraqi forces fighting the US.
And now it has decided not to allow Western companies investments in Iran above 20 million to participate in the Iraq post-war reconstruction. Most of the permitted companies are to be American.
In fact, the UN will not be in charge of the Iraqi reconstruction programme after the war, unlike what even Britain had suggested. The post-war administration in Iraq too will not be under the UN but under an American general, which even the Iraqi opposition leaders meeting in London have rejected. They want non-Saddam elements administer the country after the fall of Saddam. But President Bush thinks of an American show in Baghdad, at least for some months, if not years.
Change of regime in Baghdad is one thing, and imposing a US administration and that, too, a military administration is something else. There is global opposition to such moves. But President Bush is determined to make the US will prevail there immediately as well as after the war and in the post-war reconstruction.
All that lends credence to the suspicions of the world the US is after the Iraqi oil or other rich resources of this embattled state, and not only in ousting Saddam Hussein. But President Bush is not concerned with what the world thinks of him, his policies and visions, if he has any.
Meanwhile, the US generals leading their forces in Iraq say the enemy is different from what they had imagined and is tougher than they had thought. The fierce resistance of which President Bush has spoken is something which the US did not expect nor the loyalty of many Iraqis to Saddam Hussein. But then, they are not supporting or defending Saddam Hussein, but defending their own motherland and wanting peace instead of war.
Hence 11 days after the war began the US forces are compelled to think of a long pause in their forward movement towards Baghdad to consolidate themselves and re-map their strategy to face a far tougher enemy than they had anticipated.
Meanwhile, President Bush has sought a budget of 74.7 billion
dollars from the US Senate, while the experts argue the total cost may rise to 200 million dollars.
And if the war lasts for long it may have a destabilising impact on the US economy and then the global economy as a whole. All that can push up the price of oil and hit the economies of the developing countries depending on imported oil, like Pakistan, a great deal.
The situation in 1990-91 when the first Iraqi war was fought was far different from what it is today. President Bush had then the UN sanction and support for the war. Saddam Hussein had just occupied Kuwait, his small but oil rich neighbour. And he had earlier invaded Iran, though with the encouragement and assistance of the West opposed to the Iranian regime. Saudi Arabia not only welcomed the US troops and equipment to be located in its territories but also paid a good deal of money for the war as did Japan. But now it is an American war with British military support and partial military assistance from Australia.
President Bush had earlier spoken of removing the weapons of mass destruction from Iraq along with biological weapons, if any. Normally he should have given more time to the UN weapons inspectors led by Hans Blix. Instead, mid-way through he switched his objective and wanted a regime change. And now he wants a US military administration after the ejection of Saddam Hussein with the UN performing only some co-ordination functions. Meanwhile, Iraq has rejected the food-for-oil programme of the UN arguing that it would itself administer that and not let the UN do that, as proposed now. So we have one stalemate after another in Iraq.
Father Bush now says in an interview with “Newsweek” that he did not want to remove or kill Saddam Hussein in 1990-91. Instead, he was presumed dead by the Americans and the Arab leaders after the very heavy bombing of Iraq. In the same manner the Americans said after the first day’s heavy bombing of his palaces and offices in Baghdad that he might be dead. But he popped up on TV time and again. He seems to be far more durable than his enemies had presumed.
Today, there is large divide between the US and France and Germany on one side and between the US and Russia and China on the other, making the isolation of the US rather complete.
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar who supports George Bush and sought to move a second resolution in the UN Security Council says, “Europe had a kind of intellectual superiority complex. It does not value US Presidents highly if they are republican. And if they are Republican and Texan they are valued less.”
War is too serious a business to be entered into too easily and before all other options have been explored well. But not for the Texans with their gun-happy traditions and ranch style approach to the management of their countries, while they are in office. Lyndon Johnson was a prime example of this impetuous leadership.
But unfortunately here is a Texan President who can’t be restrained by others. If the US leaders are not restraining him the world leaders are not trying hard to check him. And he has proved to be unstoppable. And the peoples of the world who are demonstrating on the street against the war and the massive bombing of innocents are not able to stop him. He appears to be more like a man with a close-minded mission which he must complete at all cost.
But the greater danger is that if the US cannot win the war, in the manner it is fighting now, it may resort to heavier destruction of Baghdad and other major cities where there is heavy resistance. That way the loss of life and the total destruction can be infinite. There is no question of a ceasefire in Iraq, says President Bush. That means heavier loss of life and more massive destruction through bombing as through B.52 bombers and more reckless rain of missiles. That will be too tragic an end to the war, and a frightful leap from the earlier US promises to spare as many civilian lives as possible.
In the days of the cold war the US styled itself as the leader of the free world. In those days it operated through the UN as much as possible despite the Russian veto which was frequently used. But today in Iraq it is the leader of a coalition of the willing, which is too tiny and rather shaky because of excessive US unilateralism. It appears it will that way be after the end of the war, too, and too determined to have its way in Iraq and in some other Muslim countries as well.
The world is hence longing for a different world in which the other powers will become stronger and assert themselves as France is doing now. It wants a multi-polar world with not only France, Germany and Japan asserting themselves but also Russia and China doing the same instead of largely disagreeing with the US and not blocking it effectively even other than through military means.
The European Union could have played a more decisive role now if Tony Blair of Britain had not chosen to toe the American line faithfully and exuberantly. Britain wants to be a significant power which it can’t be by itself. And so it feels more comfortable aligning itself with the US as Margaret Thatcher had done in the days of Ronald Reagan as President of the US, and priding in the Anglo-American alliance. But its lasting gains through such an alliance or association are small. The shrinking pains of Great Britain becoming mini-England are indeed deep and long lasting. But in the case of Thatcher she was a militant Conservative leader who was aligning herself with a Republican president. In the case of Tony Blair it is a Labour leader who is aligning himself with the Republican president, and that too a Texan. Does the term New Labour explain the difference? Does New Labour mean the old conservative?
Will the US attack other Muslim states after the Iraqi war? Will it interfere in Syria and Iran? Can it do the same in Saudi Arabia? Will it seek change of regimes or systems too in such countries?
In the past the CIA was used by the US to change regimes in other countries particularly Third World countries. Will that change to outright military intervention if subtle methods do not work and President Bush is not ready to wait for too long for the kind of changes he would want in other countries?
The US government does not understand other countries and their systems very well. They are not as simplistic as they would like them to be. Nor can they make major changes quick to accommodate the US demand or wish.
The average Arab or Muslim does not understand the US approach to the Palestinian issue while it is ready to inflict infinite misery on others for offence far less than the total crimes of Israel. He does not understand how President Bush can let North Korea develop its nuclear weapons capacity while he must go to war to fish out the weapons of mass destruction which he alleges Iraq has, which has not been proved yet. He would rather go to war with his cluster and bunker bombs and cruise missiles rather than give the UN weapons inspectors some more time to complete their mission.
So the Iraqis feel they should support Saddam Hussein against the American invaders, and save their country from massive destruction. The US is forcing the Iraqis to support and defend Saddam rather than dying in large numbers helplessly. The Iraqis are afraid of not only the war but also of the American administration of Iraq to come and its possible excesses when too many persons may be rounded up and shot or incarcerated for long as war criminals. So some of them have chosen to become suicide-bombers and kill the Americans before they are killed by them.
Eighty six percent of the people of Germany are against the war. So are 87 percent Frenchmen. Forty percent of the people of Britain are against the war even after Tony Blair had committed British troops to the war with their loss of life. And the people of the Third World are overwhelmingly against the war.
The setback to the UN may soon mean setback to the WTO, IMF and the World Bank. Countries may begin disregarding international institutions too readily. That means chaos and emergence of bullies around the world. It may be easy for the US to generate such chaos but it cannot control it or repair it. And that will be too tragic.
Which way the war will end in details is not obvious now. The war has just begun, what we may be seeing is the end of the beginning and not the end itself, says President Bush. The end may depend on the quantum of destructions he brings to bear on Iraq to ensure victory, even if that be the victory of death and total destruction.
Father Bush won the Iraqi war and lost his presidential election as the US economy had failed. Will his son win the re-election after the savage war he inflicted on Iraq against the wishes of the entire world after he had won his election too very marginally? We will wait for the US people to give their final verdict.