Powerful men, or so the story goes, become obsessed with their legacy as their days draw to a close. ‘What was my impact? How will I be remembered? In which manner will I be judged by history?’ These are the sort of questions they have been known to consider. Rumour has it that George W. Bush, not the most philosophical leader by any account, has even been stricken with this ailment. It is purported that he has read biographies of immense presidents who have preceded him like Abraham Lincoln. Unfortunately for Bush, Lincoln’s legacy failed to yield an answer. However, it was not a hopeless case, for Bush found the clue he’d been searching for in a more recent episode of human history.
‘Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and the radicals,’ the president remarked at celebrations commemorating Israel’s sixtieth birthday. ‘We’ve heard this foolish delusion before’, he added, before continuing with a neat little anecdote. ‘As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: “Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.”’ Fully aware of all the buttons he was pushing as he spoke to Israelis about the Second World War, Bush had a final point to add. He told his audience they had to call a spade a spade and that this was ‘the false comfort of appeasement’, and as we are all too aware it ‘has been repeatedly discredited by history.’ Bush then, is no Neville Chamberlain, naturally, he is Winston Churchill.
Bush is not wrong about appeasement, it never works. If a state, or group, is fatalistically determined to pursue its ends, then it will do so, with or without outside assistance. And appeasement is assistance, whether to Hitler in Czechoslovakia or granting a dictator a propaganda coup, it will be used in the pursuit of their goals. However, engaging in historical parallels is dangerous. They are often inaccurate, and it is usually done for shock value. Whether comparing Israel to apartheid-era South Africa or likening those who wish to negotiate with terrorists to Nazi appeasers, these parallels are unhelpful. Historical examples should be used for illumination and understanding rather than mobilisation of a support base.
Had Bush kept his comments aimed specifically at terrorism they would have been weightier- though not perhaps to the birthday audience he was addressing. It is difficult to compare Al Qaeda or Hamas to the Nazis. They do have a dangerously deterministic ideology, and they are an extreme threat. However, they do not have a massively industrialised state, a doting population who are fully mobilised, or unprecedented military power. Bush was right about one common point they share, there is no ‘ingenious argument [that] will persuade them they have been wrong all along.’ Indeed, the Hamas answer to Israel’s birthday celebrations was typically intransigent. Bin Laden put aside his dialysis machine for the moment and weighed in on the argument too. ‘We will continue, God permitting,’ he said in one of his routine press briefings, ‘the fight against the Israelis and their allies.’ Lest anyone was worried, he reassured us that not ‘a single inch of Palestine’ would be given up ‘so long as there is one true Muslim on Earth.’ In reality, Palestine is not an Al Qaeda issue and they exploit it only for its value in the Muslim world. Nevertheless, bin Laden has decided on his course. There is no external argument that could change that.
It is unclear whether Bush’s remarks were directed at Barack Obama, though the senator certainly seemed to think so. The White House denied the allegations, and Press Secretary Dana Perino quipped that people running for office often believe the world spins around them. Naturally, the president’s comments could have been aimed at a whole host of people who believe that negotiation is viable, however, it has sparked off a little spat in this year’s election, which interestingly has led Obama and John McCain to prognosticate on what their legacy will be.
Obama has been under fire ever since he indicated he would meet with the leaders of Venezuela and Iran, among others, in his first year in office. The quotes were undoubtedly taken out of context, nevertheless it still prompted his foreign policy advisors to rush to the press and clarify that he meant ‘diplomacy not summitry.’ As it is now Israel’s birthday he has had to consistently reaffirm his commitment to the embattled state and use an assortment of macho language when describing Hamas. In an effort to define his foreign policy ideas he even placed himself on the spectrum of idealist and realist presidents. Unfortunately, his notions are skewed.
‘Instead of tough talk and no action, we need to do what Kennedy, Nixon and Reagan did and use all elements of American power — including tough, principled, and direct diplomacy’, Obama said. One cringes at the mere thought of Nixon being included alongside Kennedy and Reagan, as the arch-realist has no place being sandwiched in between two idealists. Moreover, one is unsure about the diplomacy Obama is referring to. Kennedy endured a failed conference on Berlin with Khrushchev before finding himself in the far more comfortable position of advancing American values and goals in robust and rousing oratory. Indeed, Obama must have missed that famous line of Kennedy’s, which was delivered to thunderous applause, ‘there are some who say... we can work with the Communists- let them come to Berlin.’ Outside that Kennedy’s presidency was draped in hard power, especially in Cuba and Vietnam, while his ‘poster boy’ style also increased US prestige and influence.
Richard Nixon quite famously used statecraft to advance his triangular diplomacy, yet he did not meet with Zhou Enlai or Mao Zedong in his first year in office. Rather, he used backwater channels until there was sufficient progress before then sending the Prince of Darkness, Henry Kissinger, to Beijing. Only then, with some degree of rapprochement assured, did Nixon travel to China. There are two important points Obama should bear in mind before he models his prospective foreign policy on the past. Firstly, the thaw in Sino-American relations only took place because Mao felt the strategic imperatives suited it. Considering the Soviet Union menaced on China’s doorstep, Mao thought it prudent to align his state with the US. Secondly, Obama is not, nor should he be, a Richard Nixon. Nixon and Kissinger’s conception of international relations was an anachronistic view of the world directly transmitted from the nineteenth century balance-of-power which Kissinger had taught at Harvard. As National Security Advisor, then Secretary of State, Kissinger played Bismarck and tried to juggle to USSR and the PRC. This was realpolitik with no room for ideals. American values were an inconvenience for Kissinger, especially when American legislators tacked them onto bills that dealt with foreign affairs. Nixon notoriously stated that the US should accept the state of foreign governments if their system worked for them. Naturally, there was no litmus test for what effectively worked, and this policy led the US to prop up tyrants like Pinochet in Chile. All the while the White House waxed lyrical about peace in Southeast Asia while increasing the tonnage they dropped on Vietnam and Cambodia.
Obama’s statement appears more confused again when one treats the reference to Ronald Reagan. Sure the president used diplomacy, and did so quite effectively; however, this was only after he felt he had secured American strength to a degree where they could dominate negotiations. The extraordinary events of the late 1980s which led to America’s eventual triumph in the Cold War were a product of Reagan’s unprecedented military build-up. The Soviet Union did not have the economic base with which to compete and Reagan was able to pounce on Gorbachev when the timing was right. He reversed his stance slightly and toned down his rhetoric slightly allowing for a rapprochement. The president said in a renowned address, that an ordinary American couple and a Russian couple would, should they have the opportunity to meet, speak about their lives, what they did for a living, and their children, rather than the differences between their governments. However, this came well after he had called the USSR an ‘Evil Empire’ and ordered more B-1 bombers. Even with peace on the horizon Regan was impatient and implored Gorbachev to ‘tear down that wall.’ Again, at the root of Reagan’s foreign policy was American values. If Obama is to look at an historical paradigm, this may well be the best of them. He certainly has the talent and the communicative skills to deliver a message as powerfully and as effectively as Reagan. However, if he’s wondering what Reagan would do now with Hamas and Hezbollah gaining ground in the Fertile Crescent, he should remember that President Reagan already sent the marines into Beirut once.
Disappointingly, after this speech, realism cropped up in Obama’s discourse again. He praised the coalition building of Bush senior, and on this he certainly has academic consensus behind him. The support of intellectuals notwithstanding, the senator should not assume realism to be a good thing. He has already highlighted the horrors occurring in Darfur, it would be a travesty to thus adopt a foreign policy that would ignore them. George H.W. Bush was undoubtedly successful in crafting a coalition of myriad countries to evict Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. He also flirted with Deng Xiaoping directly after Tiananmen Square and turned a blind eye to the dissolution of Yugoslavia which had calamitous consequences. It would be a pity, with all the hopes and potential of Barack Obama’s candidacy, that he might adopt an international perspective guided by a cold calculation of national interest. Any notion of renewing American soft power would fade should that be the case. Obama has indicated his foreign policy will be different and he has underscored Sudan. One hopes he will continue down this path and forge an original outlook, sourced on values and power, and guided by coalitions if possible. But Obama has to remember that ‘carrots and sticks’ cannot be ignored and difficult tasks will often mean working alone. Moreover, if he is determined to conjure up presidents past, he should begin with successful ones at least. Unfortunately for him, there is competition on this front. John McCain already has Ronald Reagan in mind, and he subtly resurrected him when speaking of ‘peace through strength.’ Irrespective of who takes away of the spoils in November it would appear that Ronald Reagan’s legacy will be invoked in the White House next year. His ghost will sit in the White House Situation Room just like Banquo’s at Macbeth’s dinner table in Dunsinane. This time, let’s hope Macbeth isn’t in there with him.
Sunday, 18 May 2008
Thursday, 15 May 2008
After Iraq
One of the hallmarks of success in Academia, Commentary, or even in Government, it would seem, is the ability to lend a short definition to an era. The sheer difficulty of defining a present age notwithstanding, it would be insolvent for one to wait as others would win the race, so observers compete with each other in an effort to place the lasting definition on an epoch. Henry Luce proclaimed the dawn of an ‘American Century’ even before US involvement in the Second World War had gotten underway.
In fact, it would appear that uncertainty in international affairs, rather than having the obvious effect of forcing the chattering classes to sit back and assess events, prompts an even greater rush to the thesaurus. Thus, the fall of the Berlin Wall gave rise to a whole host of lexical descriptions ranging from the jingoistic ‘new American Century’ to the deterministic ‘Asian Century’; from the triumphalistic ‘unipolar moment’ to the fatalistic ‘after hegemony’; or from the Hegelian ‘end of history’ to the axiomatic ‘post-Cold War’ era.
Observers rush around in the battle of nomenclature like nineteenth century zoologists in the Amazon Rainforest. They are ably accompanied by all the inventive wit of government, which has found its zenith in the protracted American war on nouns, relentlessly waged against poverty, drugs, and terror.
Nevertheless, there may well be some weight in Joseph Nye’s argument that one cannot study something which is nameless. Indeed definitions lend focus and clarity. They can aid the pursuit of knowledge. They can also offer unintentional instructions for the reader. How can one truly understand how the 21st Century is to be the Asian Century if the blueprint for the study of the 20th is the American Century? It prompts our analysis to be a simple ‘declining power is supplanted by a rising power’ model. The danger in using a rashly forged term is precisely not what in includes, but what it precludes us from scrutinising (naturally this is subjective as character and geography can form subconscious dynamics). The sixteenth century may well be regarded as the age of the reformation in Europe but, as Paul Kennedy contended, when Luther was nailing his theses to the church door in Wittenburg, Hernan Cortes was in Cuba sharpening his sword for sightseeing in Tenochtitlan. This was a ‘new world’ for the conquistadores, who were incidentally the only things new about it for the Aztecs.
So where are we now? The current terms do not seem to dress the mood well. Indeed, most of us will agree that the world as of May, 2008, is in miserable shape. Unfortunately, without an appropriate definition it might be more difficult to assess how to move forward.
Less than a decade ago the World Bank estimated that half of the Earth’s population lived on less than $2 a day, with a third of them suffering from consumption levels below $1 per day. It is difficult to assess what the current state of things is. Previous trends certainly suggest that an improvement is likely, though it is hardly inevitable. Nor would the current economic climate leave one breathless in anticipation of popular smoothie bars in Kinshasa.
Where there has been a marked improvement is East and South Asia (ah, the Asian Century). Unfortunately, this has not translated into better representation. China’s in a precarious position. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) arrogantly defends its version of national identity- notwithstanding the emergency meetings held with the French government recently when Franco-Chinese economic relations encountered some turbulence culminating in the blockading of a couple of Carrefour supermarkets. This process, alongside decades of state indoctrination, and the deprivation of any form of social outlet for frustration has left large swathes of the Chinese youth angry and sporting a more militant vision of nationality than that held in the Forbidden City. If the Central Government drops a ball in its juggling act then the irate youth may turn to Tiananmen Square again. This time, not necessarily accompanied by the Goddess of Democracy.
The PRC is not the only supposed emerging power where alarmist rhetoric is being reciprocated by the populace. In Russia, xenophobia seems to have become a national pastime (pig iron production has lost its popularity since the iron curtain no longer needs to be maintained), admittedly in a far more virulent form than in Beijing. Moscow, having another crack at the Cold War, has also developed the prototype callous foreign policy. Bullying fledgling states like Georgia is all a bit of fun for the Kremlin, but if they want a really bellyaching laugh they’ll wait until December, disproportionately inflate the price of gas (which they monopolise) and when an impoverished state like Ukraine, whose leaders are incredulous that Zimbabwean inflation rates have hit the Russian gas market, cannot afford to pay, Russia turns off the gas supply. ‘Happy New Year Kiev, vodka warms the bones.’ Of course, nothing warms the bones more in the Kremlin than training the Burmese Army. Perhaps there are even a few Red Army veterans left over from forties to show Than Shwe’s troops how to administer an effective raping. This is the nadir of Russian foreign policy.
Nor are the Chinese to be outdone by their Slavic neighbours. The self-appointed defenders of ‘national sovereignty’ have placed their support behind every despotic regime that has so much as winked at Beijing in the last few decades and this policy shows no signs of losing steam. Nothing should impinge upon a country’s domestic affairs, Beijing believes, except of course, Chinese commerce. Ostensibly, selling machetes to the Interhamwe in Rwanda cannot be regarded as foreign interference, it’s merely trade. Indeed, recently during the (still continuing) electoral crisis in unfortunate Zimbabwe observers were wondering what exactly was missing? There was the mandatory dictator (Robert Mugabe), his doting cadres (ZANU-PF), a persecuted people, a former economy, and of course the much maligned opposition (Movement for Democratic Chance) with its battered leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, who had clearly won the election. There was a chorus of condemnation from the colonialists, but there was a missing piece. At least until China stepped up to the plate to defend ZANU-PF’s inalienable right to govern indefinitely. The CCP’s totalitarian soft-power was accompanied by some hard-power for good measure. In the nick of time, a Chinese vessel, the An Yue Jiang, arrived in Durban with seventy-seven tonnes of mortar, RPGs, and 3 million rounds of ammunition, evidently bound for Zimbabwe. Christmas would have come early in Harare had it not been for the refusal of dock-workers in South Africa, Zimbabwe’s arch apologist, to handle the material. The Chinese then employed the ultimate argument of red-handed guilt, directly plagiarised from France during the Rwandan genocide. ‘What?’ this contention runs, ‘the shipment was negotiated before the election.’
Third world tyrants have good reason to look excitably forward to the so-called ‘inevitable shift of power to the East.’ One basket-case that will not benefit directly from this shift, but will certainly enjoy the relaxation of international pressure is Burma, or the Union of Myanmar. The sheer reluctance of Burma’s neighbours to place any amount of pressure on its ruling junta, the State Peace and Development Committee (SPDC), over the notorious abuses occurring inside, is famed. Even if one treats institutionalised rape and murder as a domestic matter, ASEAN countries fail to see how drugs, refugees, and human trafficking are international problems. Nevertheless, non-interference is fundamental in Asia. The horrors in Myanmar continue to worsen, most recently when Cyclone Nargis struck leaving death, homelessness, and severe flooding in its wake.
Lest they lose their mantle as the sole proprietors of misfortune for the Burmese people, Cyclone SPDC then cruised into town (or, out of town) and precipitated one of the largest humanitarian crises in recent times- possibly even larger than the Indian Ocean tsunami. Refusing to admit that they were incapable of coping with the catastrophe was only one tactic in a strategy that saw mountains of international aid declined and as of this week only 10% of relief worker visas processed. One crisis veteran even saw a visa placed in his passport at the embassy in Bangkok before an official then peeled it out in front of him. When France recently proposed invoking the UN principle of ‘Responsibility to Protect’, Russia, the PRC, and South Africa signalled their intention to forestall such a process. These Security Council members would certainly not partake in the setting of a precedent for UN intervention. Moreover, South Africa’s hypocrisy is the most pungent. Having courted intervention for decades, and having decried the West for its indifference, the ANC, since gaining power, have pursued a neat ‘Africa First’ policy, which naturally does not mean African people first, rather African governments first. In timely fashion, this policy is now being extended to Asia, lest other embattled peoples receive the benefits of liberation the South Africans did.
A string of explosions in Rajasthan on Tuesday also reminds us of the omnipresent threat of Islamic fundamentalism. This is not a clash of civilisations or a war between states, but rather an uprising by a loosely defined and, not always, interconnected movement. Traditional Western self-loathing and the excesses of the Bush administration’s rhetoric has given rise to a popular belief that this movement is over-exaggerated or in more extreme cases that it is a phantom of the Western psyche. Nevertheless, this is not the case. It is real and violent. Boasting a millenarian ideology and deterministic belief-set, the broad Islamist current does not always have common geo-political goals or motivating factors, nor does it have popular support, but it does have a vision for society, and an aggressive strategy of elitist terrorism to realise this ambition. It is not a threat against the West, rather it is a global threat, and the remote detonation of a bomb strapped to an eight year old girl in Iraq on Wednesday summarises the fanaticism and inhumanity of radical Islamists who are sympathetically referred to as ‘insurgents’ in the media.
It would be a gross understatement to argue that Iraq is significant in contemporary affairs, but it is also having implications that have not necessarily been debated at large. The current failures of intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq have soured the taste of pro-activity for many people in the world. As a result of incompetence and poor public relations those unpopular conflicts have seen their support levels drop to practically zero. Yet, not only are they frontlines in the struggle against Islamic fundamentalism- Islamists certainly think so- there are wider connotations. We are, in a sense, in the post-Iraq phase, where the attitude is characterised by isolationism, thinly veiled by calls for multilateralism. Problematically, the multilateral institutions are habitually deadlocked and functioning ineffectively. Multilateralism has failed to halt the Iranian nuclear programme or get the requisite aid to Burma. The entire multinational framework operates like a contract, functioning only when a state buys into its ideals. Not only can an intransigent state put the brakes on the entire process and thrust it into stalemate, but a state that refuses to accede to the practice at all can live comfortably in tyrannical autarky. There is no penalty for non-compliance, yet it can bring the multilateral structure to its knees. With civil wars in Sudan and Chad set to turn into a regional war, with the situation in Burma making a parody of the international system, and with the ghosts of Rwanda and Bosnia in our minds, one knows that the price of non-interference is millions of human lives.
There are serious questions to be answered about the twenty-first century. Regions drift in and out of conflict. Food and water shortages have apocalyptic portents for hundreds of millions of people. There are monstrous global and regional development gaps, peppered with incessant strife, and ruinous humanitarian crises. The tremendous achievements in health and technology stand ripe to be exploited by weaponry and terrorism, while the globalised media network is at times little more than a plaything for murderous and unsavoury organisations like Al Qaeda. Our mechanisms for dealing with all of this are fruitless and anachronistic. The twentieth century began and ended in calamity in Sarajevo. It is up to the world’s richest resource, its people, to ensure that our new century, be it American or Asian, ends better than it began on that sunny morning in New York City.
In fact, it would appear that uncertainty in international affairs, rather than having the obvious effect of forcing the chattering classes to sit back and assess events, prompts an even greater rush to the thesaurus. Thus, the fall of the Berlin Wall gave rise to a whole host of lexical descriptions ranging from the jingoistic ‘new American Century’ to the deterministic ‘Asian Century’; from the triumphalistic ‘unipolar moment’ to the fatalistic ‘after hegemony’; or from the Hegelian ‘end of history’ to the axiomatic ‘post-Cold War’ era.
Observers rush around in the battle of nomenclature like nineteenth century zoologists in the Amazon Rainforest. They are ably accompanied by all the inventive wit of government, which has found its zenith in the protracted American war on nouns, relentlessly waged against poverty, drugs, and terror.
Nevertheless, there may well be some weight in Joseph Nye’s argument that one cannot study something which is nameless. Indeed definitions lend focus and clarity. They can aid the pursuit of knowledge. They can also offer unintentional instructions for the reader. How can one truly understand how the 21st Century is to be the Asian Century if the blueprint for the study of the 20th is the American Century? It prompts our analysis to be a simple ‘declining power is supplanted by a rising power’ model. The danger in using a rashly forged term is precisely not what in includes, but what it precludes us from scrutinising (naturally this is subjective as character and geography can form subconscious dynamics). The sixteenth century may well be regarded as the age of the reformation in Europe but, as Paul Kennedy contended, when Luther was nailing his theses to the church door in Wittenburg, Hernan Cortes was in Cuba sharpening his sword for sightseeing in Tenochtitlan. This was a ‘new world’ for the conquistadores, who were incidentally the only things new about it for the Aztecs.
So where are we now? The current terms do not seem to dress the mood well. Indeed, most of us will agree that the world as of May, 2008, is in miserable shape. Unfortunately, without an appropriate definition it might be more difficult to assess how to move forward.
Less than a decade ago the World Bank estimated that half of the Earth’s population lived on less than $2 a day, with a third of them suffering from consumption levels below $1 per day. It is difficult to assess what the current state of things is. Previous trends certainly suggest that an improvement is likely, though it is hardly inevitable. Nor would the current economic climate leave one breathless in anticipation of popular smoothie bars in Kinshasa.
Where there has been a marked improvement is East and South Asia (ah, the Asian Century). Unfortunately, this has not translated into better representation. China’s in a precarious position. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) arrogantly defends its version of national identity- notwithstanding the emergency meetings held with the French government recently when Franco-Chinese economic relations encountered some turbulence culminating in the blockading of a couple of Carrefour supermarkets. This process, alongside decades of state indoctrination, and the deprivation of any form of social outlet for frustration has left large swathes of the Chinese youth angry and sporting a more militant vision of nationality than that held in the Forbidden City. If the Central Government drops a ball in its juggling act then the irate youth may turn to Tiananmen Square again. This time, not necessarily accompanied by the Goddess of Democracy.
The PRC is not the only supposed emerging power where alarmist rhetoric is being reciprocated by the populace. In Russia, xenophobia seems to have become a national pastime (pig iron production has lost its popularity since the iron curtain no longer needs to be maintained), admittedly in a far more virulent form than in Beijing. Moscow, having another crack at the Cold War, has also developed the prototype callous foreign policy. Bullying fledgling states like Georgia is all a bit of fun for the Kremlin, but if they want a really bellyaching laugh they’ll wait until December, disproportionately inflate the price of gas (which they monopolise) and when an impoverished state like Ukraine, whose leaders are incredulous that Zimbabwean inflation rates have hit the Russian gas market, cannot afford to pay, Russia turns off the gas supply. ‘Happy New Year Kiev, vodka warms the bones.’ Of course, nothing warms the bones more in the Kremlin than training the Burmese Army. Perhaps there are even a few Red Army veterans left over from forties to show Than Shwe’s troops how to administer an effective raping. This is the nadir of Russian foreign policy.
Nor are the Chinese to be outdone by their Slavic neighbours. The self-appointed defenders of ‘national sovereignty’ have placed their support behind every despotic regime that has so much as winked at Beijing in the last few decades and this policy shows no signs of losing steam. Nothing should impinge upon a country’s domestic affairs, Beijing believes, except of course, Chinese commerce. Ostensibly, selling machetes to the Interhamwe in Rwanda cannot be regarded as foreign interference, it’s merely trade. Indeed, recently during the (still continuing) electoral crisis in unfortunate Zimbabwe observers were wondering what exactly was missing? There was the mandatory dictator (Robert Mugabe), his doting cadres (ZANU-PF), a persecuted people, a former economy, and of course the much maligned opposition (Movement for Democratic Chance) with its battered leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, who had clearly won the election. There was a chorus of condemnation from the colonialists, but there was a missing piece. At least until China stepped up to the plate to defend ZANU-PF’s inalienable right to govern indefinitely. The CCP’s totalitarian soft-power was accompanied by some hard-power for good measure. In the nick of time, a Chinese vessel, the An Yue Jiang, arrived in Durban with seventy-seven tonnes of mortar, RPGs, and 3 million rounds of ammunition, evidently bound for Zimbabwe. Christmas would have come early in Harare had it not been for the refusal of dock-workers in South Africa, Zimbabwe’s arch apologist, to handle the material. The Chinese then employed the ultimate argument of red-handed guilt, directly plagiarised from France during the Rwandan genocide. ‘What?’ this contention runs, ‘the shipment was negotiated before the election.’
Third world tyrants have good reason to look excitably forward to the so-called ‘inevitable shift of power to the East.’ One basket-case that will not benefit directly from this shift, but will certainly enjoy the relaxation of international pressure is Burma, or the Union of Myanmar. The sheer reluctance of Burma’s neighbours to place any amount of pressure on its ruling junta, the State Peace and Development Committee (SPDC), over the notorious abuses occurring inside, is famed. Even if one treats institutionalised rape and murder as a domestic matter, ASEAN countries fail to see how drugs, refugees, and human trafficking are international problems. Nevertheless, non-interference is fundamental in Asia. The horrors in Myanmar continue to worsen, most recently when Cyclone Nargis struck leaving death, homelessness, and severe flooding in its wake.
Lest they lose their mantle as the sole proprietors of misfortune for the Burmese people, Cyclone SPDC then cruised into town (or, out of town) and precipitated one of the largest humanitarian crises in recent times- possibly even larger than the Indian Ocean tsunami. Refusing to admit that they were incapable of coping with the catastrophe was only one tactic in a strategy that saw mountains of international aid declined and as of this week only 10% of relief worker visas processed. One crisis veteran even saw a visa placed in his passport at the embassy in Bangkok before an official then peeled it out in front of him. When France recently proposed invoking the UN principle of ‘Responsibility to Protect’, Russia, the PRC, and South Africa signalled their intention to forestall such a process. These Security Council members would certainly not partake in the setting of a precedent for UN intervention. Moreover, South Africa’s hypocrisy is the most pungent. Having courted intervention for decades, and having decried the West for its indifference, the ANC, since gaining power, have pursued a neat ‘Africa First’ policy, which naturally does not mean African people first, rather African governments first. In timely fashion, this policy is now being extended to Asia, lest other embattled peoples receive the benefits of liberation the South Africans did.
A string of explosions in Rajasthan on Tuesday also reminds us of the omnipresent threat of Islamic fundamentalism. This is not a clash of civilisations or a war between states, but rather an uprising by a loosely defined and, not always, interconnected movement. Traditional Western self-loathing and the excesses of the Bush administration’s rhetoric has given rise to a popular belief that this movement is over-exaggerated or in more extreme cases that it is a phantom of the Western psyche. Nevertheless, this is not the case. It is real and violent. Boasting a millenarian ideology and deterministic belief-set, the broad Islamist current does not always have common geo-political goals or motivating factors, nor does it have popular support, but it does have a vision for society, and an aggressive strategy of elitist terrorism to realise this ambition. It is not a threat against the West, rather it is a global threat, and the remote detonation of a bomb strapped to an eight year old girl in Iraq on Wednesday summarises the fanaticism and inhumanity of radical Islamists who are sympathetically referred to as ‘insurgents’ in the media.
It would be a gross understatement to argue that Iraq is significant in contemporary affairs, but it is also having implications that have not necessarily been debated at large. The current failures of intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq have soured the taste of pro-activity for many people in the world. As a result of incompetence and poor public relations those unpopular conflicts have seen their support levels drop to practically zero. Yet, not only are they frontlines in the struggle against Islamic fundamentalism- Islamists certainly think so- there are wider connotations. We are, in a sense, in the post-Iraq phase, where the attitude is characterised by isolationism, thinly veiled by calls for multilateralism. Problematically, the multilateral institutions are habitually deadlocked and functioning ineffectively. Multilateralism has failed to halt the Iranian nuclear programme or get the requisite aid to Burma. The entire multinational framework operates like a contract, functioning only when a state buys into its ideals. Not only can an intransigent state put the brakes on the entire process and thrust it into stalemate, but a state that refuses to accede to the practice at all can live comfortably in tyrannical autarky. There is no penalty for non-compliance, yet it can bring the multilateral structure to its knees. With civil wars in Sudan and Chad set to turn into a regional war, with the situation in Burma making a parody of the international system, and with the ghosts of Rwanda and Bosnia in our minds, one knows that the price of non-interference is millions of human lives.
There are serious questions to be answered about the twenty-first century. Regions drift in and out of conflict. Food and water shortages have apocalyptic portents for hundreds of millions of people. There are monstrous global and regional development gaps, peppered with incessant strife, and ruinous humanitarian crises. The tremendous achievements in health and technology stand ripe to be exploited by weaponry and terrorism, while the globalised media network is at times little more than a plaything for murderous and unsavoury organisations like Al Qaeda. Our mechanisms for dealing with all of this are fruitless and anachronistic. The twentieth century began and ended in calamity in Sarajevo. It is up to the world’s richest resource, its people, to ensure that our new century, be it American or Asian, ends better than it began on that sunny morning in New York City.
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