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last updated 12/14/2003 |
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America: Rogue State?
An essay on our coming war... We live in a world of laws. Countries exist in a world of international law. When law falls apart there is anarchy. If the Bush administration is allowed to break international law by this illegal war they are helping to destabalize the world in a far more dangerous way than Saddam Hussein ever could. There are only two reasons that would make an invasion of Iraq legitamate under international law. The first would be self-defense: if Iraq had attacked us we would have the right to defend ourselves. They haven’t. The second reason would be if the world, as represented by the United Nations, agreed that Iraq had violated international law to such an extant that an invasion was required. But the United Nations has not done this. In fact, they are pushing hard against the Bush plans to invade Iraq. The most recent relevant UN Resolution (number 1441) states that any decision on Iraq must be referred to the Security Council. This has not happened. Essentially, Bush and his advisors see the United States as the lone sheriff in a dangerous wild west of a world. Like Clint Eastwood we’re going to face down our enemies over the barrels of our smoking six-guns. And we don’t give a damn whether anyone agrees with our targets or not. We will act and the rest of the world will be obliged to follow. This Bush administration attitude goes back to long before Sept 11. From the beginning, Bush has staffed his administration with ideological hard-liners who view the United Nations and International treaties with distrust and think America needs to go its own road in foreign policy. Men like Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and Vice President Cheney have been arguing for more than twenty years that America needs to use its military might unilaterally to protect its interests, no matter what the rest of the world thinks. For proof of Bush II’s general contempt for international cooperation, just look at the agreements his administration has torpedoed since coming to office:
All these moves have helped to create the perception in the minds of the world’s citizens that America has no desire to cooperate. And without American cooperation, the bonds that tie the world together loosen, and danger increases. Our attempt to jam through an invasion of Iraq is one more dangerous step in the same direction. We Americans have always had an arrogant, isolationist streak. In the days of George Washington, when the most dangerous weapon was a musket, that was fine; in the days of George Bush, when the world has nuclear tipped missiles, it is no longer a realistic way to view the world. The problem with America as a rogue gunman, sorry, lone gunman, is that we can’t do it alone. American leaders were smart enough after World War II to realize (mostly) that international agreements were necessary to keep the peace and prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. Bush and his cabinet have forgotten this. The more we act like a cowboy, the more the rest of the world is going to want to get a pair of six-guns as well. Today there are eight nuclear powers: US, Russia, Britain, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan. We claim we want to stop Iraq from becoming number nine. But by throwing our weight around we already may have helped create nuclear powers nine and ten. In his 2002 State of the Union Bush called Iraq, Iran, and North Korea part of an Axis of Evil. It sounded tough, and impressed his red-meat constituents, but it also probably is one of the things that triggered North Korea’s decision to restart its nuclear weapons program. Iran probably already has a program, and Bush’s words could only have encouraged them to want to accelerate it. Why? Because the message is clear. If you have nuclear weapons, we won’t threaten you. It’s only if, like Iraq, that you don’t, that you risk an American attack. So built ‘em quick while you can. But if North Korea gets the bomb, South Korea and Japan may want them in self-defense. And if Iran has the bomb, can Egypt sit by and be out-gunned in the Middle East? And so on. This is the problem with six-gun diplomacy. The only way to stop this suicidal march to atomic annihilation is to build a network of world organizations dedicated to stopping war and nuclear proliferation. We cannot do it alone. We have to convince other nations that it is in their interest to cooperate and to disarm. To do so, we have to respect the opinions and wishes of other peoples, other leaders. In a world of reciprocal agreements, where disputes are taken to the United Nations, and war is a last resort, it would be in the interest of nations like Pakistan and India to abandon their dangerous nuclear arms race, and keep countries like Iran and North Korea from ever joining. And they would be far more willing to do so if they believed that the United States was a nation dedicated to diplomatic rather than military solutions. We also need help in combatting real terrorist threats. Post-Sept 11, French, German, British, and even Russia intelligence agencies helped us track down agents of Al Qaeda. In a world where America snubs its allies and shuns cooperation, we will find such eagerness to help much rarer. And remember, despite the Bush administrations attempt to declare him a non-person, Osama bin Laden is still out there. We do not have the power to bully everyone on the planet into doing our wishes. An attack on Iraq, done without support from allies and neighbors, will simply help to create the anarchic international world the Bushites seem to believe in. Each country will watch the next, hands hovering nervously close to their nuclear six-guns. It is not that getting rid of Sadam Hussein would be bad thing; it would be an excellent thing, a wonderful thing. He’s a bad man. But the way the Bush administration has gone about it--unilaterally, strong-arming allies--will create more problems than it will solve. We need to work with the world, not work it over. |
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