Commentary: Alan Richards

September 9, 2002

The year of the dragon's teeth

How are we doing, one year after the attack on the World Trade Center destroyed our sense of security? In four interrelated areas--the "War on Terrorism," instability in Afghanistan, the conflict in Israel/Palestine, and the impending war with Iraq--the U.S. government can claim some successes, but the failures loom larger.

COMMENTARY

Alan Richards is a professor of environmental studies. Photo: Tom Van Dyke

Much of this grim picture has the same cause: The relentless focus of the Bush administration on unilateral military action. Such an approach has failed before, and it will fail again.

The good news in the war on terrorism, of course, is that there have been--so far--no further attacks, and that the diffuse network of al-Qaida has been disrupted. This encouraging outcome has required extensive cooperation from dozens of countries all over the world.

Maintaining this cooperation should be one of the very highest national priorities, particularly since, as President Bush rightly stresses, the war is far from over. Osama bin Laden remains at large, and there is much evidence that his--and like-minded--networks are re-grouping.

Unfortunately, U.S. actions in the other three areas jeopardize this cooperation. Consider Afghanistan. Few mourn the passing of the misogynist, obscurantist regime of the Taliban. However, we have managed only to restore something like the status quo of the early 1990s in that sad country: a polity of feuding, violent, drug-smuggling warlords. Hamid Karzai's regime remains very weak, thanks in part to U.S. refusals to allow multinational peacekeeping forces to operate beyond the capital. In addition, the United States lacks personnel with the knowledge and language skills to help reconstruct Afghanistan's shattered society, and we stubbornly refuse to provide the funds to drive reconstruction. Meanwhile, Pushtun nationalism (a force undergirding the Taliban) percolates, Pakistan remains on the brink of war with India, and Pakistan’s intelligence service remains deeply enmeshed with religious extremists. We won a smashing military victory in Afghanistan and are now quietly losing the peace.

Much the same may be said of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict--the "elephant in the room" in all discussions of U.S. policy in the Muslim world. The tragedy here is that everyone knows what a solution looks like--indeed, the parties nearly agreed on it at the meetings held at Taba, Egypt, in January, 2001. Yet many hundreds die grisly deaths thanks to three elected, disastrous leaders--Yassir Arafat, Ariel Sharon, and George W. Bush.

The Palestinians--who long for an end to the humiliating occupation--have, by using the tactic of suicide bombing, exacerbated the deepest existential fears of ordinary Israelis, emasculated the Israeli peace movement, and ensured the political victory of the most intransigent elements of the Israeli political spectrum. Mr. Arafat temporized, dithered, equivocated, and did essentially nothing to reassure moderate Israeli opinion, which is the key to the achievement of Palestinian rights. Violence has not achieved Palestinian national goals since the founding of the PLO in 1964, and it will not do so now.

The Israelis--who long to live in security--elected a man whose entire political career has been devoted to opposing peace with the Palestinians, most particularly including the Oslo accords. His government has embarked on a policy of military conquest and reoccupation. These policies have not brought peace and security to Israel since 1967, and they will not do so now. On Mr. Sharon’s watch, more Israeli civilians have been killed than during any comparable time in the country's history.

And there is our own President George W. Bush, who at first simply shrugged and walked away from the escalating violence--as though this conflict didn't matter to the world's only superpower--and then re-engaged ineptly. To be sure, he denounced the violence and called for a Palestinian state. But his insistence that the violence end first, before negotiations proceed, gives veto power over peace-talks to any fanatic with a bomb.

Since only negotiations can end the violence, this strategy cannot work. American indecision and lack of balance have not brought a resolution to this conflict before, and they will not do so now. Given the traumatic, visceral mistrust on both sides, only tenacious, even-handed American diplomacy, such as the Clinton administration pursued in Northern Ireland, can restart serious negotiations. There are no signs that Mr. Bush understands this.

Finally, by publicly tilting so strongly toward Mr. Sharon's policies, President Bush has driven Arab and Muslim opinion of the United States to its lowest level in over a generation. Saber-rattling against Iraq gravely exacerbates the problem. The deepening distrust corrodes the cooperation needed to pursue the war on terrorism, and threatens U.S. relations with the world's 1.3 billion Muslims--especially with the two-thirds of them that are younger than 30.

Mr. Bush apparently believes that the unilateral exercise of military power suffices to provide security. Here he is as sadly wrong as the other two elected, disastrous leaders. All three men have been busily sowing the dragon’s teeth during the past year. The harvest is likely to be grim.

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