State of the Globe
 

It is not arrogant to say that we in America are the focus of just about every other country on the globe.  This is a recent occurrence.  It is true that there was a good deal of worry over the almost incoherent threats emanating from the White House after 9/11, but it did not dominate the thoughts of the common person, say, in Paris.  Many, in particular our European friends - having watched the U.S. engage in what they believed to be the first humanitarian military action in our history at Kosovo -  opined that we had grown up a bit, and likely a big show of force somewhere would suffice to demonstrate intolerance of criminal violence aimed at Americans.  I remember a friend of mine from Holland, for instance, confidently informing me that my government was not stupid: regardless of Bush's rhetoric, the U.S. would do nothing more than drop a bunch of bombs on Afghanistan - they most certainly would not invade.

But the globe started to tune in with the invasion of Afghanistan and the military actions taking place in the Philippines and Indonesia.  And right about that time the activity from Washington grew more bizarre by the day: military tribunals, secret interrogation camps, sanctioned torture, the office of propaganda, development of 'battlefield nukes', enormous military buildup, restrictions on the press, use of the military and the CIA at home, rollback of civil liberties, a new policy of pre-emptive war to retain our status as the most powerful nation on the globe, and so on.  They had heard of these things before, and many in Europe were alive to hear them in person.  Surprise registered in Europe and Asia, and my guess is that many countries, including Russia and China, began preparing at once for war, and still are.

It is with the Iraq question, which is yet with us, that the first confrontation of the world with the new ruler of the world is begun.  The world had thus far offered the benefit of the doubt to the U.S.  In their view, the war in Afghanistan was plausibly a war against al Qaeda, which was plausibly behind 9/11.  While they believed that many new escalations of violence on the globe were ignited and justified by this new lawlessness in procedure demonstrated by the U.S. (Russia and Israel, for example, both justified their actions on the 'war against terror'), still the actions of other countries cannot fairly be blamed on the U.S.  And they reasoned that the domestic affairs of the U.S., as telling as they may be, are still the domestic affairs of the U.S., and not really a concern of other nations.  

But there is the limit.  The world, and particularly the Western world, yet waited to see if the United States would really attack a country not connected to the events in New York.  A resounding majority of the people in the globe thought - and still think - that it is impossible to defeat terrorism with war.  It's like defeating hate with clubs.  Terrorists are made by war, they say, and no war kills them all.  They can see no ending to such a war.  And I've already mentioned their fears.  Bush's statements affirming the moral authority of the U.S., the military superiority of our forces, and our intention to use nukes to remain the single world superpower, had formed a great and singular opinion across the globe: If  the U.S. went beyond its beef with al Qaeda, whether from honest delusion or some other, more devious design, it would pose the greatest threat to humanity since Hitler.

All of this, I think, was lost on an U.S. administration which considered its position quite strong, and certainly not influenced by the opinions of other countries.  It had offered a plan and a justification, it had fairly broad American support thus far, and the only enemies who could stop it - congressional liberals - were as quiet as the press over Afghanistan.  I'm certain it was noticed that some liberals (and many conservatives who simply didn't know any better) had spread the idea - accepted by too many in mainstream America - that al Qaeda was the only enemy in this 'war'.  Such an idea, of course, would booby trap the expansion of their fight to other governments on other parts of the globe.  But the Administration was one step ahead, and had already laid the framework for the perfect response: start with Iraq.  

I'm sure they thought the decision to take Iraq first was particularly clever.  Hussein was both well known and generally hated; he would have few defenders.  They calculated they could more easily gain support on Iraq than anywhere else, and once they had set their 'non-al Qaeda' precedent, it would be easier to call future detractors in the Congress 'quitters'.  This tactic, as simple as it sounds, is really quite effective with politicians.  The authoritarian leaders in this country and others have used it many times in the past.

From the statements coming from the White House, I think they hoped to have a war against Iraq under way by summer of 2002, in order to use the anniversary of 9/11 to bolster their expansion into other countries.  When they initially announced their intention to take out Iraq, they countered the standard liberal resistance with what had already become typical of their 'style' - they said that Congress had no say in the matter, and if they thought they did, they'd see them in court.  When the U.N. immediately reacted negatively to their plans, Bush called them irrelevant.  This was going to be easy.

And then something very interesting happened.  The announcement on Iraq proved the answer to the world's question about whether Bush was ready to engulf them in pre-emptive war, and everybody turned against the Bush Administration.  This is not hyperbole, as you well know.  Russia, China, all of Western and Eastern Europe, the entire Middle East, Canada, Australia - literally everybody except Israel.  A few governments went on record supporting Washington (like Pakistan and Great Britain), but in none of these countries was this the opinion of the people.  And Americans, who had blocked out a lot of things in the previous confusion of events, noticed this one.  Bush's poll numbers started to drop.  Ordinary Americans started to wonder why we were scaring our friends, in particular our Western friends, and hadn't Bush always talked about his 'coalition'?

So the Bush team was forced to deal with the U.N., which was significant, because it was the first time since 9/11 they had been forced to do anything.  You could tell Bush gritted his teeth as he delivered a speech most called arrogant, threatening only that Nations would be judged irrelevant in the new world order if they did not share a part in making it. The U.N. was not convinced, openly saying he spoke for the right wing party in his country, not for his country.  Politics engulfed and stalled him.  Bush and Co. were suddenly forced to go to Congress - the second time they were forced to do anything - in order to get some kind of resolution they could take back to the U.N., in order to convince them that he spoke for his country, in order to get some kind of resolution from the U.N., in order to convince the American public that we have support on the globe.

They are wading through this obstacle, and ultimately, I think, they will succeed.  The Administration is throwing its weight around, offering money for support, again threatening irrelevance in the new American-made global structure, and slowly more governments are falling into line.  They've reached a stalemate, where the fundamental issues have been pushed behind legalistic interpretations of U.N. resolutions.  At this point, the final 'resolution' of the Iraq question no longer really matters, because the fundamental global opposition is to Bush's war on terrorism, not his war on Iraq.  The next allegation precipitating war against the next country will trigger the same reaction.  Remember, Germany and France have heard these policies before, from another world leader who was going to protect his people from evil following several violent incidents, who asked people to trust him, but who openly advised that security was only possible through world domination using violence and coercion.  Misguided or not (and I of course believe not), the Western people will not support the expansion of this war.  

Cash strapped and power hungry governments, of course, are a different story.

The unexpected thing to me was that the U.N. finally claimed, through the unity of world opinion, the voice and the power it already ostensibly had.  I think Kofi Annan has done for the U.N. what John Marshall did for the U.S. Supreme Court: he took an unexpectedly delivered ball and ran with it.  A rather unbelievable press conference featured Annan evading questions of a power struggle between he and Bush, and answering questions about U.N. actions in other global hot spots (a very recent development, this taking for granted that the U.N. has the power to fix things).  Annan has been ushered to the White House, where his answers were apparently not quite right.  Bush furiously proclaimed in the State of the Union speech that he will not be swayed by foreign voices.  Look for more of this struggle in the coming days.

But with the exception of the emerging power of the U.N., I believe the State of our Globe to be in the worst shape in 50 years.  I am appalled and amazed at the policy, clearly stated in the State of the Union speech, that results must be followed, not process.  If the U.S. is not secure until nobody hates us (or at least would dare not strike at us), if the chosen path is preemptive war, if the ends justify the means - then World War is the only possibility for our future.

I do not believe 9/11 justifies that.