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9.September 2006
Published in Yorkshire Post
By David Howell
9/11 Fifth Anniversary – Five Years of Folly
Just for a moment after 9/11 America held the good will of almost the entire
world in the palm of its hand.
From Beijing to Delhi, from Paris to Moscow, from Teheran, from Damascus and,
yes, even from Baghdad came expressions of support for wounded America in its
agony.
What had been perpetrated was so obviously evil, so obviously against all
principles of human civilization and so threatening to the existence of every
nation state, that it had virtually no approval – at least among governments.
Only the ugly picture of Palestinian women apparently jumping up and down in
glee at the slaughter marred the image of almost universal sympathy and
commiseration at what had occurred.
And it was more than just perfunctory words. Promises of positive co-operation
flowed from numerous capitals in rounding up the people behind the perpetrators,
cornering Ozama bin Laden and his henchmen, sweeping the terrorism-friendly
Taliban out of Afghanistan and bringing peace, democracy and freedom to an
autocratic and unsettled Middle-East, the apparent hothouse of alienation and
violence, as well as the repository of to-thirds of the world’s oil reserves.
Five years later not one of these objectives has been achieved. Blood-soaked
Iraq is more infested with terrorists than ever. Iranian influence and power to
make trouble has been enlarged. Peace between Israel and Palestine is as remote
as ever. Extremist groups have multiplied and grown more violent. Support for
Hizbollah and Hamas is stronger than ever.
Worst of all, the reputation, image and influence of the United States, its
‘soft power’, has gone into steep decline almost everywhere in the world, taking
Britain’s reputation a good part of the way with it.
For Americans this has been not five years of gaining new strength from
alliances and friendships to fight terrorism, but five years of losing friends
and the power to shape events, its vast military arsenal and reach
notwithstanding. This must surely have been one of the most damaging periods in
the history of the United States on the international stage. All the examples
set by America’s giant post-war statesmen, such as Harriman, Marshall, Truman on
how to handle the rest of the world sensitively and diplomatically have been
seemingly forgotten. Instead of firm diplomacy, this time the ‘war on terror’
was launched, ‘Western values’ and versions of governance were going to be
imposed , and everyone who did not agree or behave like a compliant friend was
declared an enemy. That was it.
Some in Britain argue that when it came to both the ‘war on terror’ strategy,
and to the subsequent Iraq invasion, Tony Blair had little choice but to follow
George Bush along his chosen warpath, potholed as it was, and is, with
misunderstanding of the subtleties and dynamics of Middle-East politics and
cultures. The only choice facing him, so the contention went, was between
supporting America and the Atlantic Alliance or siding with the overtly
anti-American Continental powers, as well as with Russia and China.
But of course there was a third course for Britain – one which it had followed
wisely way back at the time of the Vietnam War - which was to stay uninvolved ,
not hostile or openly critical, but developing its own robust diplomatic
strategy for dealing with the new situation, drawing on its own unrivalled
experience in dealing both with Middle-Eastern and Asian power and societies.
But that was not Blair’s way. Plainly lacking any deep experience of
international affairs (or indeed any Ministerial experience at all except life
in No.10) he signed up straightaway to the flawed Bush strategy for ‘A New
Middle East’, where ‘democracy and freedom’ would be applied like sticking
plasters and soldered on as necessary by ‘overwhelming force’.
At Suez fifty years ago another British Prime Minister, Anthony Eden, plunged
into a disastrous Middle-East venture, on that occasion in defiance of an
all-powerful America .This time the British Prime Minister joined forces in a
military venture with weakened America in defiance of warnings almost everywhere
else about the quagmires into which it would lead. He has thus become a sort of
Eden-in-reverse, assured of a place in history, but not the one he would have
wished for.
The Conservative Opposition offered no alternative way forward. Led at the time
by the courageous but also highly inexperienced Ian Duncan Smith it found itself
committed to the Bush world view almost from day one. Later, when it emerged
that the Iraq invasion prospectus had been dodgy, and there were no weapons of
mass destruction in Saddam’s hands, and no discernible links with the 9/11
terror network, a new leader, Michael Howard, tried to distance himself from the
Washington approach, and got slapped down by the Bush White House for his pains.
David Cameron will presumably inch that way as well when he expands his ideas on
the new international scene.
Hints have also drifted into the press from the Gordon Brown camp, that when his
time comes he also will change ,amend, adjust, re-assess (or whatever) the
unqualified commitment to the Bush strategy.
But amend it to what? Can we possibly escape at this late stage being tied to
the American chariot wheel? Can we just pull British troops out of Iraq in short
order and leave the Americans struggling on trying to stem the unending flow of
killings?
A change of tone in dealing with Washington would certainly be possible, and
maybe a change in the line-up of Britain’s partners. There are plenty of
countries who are by no means anti-American but are prepared to speak with
candour and force
to the present Administration in Washington and to urge a change of strategy –
not to appeasement of terror and extremism but to skilled and firm diplomatic
engagement with every state, including some of the Middle-East awkward squad
such as Syria and Iran, who in the end are just as much threatened by non-state
terror and anarchy as anybody else.
This would be a big step. Britain would need to take the lead, not so much with
its unreliable European partners, many of whom remain incurably anti-American,
as with the other ‘cutting-edge’ nations, now coming to the global forefront.
India, Japan, Australia, Canada, some from ‘New Europe such as Poland and the
lively Baltic three – these are the team players representing, along with
Britain, a large chunk of the world’s population and GNP, to whom an America
that has lost its way might listen.
Is there any hope of this kind of fresh start? Probably not until Blair goes,
and not until Bush goes. Both are irredeemably committed to the present path,
with its immensely damaging consequences for the interests of both the US and
its chief ally.
Only when these two are gone can we start to bring a dismal period of five years
of folly to a close.
ENDS
David Howell
howelld@parliament.uk
www.lordhowell.com
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