George W. Bush and his band of sinister neoconservatives got it so wrong. They came to office scheming to dominate the Middle East and the surrounding region for all time, using military strength and economic power while dangling the carrot of democracy and freedom before the masses. They envisaged this oil and gas-rich region peppered with US military bases and had ambitions to insert puppet leaders or convert existing ones into virtual bureaucrats taking their orders from Washington.
Simultaneously, according to their written Project for a New American Century doctrine, their aim was to thwart the emergence of any other superpower. It so happens that their ruthless, self-serving strategy has boomeranged to bite them in the face.
In the first place, their two wars of choice, Afghanistan and Iraq, have brought the US nothing but fiscal debt, widespread anti-Americanism and a reputation for holding lives of non-Americans cheap. The only entities to benefit were US weapons manufacturers, reconstruction and security companies awarded lucrative no-bid contracts and those who made off with billions of US dollars in cash.
Most crucially, the world’s perception of America altered dramatically from semi-benign global policeman to strutting, unprincipled grabber of essential resources under cover of a “War on Terror.” The irony is the panacea for “terror” would be for American armies to pack up and go home when most terrorists/freedom fighters/insurgents—or whatever you would like to call them—would be left fighting windmills.
Unfortunately for Washington, the plan has gone seriously awry. Its “Man in Kabul,” Afghan President Hamid Karzai, has had enough of being ordered around and watching impotently as Afghan civilians are killed by US drones. He has always sought dialogue with the Taleban and, in the early years of occupation, was rapped on the knuckles for his endeavors. He understands that the US presence is an enforced temporary implant, which is why he’s keen to unify his people and make nice with neighboring Pakistan.
On Sunday, subsequent to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to the region, President Karzai shocked the White House. Speaking to Pakistan’s Geo Television, with hand-on-heart, he described Pakistan as a “brother” state and revealed that he would side with Islamabad in the event of a war between Pakistan and the US. His stated allegiance comes at a time when negotiations with Taleban leaders appear to be bearing fruit and when US-Pakistan relations are at an all time low.
Should an internally reconciled Afghanistan and nuclear-armed Pakistan decide to join hands and form a military bloc, the US will be out in the cold. The relationship between Washington and Islamabad has been uneasy since 2001 when the Bush people told Pakistan, nay threatened Pakistan into choosing sides. The odd alliance is responsible for burgeoning religious extremism within the country and anger on the street. The Pakistani government has been doing an uncomfortable balancing act between fulfilling its anti-terrorist role on America’s behalf, satisfying the nationalistic demands of its own military and intelligence service and quelling outrage from Islamist parties and groups.
For its part, both the Bush and Obama administrations worked hard to keep up the pretense that relations between the two countries were warm, but the curtain dropped on the day US Navy Seals breached Pakistan’s sovereignty to assassinate Osama Bin Laden. The gloves have now come off. The US made couched accusations that Pakistan had been harboring Bin Laden for years, as well as Haqqani fighters, believed responsible for a truck bomb and attack on the US Embassy. In September, Adm. Mike Mullen told the US Armed Services Committee that the Haqqani network was a “veritable arm of the ISI.” Hina Rabbani Khar, Pakistan’s foreign minister, has denied the allegations and slammed the US for humiliating its ally. “If they are choosing to do so, it will be at their own cost,” she said.
So the US has succeeded in little apart from alienating the Pakistani and Afghan governments as well as the two peoples. Rather than gain allies it has created enemies.
In the meantime, the Iraqis have had enough of the American occupiers, too. The Obama administration has been piling pressure on Nuri Al-Maliki’s government to concede to US troops remaining in country beyond the agreed end 2011 timeframe. But with fierce resistance from the anti-American cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr and his followers,as well as those in government with one foot in Tehran, Obama’s efforts have failed. On Friday, the US president announced the complete withdrawal of all American troops before the year’s end with the exception of a few hundred “trainers.” I would speculate that it won’t be long before Iraq tells the US to downsize its embassy compound-cum-small town that is chock-a-block with military personnel and intelligence agents.
Another factor involved in America’s declining regional influence is the so-called Arab Spring whereby leaderships can no more cozy up to Washington now that they are under intense public scrutiny. The days of the US pulling the strings and dictating the foreign policy of Middle Eastern states are numbered. Egypt, for instance, has already refused aid that comes with conditions and Islamists are claiming victory in Tunisia’s first democratic election.
US policymakers knew this was coming. In 2008, the National Intelligence Council drafted a report titled, “Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World” predicting that wealth and power was in the process of being transferred from West to East. The report conceded that the US was likely to remain the single most powerful country but stated America’s relative strength, including its military strength, will decline when “US leverage will become more constrained.”
The report may have been conservative with its foresight. Cash-strapped Washington is in the process of slashing its foreign aid budget, which officials have admitted will negatively impact America’s influence. “There is a democratic awakening in places that have never dreamed of democracy, and it is unfortunate that it’s happening at a historic time when our own government is facing so many serious challenges, because there’s no way to have a Marshall Plan for the Middle East and Africa,” said Clinton. Those of us who have looked upon America’s political and military interventions in this part of the world with dismay can only say, “Thank goodness.” Although, no doubt, the American people who have received nothing in return for the lives of their nation’s finest and trillions of squandered tax dollars will not agree.
Linda S. Heard is a British specialist writer on Middle East affairs. She welcomes feedback and can be contacted by email at heardonthegrapevines@yahoo.co.uk.
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US power and influence on the wane
Posted on October 27, 2011 by Linda S. Heard
George W. Bush and his band of sinister neoconservatives got it so wrong. They came to office scheming to dominate the Middle East and the surrounding region for all time, using military strength and economic power while dangling the carrot of democracy and freedom before the masses. They envisaged this oil and gas-rich region peppered with US military bases and had ambitions to insert puppet leaders or convert existing ones into virtual bureaucrats taking their orders from Washington.
Simultaneously, according to their written Project for a New American Century doctrine, their aim was to thwart the emergence of any other superpower. It so happens that their ruthless, self-serving strategy has boomeranged to bite them in the face.
In the first place, their two wars of choice, Afghanistan and Iraq, have brought the US nothing but fiscal debt, widespread anti-Americanism and a reputation for holding lives of non-Americans cheap. The only entities to benefit were US weapons manufacturers, reconstruction and security companies awarded lucrative no-bid contracts and those who made off with billions of US dollars in cash.
Most crucially, the world’s perception of America altered dramatically from semi-benign global policeman to strutting, unprincipled grabber of essential resources under cover of a “War on Terror.” The irony is the panacea for “terror” would be for American armies to pack up and go home when most terrorists/freedom fighters/insurgents—or whatever you would like to call them—would be left fighting windmills.
Unfortunately for Washington, the plan has gone seriously awry. Its “Man in Kabul,” Afghan President Hamid Karzai, has had enough of being ordered around and watching impotently as Afghan civilians are killed by US drones. He has always sought dialogue with the Taleban and, in the early years of occupation, was rapped on the knuckles for his endeavors. He understands that the US presence is an enforced temporary implant, which is why he’s keen to unify his people and make nice with neighboring Pakistan.
On Sunday, subsequent to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to the region, President Karzai shocked the White House. Speaking to Pakistan’s Geo Television, with hand-on-heart, he described Pakistan as a “brother” state and revealed that he would side with Islamabad in the event of a war between Pakistan and the US. His stated allegiance comes at a time when negotiations with Taleban leaders appear to be bearing fruit and when US-Pakistan relations are at an all time low.
Should an internally reconciled Afghanistan and nuclear-armed Pakistan decide to join hands and form a military bloc, the US will be out in the cold. The relationship between Washington and Islamabad has been uneasy since 2001 when the Bush people told Pakistan, nay threatened Pakistan into choosing sides. The odd alliance is responsible for burgeoning religious extremism within the country and anger on the street. The Pakistani government has been doing an uncomfortable balancing act between fulfilling its anti-terrorist role on America’s behalf, satisfying the nationalistic demands of its own military and intelligence service and quelling outrage from Islamist parties and groups.
For its part, both the Bush and Obama administrations worked hard to keep up the pretense that relations between the two countries were warm, but the curtain dropped on the day US Navy Seals breached Pakistan’s sovereignty to assassinate Osama Bin Laden. The gloves have now come off. The US made couched accusations that Pakistan had been harboring Bin Laden for years, as well as Haqqani fighters, believed responsible for a truck bomb and attack on the US Embassy. In September, Adm. Mike Mullen told the US Armed Services Committee that the Haqqani network was a “veritable arm of the ISI.” Hina Rabbani Khar, Pakistan’s foreign minister, has denied the allegations and slammed the US for humiliating its ally. “If they are choosing to do so, it will be at their own cost,” she said.
So the US has succeeded in little apart from alienating the Pakistani and Afghan governments as well as the two peoples. Rather than gain allies it has created enemies.
In the meantime, the Iraqis have had enough of the American occupiers, too. The Obama administration has been piling pressure on Nuri Al-Maliki’s government to concede to US troops remaining in country beyond the agreed end 2011 timeframe. But with fierce resistance from the anti-American cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr and his followers,as well as those in government with one foot in Tehran, Obama’s efforts have failed. On Friday, the US president announced the complete withdrawal of all American troops before the year’s end with the exception of a few hundred “trainers.” I would speculate that it won’t be long before Iraq tells the US to downsize its embassy compound-cum-small town that is chock-a-block with military personnel and intelligence agents.
Another factor involved in America’s declining regional influence is the so-called Arab Spring whereby leaderships can no more cozy up to Washington now that they are under intense public scrutiny. The days of the US pulling the strings and dictating the foreign policy of Middle Eastern states are numbered. Egypt, for instance, has already refused aid that comes with conditions and Islamists are claiming victory in Tunisia’s first democratic election.
US policymakers knew this was coming. In 2008, the National Intelligence Council drafted a report titled, “Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World” predicting that wealth and power was in the process of being transferred from West to East. The report conceded that the US was likely to remain the single most powerful country but stated America’s relative strength, including its military strength, will decline when “US leverage will become more constrained.”
The report may have been conservative with its foresight. Cash-strapped Washington is in the process of slashing its foreign aid budget, which officials have admitted will negatively impact America’s influence. “There is a democratic awakening in places that have never dreamed of democracy, and it is unfortunate that it’s happening at a historic time when our own government is facing so many serious challenges, because there’s no way to have a Marshall Plan for the Middle East and Africa,” said Clinton. Those of us who have looked upon America’s political and military interventions in this part of the world with dismay can only say, “Thank goodness.” Although, no doubt, the American people who have received nothing in return for the lives of their nation’s finest and trillions of squandered tax dollars will not agree.
Linda S. Heard is a British specialist writer on Middle East affairs. She welcomes feedback and can be contacted by email at heardonthegrapevines@yahoo.co.uk.