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Journalism of Courage
This perhaps is as good a time as any to sound the drumroll. Now that US Secretary of State Colin Powell has stirred his nation with a presentation to the Security Council on Saddam Hussein8217;s 8220;calculated cruelty8221;, the dawn of the 21st century8217;s first empire can safely be announced.
We had, of course, been warned 8212; by advocates of intervention and by Powell himself, via a newspaper article 8212; not to expect an Adlai Stevenson expose. There was 8220;no smoking gun8221;, he had cautioned, but there had been no intimations of the drama ahead.
No teasers about the well-buffeted narrative, with grainy aerial shots and tantalising telephone intercepts. No presentation eve notice about his flair for the melodramatic pause and his crafty capacity to dwell on the liberal interventionist dilemma.
With the close of Powell8217;s 75-minute guided tour through Iraq8217;s 8220;web of lies8221;, however, concluded any chance for the transfixed global audience to catch any more surprises. The rest of the Security Council members stuck to their familiar script.
The British echoed their transatlantic pals, the French stayed perched on their fence, and the Russians and Chinese continued to repose faith in the weapons inspectors.
It is a funny old game they play. But in Powell8217;s assertion that Iraq is in material breach of UN Resolution 1441, America8217;s break from the routine is already perceptible.
Some call it unilateralism, others rant against American exceptionalism. Michael Ignatieff prefers to term it American Empire. In a scholarly essay published last month, he points to an irony. Here was President George W. Bush, swept into office on an isolationist plank, determined to bow out of taxing engagements and demanding treaties, but forced by circumstance to halt the retreat.
There he was, counting on the two oceans to moat his continent, making extravagant plans to secure the skies with a missile defence, till the Gang of September 11 demonstrated the porousness of shield.
And drew a non-interventionist administration out towards the outposts of empires of yore 8212; indeed in the first instance, to Afghanistan, graveyard of more than one empire. And, in almost systematic progression, now to Iraq.
Writes Ignatieff: 8220;Iraq is not just about whether the United States can retain its republican virtue in a wicked world. Virtuous disengagement is no longer a possibility. Since September 11, it has been about whether the republic can survive in safety at home without imperial policing abroad.8221;
Imperial responsibility abroad, besides laying down the rules of engagement as per American interests, entails lugging an unwieldy legacy. It means sifting through the ruinous legacy of old empires 8212; Ottoman, British, Soviet 8212; and resolving the conflicts they bequeathed.
It also means, says Ignatieff, patrolling swathes of insurgent zones. Alas, it means much more than taking inventory of men and bayonets and despatching them to the Gulf, it means facing up to a bigger challenge: 8220;Iraq is an imperial creation that would commit a reluctant republic to become the guarantor of peace, stability, democratisation and oil supplies in a combustible region of Islamic peoples stretching from Egypt to Afghanistan.8221;
America, in other words, is called upon to dispense justice and secure freedom in farflung corners of the world. It is not a seasonal affliction, a passing itch to stomp around in the desert, it8217;s a long-term demand of history and circumstance. America must tread the earth, leaving democracy in its wake.
We are blessed!
Ignatieff has put forth a compelling argument, putting a sheen of sobriety on chatter from Washington8217;s think tanks and New York City8217;s sidewalk cafes about the hyperpower8217;s pre-eminent role. Bushies too are chiming along.
In distinctly Reaganesque nuances they are seeking to give a moral underpinning to their foreign policy. Two decades ago, the Hollywood hero spoke of the 8220;evil empire8221;; his legatee recalled that phrase, that facile split between good and evil, by thundering on about the 8220;axis of evil8221;.
And yet, instead of making a rivetting case for the empire striking back, why is it that the Bush administration appears to be hunting a phantom menace? Why is it that America8217;s resolve is being, to use George Dubya8217;s most memorable coinage, mis-underestimated?
Not one of the US8217;s much wooed allies would claim that Saddam Hussein is not harbouring biological or chemical weapons. Certainly, it can be nobody8217;s case that Saddam is a benign dictator 8212; his passion for conquest and his track record in using those weapons of mass destruction are too well documented. And just a year after an America-led alliance bombed Afghanistan out of the stone age, the liberal argument for the reconfiguration of Iraq8217;s polity is well-stated.
Why, then, why are the Bushies striking such a lonesome picture 8212; barring, of course, the rah-rahs from their cheerleader-in-chief Tony Blair? Perhaps because there seems to be no clarity to Washington8217;s imperial vision. We are repeatedly informed that oil and the suddenly rampant speculation about Iraq8217;s undiscovered oil fields have nothing do with Washington8217;s promise to keep the peace in a post-Saddam Iraq.
Indeed, we are flooded with estimates of the financial package 8212; ranging from 100 billion to 1.9 trillion 8212; that Washington could commit to the reconstruction of Iraq.
But no one8217;s forgotten 1991. Most of the current dramatis personae in Washington held key positions in George Bush Senior8217;s war cabinet, when after bombing Saddam8217;s Republican Guards into retreat, American forces halted their march on Baghdad.
The official line then was that their mandate was limited to the liberation of Kuwait, but it was immediately acknowledged that the US still considered Iran its prime foe in the region, that it would be loath to oversee the disintegration of Iraq to Tehran8217;s advantage.
To present a truly convincing case for intervention, America needs to give reason to believe that it is not intent on just striking names off a laundry list of troublesome dictators and scramming.
It needs to come clean on its purposive agenda to rescue Arab politics from the radicals. Baghdad is the logical base from which to effect change. What is uncertain is Washington8217;s commitment to effecting that change.
