NEW DELHI, 9 December — What changed on Sept. 11, 2001? The answer has become even more crucial with the success of American arms in the war against the Taleban; a war that began amid much apprehension about American ability and even more cynicism about American will.
For Americans the world changed on Sept. 11. For the rest of the world, America changed on Sept. 11. The difference in perception is not ornamental. It might be legitimate to argue that when America changes the world changes as well. It is the privilege of any superpower to define the prevailing morality of those regions it commands, and there is little doubt that no nation in history has been as powerful as the United States is today. The whole world may not be equally obedient to Washington, but if you want to see the image in terms of a queue, then there is a clamor in the front to fawn, and only a thin fag end of skeptics at the back.
No responsible government has discovered either the will or the justification to challenge American policy on war, peace and economics with any seriousness. Of course the two could be related; you discover the will only if you first find sufficient justification.
How did the world change for America? That is easy. It came indoors. America has always seen itself as the largest island on the globe, a golden glade of internal prosperity and external trade, ever reluctant to engage in the messy conflicts of others, except as agent provocateur, or to defend its economic interests in vital areas that provide the raw material for its consumption and energy needs.
In part this must be because of its history as a refugee island: it is a country that has been settled by refugee-invaders who escaped the horrors of their parent countries, usurped the land of native Americans and ultimately replaced them through a policy of decimation and colonization.
Americans had escaped from a terrible world of bloodshed in Europe and Asia, and they were reluctant to bring home body bags in the first and second world wars as well. Their first major, independent, armed excursion in world affairs, Vietnam, taught them that their previous reluctance had been wise.
Insular by preference, democratic by conviction, and gregarious by nature, Americans have little appreciation of the pools of anger created by their policies and their status as the preeminent power of the era. Were Graham Greene to mention an ugly American today, he would certainly be interrogated by George Bush’s thought police; and much of the interrogation would be by officers who felt genuinely puzzled and hurt by this allegation.
The Atlantic has often been referred to, in typical British understatement, as a pond. Terrorists targeting America did convert the Atlantic into a pond on Sept. 11. America has to face a simple fact, that this continental island is no longer a safe haven, and this has changed every equation in its book dramatically.
How did America change for the world? In various ways. Some countries, India among them, had the private satisfaction of watching America wake up to a problem that it had only paid lip service to. But terrorism is a symptom of something sharper. America’s attitude to conflict resolution used to be words. It did not have more than words for Afghanistan after it won its proxy war against the Soviet Union and disappeared, leaving Pakistan holding the baby and various militias crying uncle. Afghanistan is the first instance of a new phase of American participation in conflict resolution. Is that good news? So much depends on the answer.
The bombings that hit Israel last week prove one thing unambiguously: the American victory in Afghanistan has had no impact on the motivation of others who see no way forward in their cause other than suicide missions. The defeat of the Taleban (widely, and I believe sincerely, welcomed by most of the Muslim world) has not intimidated those Palestinians who believe Israel’s occupation of their lands to be unjust and blame America for perpetrating this injustice. There was no doubt about the outcome in Afghanistan when those suicide missions wrecked havoc in Israel. Kabul had already fallen and Kandahar was no more than a mopping-up operation after that.
This in turn brings us to a critical point: You cannot intimidate those who are ready to die. If the United States wants to end terrorism, then it must work to change the ethos that persuades young men and women that there is a cause strong enough to die for. The immediate reaction of the White House was anger, and when anger is in the air the vane shifts almost automatically to Yasser Arafat. This is temporary give and take, with much of the giving and taking being done on television screen. Which, by the way, is more incendiary? A gunfire war or a propaganda war? A frustrated Ehud Barak called Arafat a terrorist. Is he talking about the man he supped with just a year ago at Camp David in the presence of President Bill Clinton?
Did Tony Blair have long meetings with a terrorist only a few weeks ago? Or did Arafat briefly retire from terrorism and has now returned to it after the Americans have delivered their sharpest message ever against the problem with their victory in Afghanistan? As one perceptive diplomat said, the world’s leaders no longer feel accountable for the language they use.
Washington has to take a decision, and do so sooner rather than later: does it support the creation of a Palestine state because it believes that this is the correct thing to do, or did it make statements to this effect only because it wanted the help of some Muslim countries for its own needs? There is obviously going to be overlap, but the world is waiting to see how the balance tilts when interests are weighed against convictions. There have been hints that Washington has recognized the need for a viable Palestinian state, rather than a Palestine that is full of holes and moles.
Washington faces an unfamiliar twist, which is a price, perhaps welcome, of its single-superpower status. After Afghanistan, all conflicts, even the most vicious ones, are between friends of America. In the good old days, up to the age of Ronald Reagan, there were good guys and bad guys. All you can say now is that there are good guys and pals. India and Pakistan are now competitive about which of them is closer to George W. Bush, a sort of my-bush-is-bigger-than-yours game. China takes as much comfort in visits from the American president as Taiwan. Is this the elixir?
Regrettably, no. Their competition for the love of America does not make regional antagonists less hostile to each other. Washington’s reluctance to intervene in the dispute over Kashmir is sensible; why should America purchase the distrust of one friend or the other over a dispute that it can do little about in any case. If anyone in Islamabad has visions of the American Air Force over Delhi and Srinagar, then he is clearly living in illusive world.
The feeling of illusion is good for them for certain reasons, but not a good policy for international relations. Should there be a new word in the post-Taleban era? Conflict is too redolent of the past that we want to leave behind us. How about proflict? It sounds like the opposite of conflict. Better still, it means nothing. As yet.
