You knew that Americans were about to go through another brash phase in their history when, relieved that predictions of casualties in the Gulf War lay far below the predicted 20 to 40 thousand, George Bush Sr. exclaimed triumphantly: “And, by God, we’re over the Vietnam syndrome at last.” That was on March 2, 1991.
Chief among the unpalatable truths about the United States today, still a young, innovative nation built on core values that emphasize freedom, social justice and diversity, is that it has come to be seen by a great many folks between Sydney, Australia, and Dublin, Ireland, as a sort of globe-strangling anaconda unilaterally projecting its fearsome power wherever it pleases — and to the devil with what others think.
That, at least, appears to be the perception of millions around the world who staged probably the biggest marches in history last weekend to protest Washington’s impending war against Iraq.
The rift between the European countries and the US has never been wider, representing a fundamental opposition by the continent’s political elite to America’s seemingly exclusive reliance on military dominance to foster conditions conducive to security and order in the world.
Even Germany, the continent’s largest and most prosperous nation and consistently an ardent supporter of the US for well over half-a-century, has shifted gears and begun a campaign whose very focus is opposition to America’s war plans.
One of the reasons — though not the only one — that many European leaders have so openly defied Washington is that it is popular to do so.
Polls have repeatedly shown Europeans, including Britons, to be against this war — which, to be sure, translates into opposition to American hegemony and unilateralism, rather than into any love for the Iraqi leader and his government. In other words, they view unbridled use of force by a big power that appears to harbor a strong distrust of international bodies such as the United Nations to be the true menace to international order.
That is why in Western Europe anti-war sentiment is ubiquitous, with more and more people signing petitions, publishing articles and giving speeches at anti-war rallies and, especially in France, Germany and Britain, influential writers, intellectuals, scientists and artists signing statements publicly protesting the war.
Truth be told, not much has changed over the last century. The idea that history has anointed the United States to be the agent of global peace strikes American leaders as self-evident.
You aspire to develop economically, to modernize and prosper? Then there is no alternative to American capitalism. You want to acquire political legitimacy in the global dialogue of cultures? Then there is no alternative to American democracy. And get this, you miserable Third World countries, especially those we have designated an “axis of evil”: The great United States can remain secure and pre-eminent — and guarantee international peace — only by ensuring adherence to its model of political economy, defined by the principles that Woodrow Wilson introduced to the world at the Versailles Conference almost a century ago.
“By publicly endorsing this notion,” wrote Andrew Bacevich, a professor of international relations at Boston University, recently, “President Bush signals his allegiance to the tradition of Woodrow Wilson, an approach to statecraft that combines vaulting ambition with boundless confidence in the efficacy of American power. In that regard, Bush is hardly alone: the Wilsonian tradition is one to which all recent occupants of the Oval Office, regardless of party, have adhered.”
American foreign policy, then, has not changed much since 1919.
Well, people around the world, as evidenced by the millions of demonstrators who turned to march in their cities last weekend, are beginning to say that American power should not be without limits, and that conflict resolution by peaceful means should not be seen as a chimera.
Dismissing the idea that what drives these demonstrations around the world is “anti-Americanism,” Johano Strasser, president of the German PEN Center, told the New York Times last Friday: “I know many Americans who are also anti-American. I think it’s nonsense to talk about pro-Americanism and anti-Americanism. People have different opinions on very important political questions. Let’s talk about the opinions and not the motivation behind them.”
Europeans “hate” Americans? Humbug.
Yet, some deep, unprecedented break appears to have taken place between the US and the world community, clearly not over what America is but what America is doing — embarking on a war that will prove to be a chaotic, brutal mauling of Iraq, and doing so without, as they say, giving peace a chance.
— Arab News Opinion 20 February 2003
