US President George W. Bush’s first term was defined by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, which left thousands of Americans dead and ultimately caused the death of tens of thousands of equally innocent people in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The US conduct during Bush’s first term was a testing ground for what shall be remembered as the “Bush doctrine”, which was prefaced by the realization that the world was no longer American with the impressive rise of new economic pillars in Asia and Europe.
This time it was all about strategic and exclusive control of energy sources around the globe, and translating that control into political dominion, backed by an ever-expansive military machine.
If Bush’s first term was indeed an attempt for control of world energy sources, then it must have been a complete failure. What was intended as a scare tactic has become a huge historic embarrassment that has most US ground forces tied up in a senseless battle against a few thousand Iraq insurgents, without any sense of direction and without any clear exit strategy.
Taking on Tehran and Damascus under similar pretexts would be pure madness. And even if the US is foolish enough to enlist its treacherous ally, Israel, to carry out some “surgical” strikes on Iranian sites, it would only exacerbate the anti-American sentiment engulfing the Middle East and beyond.
That being said, one must admire the sheer resilience of the Bush administration. Condoleezza Rice in her confirmation hearing as nominee for secretary of state on Jan. 18 displayed unparalleled ability to lie beyond measure, especially as the California Sen. Barbara Boxer courageously grilled her with evidence of perjury and endless contradictions throughout Bush’s first term. Rice, who shrewdly instilled fear in the hearts of Americans with her “mushroom cloud” forgery, now tells us of another fantastic scheme of enforcing her narrow definition of freedom and democracy on the rest of the world, including Russia. Russia responded with a warning that if the two sides don’t establish “new rules of the game” then a second Cold War is imminent.
Meanwhile, President Bush in his inaugural speech made sure to completely deviate from any reference to the real world. Instead, he recited one of the most pompous speeches ever uttered by an American president: “As long as whole regions of the world simmer in resentment and tyranny — prone to ideologies that feed hatred and excuse murder — violence will gather, and multiply in destructive power, and cross the most defended borders, and raise a mortal threat. There is only one force of history that can break the reign of hatred and resentment, and expose the pretensions of tyrants and reward the hopes of the decent and tolerant, and that is the force of human freedom.”
As aimless as it sounds, Bush was clever to avoid any reference to Iraq or to the other foreign policy mishaps to which he has dragged his country. But his critics can hardly accuse him of faltering on his foreign policy commitment since he made none that can be clearly measured, scrutinized and discredited.
The Bush administration remains just too arrogant to admit what had gone completely astray and humbly reclaim the multilateral approach to foreign policies. It is also too bruised and battered by the Iraq war to pursue another military adventure. It has been busy trying to mend its ties with Europe, with the hope that its “traditional allies” would step forward to carry some of the war burden.
That too is unlikely to happen, and even Bush’s anticipated trip to Europe would harvest nothing but promises.
It is far too late for the Bush administration to find its way back into the fold of the international community.
President Bush, who denounced the United Nations as “irrelevant” and rebuffed his European allies as “reluctant” will now have to sink in Iraq’s quicksand alone. Such a fate should have been obvious to all. One can only hope that more Americans will manage to triumph over the overpowering fear and confront their government’s self-destructive foreign policies.
Without an awesome awaking, the “kinder, gentler America” would fall prey to the mad policies of a mad government.
— Ramzy Baroud is a veteran Arab-American journalist. He is editor in chief of PalestineChronicle.com and is a program producer at Aljazeera Satellite Television.
