It's been three years since 9/11, and I don't buy into the whole "the world has changed and so must our foreign policy" argument. Looking back at the challenges we faced during the Clinton years and even the first eight months of the Bush administration, I don't see any of them gone or solved. Globalization, global warming, the AIDS pandemic, ethnic conflicts and issues in global governance (such as the International Criminal Court) are still with us today, despite what the neo-conservatives would have us believe. Terrorism has been around for decades - just ask the Irish or the Spaniards. Islamic fundamentalism is no novelty either, and its followers had been attacking the West long before 2001. I was living in Paris at the time, and I remember the 1995 wave of subway bombings like it was yesterday. The police were afraid terrorists might set off bombs in trashcans, and for months the sidewalks were covered in the trash that passersby could no longer discard properly. The World Trade Center had been bombed a year earlier, and the attacks on the USS Cole and the African embassies were soon to come. Terrorism may not have received the attention or funding it deserved, but it was certainly not ignored.
Those of us who watched Friday's debate were treated to a brilliantly simple reiteration of the Bush Doctrine: "After 9/11, we had to look at the world differently. After 9/11, we had to recognize that when we saw a threat, we must take it seriously before it comes to hurt us. In the old days we'd see a threat, and we could deal with it if we felt like it or not. But 9/11 changed all that."
9/11 didn't change the world - just the way we see it. First, the average American was forced to acknowledge that we are not invincible, and that events abroad affect us at home. It's almost impossible to draw a clear line dividing domestic and foreign policy; instead we see more and more "intermestic" issues that affect us both at home and abroad. Second, we no longer view terrorism as an issue of law enforcement but as a war. This is a classic technique used to signal the increased importance that the government attaches to an issue. Remember the war on poverty and the war on drugs? More importantly, the "War on Terror" makes due process subordinate to national security and certainty no longer a prerequisite to action. This change in vocabulary has left us with Guantanamo, the USA Patriot Act and an invasion of Iraq based on evidence that everyone now agrees was shady at best. Sen. John Kerry has made several comments indicating that he wishes to return to a law enforcement-centered, "terrorism as nuisance" view. A Bush-Cheney attack ad currently being aired attacks claims that Kerry can't protect us if he doesn't understand the threat. This is another Republican tactic to control the discourse and legitimize their dangerous policies. Do not be mistaken, this is not a war in the traditional sense. Even President Bush admits that it is not something that can be won. However, calling it a war enables the neo-conservatives to control the discourse, re-establish the Imperial Presidency and scare America into behaving like a nation at war.
Bush's "coalition of the willing" is another outgrowth of the post-9/11 mentality. The neo-cons realize that we can't go it completely alone, but refuse to change their modus operandi. In both presidential debates, Bush rejected Kerry's accusations of unilateralism by citing his 30-country coalition and demanding more respect for U.S. allies like the United Kingdom and Poland. But as Kerry pointed out, the United States bears 90 percent of the costs of the war and suffers 90 percent of the casualties. Additionally, aside from the U.K. our allies provide frightfully few troops - not to mention countries like Costa Rica, which doesn't have an army, and the Republic of Palau, which is barely on the map. Spain, the Philippines and others have pulled out their forces, and Bush's beloved Poland is scheduled to follow suit in 2005.
This coalition bears little resemblance to the great alliances that won not only the war but also the peace in the World Wars and ex-Yugoslavia, and we mustn't delude ourselves into thinking that it does. The alliances of the past unmistakably furthered U.S. interests, but did so in a way that also benefited our allies and allowed them to share the costs. This one is simply designed to lead others into an American effort, thereby coating it with a veneer of internationalism. This is not a question of giving foreign governments a veto power over our foreign policy, it is about providing leadership that is inspiring, not coercive, and welcomes allies as equal partners.
Sept. 11, 2001, was a terrible, catastrophic day, but in and of itself it did not change the world. Terrorism plagued other countries for decades while we turned a blind eye. It is unrealistic to expect them to join our coalition merely because it is in the United States' interest for them to do so, and imperialistic to coerce them into supporting our policies. The United States needs to become the true leader it once was, compelling action through inspiration rather than coercion.
After 9/11, the political classes (on both sides of the aisle, but, I'm convinced, especially the neo-cons) jumped on the opportunity to engineer a paradigm shift that advantaged them. Bush's proclaimed worldview combines Wilsonian idealism (spreading democracy to the greater Middle East, etc.) and the traditional American isolationism of the first eight months of Bush's presidency. U.S. foreign policy has historically gone back and forth between the two, but such a combination is almost unprecedented, especially when you throw the Bush Doctrine into the mix. Whoever wins the election should beware of settling into a post-9/11 "us vs. them" worldview in which we try to make "them" be more like us. Such a foreign policy would be costly and counterproductive.
