John Rapley - Foreign FocusWHEN US President George W. Bush spoke of an axis of evil in his State of the Union address last month, some observers wondered if it was merely a rhetorical flourish. Singling out Iraq, Iran and North Korea as states deserving further attention in the war on terror seemed a bit odd. Iraq is certainly a thorn in the American side, but relations with both Iran and North Korea had been warming in recent years.
In the days following the speech, the US administration did appear to soften some of its rhetoric. However, reports in the American media this week confirmed that President Bush is dead serious. Moreover, his Cabinet, which was initially divided over the war on terror, appears united behind their Commander-in-Chief's new policy. This is to put Iran and North Korea on the back burner, and focus on ridding the world of Saddam Hussein.
The fact that the policy was made public by the relatively dovish Secretary of State Colin Powell who, it appears, obtained a softening on Iran and North Korea in return for his support on Iraq testifies to this united front.
Few of Mr. Hussein's neighbours will shed tears for him. Still, that does not mean they will embrace this new American aggressiveness. On the one hand, most Middle Eastern leaders regard Saddam as a menace, and the much-vaunted Islamic front to America's war on terror has yet to materialise. So going after Saddam just now seems opportune to American hawks anxious to finish the business of Bush the Elder's Gulf War.
Nevertheless, any operation to dislodge Saddam without destabilising the region will be hugely complex, and possibly very costly. Already Turkey, a key US ally in the region, has expressed its opposition to a unilateral US move. Turkey fears a Kurdish uprising in northern Iraq could spill over its borders and spur separatism among its own Kurdish minority.
Mindful of these complexities, the US government has suggested that action against Saddam will be months in the making. It will likely start with the United Nations being used to ratchet up the pressure on Iraq via its sanctions regime. The US may demand a return of weapons inspectors to Iraq, and other concessions, which will eventually provoke Iraq into recoiling. That will provide a pretext to invade. Pretty Machiavellian stuff, really, but as Clausewitz famously said, war is the continuation of politics with other means. The US must therefore run through the diplomatic niceties before it gets to the war.
Diplomatically, it should be fairly easy to isolate Iraq. However, the rhetoric on Iran and North Korea may complicate things. For starters, President Bush appears to have tipped Iran's precarious political balance back towards hardliners, and away from the ascendant reformers patronised by the Clinton administration. Iran will never come into the Iraqi camp. But it is much less likely to toe the American line, and may exploit any future power vacuum to its advantage.
As for North Korea, President Bush has complicated the South Korean government's policy of lessening tensions on the peninsula. North Korea is collapsing and in no position to fight a war. But some observers fear that may also make it more desperate and provocative. This, in turn may well worsen relations between the US and its South Korean ally.
Apparently feeling justified by the atrocities it suffered on September 11, the US increasingly appears to be taking the position that whoever is not for us is against us. In times like these, there are friends, and there are enemies. Allies reluctant to countenance US actions may get short shrift. The danger is that the US may create enemies for itself where before, only strangers were present.
Added to this is an understandable anxiety that the US is making up the rules as it goes along. Though international law will get lip-service, the principal criterion as to who gets targeted in the war on terror will depend on who the US considers an enemy at any given moment. Many of us will recall that Saddam, ever brutal, was once a US ally of sorts; when it was convenient to the White House, the Taliban too received favourable overtures.
Medieval law defined justice as what pleased the king. But most of us thought we had got beyond that.
John Rapley is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Government, UWI, Mona.
