The three wars on terror
COLUMN
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By Pentti Sadeniemi
President George W. Bush’s war against terror will have been going on for exactly three years in a few days’ time. The Republican National Convention showed that the war is the core issue in Bush’s campaign to win a second presidential term. The most sought-after terrorist, Osama bin Laden, has not been found, and the casualties suffered in Iraq by the United States have exceeded the one thousand mark. So what stage are we in as the fourth year begins?
Such an assessment would be easier to make if there were only one war on terror. Washington takes a good deal of trouble to give just that impression, but it is a bluff. It would be wiser to distinguish at least three wars.
The first, and in reality the most important, is not actually a "war" at all. It is an attempt to track down and break up organisations that are dedicated to international terrorism, and to prevent any new destructive attacks from taking place.
The second is the war in Iraq, whose connection with terrorism - initially mere pretence - has gradually become a reality.
The third war on terrorism, which is largely imaginary, is taking place inside the United States as part of the Presidential election campaign. It is a tremendous morality play, but its links with the reality of the external world range from the tenuous to the non-existent. The goal is not a victory of civilisation over terrorism but rather that of Bush over the Democratic Party candidate John Kerry.
During the past three years people have forgotten that the attacks of September 11, 2001 did not change their understanding of terrorism so much as their attitude toward it. The attacks demonstrated what unexpected and destructive methods a dedicated suicide group can use in an attack.
The fact that the attack is still the only one of its kind to have taken place in the United States so far is evidence of how limited even those groups are in their capacity and imagination. No weapons of mass destruction, to say nothing of nuclear weapons, have been found in the hands of the terrorists.
The greatest change that took place was in the United States. The attack was seen as both a deep shock, and as an insult to the nation. The administration of President Bush, which had been somewhat erratic until then, found something to focus on, and Bush himself found a life mission.
Bush led a kind of psychological mobilisation, which has not been dismantled. The actual "war" was launched with an attack on Afghanistan. The invasion of Iraq had no connection with the September attack, but it was a logical, and domestically even a necessary continuum of the emotional state generated by the Bush administration. A "war president" needs to lead a war, not a mere state of alert or a police action.
In putting down Muslim extremist terror there have been some tactical victories. A sustained success would require two things above all else: a sharp repudiation of terrorism by the religious leaders of Islam, and the close cooperation of political leaders in police work. The latter has been somewhat more successful than the former, but much needs to be done in both.
Outsiders have only a limited capability to affect those goals in the Islamic world. At the very least, care is needed not to erect obstacles to the common goal; doing so could till the soil for the growth of more terrorism.
There have not been many indications of any such caution. Israel’s ongoing oppressive policies in Palestine feed the very same terrorism that it uses repeatedly as a justification of the oppression itself. Russia's policies in Chechnya have had the same effect. President Bush has looked at the actions of Russia with a nod and a wink, and has actively supported Israel. As the occupier of Iraq he has allowed the mistakes that have inflamed the hearts and minds of the population against the United States.
In theory victories could be achieved by implanting democracy in the "wider Middle East", as Bush recently promised once again. It is a very distant goal, which fares better on paper than in politics. To that end one would have to accept placing the stability of countries such as Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, as well as the interests of Washington, in considerable jeopardy. Bush is certainly not seriously planning to do this. Besides, contrary to widely-held beliefs, democracy is no panacea against terrorism.
In Iraq, fanatical religious suicide terrorism was an unknown concept before the occupation. With its countless wrong decisions, the occupation created the preconditions for it, and today it is part of everyday life in the country as it teeters on the brink of anarchy.
Typical of the reality-hostile atmosphere in Washington is that Bush is able to use this dangerous consequence of the occupation of Iraq as a retroactive justification for that very occupation.
In the war against terrorism, as depicted in speeches in Washington, there are no deviations, bad alternatives, mistakes, unnecessary victims, and certainly no moral doubts. Reality must not interfere with melodrama because reality is, among other things, an ally of Senator Kerry.
Only a very powerful country can afford to indulge in such reckless opportunism. Forgetting and denying reality has a high price in foreign and security policy, but the United States is strong enough to pay that price. If it is up to the Bush administration, foreign policy and domestic policy will be one and the same until the November elections, and security policy will be power politics. Only after that will it be possible - at least hopefully - to gradually get back to reality.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 9.9.2004
PENTTI SADENIEMI / Helsingin Sanomat
pentti.sadeniemi@hs.fi
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| 14.9.2004 - THIS WEEK |
 The three wars on terror |
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