Americans Uncomfortable with “Super Power” Mindset Foisted by Bush-Cheney Regime

by Philip Fernando in Los Angeles for Sri Lanka Guardian

(November 27, Los Angeles, Sri Lanka Guardian) The Neocons (new conservatives) under George W Bush believed that every perceived security threat imagined or real, should elicit a military response. Towards that end, the Bush-Cheney brigade purged all bureaucratic foot-draggers and nay-sayers in order to implement the post 9/11 policy of worldwide hegemonism, justified by the “War on Terror” and defense of freedom-loving peoples and human rights: its ideological cover. Such super power mind-set implied that solicitude must be expressed in the name of that Orwellian invention. A coalition of US led nations’ and others of whatever ranking, however insignificant, corrupt or tainted, had to be cajoled, bullied or bribed into signing on to that belief.

That attempt failed as the recent US elections conclusively opted for a more internationalist agenda. US citizens could not be sold on hegemonism by arguing the virtues of a‘monopolar’ world, the world of a single ‘superpower’ which is unfettered by the artificial constraints of international institutions. Nor believe that the International Court of Justice in the Hague or the Kyoto Protocol or the United Nations Security Council, or anything else must and can perform Bush’s own work of maintaining order and righting wrongs around the globe. That notion got debunked as Barack Obama won handsomely.

The average American felt uncomfortable with super powerdom deemed necessary to thwart rogue regimes and the axes of evil, for establishing advanced military bases for logistical support and to secure troubled regions by its very presence.

The Bush-Chevy doctrine, in reality was a pretext to diminish and ‘contain’ potential adversaries, those countries which by their military and or economic strength could be in a position to frustrate the operation of a monopolar world. Thus, the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China, by definition posed a threat.

The need for corroborative and democratic efforts to bridge differences in international affairs was forgotten. Many believed that NATO was made the Bush’s “tool kit,” for not only dealing in the European and Middle East theaters with tactical emergencies and threats but as the strategic focus, for containing and challenging the Russian Federation or anyone else thwarting the monopolarism.

It was no surprise that the expansion of NATO Eastern Europe, then the Baltic States and now, potentially, into the Ukraine and Georgia was deemed a necessity to bring US military force and its missile defense system to the very borders of the Russian Federation. The average American rejected such a need for a geographical encirclement by an American presence in the backyard of the Russian Federation or anywhere else.

Some analysts have argued that an equivalent, matching strategic thrust was attempted in the Asia-Pacific Region, where the Bush Administration forged an anti-China axis with Prime Ministers Abe of Japan and Howard of Australia, for the analogical purpose of serving notice to its regional neighbors that the USA provided an alternative power right under the nose of the growing Chinese and Indian presence. The historic disputes between Taiwan and the Peoples Republic of China and between North and South Korea had been the foci of such attempts.

It gained momentum as virtue was found in other regions to foster similar focus. It was said that in Central Asia, beginning with logistical bases agreed upon to provide support to the assault on the Taliban in Afghanistan, the US picked up England’s 19th Century Grand Game, competing for influence with China and Russia among the energy rich republics. This military arm was supplemented by an economic arm, in particular the so-called Nabucco gas pipeline, intended not merely to provide Europe with an alternative source to Russia as key energy supplier, but also to pry these republics away from the Russian political orbit.

It went on further. Many saw an extension in South Asia of this policy of enlisting a grand coalition of the forces of good. Enhanced client status accorded to Pakistan, where perhaps $1 billion per month of clandestine money was channeled to President Musharaff and his cohorts, and a new effort to tame India. The traditional champion of Non-aligned Nations was considered not good enough to be trusted because it had for decades provisioned itself in Russia. An agreement on civilian nuclear energy was hurriedly planned.

The average American found that super power label had turned the US into an ideological bastion of human rights and other undying absolutist principles at the expense of and at times in direct contradiction with pragmatic defense of its own interests and in denial of other nations’ sovereign interests. Sri Lanka, fighting a heroic war on terror was marginalized for alleged minor human rights violations. Aid promised was with held.

The Neocons Super power label brought about contempt for accepted democratic and liberal principles. It provided cover for permanent meddling in other nations’ domestic affairs in the name of the ‘international community-the sacrosanct monopolarism, to the point of forced democratization in the wake of military intervention, as in Iraq.

This is an extension of the false logic so crudely put by the ineloquent George Bush that western-styled democracy breeds peace and so must be actively forced on others. Bush either intentionally rejected or was ignorant that this ideological stance disregarded the lessons learned from wars in the past. Ignorance and unlearning are often inseparable.

Ironically, the Republican Neocons, who have been driving American foreign policy for the last 7 years and have defined the parameters of political discussion by using the period preceding WWII as the only reference, a period within living memory of at least some of the citizenry. They took pride that they were the sole remaining standard-bearers of a messianic, ideological mind-set borne out of the period of the Cold War.

It is strange that the United States and Europe have also willfully forgotten the concept of MAD, or mutually assured destruction, which may be credited with having kept the peace and a measure of sanity during the decades of Cold War confrontation with USSR. In dealing with the presence of Islamic nationalism the west cannot rely on such countervailing assurances as Islamic resurgence cannot be equated with any single state or sovereign body, similar to the USSR. It is a movement not bound by territorial boundaries.

Until and unless the United States begins to deal with other nations as equals with their own interests rather than merely as their ‘tool kit’ or as lap dogs who lend credibility to narrow policy initiatives, ‘super power hegemonism would not bear any productive results.

The average American clearly understands that the limits of genuine US interests have to be defined. The obligation to have a mandatory national opinion, like a judgment of Solomon, with respect to every regional or internal national dispute is utterly unattainable and as illusive as a Bush’s mission in Iraq. It is high time for this to be said aloud by the country’s leaders. The people have already spoken.- Sri Lanka Guardian