Mission Impossible

As part of the Spectator's increasing, and most welcome, provision of a platform for paleoconservatives, Andrew J. Bacevich writes:

The killing of Osama bin Laden settles nothing, decides nothing, and repairs nothing. Yet the passing of the al-Qa’eda leader just might serve an important purpose. We confront a moment of revelation: coming across bin Laden comfortably ensconced in a purpose-built compound in the middle of major Pakistani city down the street from the nation’s premier military academy should demolish once and for all any lingering illusions that Americans retain about their so-called global war on terror. The needle, it turns out, was not in the haystack but tucked safely away in our neighbour’s purse — the very same neighbour who professed to be searching high and low to locate that very same needle. Think we’ve been had?

Bin Laden was an indubitably evil figure. Yet the historical drama in which he played a role of considerable importance is not a morality play. Its central theme is not good vs evil. It is instead the pursuit of power and advantage by whatever means are necessary. In short, the theme is politics — dirty, cutthroat, and no holds barred.

In the immediate wake of 9/11, President George W. Bush and more than a few other Americans insisted otherwise. The issue at hand, they asserted, could hardly have been clearer: it was freedom vs oppression; civilisation vs barbarism; tolerance vs bigotry; the law abiding vs the law defiling.

As in the early days of the Cold War, Washington divided the world into two neatly defined opposing camps. ‘You are either with us,’ Bush declared ten days after 9/11, ‘or you are with the terrorists.’

The government of Pakistan, after brief hesitation and while under considerable duress, chose to be ‘with us’. Overnight, it became a valued partner in the ‘war on terror’. Pakistani interests and US interests now aligned, bonded together by the paramount importance of eliminating the threat to peace posed by al-Qa’eda. America’s enemies were now Pakistan’s enemies and vice versa — this at least was the prevailing assumption.

Also ‘with us’ in this enterprise were Saudi Arabia and Egypt and Israel and many other countries, enlisted in President Bush’s eyes in America’s campaign to rid the world of evil.

Sustaining this happy picture of broad unity and lofty purpose required Washington to disregard any number of inconvenient facts. As it happened, Pakistan was known to have engaged in the illegal proliferation of nuclear weapons technology. Governed by a general who had seized power through a military coup, it was anything but democratic. Neither was Saudi Arabia, nation of origin for 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers. Egypt was likewise an authoritarian state, its president blatantly rigging elections to keep himself and his corrupt cronies in power. As for Israel, its colonising of territories inhabited by Palestinians provided a motive (or pretext) that ‘terrorists’ skilfully exploited to provide a veneer of moral justification for their attacks against the West.

The lifespan of Bush’s band of unlikely brothers united in a common pursuit of peace and freedom proved disappointingly short. The first defections came unexpectedly from ‘old Europe’, which opted out of the US plan to invade Iraq, Bush having failed to convince his French and German counterparts (with the Turks following suit) that ousting a regime not involved in 9/11 and uncongenial to the religious radicalism to which Osama bin Laden subscribed held the key to destroying al-Qa’eda. Indeed, prominent among the unintended consequences flowing from the overthrow of Saddam Hussein was the emergence in Iraq of an al-Qa’eda affiliate where none had existed before.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia and Egypt were ignoring Washington’s entreaties to embrace liberal reform, setting an example for others in the region. The logic of easing up on internal dissent and thereby opening the door to Islamic radicalism escaped them. For their part, successive Israeli governments — proclaiming their unswerving commitment to the ‘peace process’ — disregarded US requests to curb settlement activity. Instead, under the guise of erecting a defensive security barrier, the Jewish state embarked upon a de facto policy of partition and territorial annexation. Israel expected (and got) unstinting American support, but had no intention of compromising its security to further Washington’s purposes.

The governments that the United States installed in Iraq and Afghanistan pursuant to occupying those two countries likewise proved less than fully compliant. To Washington’s chagrin, post-Saddam Baghdad seemed eager to accommodate the Islamic Republic of Iran, senior surviving member of the infamous Axis of Evil. In Kabul, President Hamid Karzai grew tired of seeing his countrymen killed and maimed in allied friendly-fire incidents and talked of cutting deals with the Taleban, in clear violation of the American prohibition on negotiating with terrorists. Gratitude for all that the United States had done was in short supply.

Yet all of this was as nothing compared to the problems besetting US-Pakistani relations. During the decades prior to 9/11, Washington’s relations with Islamabad had suffered many ups and downs, the United States embracing Pakistan as an ally when it was convenient to do so and otherwise giving the country the back of its hand. Bluntly, neither members of the Pakistani elite nor the man in the street had any reason to trust Washington.

So despite constant cajoling and complaint, with generous US military and economic subsidies thrown in as sweeteners, Pakistani efforts to help snuff out violent Islamic radicalism have been, at best, half-hearted. Indeed, Pakistan is itself a state supporter of terrorism (directed against its arch-enemy India) and in all likelihood would like to see the Taleban restored to power in Afghanistan (again as a curb against Indian influence). Dissatisfied with Pakistani efforts to clean out Taleban sanctuaries inside its border, the United States has taken matters into its own hands, greatly expanding its campaign of aerial bombardment using missile-firing drones against targets within Pakistan itself. Unwilling to acknowledge that they allow US forces to disregard their country’s sovereignty on a routine basis, senior Pakistani military and government officials make a pretence of professing shock and dismay, thereby encouraging Pakistani anti-Americanism to fester.

Already enmeshed in crisis, the relationship between the United States and Pakistan now stands on the brink of complete collapse. Diplomats will attempt to paper over the differences, with one side offering lies that the other side may pretend to believe. Their efforts may even succeed in creating some semblance of normality. Yet it will be no more than a semblance.

Yet more important is this: restoring even the appearance of purposefulness to the enterprise once known as the global war on terror has now become impossible. That war is a fraud. It exists only as a figment of American imagination. At great cost to itself and others, the United States has been playing the wrong game, falling prey to the tricks of its erstwhile friends, unable even to recognise who its enemies actually are.