The Impact of the September 11 Attacks on the US Foreign Policy - Research Paper Example

?The impact of September 11 attacks on the US foreign policy September 11 attacks unmistakably form such a phenomenally drastic international political event that totally changed not only America itself but the whole world’s system at large. It would be untrue if said that the world before these suicide attacks involving the Twin Tower complex of New York City happened to be a far more peaceful and different place on many levels. What is worth mentioning is that it has remained general consensus among majority of political critics that post 9/11 America’s foreign policy changed much for the worse. Economic circumstances also readily spiraled down as after attacks, the economic steadiness which once formed the hallmark and essential feature of the America’s general international reputation, transformed uncontrollably into economic recession. This paper is basically an effort to describe the very important political event of September 11 attacks in relation to the influence it exerted on America’s foreign policy and international relations. The paper also discusses myriad ways by which US had to transform its international relations and alter foreign policy decisions according to the theories of international politics. On the morning of September 11, four commercial US airlines were hijacked by some 19 hijackers who were believed to be associated with Al-Qaeda and two of those hijacked jets were intentionally flown into the North and South towers of the World Trade Center. The third plane got crashed into the ground due to the angry passengers’ involvement and the last plane was deliberately flown into the important building of Pentagon. As a result, thousands of people died and many got badly injured for life. Most of the people who died from the attacks happened to be innocent civilians and a minority belonged to the military forces who ran to the attacked places to save the public. The impact zones where planes hit the North and South Towers made it virtually impossible for anyone above and below the impact zones to make an escape from the buildings, rather many hundreds of people got trapped in the poisonous fumes and dust and died of smoke inhalations after remaining entrapped for terribly long hours. However, the South Tower got attacked after the North Tower which is why significantly lesser casualties were reported in this tower as the military officials started evacuating the building immediately after the first tower got struck. US also changed economically a lot as the destruction of the towers cast serious and irreparable damage to the economy of the busy area of lower Manhattan as a result of which seriously bad and devastating influence was exerted in the global markets and ultimately it all culminated in global economic recession. US economic recession was also fomented to a large extent by the practice of investing many billions of dollars in the wars against Afghanistan and Iraq under Bush administration. Prior to attacks, the approach taken by Washington concerning the rest of the world was relatively unfocused and it became definitely very much focused after attacks. America really had no significant thoughts nor any decisions were made about other countries as the Cold War has already ended a decade earlier and also victory was bagged by US in the Cold War as the enemy in the form of Soviet Union got defeated which had earlier on managed to give a focus to Washington’s approach to the world. Post 9/11, this focus again shifted but this time the influence produced happened to be long-term and much more demanding, tiring, and exhausting for both US government and public than ever before. US took these attacks made on September 11 as a threat to not only US law, order and peace but a serious menace to global law and order which is why the important officials sat together and with agreement launched a very extensive War on Terror by first invading Afghanistan and later Iraq to combat against the Taliban belonging to Al-Qaeda and defeat them. Most of the Taliban resided in Afghanistan and from there it was believed by America’s political agents and FBI officials that they operated and devised operations to threaten US security and public safety. Initially, it was thought by the US political agents and other nonpolitical representatives from all over the world that the operation would not stretch over a course of many years, but once the war against terrorism was launched, it continued and is even now in process like a never ending monotonous and exhausting story. America’s decision of launching the War on Terror against Muslim countries in order to depose Taliban forces actually turned out to be a decision made hurriedly in the panic of the moment and is called by some critics as a grave error made under Bush administration having vast consequences, majority of which proved to be very unpleasant both for America and the rest of the world. In context of international relations and political agendas, America’s relations with many Middle East countries were seriously harmed post 9/11 and Bush Doctrine was understood in a variety of different ways. The war on terror was initiated and handled by US political and armed forces according to Bush Doctrine who thought that nondemocratic regimes were capable of bringing equally devastating damage to US security as Taliban forces because they invoke extremism, violence, and anger among their citizens. This explanation given by Bush in what is called as Bush Doctrine is thought by some to lay the foundation for Iraq way where there was strict authoritarian leadership and dictatorship which directly raised concern for US security too. That is why Iraq was invaded and war on terror was not started to invade Iraq. “In a 2003 speech, Bush said that nondemocratic regimes in the Middle East bred stagnation, resentment, and violence ready for export” (Alexander, 2007, p. 44). Eradication of the terrorism in the entire world is simply an impossible task and the war should also be launched only against a real enemy or a country which has large forces which might appear to be willing to target civilians to fulfill a political agenda. The War on Terror was launched against no definite enemy as Afghanistan already was a defeated country with no mass weapons for defense. America undoubtedly had to pay a lot by launching war against some Islamic extremists and it all got started by President Bush who in this war decision was aided by many influential political agents like then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Rumsfeld is considered to have played a very phenomenally important role in leading the war against terrorism. He had a great influence over the US policy makers and with confidence of President Bush, he made a lot of decisions that led to more and more financial investment in order to depose Taliban completely. How much foreign policies changed post 9/11 can be judged by the fact that the foreign policy ideas introduced by President Bush during his presidential campaign appeared to be very peaceful and different from those practiced under Clinton administration. He clearly criticized the Clinton administration by claiming that Clinton tried acting like the world’s policeman and interfered a lot in other countries’ political and economic affairs. He even claimed that US armed forces would never be used for nation building and oppressing the weaker countries if he got to be elected as the President of America (Purcell, 2002). All these claims and foreign policy ideas put forward by President Bush set heavily in contrast against the foreign policy decisions made by him post 9/11 as not only he himself acted as the world’s policeman working busily to eradicate all evil from the world, but he used the US armed forces to launch war against those countries which cannot be even considered as concrete enemies. President Bush proposed a very peaceful approach to foreign policy and decision making but acted in contrast to that in practical terms. His involvement in this whole event of September 11 attacks only raised concern for America and American public in addition to further deteriorating the already damaged circumstances. Though during his presidential campaign, President Bush appeared to be “promising a continuation of the more modest foreign policy of the first President Bush, the latter had been a realist rather than an idealist” (Purcell, 2002). In their research study about the global war on terror, Zalman and Clarke (2009) identify that the US intelligence forces well before the 9/11 attacks were already in search of Osama bin Laden under Clinton administration. Moreover, the real motive behind initiating the war on terror has been declared by many critics and researchers to not eradicate terrorism but getting able to invade Iraq as Bush juxtaposed Iraq and 9/11 by forming the Iraq strategy: “The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on Sept. 11, 2001” (McQuillan & Benedetto, cited in Reese and Lewis, 2009). How harmful every political agent’s involvement in this war against terrorism has remained can be judged from the fact that many internationally accepted rules of war have also been found to be severely violated by US armed and political forces according to the report issues by the International Commission of Justice. Not just that, the costs of the war have been revealed to be so drastically huge that the whole war action has begun to be questioned by the global community. “Economically, total external costs for the global war on terror as of the end of 2008 approached $900 billion” (Kosiak, cited in Zalman & Clarke, 2009). This much beneficial every party’s involvement in this war on terror which initiated post 9/11 attacks has remained. Summing up, 9/11 attacks brought phenomenally huge and indescribably brutal damage to both US government and public as a result of which the course of US decision making changed forever and much for the worse on many levels as mentioned before. Despite President Bush’s claims that his decisions helped destabilize Iraq and demolish Taliban forces to a large extent, the truth is that his decisions and foreign policies only aroused hatred from Muslim countries for America in addition to devastating the international relations it shares with those countries. A turning point was marked in US by September 11 attacks and the foreign policies and foreign decision making also changed gigantically. That consistency and monotony found in the international relations and foreign policy decisions of US vaporized into thin air after these attacks as this event heavily shook US and also interfered heavily with the political relations it shared with many other countries. References Alxander, G. (2007). International Relations Theory Meets World Politics. Routledge. Purcell, S.K. (2002, September 6). U. S. Foreign Policy since September 11th and its Impact on Latin America. Retrieved from http://www.as-coa.org/files/PDF/pub_303_239.pdf Reese, S. D., & Lewis, S. C. (2009). Framing the War on Terror: The internalization of policy in the US press. Journalism, 10. Retrieved from http://journalism.utexas.edu/sites/journalism.utexas.edu/files/attachments/reese/framing-war-on-terror-sagepub.pdf Zalman, A., & Clarke, J. (2009, June 24). The Global War on Terror: A Narrative in Need of a Rewrite. Ethics & International Affairs, 23.2. Retrieved from http://www.carnegiecouncil.org/resources/journal/23_2/essays/002 Read More