Contemporary Middle East History - the US Involvement in Iraq - Essay Example

I. Introduction Progress in human rights endorsement in addition to multilateral cooperation intensified with the end of the Cold War. For the time being, at least, people have heard plentiful overjoyed messages regarding a new world order involving from former George H.W. Bush, paradoxically on September 11, 1990. Such confidence about the increasing responsibility of international law and organizations was dealt a substantial blow, nevertheless, just about a decade later (Beckett, 2005). The ruthlessness, purpose and impacts of that blow from terrorists represent the emphasis of much of literatures on the subject matter. The incidents of September 11, 2001 drawn the attention of the public, legislators, and analysts on identifying, under disastrously altered conditions, the political and policy purpose of the U.N. charter’s declaration in Article 2(1), which designates the “sovereign equality of its Members” (Weis et al. 2004, 232). This was specifically true provided that the attacks were at that point bound for at the global solitary superpower, whose instinctive comeback was to bring its bear its armed forces, also its economic and political powers, and to formally oblige itself to a permanent war against any act of terrorism. As anyone would have thought, the early tendency of the United States, involving the bulk of its population, was to take in response directly and without using up time on widespread multilateral discussions. However, the body of states at the United Nations articulated advocacy for self-defense procedures in the Security Council and General Assembly in September 2001. And the moment the instigators of the attack were named, the U.S. labored significantly through multilateral channels in chasing Al Qaeda in their temporary defensive fortification in Afghanistan, and the Taliban administration that harbored them. Since the collapsing of the latter, legislators have been looking for reasonable next move in the war on terrorism (Crane & Terrill, 2003). It is at this point in time that matters of rightful response to September 11 become more difficult. The war on Iraq apparently became section of the war on terrorism through evasion, and U.S. decision and action took in a focal point in the debate regarding the use and applicability of multilateral channels, including the U.N. The resulting disagreement over self-autonomy, human rights and war at times appeared to neglect the development of the previous five decades (ibid, 105). II. U.S, Iraq and the U.N. There are still questions regarding the factors that persuaded President George W. Bush in August 2002 to establish the United Nations the attraction of his crusade to construct domestic and international support for using force against Iraq. There are also concerns on the reason why he insinuate in that attempt for several months in spite of considerable disappointments along the way. For some the answer may appear clear; the U.N. is the world’s leading political organization, its Charter demands Security Council approval for the use of force, and the Council has been grabbed of different elements of the Iraqi defiance to international order for many years. However, the world organization had fell short in all those times to achieve the aims that the President was pursuing, generally because the Council was resentfully and constantly divided on the crucial concern of how, at times even on whether, to put into effect its several resolutions on Iraq (Bengio, 2002). The eagerness of the President towards international policies and multilateralism, furthermore, had been periodic at best. To several observers, he would have appeared an improbable contender and this would have seemed an unfavorable moment to attempt to strengthen the Security Council’s determination in dealing with Saddam Hussein and to save its delaying integrity n the process. That would have been a paramount directive even for a Texan with the possibility to be the world’s final optimist or its most recent imperialist (ibid, 77). It has been far and wide considered that British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and somehow other foreign leaders, persuaded a hesitant President George W. Bush to assume the U.N. path. Indisputably, Blair preferred this alternative for both strategic and local political justifications. Early in 2002, British investigation by ICM Research revealed that 71 per cent of the respondents are against the idea of involving U.K. in an invasion of Iraq, whereas 38 per cent supported the view that Tony Blair is Bush’s pet (Weis et al., 2004, 145). Provided with the latter image, Blair’s advocates have been at extreme difficulties to point out the extent to which he has swayed Bush, rather than the other way around. Given the likeness in their standpoints, as well as the rate of recurrence of their confidential conversations, it is not likely to make a definitive conclusion regarding who was influencing whom at a specified point in time (ibid). However, there is no justification to presume that this was a one-sided contract. Simultaneously, it was in London’s planned intentions to express a standpoint that permitted it both to sustain its special connection with Washington and to preserve its usefulness as a link between the U.S. and its continental collaborators. On dealing with Saddam Hussein, the U.K had long recognized more directly with the more rigid U.S. position, even as pointing out the requirement for a unified, multilateral façade in handling a dictator. Throughout the summer of 2002, it was turning out to be progressively problematic for Blair to resolve all of these conflicting demands, particularly as the British public started to appear growingly continental in its uncertainties about the leadership attributes and paradigms of President Bush (Preble, 2004). This resolution would be facilitated, apparently, if Bush settled on to carry his case to the United Nations. Nevertheless, as with public view and Congress, the reality that the President concluded to move in the course that Tony Blair preferred did not automatically imply that the latter’s point was decisive. Two other probabilities should also be taken into account, which is that Blair and Bush have parallel and quite profoundly held convictions; and that President’s uncompromising attitude on Baghdad inclined to direct the Prime Minister in the path of war even as the latter bolstered the former’s willingness to offer the Security Council the opportunity to advocate coercion. As realistic legislators with a collective goal, it would be sensible to believe that both realized the possible advantages of building an expansive coalition on Iraq, partly via the U.N., just as they had accomplished on counterterrorism the preceding years (Weiss et al., 2004). Hence the question is, if that could be carried out without considerably weakening their resolve on forcing Iraqi disarmament, then why not give the U.N. the opportunity. III. The War against Iraq Quite a few policies borrowed by the George W. Bush government, ranging from the nuclear to the environmental domains, have critically defied the theory of liberal hegemony. None has defied them more deeply than the decision to declare war against Iraq in spite of the opposition of both the mainstream population of countries associated to the United States and a substantial number of key nations within NATO, the central security concert underlying and authorizing the liberal hegemony of the United States. Augmenting offense to the damage meted out upon the partners of US as well as the remaining body of states was the Bush’s regimes language, which tried to rationalize the decision to declare war on the basis of normative issues connected to international security, harmony, integrity and human rights. U.S. not only displayed a lack of consideration for the stances of its closest allies, it as well as establish itself up unilaterally as the mediator of the standards in which promising goals are to be fulfilled and those who oppose or infringe them punished (Bengio, 2002). This pride of moral influence and the privilege to compose decisions about war and peace one-sidedly on behalf of the community of states bears extreme prospective costs. It weakens the normative agreement underlying the post-Cold War international order, by this means initiating the process of its delegitimization. The opposition in the French and German nations to the U.S. effort to persuade the Security Council to detain Iraq in material violation of its responsibilities was significantly an articulation of profound concern regarding the American appetite for unilateralism and not of instinctive anti-Americanism. It was, according to Philip Gordon, “a refusal to accept U.S. leadership simply because America is the great power” (Weiss et al., 2004, 157) which is an outlook collectively shared by majority of the constituents of the international community of states. The former national security adviser of President Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski, stated it frankly in an appearance on CNN when he revealed that Washington was encouraging alliances and enemies alike to line up as if they are involved in a Warsaw Pact. He further stated that the United States has “never been so isolated globally—literally never—since 1945” (ibid, 157). American unilateralism on Iraq has obviously transmitted the message that the United Nations, and specifically the Security Council, is valuable as a tool for implementing and handling international order only if it does Washington’s command. If it opposes or resists U.S. directives, it is either criticized or sidestepped or both. This rationale was predicted by the language encompassing the U.S.-headed NATO involvement in Kosovo in 1999 without the approval of the Security Council. Nevertheless, post-intervention U.S. decisions and movements had resulted in several to assume that this was a one-time omission that the U.S. had gained knowledge from Kosovo; as it could succeed in wars without the United Nations, it could establish peace devoid of it (Crane & Terrill, 2003). On the other hand, the U.S. expression surrounding the disagreement on invading Iraq, which equaled to pressuring that the U.N. be involved and be counted or lose its significance on matters of war and peace, establish it very clear that unless the international organization concurred to function as a tool of U.S. policy it would be relegated to the recycle bin of history. Furthermore, this time the focus was not on the particular conditions that compelled the U.S. to decide and act externally to the U.N. but on America’s moral privilege to make conclusions regarding war and peace on behalf of the society of state, and the remaining of these should fall in line or be proclaimed either ignorant or dupes or both (ibid, 41). It is this pride on the part of the globally dominant producer and end user of international order that promises disorder to the prospect of that order. It calls to mind the picture of the United States as the “great irresponsible,” to borrow the expression created in 1980 by Hedley Bull of Oxford University to portray both of the superpowers which then appeared inclined on weakening détente (Weiss et al., 2004, 157). As a result, it grinds down the normative agreement underlying that order and endangers to restore the world to a state as illustrated by the political thinker Hobbes. IV. Conclusion Nevertheless, one must not assume that this U.S. policy will result overnight to the surfacing of a power or powers dedicated to balancing the unparalleled means and capabilities of the United States. It also does not imply that subsequent to the war, its European adversaries, primarily France, Germany and Russia will not be eager to be involved in the reconstruction program in Iraq under the auspices of U.S. leadership or will barricade the U.N. from joining in the reconstruction and humanitarian attempts in Iraq (Bengio, 2002). European nations are quite conscious of the discrepancy in supremacy between the U.S. and themselves, of the symbiotic character of their economies, and of the U.S. capability to prohibit others from profitable reconstruction and prospective oil concessions in Iraq. However, these agendas do not rule out that the examples from the Iraq war may motivate several among the key transatlantic states, in addition to others such as China, to change their fundamental assumptions regarding the post-Cold War order and take into account constructing alternative constitutions of power able of balancing the U.S. eventually. As Ivo Daalder has commented, “One crucial consequence of this transformation in U.S. European relations over Iraq is the effective end of Atlanticism, American and European foreign policies no longer centre around the transatlantic alliance to the same overriding extent as in the past” (Weiss et al., 2004, 158). References Beckett, I. (2005). Insurgency in Iraq: An Historical Perspective. Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute. Bengio, O. (2002). Saddams World: The Political Discourse in Iraq. New York: Oxford University Press. Crane, C. C. & Terrill, A. (2003). Reconstructing Iraq: Insights, Challenges and Missions for Military Forces in a Post-Conflict Scenario. Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute. Preble, C. (2004). Exiting Iraq: Why the U.S. Must End the Military Occupation and Renew the War against Al Qaeda Report of a Special Task Force. Washington, D.C.: Cato Institute. Weiss, T. et al. (2004). Wars on Terrorism and Iraq: Human Rights, Unilateralism, and U.S. Foreign Policy. New York: Routledge. Read More