US stuck in Iraq: World marks time

Nothing moves "according to Hoyle" since the end of the Cold War in 1989-91. In a flare of extravagant rhetoric, Francis Fukuyama proclaimed the "end of history". Henceforth the world would be at peace. The ideological wars of the 20th century had ended. Fukuyama’s assumption was that the American version of democracy and human rights would rule and enrich the world. Communism and socialism were the twin monsters that ravaged humankind. They brought forth Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Francisco Franco, Hideki Tojo. They would have enrolled the world under the image of an overblown swastika. In this world, the "supermen" would bark the totalitarian ideology that would wrap a boa constrictor around any kind of freedom.

It was not to be. Capitalism won over communism.

The United States of America emerged as the world’s only superpower. The Soviet Union collapsed under the weight of an ideology that could manufacture over 25,000 nuclear missiles but not enough food and victuals to feed its population. And so the Berlin Wall collapsed. And so the dream of Mikhail Gorbachev – perestroika and glasnost – which could have broken the chains of totalitarian communism also sundered. The USSR shattered into 13 separate Republics. Eastern Europe followed, its many tyrants slain or overthrown by an irate citizenry, particularly the odious Caucescus of Romania.

It was this crumbling scene that Francis Fukuyama – an American intellectual aristocrat – watched. The world had been saved. And the savior of course was America, whose culture and civilization only had to snap its fingers and the rest of the world would follow in wide-eyed wonder. Oh yes, America had a monopoly of smart bombs and missilery that could split a lighted cigarette in flight, and bombard an entire city into oblivion. Who would dare?

That is where Fukuyama figured wrong.

The world was really never at peace despite the end of the Cold War. Underneath ethnic rumblings grew louder and louder. The Balkan region of Europe, whose ethnic feuds led to the explosion of the Second World War, came again to life. Bosnia, Bosnia-Herzegovina. Serbia, Kosovo exploded anew as Serbs, Croats, Muslims were convulsed by "ethnic cleansing". Butchers of the Balkans such as Slobodan Milosevich enjoyed a new notoriety that led the creation of international criminal courts. These would convict them to death for the brutal "cleansing" of tens of thousands. Modern civilization could ill afford these cleansings.

It should have stopped there but didn’t. The so-called "Muslim Factor" that now aggravates international relations reared its terrorist head. A decade ago, the lushly bearded Mohamed Youssef called the world’s attention to the Philippines. In Manila, he plotted the assassination of Pope John Paul II, the hijack of a fleet of commercial aircraft. When that misfired, he led the Muslim terrorist group that initiated the first attack on the Twin Towers of New York. The world shuddered.

And yet, little did the world know at the time, this was just a prelude to Sept. 11, 2001 that brought the two towers crashing to the ground and the bulk of the Pentagon in ruins.

And so it came to pass that the world of "international terror" sprouted two faces. First, it was Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda. Second, it was Saddam Hussein and his Ba’ath party. It is these two faces today that preoccupy America. Reportedly, they are alive and well, and continue to defy the US and President George W. Bush. Until now, not all the might, not all the bandoliered nuclear power of America, with all its satellite spies can locate Bin Laden and Hussein. They have dissolved into ghosts.

The event of 9/11 had altered what were once the semi-solid moorings of international stability. Enmeshed, enraged, enfolded by a "terrorist enemy" on many fronts, or so America suspects, the US had no choice but unsheath its sword. Unable to get Osama bin Laden, it would get Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction. Unable to get the support of the United Nations and the full endorsement of the Atlantic Alliance, the US decided to play God and go it alone with its new strategy of "preventive war". Oh yes, there was a "coalition of the willing" with Britain’s Tony Blair allegedly playing the role of stooge, and the Philippines mindlessly tagging along Little Orphan Annie.

The war was a breeze. In less than three weeks, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq had fallen.

But not the Iraqi people. The majority, or so it seems, consider the American troops as "occupiers", if not outright invaders. They do not agree they have been "freed" or "liberated". Otherwise, why do 140,000 US combat soldiers remain in Iraq? Otherwise, why does US troop commander General John Abizaid, now admit his troops are now under attack from a "classical guerrilla style campaign" waged by special Iraqi fighters? Otherwise, why are George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney under attack by the US media and the opposition Democrat Party for allegedly having misled the American people into war with Iraq? Where are the weapons of mass destruction that had Dubya almost daily in an epileptic fit? That had British official sources reveal these weapons could be mobilized within 45 minutes?

And yet, the world must be thankful that these things have come to pass. That the American giant has been slowed down.

American must now focus almost all its political, diplomatic and military resources on Iraq. It cannot afford to fail in Iraq. It already failed in Afghanistan. But to succeed, the US must increase its presence in this irascible, almost ungovernable Middle Eastern country. Now, mighty as it might be, the US realizes it cannot fight a war on two fronts. After Iraq, we refer particularly to North Korea and the Korean peninsula.

If the US miscalculates and wages on North Korea the kind of war it waged on Iraq, I am afraid this is what Paul Kennedy described as "imperial overstretch". America cannot win in an Asia where China could very conceivably rush to the defense of North Korea, where even the ever friendly South Koreas are now hissing their displeasure and an ugly mood at the US. Last year, two South Korea children died under the heel of US troops engaged in simulated war operations.

The danger here is this: As North Korea succeeds in dragging the nuclear issue – and it can very well do that because of US preoccupation with Iraq – the sly and malevolent Kim Jong-il will speed up manufacture of nuclear bombs. Maybe it has two or three today. The US suspects in a year’s time it can amass 10 or 12 and threaten America with nuclear kingdom come.

Iraq never had that capacity to threaten America. And yet the US waged war. North Korea will soon have that capacity. Will the US wage war? This is the situation today, a world caught between Scylla and Charybdis, between the muffed trumpets of permanent peace, and the ever present, scourge of war. And yet, it's better this way. We can all still breathe, all still look at the stars – and ponder. If the Korean peninsula explodes, tens of thousands will die. Americans, Koreans, Japanese alike. This is to be avoided at all costs.

The war will be brought closer to the Philippines.

American troops will very presumably withdraw from the Korean Peninsula and Japan where they and their bases can easily be hit by medium-range missiles. They will pour into rearguard areas and regions like the Philippines, Indonesia and Australia. here they will have greater mobility and speed. Here, distance is no problem since they can lodge all their military equipment and fire at the enemy with the same accuracy. Here, they can maneuver 360 degrees in their war against international terror. Here they can engage or contain China, although many international experts now affirm it’s too late to contain China. How does one contain 1.3 billion Chinese living in a massive land mass whose government possesses nuclear missiles that can pound any American city to rubble? And, unlike the Soviet Union, has set up a fabulous economy second only in a matter of years to the US economic behemoth?

What will the 21st century be like?

Will it lead to a balance of power between China and America? Will Japan, India, Korea (North and South) respect this balance of power? Will India and Pakistan finally and conclusively resolve their dispute on Kashmir? Will America realize its "pre-emptive power" doctrine has its limits and cannot be applied to the huge, rambling, tortured land masses of Asia?

Can the poor of the earth finally emancipate themselves?