Picking up after failed war on terror by Andrew Bacevich

Picking up after failed war on terror

Bush's campaign to wipe out terrorism is a costly mess. Here are five
steps to move on.

By Andrew J. Bacevich
The Los Angeles Times
November 6, 2007


Don't expect to hear this from the White House any time soon, but the
global war on terrorism conceived in the wake of 9/11 has effectively
ended. As President Bush travels from one military post to the next
giving pep talks to soldiers, he manfully sustains the pretense that
V-T Day is just around the corner. Yet events have shredded the
strategy that his administration was counting on to produce its
victory over terrorism.

War requires adherence to principles. Once a conflict becomes an
exercise in improvisation, it ceases to be meaningful. It becomes the
antithesis of war -- killing without political purpose or moral
justification.

The Bush administration is no longer engaged in a principled effort
to address the threat posed by violent Islamic radicalism. In lieu of
principles, the administration now engages in crisis management,
reacting to problems as they pop up. Last week, it was Turkey's
threat to invade Iraqi Kurdistan. This week, it's Pervez Musharraf,
key ally and beneficiary of $10 billion in U.S. aid since 2001,
imposing naked military rule on Pakistan. Next week, who knows what
surprises await?

This much we can say with certainty: Bush is as much in the dark as
you are.

It wasn't always this way. During the heady run-up to the invasion of
Iraq, the president was boldly promising that the United States,
drawing on its "unparalleled military strength and great economic and
political influence," would not only "defend the peace by fighting
terrorists and tyrants" but also "extend the benefits of freedom
across the globe."

Stripped of its hyperbole, this meant that the Bush administration
intended to nudge, cajole, bribe or bludgeon regimes across the
Islamic world into embracing modernity so that they would no longer
breed, harbor or otherwise support terrorists. Condoleezza Rice put
it this way: Because the United States "has always been, and will
always be, not a status quo power but a revolutionary power," the
Bush administration was going to engineer a democratic revolution,
thereby creating what Rice called a "new Middle East."

This revolution has demonstrably failed. In such places as Egypt,
Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, it never got off the ground. In the West
Bank and Gaza, free and fair elections delivered power into the hands
of Hamas. In Lebanon, the people voted in droves for Hezbollah. In
each case, the United States refused to accept the outcome, opening
itself to charges of hypocrisy.

In Afghanistan, the promotion of democracy has yielded record opium
crops and a resurgence of the Taliban. Then there is Iraq. The
"liberation" that deposed a dictator gave rise to civil war, created
a vacuum that Al Qaeda was quick to fill and has benefited no one
apart from the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Policymakers such as Rice, who once disdained mere stability, are now
frantically trying to prevent the greater Middle East from sliding
into chaos. As the clock runs down on the Bush era, the
administration preoccupies itself with damage control.

Given that Bush's version of global war has proved such a costly
flop, what ought to replace it? Answering that question requires a
new set of principles to guide U.S. policy. Here are five:

* Rather than squandering American power, husband it. As Iraq has
shown, U.S. military strength is finite. The nation's economic
reserves and diplomatic clout also are limited. They badly need
replenishment.

* Align ends with means. Although Bush's penchant for Wilsonian
rhetoric may warm the cockles of neoconservative hearts, it raises
expectations that cannot be met. Promise only the achievable.

* Let Islam be Islam. The United States possesses neither the
capacity nor the wisdom required to liberate the world's 1.4 billion
Muslims, who just might entertain their own ideas about what genuine
freedom entails. Islam will eventually accommodate itself to the
modern world, but Muslims will have to work out the terms.

* Reinvent containment. The process of negotiating that accommodation
will produce unwelcome fallout: anger, alienation, scapegoating and
violence. In collaboration with its allies, the United States must
insulate itself against Islamic radicalism. The imperative is not to
wage global war, whether real or metaphorical, but to erect effective
defenses, as the West did during the Cold War.

* Exemplify the ideals we profess. Rather than telling others how to
live, Americans should devote themselves to repairing their own
institutions. Our enfeebled democracy just might offer the place to
start.

The essence of these principles can be expressed in a single word:
realism, which implies seeing ourselves as we really are and the
world as it actually is.

Andrew J. Bacevich is a professor of history and international
relations at Boston University.