The Limits of Western Power

Does anyone still remember the “Greater Middle East Initiative?” Probably not, but it’s time to remind people of ex-President George W. Bush’s grandiose plan. With this initiative, Bush and his administration intended to “open up” the Islamic world, from Morocco through Palestine, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and on to Pakistan; flowering democratic oases were supposed to bloom there. The means of doing this: military force.

The first step was to be a liberated and democratic Iraq, freed from Saddam Hussein. What was then supposed to happen, according to Bush’s team, would follow that shining example. The central assumption was that everyone wants to live in freedom. How people would view freedom that was brought in by tanks was never really considered by the Bush administration.

Just the news from the Middle East during the past week is devastating – 120 killed by a bomb attack in Baghdad last Sunday; nine dead, among them six U.N. employees, in an attack on a guesthouse in Kabul; 93 killed by a car bomb in the Pakistani border city of Peshawar. War is being waged in many areas of Afghanistan; war is being waged in the tribal areas of Pakistan and Iraq is fast lurching toward the abyss nine years after the allied invasion.

The imaginary zone of democracy has since turned into a war zone. The promised liberty has turned into daily bloodletting. One might be tempted to say that’s all thanks to the Bush administration and they’re no longer in power. The neoconservative fantasy that an entire world region could be transformed into a functioning democracy was nothing but hubris; an especially stupid idea from an especially stupid administration.

But this is now. Barack Obama is in charge. The better America, the more intelligent and more peaceful America is here. Obama has never failed to make every humble gesture possible in order to distance himself from his predecessor’s dreams of omnipotence. He solicits friends; he needs friends.

That’s all well and good, but has he made the Greater Middle East more peaceful? Not by a long shot. Since Obama’s inauguration, we’ve seen a dramatic escalation of hostilities. The reason for that, his supporters claim, is that the President has finally come to the right conclusions. He now understands that he can’t pacify Afghanistan unless he defeats the Taliban, including the Taliban in Pakistan. He has finally grasped that Afghanistan requires renewed efforts: more civilian assistance, more money and more soldiers.

But there are good reasons to doubt whether that’s right. Even if one assumes his new strategy will succeed, it suffers from the same disease that infected the Bush administration, namely, the belief that American military power will triumph in the end.

Of course, Obama is less bellicose than Bush when he talks and many of his actions are also less bellicose. But even Obama’s policies depend on the big stick, a stick he knows how to use effectively. That’s the case in Afghanistan as it now is in Pakistan. Pakistan will only get financial aid from Washington provided it fulfils a whole catalog of American requirements, many of which clearly violate Pakistan’s sovereignty. There was a time when that was called imperialism; today it’s called the war on terror.

The proponents of this policy say it’s the only way we can protect ourselves from terrorism; Western security is being defended in these distant countries. Assuming that’s true, one question still remains: does the West have the endurance to pacify Afghanistan, to “tame” Pakistan and to stabilize Iraq? Or aren’t these self-imposed tasks well beyond the capabilities of Western powers?