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America’s Defense Review:
More Towards Clash of Civilizations?
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By Kareem M. Kamel, Ph.D**
International Relations Analyst
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Feb.
12, 2006
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“Let
the dogs of the empire bark, that’s their job…They will
forever try to preserve the US empire by all means, while we will
do everything possible to shred it”
– Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela
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Donald
Rumsfeld delivering his speech during the 42nd Munich Conference
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As
angry rioters across the Muslim world continue to express their
outrage at the despicable cartoon depiction of Prophet Muhammad in
several European newspapers, the US Department of Defense released
what it calls the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), which is
mandated every four years by the Congress and is an important
document outlining how the US will deal with major security
challenges in the future. Interestingly, the document opens with
the words: “The US is a nation engaged in what will be a long
war” and differs from the 2001 review in that it calls for US
forces to be able to “operate around the globe” and not only
in Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Asia as the previous
review had suggested.
The
review marks a clear shift from the Pentagon’s traditional
emphasis on conventional warfare techniques against nation states
and concentrates on defeating “terrorist” networks, countering
nuclear, chemical, and biological threats, and dissuading rising
powers such as Russia, India, and China from becoming adversaries.
It stipulates an expansion in clandestine operations performed by
US Special Operations Forces (SOF) which should “have the
capacity to operate in dozens of countries simultaneously,”
operate in “politically sensitive environments,” and deploy
for longer periods to foment relationships with foreign military
and security forces.
Rumsfeld
accused Iran of being the worst sponsor of terrorism and denied
that his country’s invasion of Iraq was a catalyst for
“terrorism”. |
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In
addition, US Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, explained his
country’s defense posture at a speech at the 42nd
Munich Conference on Security Policy laying out his country’s
military and political agenda for the upcoming years. Rumsfeld
took a conciliatory tone towards Europe and urged unity in the
face of “terrorism” and weapons proliferation. More
controversial, however, were his comments in which he accused Iran
of being the worst sponsor of terrorism and denied that his
country’s invasion of Iraq was a catalyst for “terrorism”.
Instead, Rumsfeld accused the “terrorists” of using Iraq as a
base for training and recruitment operations as part of what he
suggests is an overall Islamist scheme aiming at the establishment
of an Islamic caliphate. The Munich Conference on Security Policy
represents the security equivalent of the Davos-based World
Economic Forum, and is an important annual venue where
representatives of the international security community exchange
views on the development of transatlantic relations as well as
European and global security. Prior to the conference, there were
doubts that Rumsfeld would attend the conference due to the fact
that the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights had filed
a lawsuit with German federal prosecutors in November 2005
charging that US officials, including Rumsfeld, were responsible
for war crimes and acts of torture.
Deciphering
America’s Strategic “Roadmap”
By
the US' seeking to incorporate Europe in its designs in the Muslim
world, and Europe’s readiness to do so, the West is enhancing
the view among many that this is an anti-Islamic crusade that is
guided by an Islamophobic West. |
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America’s
new strategic posture and Rumsfeld’s recent comments indicate
that the US seeks to expand its military activities. However, it
also indicates that decision-makers in Washington have begun to
realize that their unilateralism has not paid off and hence they
are now seeking to incorporate other allies in the global war
against “terrorism”. The fact that Donald Rumsfeld jokingly
suggested during the conference that his earlier depiction of
European nations that opposed the Iraq war as “old Europe” was
a manifestation of “old Rumsfeld,” and that he hoped to
reinvigorate transatlantic relations and strengthen the NATO
alliance is indicative of how much Washington has realized that
– in Rumsfeld’s own words: “one nation cannot defeat the
‘extremists’ alone.”
In
the years following the invasion of Iraq, observers of
international politics have witnessed how much US-European views
and positions have coalesced on a variety of issues. In fact, the
US and Europe have been the most vocal in their criticism of
Iranian nuclear enrichment plans and have recently been supportive
of taking Iran to the Security Council and the imposition of
sanctions. Moreover, the US and Europe – despite their deafening
calls for democracy in the Middle East – greeted the Hamas
victory in Palestinian elections with considerable hostility. The
Syrian-Lebanese crisis was also another venue where the US and
France worked side by side to isolate Syria, disarm Hizbullah, and
destabilize domestic Lebanese politics to their favor.
Rumsfeld’s
whimsical, self-serving depiction of the conflict leaves no room
for any criticism of the West. |
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By
the US' seeking to more closely incorporate Europe in its
hegemonic designs in the Muslim world, and Europe’s seeming
readiness to do so, the West would be greatly enhancing the
dominant view among many that this is in fact a clash of
civilizations and an anti-Islamic crusade that is guided by an
Islamophobic West. Recent revelations involving the degradation of
the Koran by US interrogators in Guantanamo Bay and the EU’s
absurd display of solidarity with Denmark in the recent cartoon
controversy which inflamed Muslim passions, is further proof, in
the eyes of many Muslims and Westerners alike, that a clash of
civilizations is being fueled by the West.
This
is further augmented if one notes how Rumsfeld described Europe
and the US during the Munich conference not only as partners with
common strategic interests but rather as the “civilized world”
and as “a community, with shared histories, common values, and
an abiding faith in democracy” facing a war that was declared by
forces wishing to establish “a global extremist Islamic
empire.”
Rumsfeld’s
whimsical, self-serving depiction of the conflict leaves no room
for any criticism of the West. In fact, during his speech at the
Munich conference we do not see any attempt made to distinguish
between the goals of various Islamic movements nor do we see any
acknowledgement of America’s failed policies in Iraq or the role
that the West had historically played in creating many of the
legitimate grievances that Muslims repeatedly mention. Instead,
Rumsfeld reiterated the convenient, self-gratifying cliché that
the conflict is within the Muslim world, as Muslims are
constantly depicted as hopelessly struggling to come to terms with
the benevolent message of freedom that the West is supposedly busy
propagating.
The
US’ newly declared strategic posture aims at the liquidation
of whatever is left of the concept of national soveregnty. |
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In
addition, Rumsfeld shamelessly accuses the Islamists – the
victims of the West’s global onslaught – of designing and
distributing “a map where national borders are erased and
replaced by a global Islamist empire.” The historical fact that
the borders of many Arab/Muslim states were drawn by imperialist
forces during the era of colonialism and the current US
manipulation of various ethnic and sectarian differences across
the Middle East is conveniently omitted.
In
addition to further enhancing the prospects of a clash of
civilizations, the US’ newly declared strategic posture aims at
the liquidation of whatever is left of the concept of national
sovereignty and seeks to legitimize military intervention and
clandestine operations anywhere in the world under pretexts that
are dubious at best. The mere fact that the US military is
encouraged in the QDR to “operate around the globe,” rather
than limit itself to certain zones of conflict, is indicative of
an expansionist mentality that has failed to fully grasp the
ramifications of extreme counterterrorism measures. The recent
uproar in Pakistan over the violation of Pakistani airspace by a
US air strike against a residential compound that missed al-Zawahiri
and killed at least 17 Pakistani women and children, and numerous
other CIA fiascos, is indicative of the kind of controversies that
are likely to arise when the US undertakes activities that are in
total violation of the sovereignty of even those countries with
supposedly allied governments.
Trial
and Error or Trail of Terror?
The
fact that the US military is encouraged to “operate around the
globe” rather than limit itself to certain zones of conflict
indicates a mentality that has failed to grasp the ramifications
of extreme counterterrorism measures. |
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By
all means, the newly released defense review and Rumsfeld’s
comments entail a grandiose project that involves diagnosing areas
of strategic deficiency and revising some of America’s
long-standing strategic premises in light of the challenges the
country is currently facing and is likely to face in the future.
On
the other hand, there are increasing doubts with regards to the
ability of the US government to practically achieve those
objectives, given that the Bush administration is planning to
spend $120 billion on the wars of Afghanistan and Iraq this year
– a 20% increase over last year’s military expenditure –
bringing the total cost so far to $440 billion despite plans to
reduce US troops in both countries. Analysts suggest that the cost
of the Iraq conflict alone is now approaching the cost of the
Korean War - $330 billion in today’s terms. Meanwhile, the
overall cost of the “war on terror” is already close to half a
trillion dollars, and will soon equal that of the 13-year Vietnam
war. Despite doubts about the practical applicability of such a
strategic doctrine, the new plan is extremely consequential for
the Muslim world and entails that the global conflict currently
underway is becoming a limitless, borderless, endless conflict
that is heading towards unbridled escalation and confrontation.
The
strategic and military quagmire in which the US currently finds
itself in Iraq and the many cards at Iran’s disposal might delay
a US-Iranian showdown. Nevertheless, by institutionalizing an
expanded defense review that calls upon the US military to operate
globally in conjunction with Europe and other pro-Western allies,
and by putting no limits on either the duration of the war or its
perceived battleground, the entire Muslim world will be in a
position of conflict with the West in a war that is increasingly
becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy of apocalyptic proportions.
Jason
Burke, the author of Al-Qaeda: The True Story of Radical Islam,
mentions that al-Qaedism as a political ideology is gaining
significance and that Islamist militants are developing
dual-loyalties – loyalty towards liberation within the local
context coupled with a sense of transnational Islamic loyalty
linking their local struggle to the overall conflict against the
West.
**Kareem
M. Kamel, Ph.D. is an Egyptian analyst based in Cairo, Egypt. He
holds an MA in International Relations from the American University
in Cairo and a PhD in Political Science from the American University
of London. He is currently an instructor at the British
University in Egypt and specializes in security studies,
decision-making, nuclear politics and the politics of Islam and the
Middle East.
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