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Political Pulse 
Making Other Countries NervousConservatives of the 'World War IV' school see a long global conflict with Islam by William Schneider .... What happens after Iraq? Will the United States, emboldened by success, press for regime change in other countries? Some people say, "Why not?" "This Fourth World War, I think, will last considerably longer than either World War I or II did for us," former CIA Director James Woolsey said at a UCLA forum on April 2. (Woolsey calls the Cold War "World War III," echoing a view originally advanced in a 2001 Wall Street Journal article by international-relations scholar Eliot Cohen.) In Woolsey's view, World War IV pits the United States and its allies against dictatorships in Iraq and Syria, the religious rulers of Iran, Islamic terrorists such as Al Qaeda, and others. "We will make a lot of people very nervous," Woolsey said. "We will hear, for example, the Mubarak regime in Egypt or the Saudi royal family thinking about these ideas that these Americans are spreading of democracy in this part of the world." Egypt and Saudi Arabia are not democracies. So what if the United States does make them nervous? "Our response should be, 'Good. We want you nervous,' " Woolsey asserted. Woolsey and other conservatives of the "World War IV" school see a long-term, global conflict between the forces of civilization and "militant Islam." But President Bush has always carefully avoided portraying the war on terrorism as a clash of civilizations, the West versus Islam. "When it comes to the common rights and needs of men and women, there is no clash of civilizations," Bush said last year at West Point. The danger is that all this talk about World War IV and remaking the Middle East—by force—could turn the entire Muslim world against the United States. The World War IV theorists insist that the conflict is between moderate and extremist Muslims. The National Security Strategy statement that Bush sent to Congress last fall talks of "a clash inside a civilization, a battle for the future of the Muslim world." Iraq is the test case. The United States wants to showcase Iraq as a moderate, democratic regime with broad popular support. Above all, the United States does not want to be seen as an occupying power. But to rein in the lawlessness that threatens to undo the war's accomplishments, some form of government has to be established quickly in Iraq. Is that a role for the United Nations? "The U.N. does bring legitimacy," Secretary-General Kofi Annan observed. Russian President Vladimir Putin put it more negatively at a news conference with French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder last weekend. "The longer we delay the solution of the problem in the U.N., the more it will resemble a colonial situation," Putin said. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair have endorsed a "vital role" for the United Nations without getting more specific. When they met in Belfast, Northern Ireland, last week, Blair said, "This new Iraq that will emerge is not to be run either by us or, indeed, by the U.N. That is a false choice. It will be run by the Iraqi people." And Bush said, "From day one, we have said the Iraqi people are capable of running their own country." Nice try, but those comments beg the question of how Iraq will be run in the near future. Iraq won't become a democracy overnight. For the time being, somebody has to choose Iraq's new government. The United States and Britain will very likely assume that responsibility, in line with National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice's comment that the countries that shed "life and blood to liberate Iraq" will take the lead in remaking it. The war in Iraq could very well become the basis of a new world order, but possibly not the one the Bush administration wants. Last weekend's meeting that brought together Putin, Chirac, and Schroeder sounded, at times, like an anti-war summit. Putin announced at the outset, "The result of the military action is well known and regrettable. Nothing was found," meaning no weapons of mass destruction were uncovered. Just over 50 years ago, Western Europe joined with the United States to form an anti-Soviet alliance. Could Europe and Russia now be coming together in an anti-American alliance? Many Europeans now see the United States as a "rogue superpower"—and themselves as the only check on U.S. arrogance and recklessness. A Europe defined by anti-Americanism would be able to form an instant alliance with the Arab world. Such a step, some Europeans believe, might help protect Europe from terrorism. Blair is pressuring Bush to do the one thing that would diminish the wave of anti-Americanism in the world: Push vigorously for a new peace deal between the Israelis and Palestinians. What about the pressure from "World War IV" advocates for the United States to go after other bad guys, such as the leaders of Syria and Iran? Polls show that the American people are not eager to remain at war. In the April 10 Gallup Poll, only about one in four endorsed the idea of going to war with other countries—specifically, Iran, North Korea, and Syria—that are aiding terrorists and seeking to develop weapons of mass destruction. But Americans are eager for the United States to broker a new peace deal between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Americans want to see Bush the war president become Bush the peace president. Wouldn't that confound the world?
What do you think? Discuss this article in the Politics & Society conference of Post & Riposte. More from National Journal. More on politics and society in Atlantic Unbound and The Atlantic Monthly. William Schneider is the Cable News Network's senior political analyst. He is also a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., and a contributing editor for the Los Angeles Times, National Journal, and The Atlantic Monthly. His column appears every week in National Journal, a weekly magazine covering politics and government published in Washington, D.C. For information on National Journal Group publications, see NationalJournal.com. Copyright © 2003 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved. | [an error occurred while processing this directive] | ||
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