Monday, Dec 29, 2003

President George W. Bush could hardly have imagined a better end to the year for his administration's foreign policy goals than the events that have unfolded in the last three weeks of December. The capture of Saddam Hussein, the unexpected announcement by Libya of its intention to dismantle its weapons of mass destruction and the signing of an agreement by Iran to open up its nuclear facilities to international inspections may or may not change the challenging facts on the ground in the Middle East. But it is already clear that, for the time being at least, they have significantly changed the political air in Washington.

The Iraq war and its aftermath were always going to be the defining event of the Bush administration. That was what made the decision to go to war such a calculated gamble in the first place. The success or failure of the mission would in all likelihood determine whether Mr Bush would be re-elected to a second term. More important, it would set the course of US foreign policy for years and perhaps decades to come. For if the American armed forces succeeded in knocking over the regime in Baghdad and replacing it with a stable, secular, liberal democratic polity virtually unique in the Middle East, the grandest ideals of neo- conservatives and democratic imperialists would be realised.

But if the US failed, all the assumptions about American power that have underpinned the raucous international policy debate for the past few years would be swept aside and this administration, or more likely another one, would have to begin the painstaking task of rethinking and reconstructing the relationship between the US and the rest of the world.

When Mr Bush declared an end to all "major combat operations" in that infamously choreographed spectacle on board the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, it looked like the beginning of the new era that proponents of the war had predicted. After a short and relatively bloodless conflict, the dramatic new direction in which US foreign policy had turned under Mr Bush appeared to have been spectacularly vindicated.

Though still a work in progress, the evolving "Bush doctrine" has three central elements: aggressive confrontation with - and if necessary, pre-emptive military action against - countries that support terrorism and have the means to use or supply terrorists with weapons of mass destruction; firm assertion of the US's right to take that action irrespective of the disapproval of its global allies or the opposition of international institutions; and the active promotion of democracy around the world, especially in the Middle East, if necessary by using military action against dictatorships. This last objective was not initially part of the post-September 11 2001 philosophy but in 2003 it became an increasingly critical element of the overall strategy.

On all three counts, when Mr Bush gave his victory speech in May, the Iraq action looked like a preliminary success. Though the terrorism connection was never firmly established, it seemed beyond any reasonable doubt that Mr Hussein had had WMD and that Iraq would now be disarmed; the US and a few allies had faced down international opposition at little apparent cost; and Iraq was being readied for a US-led transition to democratic rule.

Soon, however, "mission accomplished" looked more like the apogee of Bush foreign policy achievement. Steadily, almost daily, American confidence in the wisdom of the decision to invade and occupy Iraq began to seep away, imperceptibly at first, then in torrents.

As US casualties climbed higher, opinion polls registered a sustained decline in support for the war and for Mr Bush himself. Evidence of intensifying Iraqi discontent, the failure to find the WMD on which the war was predicated, new terrorist attacks elsewhere in the Middle East, escalating reverses in Afghanistan - all challenged the entire foreign policy strategy launched by Mr Bush, Dick Cheney, the vice- president, and Donald Rumsfeld, the secretary of defence. The president's approval ratings dropped from 75 per cent in early May to below 50 per cent in November.

Politicians, policymakers and the army of think-tank experts, former practitioners and academics who supply them also began to express bigger doubts about the entire strategy.

Democrats made hay. Howard Dean, the one-time no-hoper from Vermont who most vigorously opposed the war, swept to the front of presidential candidates. Most of the Democrats who had supported the invasion sought to distance themselves from it. The administration seemed vulnerable to the withering accusation that its foreign policy had made the US more vulnerable, by shifting attention and resources from the fight against al-Qaeda and providing a new locus for terrorism.

Even among the president's supporters, there was clear evidence of a creeping unease. "Clearly, the administration's planning for the post-conflict phase in Iraq was inadequate," Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, wrote in The Washington Post in the summer. "I am concerned that the Bush administration and Congress have not yet faced up to the true size of the task that lies ahead, or prepared the American people for it."

Tellingly, hard-line supporters of the war began to quarrel among themselves. Neo-conservatives close to the administration, often viewed outside the US as awesomely influential, blamed bull-headed arrogance at the Pentagon for the deepening mess. In November, William Kristol and Robert Kagan, editors of the neo-conservative The Weekly Standard, penned a blistering assault on Mr Rumsfeld for his refusal to countenance the possibility that more US troops might be needed. "It would be helpful if the Pentagon implemented a strategy consistent with the president's stated goals. Or we can cross our fingers and just hope it all works out. . . " they wrote. "The president calls our effort in Iraq 'a massive and difficult undertaking'. It is that, and it is also a necessary and admirable one. The question is whether Bush will see to it that his Pentagon does what it takes to make that undertaking succeed."

Paul Wolfowitz, deputy defence secretary and in many ways the architect of the Iraq strategy, was under siege and rumoured to be held in declining esteem at the White House. There was gloating speculation that he was on his way out, along with Douglas Feith, his deputy.

By November the Bush strategy had reached a new low point. It was the worst month for coalition military and Iraqi civilian casualties since the major combat phase of the war had ended; a resurgence of terrorist attacks inside and outside Iraq seemed to emphasise how misguided the Iraq operation had been; Paul Bremer, the civilian administrator, hurried home to confer with his superiors on yet another redesign of the tattered Iraq nation-building project. Enterprising reporters dug up embarrassing evidence of scandals surrounding the awarding of contracts to well connected companies such as Halliburton. Mr Bush's surprise Thanksgiving morale-booster for the troops looked like a cosmetic attempt to disguise the disarray for a domestic audience. Even the turkey he smilingly displayed for photographers turned out to be fake.

The warnings of those who had opposed the war and cautioned against American hubris hung heavy over the public debate. The National Journal, an independent weekly read widely in Washington, captured the sobering mood with a cover story that read, with brutal and ironic concision: "The French Were Right".

This was no cheap shot. Just as the early apparent victory appeared to have validated all elements of the Bush strategy, the subsequent mess now seemed to invalidate them.

First, not only was there no connection established between Iraq and al-Qaeda terrorists but six months of searching had also failed to uncover a single instrument of WMD. That the administration appeared to have misled the American people about the case for war was bad enough. Much worse, it threatened to undermine any future case for pre-emptive action.

The second element of the Bush doctrine had also been weakened. The quasi-unilateral military intervention and its aftermath now looked like a costly mistake. Without international support the US seemed unable to stabilise Iraq; for all its vaunted military strength, it seemed, even the US still needed alliances - and the Bush team had consciously abandoned them.

The third element of the Bush strategy was the most evidently battered of all. The grand claims that Iraq could be turned into a democracy seemed baseless - heroic assumptions rather than informed judgments. The turmoil in the Sunni triangle and the failure to establish an effective political transition to self-rule served as a cruel reproach to Mr Bush's aim of democratisation of the Middle East.

"When you add it all up," wrote Charles Pena of the libertarian Cato Institute in a pamphlet published this month, "it's hard to imagine how the Iraq war could have been more wrong."

By the end of November, then, the US seemed to be at a turning-point. From here on, either things were going to carry on getting worse, condemning the president to repeat his father's one-term presidential experience and violently shifting the tack of US foreign policy, or something was going to turn up that would give new cause for hope to the war's supporters.

Just before Christmas something did turn up: first in the form of the bearded and bedraggled ex-dictator of Iraq; then a painstakingly negotiated agreement by Iran to permit international inspections; and last an unexpected agreement between the US, Britain and Libya to dismantle that once-pariah nation's WMD stockpile.

In domestic political terms, the capture of Mr Hussein has given Mr Bush an end-of-year fillip that significantly strengthens his chances of re-election. In early December, polls suggested only a slim majority of Americans thought the war was worth the cost in US lives and money. Just before Christmas, the same polls put support for the war at about 65 per cent. The proportion of Americans approving of Mr Bush's handling of foreign policy has risen to more than 60 per cent.

Critics of administration policy have been pushed back on to the defensive. Mr Dean looks the most damaged. In the days after Mr Hussein's capture, Mr Dean, seeking to justify his continued opposition to the war, gave a foreign policy speech in which he said the capture had not made Americans safer. It was, in objective terms, not an evidently false statement but his opponents seized on it with an alacrity that suggested the Hussein arrest had indeed swung the debate sharply round.

Just as the May "mission accomplished" speech looks like the high point of confidence in Bush foreign policy, so November may come to be seen as the nadir. Not only has the national political climate altered with the December surprise but the balance of the US strategic debate has also tilted.

The failure to find WMD still ranks as a significant weakness in the administration's case for war. But the Libyan decision has changed the terms of that debate. One of the central problems with the administration's approach - underlined by the failure to find WMD in Iraq - was that the threat of pre-emptive action appeared to raise the risk that countries would develop such weapons, especially of the nuclear variety. If you were an ambitious and unscrupulous dictator, ownership of the deadliest material seemed a sure way of guaranteeing that the US would not attack you.

But Libya may have demonstrated something different - that the US action against Iraq has produced a willingness to co-operate elsewhere. Some have argued that Libya's response has more to do with Colonel Muammer Gadaffi's attempts to repair relationships with the west in the past few years. There may be something to this view but it has problems: first, the timing of the Libyan leader's move, just as the Iraq war was starting; second, the fact that he chose to discuss his intentions with the US and Britain, not the United Nations; and third, and most important, the fact that he had been developing WMD for several years - not exactly the best way to ingratiate himself with the west. Why change now?

So, just as proponents of military action in Iraq said it would, the war intended to pre-empt Iraqi terrorism may have been more successful in pre-empting other regimes'. The fates of Col Gadaffi and Mr Hussein may serve as a useful jolt to other states with WMD capabilities or intentions.

Diplomatic achievements in December have also been seized on by the Bush administration to buttress its case that its aggressive action in Iraq was successful. The efforts of James Baker, former secretary of state, to get France, Germany and Russia to forgive Iraq's debts have yielded some early successes. And the Iranian decision to agree to international inspections would not have happened without the powerful example of what had happened in neighbouring Iraq.

Of course, these events in Libya, Iraq and Iran may also represent a softening of US policy. They suggest that painstaking diplomacy also produces positive results. The mission of Mr Baker especially may point to a change of approach by the US, perhaps stepping away from its hard-line approach towards adversaries as well as allies.

But Mr Bush's backers say that their approach always involved the carrot as well as the stick and that it was a crude caricature to describe it as the use of force alone. Indeed, they add, without firm US leadership in the face of opposition from the rest of the world an internationally agreed framework that helps stabilise the Middle East would not have been possible. Still, there are unmistakable signs of a slight thaw in US strategy.

The third element of the Bush strategy also looks more plausible than it did in November. Mr Hussein's capture may not significantly weaken the insurgency but it seems certain to have given the US greater credibility with ordinary Iraqis. This may provide time to correct the mistakes made in the occupation of the past six months, and strengthen Iraqis' faith in the institutions of a free country.

The Libya example does, however, underscore one important contradiction in the Bush strategy. It may be necessary, in the cause of gaining co-operation on WMD, to strike deals with tyrants such as Col Gadaffi.

Nothing that has happened this month by itself offers vindication for the Bush foreign policy approach. Indeed, much could yet go wrong if Iraq deteriorated further, or North Korea or other states stepped up their proliferation efforts, or the US seemed more isolated in its efforts. But if the US is eventually successful in curbing the spread of WMD and building a more stable Middle East, the events of December 2003 will probably come to be seen as the turning-point.

Gerard Baker

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