I have supported the Bush Doctrine from the start as an example of enlightened self-interest. As a democracy, the United States has always been threatened by despotic regimes of different colorings. In two world wars, that threat was translated into classical military conflicts. During the cold war, it consisted of a mix of political, diplomatic, and cultural campaigns against the U.S.—supplemented, at times, by low-intensity war waged through surrogates. In the past few decades, the threat has come in the form of terrorism—starting with the seizure of American hostages in Tehran in 1979, passing through the killing of 241 U.S. Marines in Beirut in 1983, and culminating in the 9/11 attacks.
In an ideal world, it would be up to an international body to “confront the worst threats before they emerge.” But we do not live in such a world, and the United Nations is in no position to assume the task. Thus, Bush is right both in his diagnosis and in his prescription. Over the past century or so, the United States has almost always been a force for good. It has helped defend freedom in Europe and Asia, and has invested blood and treasure to defeat fascism around the globe and to see off the Soviet “evil empire.” Fighting to defend and advance freedom is a natural goal for a self-respecting democracy.
The picture, moreover, is encouraging. The U.S. has achieved historic victories by destroying two of the worst despotic regimes in history—the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Baath in Iraq—and liberating more than 50 million people. In Afghanistan and Iraq, democratization is proceeding at a faster pace than I imagined. If the same cannot be said about the process of pacification and stabilization, that is largely because the U.S. and its allies have not committed the necessary forces and because the task of building the new Afghan and Iraqi armies has been hampered by squabbles within NATO, by bureaucratic rivalries in Washington, and by weak leadership in Kabul and Baghdad.
I have no doubt that the removal of the Taliban and the Baath has made the U.S. more secure. Four days before he fled, the Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar told the BBC that his regime had a single aim: no less than the destruction of America. Indeed, Afghanistan had become a haven for terrorists from more than 40 countries, all sharing a hatred of the United States. Iraq under the Baath was no better. Baghdad housed the headquarters of 23 terrorist organizations, while Saddam Hussein was biding his time until the United Nations sanctions would be lifted and he could put his war machine into full gear again.
The Bush Doctrine has produced other positive results. The obnoxious Colonel Quaddafi in Libya has ended more than 25 years as a sponsor of international terrorism and dismantled his programs for weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear warheads. The Sudanese Islamist-militarist regime has signed a U.S.-sponsored peace deal with the southern Christian rebels, accepted a power-sharing scheme, and promised multiparty elections. In Egypt, President Hosni Mubarak has submitted to the “ignominy” of a multi-candidate presidential election after 24 years of one-man rule. Saudi Arabia, which had always rejected the popular vote as a “Western disease,” has held its first, albeit limited, municipal elections. Kuwait has granted women the right to vote and to be elected. The Lebanese, encouraged by U.S. support, have risen against the Syrian occupation and forced the occupier to leave after more than a quarter-century. Afghanistan and Iraq have held their first free elections, and have adopted constitutions that are the most democratic in the Muslim world.
As for the Bush Doctrine’s longer-range prospects, we have to keep our fingers crossed. My fear is that once Bush has left office, his successor will relapse into the reactive torpor that, with brief but significant intervals, has marked American foreign policy since Vietnam.
The chief weakness of present American policy is the administration’s failure to develop a coherent approach to the problem of Iran. This has encouraged Tehran to challenge the Bush scenario for reform in the Middle East. In a speech in Tehran last June, Iran’s “Supreme Guide” Ali Khamenei put it starkly: “The Americans have their plan [for the region]. We also have a plan. We will not let the Americans impose theirs.”
The absence of a clear American policy toward Iran is a cause of concern throughout the region, including in Iraq and Afghanistan where politicians wonder what will happen if the next U.S. administration decides to cut and run, leaving Iran, which by then could have nuclear weapons, as the major local power. Similar concerns are aired from Rabat to Riyadh. This is what Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahamdinejad told Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad in Tehran in late August: “One day the Americans will leave. But we will always be there!”
Today Iran plays the role that the USSR once played, albeit on a smaller scale. When the USSR collapsed, the global structure of the totalitarian Left fell along with it. Similarly, when the Islamic Republic collapses, the global edifice of Islamofascism is likely to collapse.
There are three options concerning Iran: détente, based on a demarcation of areas of influence; a mini-cold war, which would include hot episodes fought through proxies all over the Middle East and beyond; and regime change through a mixture of political and military pressure. Doing nothing is not an option, if only because Iran is determined to move onto the offensive.
The editors’ final question has two aspects. First, does the U.S. have a world role? Let me quote the British author John Buchan, writing in 1929:
I hate cruelty. I hate using human beings as pawns in games of egotism. I hate all the rotten [totalitarian] creeds. I believe in liberty, though it may be out of fashion, and because America, in her queer way, is on the same side, I’m for America!
The second aspect of the question is whether or not Bush can unite his people behind his doctrine. Again let me quote Buchan:
No power or alliance of powers can defeat America. But suppose she is compelled to quarrel with a group of [rogue states] and that, with her genius for misrepresenting herself, she appears to have a bad cause. Has she many friends on the globe except Britain? Most countries will flatter her. But they hate her like hell. Trust them not to help matters by interpreting her cause sympathetically. Inside her borders she has a dozen [warring factions] which, in a situation like that, when she was forced to act and yet didn’t want to or didn’t know how to, might, if properly manipulated, split her from top to bottom.
