The US war on terrorism: strategies and impacts

U.S. war on terrorism

The present paper focuses on the motives for the change in attitude of the international community after the U.S.-led invasion in Iraq.

The central point of the paper is the assumption that, after the war in Afghanistan, the U.S. motivated its military actions in Iraq by the existing breach of human rights conventions. Although there was a general belief that the people of Iraq were living under severe state oppression, there are arguments that the salvation of the Iraqi people was used as a mere pretext for the U.S.'s secret motives. The violent air attacks over Baghdad and the loss of civilian lives, the Abu Ghraib scandal and the results of the Commission for WMD revealing the lack of information regarding Iraqi weapons, all these forced the international community to slowly withdraw military forces and political support.

Supporting the cause of the American policy, Robert J. Lieber gives arguments in favor of U.S. dominance in post 9/11 era. Building his idea on three major points, Lieber names the terrorist threat and WMD as main sources of instability and the ones that requires immediate exercise of U.S. leadership. Lieber goes on saying that the inefficiency of the UN and that of other regional organizations together with the undeniable U.S. military supremacy morally constrain America to play the role of world dominant.

On the other hand, Kaye Dalia Dasa argues in favor of the idea that the U.S. used the pretext of humanitarian intervention in order to settle an older dispute with Saddam Hussein, dating back to the first Gulf war, when, being under intense international pressure, the U.S. was forced to withdraw from their march for Baghdad. By the same token, Robert Kagan affirms in his book "Of paradise and power"(2003) that "the differences regarding Iraq were not only political, but there was also a matter of principles" (p. 89).

Therefore, the gap between Europe and the U.S. is motivated as resulting from the different ideas on world order, on the need for a global leader.

There is still a vivid recollection of the tragic events of the 9/11 and there is little doubt that any sensible man would ever forget the terrifying images showing the collapse of the WTC. Together with the steel and concrete structures, a former world had passed away. At that moment in time few were those who refused to support the U.S. mourning its victims, and wholeheartedly swore allegiance to fight against the new threat of the century: the invisible terrorism.

Today, four years into the post 9/11 era, few are those openly supporting the U.S. actions against terrorism, not because they lack enthusiasm in tackling this global threat, but because there is a growing sense of disapproval for the methods used by the Bush administration in waging the war against terror. One crucial moment in determining the sides was surely the intervention in Iraq. If the invasion of Afghanistan bore the official seal of the UN Security Council, the Iraq operations were planed at the headquarters of a "Coalition of the willing," which unsurprisingly was based in Washington.

There are many sides to this issue. Yet, there are some undisputed developments on the international scene that advance the conclusion that the appetite for unilateral actions, the poor management of on-the-ground military personnel and economic hidden agendas cost the White House much needed political support.

The international community was driven back a few years by the events of September 2001. It was the moment when both the Americans and the Europeans realized that nobody was truly untouchable and invulnerable. The U.S. then rallied support for the Afghanistan operations.

The Iraq invasion was a completely different issue, though. As Dalia Dasa Kaye, collaborator of the Clingendael Institute suggests, "...the United States transformed the long fostering problem of Saddam Hussein's Iraq into an international crisis by demanding that Saddam comply with the UN Security Council resolutions calling for complete disarmament. While the official reason to confront Iraq was its violation of UNSC resolutions regarding WMD and disrespect for human rights, it was no secret that the Bush administration did not believe the Iraq problem could be solved without the removal of Saddam Hussein. While the Europeans also wanted to see Iraq disarmed, they did not see the problem with the same urgency as the Americans and were opposed to overthrowing the Iraqi regime. Even governments who supported the use of force, most notably Britain, did not support the regime change."

Motivating U.S. position, author Robert J. Lieber justifies the preemptive and preventive use of force by the American policymakers: "militant Islamic terrorism plus weapons of mass destruction pose a threat and require us to alter the way we think about the preemptive and even preventive use of force." Supporting the human rights argument presented by the U.S. officials as the primary cause for invading Iraq in March 2003, the author affirms that "despite the subsequent bloodshed, chaos and insurgency, resort to force against Saddam Hussein was a lesser evil because of the dangerous long-term strategic threat he posed to the region and to U.S. national interests" (Lieber, introduction).

Therefore, it can be argued that invoking humanitarian reasons for invading Iraq was in fact, a pretext for deeper, more profound regime and political change in the region.

O. Russbach argued in his "ONU contre ONU," when discussing specific aspects of humanitarian intervention that the crime committed by Saddam Hussein in 1990 when invading Kuwait was qualified and dealt with by all states because it served influent interests. Yet, war crimes committed by the same regime during the '80 against the Kurd population, even though they were strongly condemned, did not receive an appropriate response, because states had no intention of acting against the regime, mostly because of the situation generated by the Cold War. He goes on saying that national interests stopped the international community to act against the atrocities committed by Saddam Hussein. If such opinions did exist in connection to other situations when the right to humanitarian intervention would have been legally exercised, it could be fair to assume that human rights violation could be used to support an otherwise illegitimate intervention. Even so, this is considered mere speculation; verifiable facts are the number of deaths among the Iraqi people and the state of chaos and disorder facing the new-built society. The U.S. reaction is rather detached; Marine Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that since Sept. 11, 2001, "we have been a nation at war," and Iraq is a conflict zone, where people may die. Such a pragmatic argument may be suited for dodging uncomfortable questions in the Press Rooms, but, on the international arena, it alienates war time partners like Spain and Poland, who, yielding to national pressure, withdrew their troops.