After the horror of the attack on the World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001, George W. Bush launched a "war on terror" with support from all sorts of nations around the world. At the time, the whole world united in shared disgust at the use of indiscriminate terror on innocent people. It is a tragedy that the power of that shared moment of unity has been wasted by Bush's change from a focused effort to combat terror, into a variety of wars prosecuted by the US.
The initial attack on the Taliban regime in Afghanistan had international support, and even the subsequent pursuit of Al Qaida in Afghanistan was also supported by many allies. However, he did not get the same support for his almost total U-turn from applying human rights standards to any nation seeking an alliance with the United States, to turning a blind eye to all sorts of abuse if the nation supported Bush's hunt for terrorists. Far too many dubious regimes were let off the hook, often on the most flimsy grounds.
Finally the totally false link between the war on terror and Saddam Hussain's regime in Iraq, meant that Bush squandered any sympathy he still had by attacking that regime and ignoring the plans for nation building that some in his administration had been preparing.
As Bush continues to blunder through Iraq, to the desperate misery of the Iraqi people, and as he prepares to attack Iran for nuclear programmes which may contravene international standards, he finds himself increasingly isolated. The original informal mandate the United States received as the victim of the shocking attack on 9/11 has vanished with Bush's focusing on attacking one Middle Eastern country after another.
At this delicate moment in American foreign policy, the BBC is due to launch the new season of its controversial Doha Debates, with the first debate due this week on whether it is time to talk to Al Qaida. We will hear what the panel decides when the programme comes out later this week, but two problems come to mind immediately.
First, Bush does not want to talk to Al Qaida. His fiery and determined rhetoric still dominates US policy on Al Qaida: "hunt them down", "smoke them out", with statements coming more from the Wild West that no-one will rest until all the perpetrators are found and either arrested or killed.
However, the reality is that the American efforts to find the original Al Qaida targets in Afghanistan have faded away to become almost routine parts of the Nato operations there. The active battle has moved to Iraq, where over four years of American-led misrule have allowed Sunni Islamist radicals to join forces with Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaida, despite having nothing to do with them before. This has united two different struggles: one against the coalition forces, and the other is Bin Laden and his followers' wider terrorist actions against worldwide targets.
Challenge
The second problem is more of a challenge, which is to find out what can the United States and Al Qaida talk about, even if they wanted to, given the complete asymmetry of the two sides: the United States is a well established nation, with deeply rooted civil institutions and a population with shared values, and a military ready to follow orders of the executive arm of government. Al Qaida is a loosely coordinated collection of radical terrorists, with no political agenda beyond that of destroying its targets. There is no place in either side's agendas for compromise or debate. Leaving aside that both the US and Al Qaida regard the other as evil and beyond any compromise, their two political agendas do not connect on any point. The United States has a clear political agenda and is a leading part of the international debate on how the world should be run. While many might oppose its ideas, it still remains a significant part of the world order. Al Qaida has the vaguest of manifestos, revolving around some broad preferences for the creation of a Muslim Umma, with no practical ideas on how to make this happen.
That said, it is possible that the US (maybe under a new presidency) might find itself in some kind of debate in the future with the Iraqi section of Al Qaida, as it seeks to find a peaceful end to the bitter series of civil wars in Iraq. Such dialogue would have the political and geographical focus to allow a political compromise to be worked out. This cannot be confused with a dialogue over the shadowy worldwide aims of the original Al Qaida.
But it remains true that talking is obviously much better than killing. If a route between two opposing sets of religious, moral and political values can be found, and if both sides are prepared to back down from the heady rhetoric they have both used, then a very skilled intermediary might improve the chances of ending the killing. It does not seem likely, but it is a very worthy aim.
Send us your comments
TERMS AND CONDITIONS
Gulf News may edit comments for length and clarity but will not change the tone of the message. Comments will only be accepted all if fields (including name) are filled correctly and the message isn't abusive, defamatory or offensive. The Gulf News website will only print your first name along with your comment. Please state in the message if you wish to remain anonymous. All comments sent may be forwarded for use in the Gulf News newspaper.
