A new world order?

A new world order?

By Harold A. Gould

What now appears to be the case is that George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden have become rival fanatics.

THE ADJUSTMENTS George W. Bush has and has not made in his circle of advisors and Cabinet members following re-election to his second term as President of the United States, as well as the tenor of his inaugural address, have set Washington and the world abuzz as to what it all means. The prevailing wisdom has it that together they constitute a potentially dangerous cocktail fraught with many perils for an already deeply divided America and an anxiety-ridden international community.

It is a case of a President who won a second term by the narrowest vote-percentage margin in a century enunciating a messianic vision, which would be out of all proportion to contemporary political reality even if he had won by acclamation. If he can have his way, he says he intends to make the world safe for America by compelling all nations through persuasion, coercion and force, to become mirror-images of America; by adopting his neo-conservative concept of shopping-mall democracy wedded to radical, laissez-faire global economics.

In one of his climactic utterances, Mr. Bush declared that "it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world." To him this means: "The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands."

What gives pause to outside observers, of course, is the spectacle of how the U.S. under President Bush and his cohorts has set out to accomplish this lofty aim. If the fate of Iraq is the criterion of what their salvation means, then the international community has every right to tremble at the perils inherent in this grandiose strategic design.

What, ironically, now appears to be the case is that Mr. Bush and Osama bin Laden have become rival fanatics. This is the point that critics of Mr. Bush's inaugural address have failed to sufficiently note. American Jihad is now pitted against Islamic Jihad.

Osama bin Laden has from the outset mobilised his jihadist, quasi-state to wage `holy war' against the `infidels,' the `Crusaders,' who would sully the hallowed principles of Sharia Law, and prevent a restoration of the medieval Caliphate. By pronouncing a jihad of his own, Mr. Bush, has in spirit, at least, now placed America in the ranks of the political fundamentalists.

By doing so, even if his stated scenario is, in the words of Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne, more an "advertising slogan" than a plausible scenario, he has surely confirmed and reinforced Osama's nightmare fantasies about Judeo-Christian Crusaders determined to sweep away all vestiges of society and government that diverge from the Westminster ideal. Clearly, victory by either side would be bad for the silent majority who prefer to live quiet, productive lives untrammelled by the political rantings and religiously sanctified atrocities perpetrated by true-believing fanatics, no matter what their sectarian affiliation.

There may be, then, no need to take Mr. Bush's declared doctrine too literally. Apart from the sloganeering, there is no evidence that the President and his neocon entourage are either clear enough or competent enough to carry off their quixotic `100-percent-American jihad'. Also, the American public is insufficiently united behind him to support any further Iraq-like adventures such as a real `jihad-for-democracy' would obviously entail.

Mr. Bush, to reiterate, won by a bare majority of 51 per cent, and his performance ratings are even lower than his share of the popular vote. Moreover, there are many potential candidates for jihad out there that are too formidable to tackle, either because of political expediency (like Russia and China) or military prowess (like North Korea).

All rhetoric to the contrary, Mr. Bush lacks a credible political mandate for conducting what Dionne calls a "Freedom Shuffle." The thing that makes the Bush administration so dangerous, however, is the threat its bombastic rhetoric and blundering attempts to carry it out in practice represent to what is left of international stability.

It is certainly true that Mr. Bush's Cabinet changes appear to have considerably tightened the ship. Secretary of State Colin Powell and like doubters and dissenters were unceremoniously tossed overboard. Among the survivors, the one to watch is Condoleezza Rice who replaced Mr. Powell at the State Department. Walter Andersen, recently a State Department official who is now Associate Director of the Johns Hopkins University South Asian Studies Program, has some interesting things to say about this move.

While Ms. Rice is considered an implacable Bush loyalist, Dr. Anderson foresees a possible clash with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other members of the palace guard if she remains true to her words. Dr. Anderson believes she has indicated that, "her policy line will be less unilateral than [Rumsfeld's]." He points out, for example, that Ms. Rice has told "the members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the State Department would be the `primary instrument' of foreign relations."

This could forebode cleavage between State and both the Defense Department and the National Security Council, the latter which she herself chaired until her promotion.

In the light of this potential chink in the Bush administration's armour, one is tempted to speculate whether a "Becket drama" might be brewing in the wings. Ms. Rice's shift from the Royal Court (many parallels between the characters of King Henry and President Bush) to the Hallowed Cathedral (the proud and venerable Department of State where eternal verities of Statecraft repose) might indeed raise the question, as it did in ancient England, and has many times before and since then, of how much the Role make the Person. Should Ms. Rice as Secretary of State conform to Dr. Andersen's prognostications, and make a `Becket-shift' in the name of High Principle, we might witness an order of political disarray that could plunge what there is of the great counter-crusade into political disarray.

For those who fret about the destructive implications of jihadism, from whatever quarter it emanates, this indeed could be an outcome devoutly to be wished, if indeed it eventually compels the Bush administration to tone down its jihadist rhetoric and strive for less extremist, more consensual approaches to the world's problems. Ms. Rice would have to avoid being "Murdered in the Cathedral," so to speak, by the political enemies she would inevitably accumulate, as her predecessor, Mr. Powell, could not. Should she find ways to survive as an independent force for moderation and flexibility, if indeed this lurks in a hidden corner of her inner character, then perhaps American diplomacy ultimately might be saved from itself.

For, the principal danger facing the Bush Doctrine is that as things currently stand, it matches Osama Bin Laden's political creed in single-mindedness and militant ferocity, and consequently represents in spirit and intent the same type of threat to humankind as he does.

(Harold Gould is a Visiting Scholar in the Center for South Asian Studies at the University of Virginia.)