Two thousand four is an election year, and not just in the United States. Balloting will be held in Afghanistan, where the interim government of Hamid Karzai is scheduled to be replaced with something more permanent. None of the prospects look good. Mr. Karzai is president in name only. His authority exists only in the city of Kabul and even there he has American soldiers guarding him. Most of the country is under the control of warlords, who keep their own armies, levy their own taxes and make their own rules. Mr. Karzai has not challenged them and in recognition of that, the warlords may let him win next year’s election and remain as figurehead and fig leaf. The only other alternative may be the return of the Taliban, which is active again in eastern Afghanistan, along the Pakistani border.
George Bush promised to rebuild Afghanistan, but there was no money for it in the 2003 budget. The press made an issue of the missing Afghanistan funds and the White House made some belated promises, but it’s unlikely Mr. Bush can even find Afghanistan on a map anymore.
At this point, he’s probably wishing he could forget where Iraq is, too. The war has not yet been declared over and already the first “post-war” administrator is out on his butt. The neocons at the five-sided cult managed to get their boy put in charge of Iraq’s reconstruction, but somehow having Jay Garner walk around shaking every hand he could find just didn’t do anyone any good. Now L. Paul “Also Known As Jerry” Bremer III will have a shot at it. Burning, looting and gun violence still rule in Baghdad. The Baath Party has been declared “dissolved,” but the few Iraqis allowed any authority by the Americans are former members of the Saddam regime. There’s not much electricity, there’s very little water coming in or sewage going out and food is hard to come by, so of course, job one is to get the oil pumping. Did I mention Mr. Bremer is a protégé of Henry Kissinger’s?
Iraqi oil is the cause for turnover at the top of the British reconstruction team as well. Clare Short, Tony Blair’s secretary of international development, resigned this week with a blast at the US-UK attempt to bully the UN Security Council into giving the two nations power to select Iraq’s next government and control over the country’s oil reserves. Ms. Short further charged Mr. Blair has bypassed both Parliament and his own cabinet and is taking too much power into his own hands. Sounds as if Tony’s been taking pointers from George on evading the democratic process.
Clare Short is right. Bush and Blair may think that “to the victor go the spoils,” but unless there is a true international consensus on the future of Iraq and its oil, a consensus achieved through the United Nations, then the Persian Gulf is doomed to decades of instability, terror and war.
None of this bodes well for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. The long awaited “road map” was finally released; Ariel Sharon is expressing no interest in it whatsoever and George Bush seems unwilling to do anything to change Mr. Sharon’s mind. Right now it seems the only purpose the road map serves is to put a new catch phrase into the mouths of diplomats, because the words “Oslo” and “Camp David” have long since grown stale and tasteless.
The smoking ruins of Riyadh testify that the fall of Saddam has neither stopped nor slowed Al Quaeda. We have not yet found any weapons of mass destruction, we haven’t stopped terrorism and there’s no stability in the Middle East.
The Bush administration is good at making war; it is not good at nation-building or tricky diplomacy. If your only tool is a hammer, you tend to treat everything like a nail. George Bush needs a bigger toolbox. Our friends – that’s right, friends – in Europe have the other tools so desperately needed in the Middle East. If Mr. Bush is truly interested in building stable democracies, he’ll let our friends come to our assistance.
Remedial Nation Building
Two thousand four is an election year, and not just in the United States. Balloting will be held in Afghanistan, where the interim government of Hamid Karzai is scheduled to be replaced with something more permanent. None of the prospects look good. Mr. Karzai is president in name only. His authority exists only in the city of Kabul and even there he has American soldiers guarding him. Most of the country is under the control of warlords, who keep their own armies, levy their own taxes and make their own rules. Mr. Karzai has not challenged them and in recognition of that, the warlords may let him win next year’s election and remain as figurehead and fig leaf. The only other alternative may be the return of the Taliban, which is active again in eastern Afghanistan, along the Pakistani border.
George Bush promised to rebuild Afghanistan, but there was no money for it in the 2003 budget. The press made an issue of the missing Afghanistan funds and the White House made some belated promises, but it’s unlikely Mr. Bush can even find Afghanistan on a map anymore.
At this point, he’s probably wishing he could forget where Iraq is, too. The war has not yet been declared over and already the first “post-war” administrator is out on his butt. The neocons at the five-sided cult managed to get their boy put in charge of Iraq’s reconstruction, but somehow having Jay Garner walk around shaking every hand he could find just didn’t do anyone any good. Now L. Paul “Also Known As Jerry” Bremer III will have a shot at it. Burning, looting and gun violence still rule in Baghdad. The Baath Party has been declared “dissolved,” but the few Iraqis allowed any authority by the Americans are former members of the Saddam regime. There’s not much electricity, there’s very little water coming in or sewage going out and food is hard to come by, so of course, job one is to get the oil pumping. Did I mention Mr. Bremer is a protégé of Henry Kissinger’s?
Iraqi oil is the cause for turnover at the top of the British reconstruction team as well. Clare Short, Tony Blair’s secretary of international development, resigned this week with a blast at the US-UK attempt to bully the UN Security Council into giving the two nations power to select Iraq’s next government and control over the country’s oil reserves. Ms. Short further charged Mr. Blair has bypassed both Parliament and his own cabinet and is taking too much power into his own hands. Sounds as if Tony’s been taking pointers from George on evading the democratic process.
Clare Short is right. Bush and Blair may think that “to the victor go the spoils,” but unless there is a true international consensus on the future of Iraq and its oil, a consensus achieved through the United Nations, then the Persian Gulf is doomed to decades of instability, terror and war.
None of this bodes well for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. The long awaited “road map” was finally released; Ariel Sharon is expressing no interest in it whatsoever and George Bush seems unwilling to do anything to change Mr. Sharon’s mind. Right now it seems the only purpose the road map serves is to put a new catch phrase into the mouths of diplomats, because the words “Oslo” and “Camp David” have long since grown stale and tasteless.
The smoking ruins of Riyadh testify that the fall of Saddam has neither stopped nor slowed Al Quaeda. We have not yet found any weapons of mass destruction, we haven’t stopped terrorism and there’s no stability in the Middle East.
The Bush administration is good at making war; it is not good at nation-building or tricky diplomacy. If your only tool is a hammer, you tend to treat everything like a nail. George Bush needs a bigger toolbox. Our friends – that’s right, friends – in Europe have the other tools so desperately needed in the Middle East. If Mr. Bush is truly interested in building stable democracies, he’ll let our friends come to our assistance.
So, where exactly is our president taking us?