Two Years Later

The Malta Independent 

Two years after 9/11 the world is quite a different place from what it used to be. Could it be though that the change is mostly superficial and that the underlying causes that led to 9/11 remain unaddressed fermenting slowly until the time is ripe for their next hit?

The old regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq are no more. The US, with or without the cover of UN resolution, has moved in both places to dismantle regimes which were aiding and abetting organisations involved in terrorist attacks or were otherwise supposedly toying with weapons of mass destruction.

But events are proving that it is far easier to destabilise a regime through force than it is to fill the resultant power vacuum with anything resembling an orderly transition to a system of self-rule and eventually to a fully fledged democracy.

While Mullah and Hussein are no more and remain at large escaping US attempts to bring them to international justice, President Bush and Prime Minister Blair have not come out of this in good shape or unscathed.

The US is failing in its attempts to install a stable system of security in Iraq, with the daily occurrence of US soldiers falling victims of violence of resistant groups. It seems to have entered the war on Iraq without a clear exit strategy. President Bush is being forced to enter the last lap of his re-election presidential campaign facing a public, nervous about America’s inability to score victory in peace and not only in war. With the Middle East road map also largely in tatters, President Bush could find that what seemed an impetus from international political successes are in fact turning into a liability.

Which means that President Bush would need to base his re-election bid more on domestic economic performance rather than on the 9/11 popularity dividend. Having seen President Bush Snr. losing out his re-confirmation bid mainly due to domestic economic troubles which quickly wiped out the Gulf War success dividend in the short space of 18 months, President Bush Jnr. is unlikely to overlook the relevance of the ‘its-the-economy-stupid’ syndrome to clinch re-election.

Continual defence spending to support US presence in Iraq will prop up the US economy but at the huge expense of building strategic budget deficit which eventually will lead to higher interest rates. So President Bush is betting his chances on a strong economic re-bound in good time before Autumn next year and that the economic growth will cascade to the employment sector to translate growth into increased job opportunities for voters to feel comfortable about re-confirming their President about this time next year.

Tony Blair seems to have lost his shine. His best asset remains the inability of the conservative opposition to be perceived as a serious alternative. The Hutton investigation will probably be responsible not only for the premature departure of Alistair Campbell, Blair’s media chief, but could lead to the resignation of Minister of Defence Hoon. This tarnishing of Blair’s image comes at a rather odd time when Blair could also lose the virtual duel with Chancellor Brown about holding the referendum on Sterling’s Euro entry on this side of next elections. If, as seems likely, Sweden will next Sunday vote against giving up their krona for the Euro, the risk of pushing an early referendum on the British electorate will be too big even for Blair to contemplate and will expose Blair as being out-smarted by his own Chancellor.

So two years after 9/11, the two main leaders who enjoyed an immediate dividend for the resoluteness to rally from the shock of the disaster impact and fight back terrorism at its source, are labouring under the stress of the enormous resources they have used in the process without convincing evidence that they took care not only of the immediate propagators of terrorism but more importantly of its underlying source.

Because Saddams and Mullahs come and go but freedom fighters who misguidedly consider terrorism as their best form of expression unfortunately remain. Indeed with America being perceived as a defiant occupant by common Iraqis suffering instability and lack of security, Iraq is probably currently the best nursery for future terrorists.

This delivers a strong lesson that the events that make it to the surface, be they terrorist attacks or America’s response thereto, are just but the symptoms of the problem. The causes lie far beneath the surface. The most evident lesson from the events of the last two years is that it is far far more expensive and wasteful to react to the symptoms and far far more economic and productive to adopt a long term strategy to understand and address the underlying causes of terrorism.

President Bush and Prime Minister Blair should also have learnt that they cannot do this on their own. Much as they may dislike Chirac’s personality, there is no doubt that Chirac holds the chips for securing UN approval for a broad based peace plan for the Middle-East and for the transition to self-rule in Iraq. It is time for the US and UK to re-assess the situation of their presence in Iraq and of the lack of progress of the Middle East road map, and accept that peace cannot be imposed by force but more likely by the moral backing of a UN approved peace plan.

Two years later it’s time to look beneath the surface