An elastic limit to power

American approval of Bush's handling of war in Iraq has already slipped from 74 per cent in April to 53 per cent today. For several weeks the press and other critics have accused the president of hyping the Iraqi threat to justify a war. The accusation has sharpened after the administration has recently admitted that the president's claim delivered last January in his state of the union address that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Africa was based partly on forged document. Although, George Tenet, the CIA director opted to be a fall-guy for the Presidential gaffe by accepting the responsibility of allowing the bogus intelligence to appear in the President's speech the credibility and reputation of the President himself is no less dented and smeared.

The Americans also have the indignation of being dragged into a war unnecessarily waged in defiance of the UN, the international opinion and international law -- a war in which the US scored, at the best, a pyretic victory, when taken into consideration the commitment of 1,50,000 troops and a cost of $1 bn a week and one of which General Tommy Frank said that it could go for another four years. An increasing number of Americans seem to have begun to view their President as a war monger who, they feel, took them for a ride with his canard of Saddam collecting uranium from Niger.

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Now after having gone to war to remove the danger posed by Saddam's WMD it is highly embarrassing if that danger proves to be a hoax. That's what has happened with the coalition forces' inability to find any WMD in Iraq the threat of which was fabricated and exaggerated by the neo-cons to justify a pre-emptive strike in Iraq. Mr Bush will continue to be dogged by the warped decision on war which is bound to take its toll in his re-election campaign. In the meantime congressional leaders are pushing for a full investigation into the controversial intelligence used by the President to make his case for the war. Some of the Congressmen are openly accusing the president of duping the Congress in giving approval for the invasion in Iraq.

After the bogey of WMD, another of the reason cited by Bush administration for launching an attack on a sovereign country has been effectively disproved as a recent congressional report categorically finds that there was no link between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussain regime. This is a fresh blow to the credibility of President Bush and his British 'poodle' Prime Minister Tony Blair. Thanks to the shameful complicity of the US media which faithfully amplified White House propaganda, 75 per cent of the Americans were led to believe that Iraq attacked the US on 9/11 and was in league with Al-Qaeda as a result. Bush's highly censured war on terrorism with its failure to kill Laden was turned into a hugely popular comparing against Iraq. The congressional report justly nailed those lies.

However, the situation created by the US' failure to find the WMD or a link between Saddam regime and Al-Qaeda could possibly be overlooked -- at least within America -- if other war promises were kept, namely bringing freedom, peace security and democracy to the 'liberated' people of Iraq; improving the quality of their life and, of course, increasing Iraqi oil production, a covert objective of the war. The president seems to be drawing blank on all these counts.

Even if the post-war situation in Afghanistan is no better than that of Iraq and the regrouping and resurfacing of Talibans, defeated two years ago, have already started, the US was able to cobble together an indigenous administration for Afghanistan to be headed by a pliant Hamid Karazai to loyally serve the US interest in the country while Pakistan's President Musharraf is there to protect its vulnerable flank. No similar arrangement could be crafted for Iraq where the defiant Iraqis are openly protesting against the US' presence. Even 100 days after the fall of Baghdad peace is elusive and a total chaos prevails in the country.

There is no administration in place to provide basic services like water and electricity. The law and order that collapsed in the aftermath of the departure of the Baathists is yet to be restored. On the contrary, internal disorder has escalated resulting in myriad social crimes and utter insecurities -- particularly for women and children. As for democracy, the Americans simply do not know how to go about it in a society that has a feeling of being betrayed. After abandoning the idea of setting up an Iraqi administration they have just appointed a 25-member Iraqi council. But practically running the country remains securely in the hands of a non-Iraqi administrator, Paul Bremer. Caught in the throes of an armed resistance the country is now fit for anything but an US-delivered democracy.

General John Alizaid the new Centcom chief lately conceded that what the US was now facing in Iraq was a guerilla type of resistance immediately bringing back the spectre of Vietnam which left 57,000 Americans dead. By now over 150 American soldiers and other personnel died in Iraq making the Iraq enterprise one of the costliest conflicts for the US in many years. Atleast one quarter of them were killed after George W Bush triumphantly declared the war closed on the May day. As the bodybags pile up the hearts sink in both Washington and London where the military brass must be re-thinking strategy for reversing the trend.

During the colonial days the peace was the conditions created after the successful imperial conquest which these days portends only the beginning of a fresh conflict. Peace can hardly be restored unless pre-conquest conditions are brought back in some form or other. The US which won the wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq decisively lost the peace and will seldom be prepared to pay the price for its restoration -- that is to unconditionally vacate the occupation in both the cases.

As for the nationhood it is sustained mostly by local dynamics in our clime and an externally-delivered attempt to create one is bound to fail. As regard Iraqi nationhood if one was created by Saddam in a highly pluralistic society it is now in shreds. In a tribal society like Afghanistan some semblance of nationhood was crafted by its successive rulers with their ingenuity. But now the society is further splintered. The question of much vaunted rebuilding and reconstruction comes once the nation is in place. This is apart from marshalling resources for such Herculean task. Obviously, the nation building and reconstruction are non-starter in both the war ravaged countries.

Under the circumstances, Bush's desire to enter the next year's election campaign on the plank of grand peace maker and nation builder may remain unfulfilled. Yet he will be left with the centre-piece of his peace making bid to cobble together some sort of peace deal between the Palestinians and the Israelis -- of course, on the latter's terms. Therefore, a malleable Mahmood Abbas is painstakingly groomed as the 'leader' of the Palestinians while all efforts are on, concomitantly, to side line the only genuine and elected leader of the Palestinians, Yasser Arafat. That ominously points to the kind of peace deal that is likely to be struck. More ominous is the fact that the peace package aims also at somehow wangling Israel's recognition from as many Muslim states as possible. Bush's points-men from among the Muslim countries are already on the job. What a sweetener would it be to Bush's campaign next year to have a stream of Muslim states recognising the 'reality' of Israel!

This is only if things go as planned by the neo-cons. Things went hay-wire in both Afghanistan and Iraq. In spite of a smooth beginning the roadmap for peace also has started to have its own snags as anticipated by many. Bush may well win his reelection next year, but not in the image of either a peace maker or a nation builder. He has to bully and blunder his way as a warrior President.

Brig ( retd) Hafiz is former DG of BIISS.