Need for morality-driven international relations

But the perceptible return of the second Bush administration to multilateral diplomacy, albeit grudgingly (the strident voices of Condoleezza Rice and John Bolton reminding the global audience that the sabre only remains sheathed for the moment), is a welcome sign.

To be fair, President Bush's unremitting pursuit of conservatism is commendable because of his consistency that is no mean feat to achieve in politics.

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His brand of "patriotic conservatism" not only accords with the philosophy of the likes of Robert Kagan, Paul Wolfowitz, and Richard Perle, it has also most recently been endorsed by Nixon's first term Defense Secretary Melvin Laird, who has urged President Bush to "articulate a simple message and mission."

"Just as in the 1960s the spread of communism was very real," writes Melvin Laird "so the spread of radical fundamentalist Islam is very real today. Our troops are not fighting there (in Iraq) only to preserve the rights of the Iraqis to vote. They are fighting to preserve modern culture, Western democracy, the global economy, and all else that is threatened by the spread of barbarism in the name of religion. That is the message and the mission."

Laird's description of the US mission in Iraq resonates with John Foster Dulles' nightmare that unless a defense mechanism like Nato was formed, the Soviet Union would continue to threaten Western civilization and Christianity. Laird challenges the Bush administration to take lessons from Vietnam war, and advises that the US should not fail, as it did in Vietnam, to deliver logistical support to her allies, and must not countenance, as it did in Vietnam, Americanization of the war.

Laird feels that the US needs to put her "resources and unwavering public support behind a program of Iraqization so that we can get out of Iraq and have the Iraqis in a position to protect themselves." He endorses President Bush's view that Iraq is the front-line state in the war on terror, not because the terrorists dominate Iraq, but because Iraq provides the US with an opportunity "to displace militant Islamic rule throughout the region."

Many in the Bush administration and outside believe that President Bush's resolute stand in Iraq, despite dwindling support at home and abroad, is changing the political topography in the Islamic world. Egypt saw, however flawed, a multi-party presidential elections. Syrian troops had to withdraw from Lebanon, and now, because of the recent US-UK-France sponsored UNSC resolution passed unanimously on the assassination of Rafiq Hariri, feels compelled to cooperate with the German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, even if the conspiratorial links reach the uppermost echelon of Syrian administration, to President Bashar al-Assad's brother and brother-in-law.

Though these are early days -- since the Mehlis report contains only circumstantial evidence against the Lebanese-Syrian collusion in the Hariri murder that may not stand up in a court of law -- Syria has already agreed to cooperate with the prosecutors in the investigation.

Even in Saudi Arabia, where the regime is fighting for a foothold in the constant battle between a Western educated elite clamouring for transparent governance and a Wahabi religious establishment, voices for change are building up.

Despite these faltering steps towards openness in the Islamic world, Laird strongly recommends increasing US defense expenditure, already more than four hundred billion dollars, because of the realities of the global threat of terrorism coupled with the "outside possibility of conventional warfare with an enemy such as China or North Korea."

While a Stalinist North Korea having nuclear ambition taking an adversarial position vis-a-vis the US, is understandable, Laird's apprehension of China becoming a possible enemy of the US is noteworthy.

One may recall that as far back as 1968 President Nixon had realized that a China that lived in isolation from the international community would be more destabilizing than one that can be enmeshed in an interactive world. This realization led Nixon to open relations with China in 1972. President Carter following in Nixon's footsteps, normalized diplomatic relations with China in 1979. Presidents Reagan, George HW Bush, Bill Clinton and George Bush have followed policies of bilateral engagement with China and tried to bring China within the ambit of multilateral institutions.

There is, however, recognition more in the US than in Europe that China's rise as a global power is through her increasing hard power, which directly affects US national security in East Asia. The Chinese point of view is endowed with the realistic recognition that the US with its current primacy in military, economic, technological, cultural, diplomatic and all other domains, retains the position to exert greatest strategic pressure on China.

Besides, without American cooperative partnership, China cannot maintain its modernization efforts. On the other hand, the US needs Chinese help on issues like counter-terrorism, non-proliferation, maintenance of stability in the Middle East, trade and finance, etc.

But the Sino-US relationship, though lacking the confrontational character of the US-Soviet rivalry of the bygone days, does suffer from stress and strain. Some American academics hold the view that the US is unwittingly helping strengthen Chinese military power by promoting China's economic development. China counters this argument by saying that any conscious US strategy aimed at stunting the growth of the Chinese economy would adversely affect many US enterprises in China and deny the American people the opportunity to buy inexpensive high quality Chinese products.

As the fourth largest trading partner and the source of the largest US trade deficit, the Chinese economy is important to the US. Besides the US importers are increasing their reliance on China with a sizeable part of their import from that country. In the long run, Beijing University Professor Wang Jisi believes, US primacy will decline and multi-polarity will inevitably reemerge, as the European-Russian-Chinese differences with the US will deepen with time.

Given the current turbulence seen worldwide, one wonders whether there is merit in the argument proffered by Professor Niall Ferguson that if the world insists on the withdrawal of the US hegemony, it may not necessarily be replaced by multi-polarity but by apolarity heralding "an anarchic Dark Age: an era of waning empires and religious fanaticism, of endemic plunder and pillage in the world's forgotten regions; of economic stagnation and civilization's retreat into a few fortified enclaves."

Despite such apocalyptic warnings, the world, both the non-US developed and the developing parts, is unlikely to buy the theory of Hegemonic Stability pioneered by Kindelberger: that an open world economy requires a dominant global power for its smooth functioning. If the US were to be considered as the hegemonic power, then its legitimacy deficit caused through coercive conduct particularly since 9/11 has already lessened its hegemonic power.

Besides, the imperial over-stretch already felt by the Bush administration due to multifarious American military commitment, would gradually lessen the US role as the global hegemon. In that case, the answer lies in the strengthening of the UN system and international law.

Since power ultimately belongs to the people it is necessary to bring back popular confidence in the conduct of international affairs by the big powers. Perhaps it may also be useful to remind ourselves of the Nixon Doctrine contained in his foreign policy report to Congress in 1970 that the US will participate in the defense and development of her allies and friends but "America can not and will not conceive all the plans, design all the programs, execute all the decisions and undertake all the defenses of the free nations of the world. We will help where it makes a real difference."

The Nixon Doctrine stands in contrast with the Bush doctrine of preemption that subordinates the Westphalian concept of sovereignty and normative practice of the international law. One would, however, like to hope that Kantian morality should not be a daydream or a figment of imagination for the people of the world. It needs to have a place in all decision making process from the smallest geographical area to the international arena.

Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, while discussing Harvard Professor Benjamin Friedman's book The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth, stresses the role of ethics in growth, as "societal goods such as greater equality and better environment" do not necessarily accompany growth. He questions another Nobel laureate Simon Kuznet's thesis that eventually growth will bring more social justice, because there is no inevitability about it, as growing inequality in the US itself provides ample testimony.

Therefore if globalization is to succeed by making the world into a single moral community and not merely a pluralistic society of state, then the commitment of all members of the UN to the rule of law and guarantee of equality and justice has to be ensured.

Kazi Anwarul Masud is a former Secretary and Ambassador.