The American military at the end of the Cold War was a formidable force, large in size, very well equipped, and quite capable of meeting any conceivable Soviet warfare challenge, nuclear or conventional. Its recovery from Vietnam was total. Thoughts of honing its fast fading counter-insurgency skills or of a search to discover how best to participate in peace-keeping and nation-building ventures were far from its doctrinal priorities.
The Sri Lankan government’s victory at the Western Provincial Council election held on April 25, 2009 can only have added to its confidence that it is proceeding on the popular path with regard to the war in the north. At these elections the ruling alliance secured 65 percent of the popular vote, which is a huge margin of victory. But what of the international response?
The controversial imprisonment by Iranian authorities of Roxana Saveri, an American citizen, has occurred just as there was an expectation of a thaw in Iranian-US relations. In March, president Obama used the occasion of the Iranian New Year to send a promising message to Tehran. Although, he did not impress every faction of the Iranian political elite, his commitment to a “new approach” was seen as a potential breakthrough for Iranian-US relations.
One of the enduring features of Western strategic thinking over the past half-century has been to immediately write off one’s less powerful enemy, if the latter has been militarily overpowered. As the history of contemporary warfare suggests, very often this approach is couched on the realist thinking that a vanquished enemy is incapable of making a comeback.
“Change” is the defining theme in the vision of Barack Obama for the future of American politics. Indeed, his proclaimed mission not only encompasses the transformation of American internal politics, but it also includes changing the direction of the US foreign policy. In that light, some have assumed that his arrival on the centre stage of American politics will mark a watershed in Iranian-American relations.
This essay argues that the war on terror that followed the 9/11 attacks on the United States is fundamentally misconceived and is actually achieving the opposite to what was intended. The architects of the war on terror have been chasing rainbows since 2001 as the harder they have run towards their goal, the further away it has seemed to move.
Iran is unlikely to give in to US and Israeli threats because the political elite in Tehran have staked their reputation on the nuclear issue and the Iranian’s do not believe that either the United States or Israel has either the ability or the willingness to attack their facilities. If Iran has miscalculated then there is the potential that the Middle East may erupt into an enormously damaging international conflict that will have significant ramifications for the international economic system.
In the west, China’s rise and increased attention to fundamentalist Islam have caused many to perceive a global contest in the export of values. At this particular crossroads of history there seem to be several very different maps for the future. In this context, many speak of the ‘decline of the west’, but what is it exactly?
If America learns nothing else from the misadventure in Iraq, it should learn the high price of unlawful war. Yet, in an eerie atmosphere of déjà vue, we are hearing the drumbeat for war once again—this time against Iran. Only now we hear virtually nothing about the legal right to go to war. This is particularly odd since the law against attacking Iran is even clearer than the law against invading Iraq.
The United States, as the most powerful state in the international system, has adopted two radically differing approaches in answer the post-Cold War security dilemma. It is a choice between these alternative approaches that the presidential candidates, John McCain and Barack Obama, now pose in quite stark form.
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