John Rapley - Foreign FocusUS PRESIDENT George W. Bush will tonight give an address at the United Nations (UN) in which he lays out his case for attacking Iraq. It will form part of his administration's concerted effort to mobilise support both internationally and domestically for his government's plan to eliminate Saddam Hussein.
Privately, there are other governments eager to see the back of Saddam. Publicly, though, few other than the British one have joined themselves to Mr. Bush's campaign. And given the apparently single-minded determination with which the American government is going after Saddam, it is getting criticism both at home and abroad for its unilateralism.
In response, Mr. Bush has promised to consult both with Congress and America's allies before pressing ahead with military action. He maintains that his government will still make up its own mind as to what to do. But he at least wants to give the impression that America is not now the world's playground bully.
It will be interesting to see how much importance the US attaches to its alliances, and how successful it is in forging one now. When Iraq invaded Kuwait 12 years ago, creating an alliance formed a crucial part of the Bush (the elder) administration's strategy. But in the intervening period, the world has woken up to the fact that there is but one superpower.
Russia is a shadow of its former self which in any event we now know was an exaggerated threat. Militarily, Europe is nearly a non-entity. The North Atlantic Treaty Alliance's (NATO) intervention in the former Yugoslavia revealed that European countries like France depended on American logistical support to go into battle.
Of the world's armies, outside of the USA, only Britain's retains an appreciable amount of what strategic studies specialists call projectibility: the capacity to operate across long distances over lengthy periods of time. Nevertheless, Britain's overall power pales in comparison to that of the USA, and in any event the British government has lent its full support to her American ally.
In short, there is only one global player. That means nobody can stop the USA. Moreover, the USA now has the ability to operate fairly effectively just about anywhere in the world. For a major operation, it usually needs some bases within the region in question, but it can usually find sympathetic governments which share its interests.
In the Middle East, for instance, despite the widespread rejection of invasion plans by Arab governments, the Americans would likely still be able to use bases in Kuwait and Qatar to launch an attack. So the question is, why bother with alliances at all? Some American conservatives raise this question, seeing America's allies in particular, the Europeans as spineless nuisances. But others point out that if militarily unnecessarily, allies can still play important roles.
The Europeans and Canadians, for instance, tend to be better at peace-keeping and institution-building than the Americans, and so can play essential roles in the long follow-up to an invasion (as they are doing today in Afghanistan).
Beyond that, there are risks in going it alone. To date, American gambles have paid off. As the USA has prosecuted its war on terror, the much-feared Muslim explosion invited by Osama bin Laden has failed to materialise. Nobody doubts that a war on Iraq, particularly at a time when the American government is giving its blessing to Israel's continued crushing of its Palestinian enemy, will inflame Arab opinion.
But few analysts seem to believe that it will topple any of America's Arab allies.
Still, even the most powerful empire can over-reach if it grows arrogant in the assessment of its threats, and this is a real danger for the USA. To date, Mr. Bush has had few successes in persuading sceptics both at home and abroad of the imminent necessity of an attack on Iraq.
Apparently sensitive to this fact, he now appears ready to attach an invasion plan to an ultimatum from the UN that Iraq allow arms inspectors to return. Mr. Bush had wanted to avoid involving the UN, but America's allies are insisting on it.
It is still not obvious that Mr. Bush will gain the support he wants from the international community. But if his government decides to press on alone, America may pay a high price down the road.
John Rapley is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Government, UWI, Mona.
