Though the US has made its bid for empire, the fruits of its efforts -- bitter or sweet -- result from the broader dynamic of emerging global civilisation, writes Azmi Ashour* One way human beings distinguish themselves from other animals is by their ability to pool their knowledge, innovate upon it and pass the cumulative store across to other societies and down to subsequent generations. The history of the transfer and succession of civilisations offers the clearest testimony to this process. Cultural values, for example, passed from the Pharaonic civilisation to the Hellenic, Roman and Islamic civilisations, then from the latter to European civilisation, which succeeded in sustaining the continuity and perpetuating the banner of progress. With the latter civilisation, moreover, there occurred that qualitative shift whereby many aspects of progress have come to be shared contemporaneously by the whole of humanity. Modern civilisation far outstrips all previous civilisations in the pace of progress, the nature of its innovations and the rapidity of the transfer of knowledge and know-how to other societies. Human cultures, as a result, have never been closer and never before had so much in common, to the extent that, in a certain sense, they virtually speak the same language. This is not to say that all individuals and societies share equally in the fruits of modern civilisation, though the playing field for intercultural interaction and competition has never been more levelled. Due to the spread of certain material accomplishments of modern civilisation, it is now possible, for example, for people of all cultures to share certain modes of behaviour, such as watching the latest news on satellite television or communicating over the Internet. Because of these very accomplishments, too, the chronological and physical distances between people and cultures have shrunk. The world is now so highly interconnected that the interests and welfares of societies around the world are intertwined -- so much so, that it is no longer possible for one country to benefit to the detriment of others without that detriment rebounding upon itself. Because of the same interconnectivity and complexity of modern life, the game is no longer one of antithetical entities but of the ability to coalesce into entities of a uniform nature. Under the new rules of the game, the lead resides in the hands of the power that holds the initiative in economic and technological advancement, as is demonstrated by the ability of the US to surpass the former French and British empires as a world power and the subsequent decline in the international status and prestige of the latter powers. In this new global environment it is no longer as easy as it once was for one type of civilisation to supplant another. Indeed, because of smaller distances between people and the spread of the sphere and common references of the language of dialogue, the prevailing tendency now is to coalesce around a single civilisation. Within this context, a certain truth has become more tangibly evident, which is that the more adept one is with the ABCs of that civilisation the more one will benefit from its fruits. The West has been able to sustain this trait for three centuries, whether the civilisation was centred in Europe under French and British leadership, or in the US, as it is today. The US, moreover, has not only superseded France and Britain but, over the past 50 years, it has also assumed the leadership of the world, not only as a military and political power but also as a vehicle for the transmission of modern civilisation. The US was, in fact, poised to assume this role. It had the largest share of global GNP, dominated many technological industries and was virtually unmatched in the marshalling of its enormous and diverse material and human resources. With these advantages, plus drive and persistence, it held the civilisational lead and, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, rose to the helm of the world order. The US's declared reasons for going to war against Iraq were to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to safeguard and benefit from a huge petroleum reserve, and to spread democracy. The undeclared objectives were to revive confidence in what was now the world's sole superpower, to consolidate the foundations of the unipolar order by eliminating the remnants of pacts and international affiliations that had characterised the old order, and to dispel once and for all the ambiguity that had prevailed for the previous 12 years over the nature of the new order. The war on Iraq also ushered in a new era in American foreign policy and the birth of a global empire with, from its own perspective at least, diversified interests that spanned the globe. The question remains as to whether reality reflected this new orientation and whether Washington had, indeed, conceived a policy commensurate with its new international standing. It was not the Gulf War of 1991 but rather the total results of Washington's post-11 September policies that formed the true test of the ability of the world's sole superpower to rise to the demands of global leadership. It was here that Washington departed radically from its norms in managing conflicts with targets it identified as a threat, not only in terms of the boldness with which it mobilised its armed forces but also in terms of the way it shaped American public opinion to support the aims of American foreign policy. But it also departed from the norm in another way, which was to wreak much more harm than good on other members of the international order. Never before had Washington been so impetuous, short-sighted and haphazard in its conduct of foreign policy. Rather than being guided by a consistent strategic vision, it swung unpredictably from one pole to the other -- for example, from a hands-off policy on many international issues to flagrant interventionism and regime change on what many regarded as spurious pretexts. The new "good versus evil" radicalism was a mirror image of the ideas and outlook that feed extremism. The military and economic might, however, that Washington believed it could bring to bear in pursuit of its aims was founded not so much upon its autonomous strengths as it was upon that diverse network of interconnected interests with other players in the international system. It was not, therefore, the type of might that could function independently of others in the global order. That consequences of Washington's perception to the contrary are now palpably evident in the Iraqi quagmire, where US forces have proven not only unable to restore security to the country but to protect themselves, and in the trillions of dollars it has had to pay to sustain a military presence in the region. These concrete costs together with sapping morale and other less tangible costs have forced the US to rethink its strategy and attitude towards the international scene. At the same time, the circumstances that have arisen from the US's botched adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq have also triggered a reassessment of many other conditions and circumstances of a region that has been violently dragged out of a state of resignation to what it had grown accustomed to over the past 50 years. In sum, this is not so much a phase of "empire looking for a role" as it is a phase of acclimatisation to the new reality that has imposed itself as a result of human progress at all levels, and that does not reflect the emergence of a global superpower as much as it reflects the global civilisational system that in a much deeper fashion governs the world. * The writer is managing editor of the quarterly journal Al-Dimoqratiya published by Al-Ahram.
