Mohamed Sid-Ahmed wonders whether there is an alternative to America's vision of a unipolar world over which it reigns supreme Since its victory in the Cold War left America as the sole remaining superpower on the global stage, the world has been treated to an unbridled display of naked power that would have been unthinkable in the previous bipolar world order. The collapse of the Soviet Union marked the end of a global balance of power which, however flawed, served as an effective deterrent against any such display by either of the two superpowers. Today, there is nothing to deter the United States from imposing its agenda on a helpless world, no counterpole capable of standing up to its unchallenged supremacy at the pinnacle of world power. Does this mean that the rest of the world has no choice but to bow before America? This is a question with global implications that can no longer be ignored. Even if we assume, for the sake of argument, that America's military might is equivalent to only one third of the world total, in practical terms it would be equivalent to more than 50 per cent, because it is under the control of one centralised body, while the rest of the world is divided into numerous competing sovereign states. Moreover, America is expected to become even stronger, in both absolute and relative terms, over the coming decades. It has already established its hegemony over the global oil market with its war on Iraq, whose proven oil reserves are second only to Saudi Arabia's. As oil is expected to remain the principal source of energy for many years to come, securing control over the Iraqi oil fields is the most valuable trophy America has brought back from the war. France, Germany and Russia opposed the way America and Britain chose to interpret Security Council Resolution 1441 and their decision to attack Iraq without UN approval. In the immediate aftermath of the war, they also opposed the American proposal to lift UN sanctions against Iraq. But after extended talks which continued for two weeks, the Security Council last week issued a resolution, with 14 affirmative votes and no abstentions or dissensions, lifting the sanctions and granting the American and British occupying forces the right to supervise Iraq's oil revenues. The message the three countries were trying to convey with the stand they adopted before the war was that the alternative to the bipolar world order should be a multipolar, not a unipolar, world order, and that any decision affecting any member of the international community had to be approved by the Security Council. However, one consequence of the war is that it convinced these countries that they do not have the power to challenge America, and that their main priority at this stage is to heal their rifts with their all- powerful ally, not to aggravate it with further challenges to its supremacy. In other words, they decided to give precedence to their own immediate interests over long-term principled stands. Thus they voted in favour of the US-tabled Security Council resolution, which vindicates the American position and consecrates Bush's victory, even if, as these countries claim, it does not legitimise his war on Iraq. It remains to be seen whether their attempts to heal the rifts in the trans-Atlantic alliance will be crowned with success at next week's G-8 summit in the French resort town of Evian-les-Bains. America is still smarting from what it sees as the recalcitrance of its once-close allies. In a recent statement, Colin Powell welcomed France's support of the new Security Council resolution, but said, in a clear reference to France's opposition to the war, that the past cannot be forgotten. Powell announced that America would take measures against France, including lowering the level of military cooperation between the two nations. This statement was made after France, Germany and Belgium proposed the formation of a European Defence Force that will operate independently from NATO. The proposal has not been supported by other European nations, notably Britain, which believes its implementation will bring about a military European policy separate from America's. Many claim that conflicting oil interests stand behind the discord over how Iraq is to be administered. France, Germany and Russia want a share in the projects for Iraq's reconstruction which will be financed by the revenues resulting from the lifting of sanctions and the sale of Iraqi oil on the world market (expected to reach hundreds of billions of dollars over the coming decade). The three nations also want to guarantee their right to recover the huge debts owed to them by Iraq, while Washington believes they should simply be written off. It seems that Fukoyama's "end of history" theory should not be dismissed lightly. What Fukoyama means by the end of history is not the end of the actual course of events, but the end of the ideological struggles over the general principles that should govern how events unfold. According to his theory, the downfall of communism after the downfall of fascism consecrated the final victory of one ideology, namely, that of unbridled neo-liberal capitalism. The war against Iraq was a test of which of two world views would prevail: Washington's perception of the global system as unipolar, or its perception by a number of European capitals as multipolar. When it became clear that America's go-it-alone "unilateralist" approach had prevailed over the French-led campaign to promote a multilateralist approach to global problems, the European nations who were most vocal in their opposition to the war on Iraq seem to have finally given in. How to explain their surrender? Does it mean the failure of the multipolar outlook altogether? Is America's victory final and irrevocable, or does it merely reflect that the balance of power is temporarily tilted against the Europeans? Much depends on how the rules and mechanisms of change will operate. America's superiority, after the disappearance of the Soviet Union, is overwhelming. It is trying to restructure the world system and the rules of international legitimacy to suit its new global "hyperpower" status, in the process riding roughshod over the present rules of international legitimacy. The Iraqi war was a key episode in that process. An important feature of the change underway is the change that is occurring in the protagonists themselves, as a result of shifting alliances and confrontations and of the rearrangement of contradictions so that the central contradiction becomes different from what it formerly was. In the present situation, there ware two perceptions of the global system. First, the perception put forward by President Bush. In his eyes, America is the personification of the new world order; America's enemies, whether the "axis of evil" or "international terrorism", are the forces which oppose what it stands for. As such, they must be mercilessly hunted down and exterminated. Second, the way America's opponents perceive the present global system. In their eyes, the United States is the personification of wild unbridled capitalism. Their opposition is expressed through massive demonstrations which eschew violence but strongly affect public opinion and have the potential to transform the political scene through democratic elections. The last decade has witnessed several such demonstrations in a number of prominent western cities, notably, the anti-Davos gatherings in protest against the yearly meeting in Davos, Switzerland, of the political and economic elites of the world; the anti-capitalist demonstrations which succeeded in scuttling the founding meeting of the World Trade Organisation in Seattle a few years ago; the Porto Alegre meetings held over two consecutive years in Brazil, and finally, the demonstrations which mobilised over 30 million citizens worldwide to protest against the war in Iraq. Can the present impasse in the global system be overcome by a merger between the resistance movements that America accuses of terrorism and the peaceful movements which attribute to themselves an ideology of anti-capitalism? And if these movements can come together to form an integrated whole, can their association eventually reach a degree of interaction, mobilisation and coherence capable of replacing the despair that now expresses itself in random acts of violence by hope that constructive efforts to reform the world system can be successful? It would seem that the nation-state, which has lost many of its sovereign prerogatives in the age of globalisation, is no longer the basic building block of the world system. Once the main, not to say only, frame of reference governing international relations, state sovereignty has been diluted by the growing impact of a variety of factors: human rights, the inviolability of the citizen, civil society, NGOs. These frames of reference, somehow independent from state authority, create opportunities for the identity of the protagonists to evolve, as the structure of alliances and confrontations change. In the final analysis, the main contradiction itself, that is, the ultimate resultant of all confrontations and alliances, is bound itself to change. The United States still has the final say when it comes to determining what the main contradiction is. For the time being, it is between America, the self-appointed custodian of world order, on the one hand, and terrorism on the other. Is it possible to attract forces into the arena that would change that image, and deprive the main contradiction from the attributes bestowed on it by America? Is it possible to affect public opinion even inside America itself and take advantage of next year's presidential elections to promote a different face of America, that is, to restore America's image as a democracy rather than an empire? This seems to be the challenge that will determine the future of our world.
