There is plenty of opposition to the US's actions in Iraq -- some of it quite close to the corridors of power, writes Mohamed Hakki In the mid-1960s, a group of communist intellectuals wrote a book entitled The God That Failed. The authors had become totally disillusioned by the atrocities of the Stalin era, especially after the famous speech delivered by Nikita Khrushchev detailing the crimes committed by Joseph Stalin. The authors came from various European countries. Each explained why he could no longer be a communist. It was like an earthquake in Western cultural life. The idol had tumbled. The great communist ideal had failed. What they had worshipped was fake. It was a moment of great reflection, not only in the West, but also in Russia and the world beyond. This, more than the economic failures of the Soviet economy of later years, began the downward trend that culminated in the demise of the Soviet system. Something similar is happening to the United States today. America the idea, the dream, the role model, the system that if emulated by other nations would make them live happily ever after is receiving a critical reappraisal. It is not only Arab countries where people are disillusioned, although the earthquake erupted in their midst. One of their countries was been invaded and its capital destroyed. When Iraq was besieged, its economy crippled, and military power gradually destroyed, the Iraqi people were at a loss to act, partly because they were divided and partly because Iraq's dictator was to blame. But now they are totally humiliated. A new colonial power has invaded and completely conquered their country. Up until the war in Iraq, there were those who still thought of the United States as a friend, a model that might ultimately bring a just solution to the Arab-Israeli problem. This is by far the bigger defeat when compared to that of 1948. This time, the Arabs are watching with shock and disbelief. They are turned off and scared. But, for the first time, they are not alone. US historian Paul Kennedy says that he was "shocked" when a Dutch journalist told him that many of his countrymen were now "scared" of the United States. He says, "the Dutch? Scared? Is that the long-term policy for the number one country in the democratic world?" If historian Kennedy is shocked at the international reaction to his country's policies and image, then I don't blame the average citizen who is constantly bombarded with the arrogant propaganda of a modern day Rome. I have long turned over in my mind the ideas that Senator J William Fulbright set down in his book The Arrogance of Power, and have frequently reminded my friends the group that hijacked not only US foreign policy, but the entire administration, does not represent the real America. "There are two Americas," Fulbright said, "One is the America of Lincoln and Adlai Stevenson, the other is America of Teddy Roosevelt and the modern super-patriots. One is generous and humane, the other narrowly egotistical; one is self-critical, the other self-righteous; one is sensible, the other romantic; one is good humoured, the other solemn; one is inquiring, the other is pontificating; one is modern, the other filled with passionate intensity; one is judicious and the other arrogant in the use of great power." Fulbright thought that the pendulum usually tilted to one side or the other, but always came back to the middle. This time, I worry that it might never swing back to sanity. This time, the whole trend has been hijacked by a small group of extreme right-wing ideologues. They are, on the whole, Zionist-leaning; some, too, have dual citizenship and divided loyalties. Their actions are turning the whole world against the United States. Gone are the feelings of solidarity with or admiration for, or sympathy with what the United States is doing. Even during the Vietnam War, there were a number of countries who were genuinely afraid of communism. It was much later when the full brunt of the war's atrocities, the defoliation of Vietnam, the carpet bombing with napalm that the world was turned off. Even then, there was still another power. There was still hope. Gunter Grass, the 1999 Nobel Prize winner for literature from Germany, captures what the world feels today. Grass writes, "Is this really the United States of America, the country we fondly remember? The generous benefactor of the Marshal Plan? The candid self- critic? The country that once made use of the teachings of the European Enlightenment to throw off its colonial masters and to provide itself with an exemplary constitution? Is this the country that made freedom of speech an incontrovertible human right?" Grass powerfully conveys the horror that so many feel towards "this overpowering military apparatus" that launched a preemptive military campaign, violating international law and disregarding the United Nations Security Council. Like many of us who have chosen the United States as our new home, he says there are many Americans who are horrified by the betrayal of their founding values and by the hubris of those who are holding power. He says they took the notion of God hostage in accordance with their own fanatical interpretations. A minority of voices spoke out against this betrayal of values. Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, in a characteristically eloquent manner, said on the floor of the Senate, "I weep for my country." Senator George McGovern, who ran for president for the Democratic Party in 1968, agreed with Grass about the impropriety of invoking God's name while "slaughter and destruction" proceeded in Iraq. He says that at another difficult moment in the nation's history, President Thomas Jefferson said, "I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just." Senator McGovern, of whom it has been said that he represented the constituency of America's conscience, also said, "the president frequently confides to individuals and friendly audiences that he is guided by God's hand. But, if God guided him into the invasion of Iraq, he sent a different message to the pope, the Conference of Catholic Bishops, the mainline Protestant National Council of Churches, and many distinguished rabbis -- all of whom believe the invasion and bombardment of Iraq is against God's will. In all due respect, I suspect that Karl Rove, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, and Condoleezza Rice -- and other sideline warriors -- are the gods or godesses reaching the ear of our president." Well, up till now, the hard-liners in the Bush administration have been winning the policy battles. As Michael Hirsh described them in Foreign Affairs last winter, these are the crusading neo-conservatives -- like Wolfowitz and others -- who call for enlarging the "zone of democracy", even so, in practice they have become the "neo-imperialists" and "hegemonists". They are trying to preserve the United States's dominance indefinitely, uncompromised by the demands of the international system. To them, they feel that for too long America has been a global "Gulliver strapped down by Lilliputians -- the norms and institutions of the global system." For the most part, they forget that what they are trying to destroy today is the world that America helped to shape for nearly a whole century. "Every major international institution -- the UN, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, NATO, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade -- were made in America. So, in a sense, by invading Iraq, and destroying Baghdad, America is destroying the very international system it helped to create. Has this volcano triggered a process of introspection in America? Maybe. Lots of people seem to be turned off completely by the whole Bush team and what it stands for. That hundreds of thousands of people demonstrate each week is a very healthy sign. Grass says, "I protest with them against the brutalities brought about by the injustice of the mighty, against all restrictions of the freedom of expression, against information control reminiscent of the practices of totalitarian states and against the cynical equations that make the deaths of so many innocent people acceptable." Are such widely-held views likely to change the course the US follows in Iraq now that Saddam's regime has been deposed? I doubt it. Much depends on what will happen in Iraq, in the Arab world and in the United States itself. None of these factors seem to point in the right direction. Iraq is already rejecting America's hegemony. Those in the Arab world who are still hoping the US will honour its promise to pressure Israel to accept the "roadmap" and the creation of a viable Palestinian state are in for yet another big disappointment. As far as change in the United States itself, many of my friends, Republicans and former high-ranking members of the various US administrations who are all turned off by the current administration, are now saying nothing will ever change unless we have a nationwide civil disobedience movement.
