While the opening decade of the century has been marked by state terror and colonial domination, the efficacy of raw power has peaked, writes Ayman El-Amir* If anything could describe the defining features of the expired first decade of the 21st century it is the ruthless exercise of raw power at the national and international levels. Autocratic governments wearing a fig leaf of legitimacy amended constitutions, rigged elections and poked fingers in the eyes of their own peoples and the bewildered world community. Ravaging violence dominated the international scene, with the world's mightiest military powers waging two disastrous wars against Iraq and Afghanistan. Hundreds of thousands of victims perished, the United Nations stood idly by and international law experts wringed their hands in frustration. Regional conflicts raged in Africa, tensions and war escalated in the Middle East, and terrorism acquired a life of its own worldwide. Cyberwar is a new weapon that has recently been deployed on the international scene with still uncalculated consequences. The world is experiencing a state of lawlessness where the rule of military supremacy is reinforced for the benefit of the powerful against the powerless. Despite two destructive world wars in the last century, and pledges of global peace and respect for human rights, the world seems to be sliding back to the medieval rule of the right of conquest and the colonial era of occupation and exploitation. The phenomenon of the powerful exercising their will over the powerless seems to be progressively gaining ground as a new world order. Part of the rule is that the powerful redefine international law according to their interests, or choose to ignore it altogether. They also build national and regional alliances that coincide with their purposes. And local allies are falling in line behind the big powers because of identity of interest, fear of confrontation or self-doubt about their legitimacy in a changing world. Resistance to the new, malignant order is de-legitimised under a variety of pseudo-legal terms and agreements that are akin to a new version of the law of the jungle. This probably explains why there has been little or no serious international debate about the legitimacy, consequences and accountability of the Anglo- American invasion of Iraq in 2003. It has been a war of choice that was undertaken with no authority from the UN Security Council on flimsy excuses that were disproved soon after the invasion. The inconclusive war in Afghanistan continues unabated under no plausible excuse except for the charges against Taliban as an ally of Al-Qaeda that is held responsible for the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 in New York and Washington. Like the Vietnam War in the 1960s, and the Soviet occupation of the 1980s, the US and its NATO allies will eventually withdraw from Afghanistan, leaving behind a devastated country with nothing in place except its old, unresolved problems of tribalism, poverty and the apathy of the international community. Again, there will be no investigation or accountability. At the national level, the globally acknowledged standard of free and fair elections is consistently and glaringly violated in developing countries, extending from Burma in Asia to the Ivory Coast and Egypt in Africa, where charges of rigged elections set back the development of democracy and endanger national stability. Big powers need the support or acquiescence of regional allies to carry out their policies and military campaigns. A mutuality of interest is developed between the two sides: the actions of the big power will be tolerated and the oppressive rule imposed by the small ally against its people will not be called into serious question. These arrangements, of course, leave small space for cosmetic criticism and disagreement for public relations purposes. That is how the unwavering US support for Israeli wars of aggression in which thousands of Palestinians and Lebanese have been killed are usually met with squeamish statements of regret from Arab regimes that live in glass houses and feel vulnerable without US protection. The Palestinian-Israeli conflict, with its tragic background and perennial stalemate is an anomaly that has survived the end of the era of settler- colonialism. Israel is persistently and methodically emulating the 17th century European settlement of the New World based on wiping out the indigenous American-Indian population. For decades, it has taken the Palestinians, the Arabs and the rest of the world on a merry-go-round ride of war, negotiations and piecemeal territorial settlement. For more than 40 years, Israel has maintained a devious posture of honest negotiator on withdrawal from Arab territories it had illegally seized as a result of a war of aggression in 1967, with US protection from punitive international measures. Despite all the provisions of international law and countless applicable conventions, Israel was never taken to serious task on its continued occupation, expulsion of the Palestinian population, building illegal settlements on Palestinian territory where an estimated 500,000 Israelis now live, with the US blocking any international action to commit Israel to its responsibilities under the UN Charter. It is all part of a decades-long regional power play -- a game that dates back to the Cold War -- by which Israel assumes the role of US bastion in the Middle East that could keep all countries of the region on the defensive. It is the old game of power or the threat of it in a new mantle. As was the case in the old game of colonial power, military subjugation invites resistance; and like in old times, resistance was given the same old name of terrorism. To the British occupation, American revolutionary fighters were terrorists of the same calibre as Palestinian resistance fighters are now labelled by Israel, the US and their European coterie. It defies human logic to pin the label on resistance fighters in Palestine, Iraq or Afghanistan by the masters of military occupation and their local cronies. With Israel keeping local US allies in check, Iran's ascendancy in the Middle East's geopolitical equation appears as an existential threat to the neo- colonial order. The threat to Israel of Iran's military power is not its progressive uranium enrichment programme but the anathema that it would deprive Israel of the monopoly of regional military supremacy and the power of intimidation it carries. The US and Israel want to freeze a changing world in time and place, using bullying tactics and rallying the support of unpopular local dictators. It is hard to stop the progress of history. Sometimes it has been diverted off course by a great international upheaval, which Israel is capable of igniting should it attack Iran and trigger a major war in the region. However, Israel is aware it will not remain unscathed if it torches the Middle East. Despite US pressure on the Arabs on behalf of Israeli interests the Middle East is not moving in the US-Israeli direction. Turkey's confrontation with Israel is a more recent example. In the Israeli-Palestinian confrontation neither Israel nor the US are winning new friends in the region or the world at large, as evidenced by the changing attitudes now manifest in several countries of South America, including Brazil and Argentina which declared that they would recognise a Palestinian state within the boundaries existing before 1967 war. Iran is adding new friends in a changing world and is successfully building new alliances in the region. The use of state terror at the national or international level has peaked; peaceful or violent resistance forces have not fully spent their ammunition. If the confrontation is not contained, more tragic violence adversely affecting the lives of individuals and the stability of nations could not be excluded. Yemen is just the beginning. * The writer is former Al-Ahram correspondent in Washington DC. He also served as director of United Nations Radio and Television in New York.
