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trust what we say and might be less inclined to help when we really do face a legitimate threat.
If it turns out that no WMD are found amid accusations that the Bush administration and Blair governments misused intelligence information, "that will have long-term ramifications with our allies," Korb says.
Referring to a Pew poll released this week indicating that international public support for the United States has significantly slipped -- with majorities in 13 of 20 foreign nations surveyed holding an unfavorable view of the United States, and majorities in seven out of eight Muslim countries expressing the fear that the U.S. might threaten them -- Korb says the affair "feeds into the problem we already had with the rest of the world. People think we're making up the rules as we go along, and that we think that might makes right." This could have far-reaching implications on the future of American foreign policy, including our ability to wage the "war on terror."
The danger to the world arises because if there is no accounting how we got into war, the tactics that were used to take us into war once can be, and most likely will be used again. If military action is the first response to threats rather than the last, the world is much less safe. No wonder so many foreigners say they should be able to vote in our elections, because they know our military might be used anywhere and anytime based not on reality but on fantasy. There is no safety in unpredictable and arbitrary violence. Something is clearly wrong when 90% of the world thinks we stepped over the line.
If we were honest, we would look at how we would feel if another country, perhaps China, had this amount of power and decided to use it whenever it felt threatened. We either create a world where the rule of law ties us together, or we live in a world where war happens at the whim of small groups of people who hold unaccountable power. Of all the things this war did, tearing up the international framework of laws was the worst. And until we get back to shoring up that framework, no one anywhere can really be safe again.
The final point is that right now, although Saddam is gone from Iraq, because of the way this war was conducted, the Iraqis are not getting all the help they need to create a society that can manage on its own. The lack of clean water, the crime and lawlessness, the disease cropping up are all a result of an administration that is so driven by its ideology that it refuses to let the UN help.
If we had executed this war under the aegis of the UN or within a broad coalition, then we could have found sufficient peacekeepers from all over the world to help provide a space of safety for the Iraqi people while fixing the destroyed infrastructure. (As it is, Americans now have over one hundred thousand troops stationed in Iraq for the forseeable future.) Opening up the country to the expertise of the world for repairing the damage would have gone a long way in helping set things right. Today, the almighty drive for a dollar where the Bush administration picks the winners for the reconstruction contracts, keeps the real needs of the Iraqis from being addressed. No matter how you felt about the war, we absolutely owe them a chance to get back on their feet, and to do this we need to open the country to the help that can come through the UN. It is time to start addressing the real problems created by this reckless rush to war.
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