Bob Anderson, associate professor of political science, wrote an opinion piece for the March 18 edition of the Greensboro News & Record titled “America’s Missed Opportunity to Show True Global Leadership.” Below is the text of the article:
America’s Missed Opportunity to Show True Global Leadership
Op-ed printed in Greensboro News & Record, Tuesday, March 18, 2003
Robert G. Anderson, Associate Professor of Political Science,
Elon University
Six months ago, I hoped diplomacy through the United Nations might build a multilateral “Coalition of the Convinced” and avert a war against Iraq. A debate based in democratic values—domestically and globally—would respect the importance of divergent viewpoints and promote options and alternatives short of pre-emptive war and unilateral regime change.
As a result, I was optimistic that the Bush Administration would respond positively with new initiatives that demonstrated its receptivity to alternative viewpoints and rejection of the simplistic and rigid approach of “good versus evil.”
But instead of engaging in a process of extended debate and compromise that would promote domestic and multilateral international consensus, the Administration now insists that ONLY ITS TIMETABLE for removal of weapons of mass destruction and ONLY ITS INTERPRETATION of when war is warranted will be considered seriously.
I am a realist and accept the use of military power as a last resort to defend our national security against aggression — a position fully justified by international law. But such a threat must be “clear beyond a reasonable doubt” before other options, such as increased sanctions or incentives, more rigorous inspections, pro-active private and public diplomacy, and targeted covert or overt military interventions are abandoned in favor of what amounts to the foreign policy equivalent of the death penalty.
Within the United States, all differing interpretations of the severity of the threat to our national security posed by Iraq have been rejected by the Administration. In fact, all indications are that alternative views to the pro-war approach are not given credibility by the President or his closest advisors – a contrast to the practice of a number of his predecessors, who, when faced with war and peace decisions to make, sought out a variety of contrasting views.
Suggestions by other nations that more time is needed for inspections to succeed are also routinely rejected by the President’s spokespersons, who label departures from Washington’s position as “undermining the United Nations, a sign of weakness, and simply irrelevant.”
By asserting that only its view on the Iraqi issue is valid and that the United Nations Security Council must agree to immediate pre-emptive invasion or risk being regarded as irrelevant, the Bush Administration runs the risk of stripping the Security Council of its legitimacy and endangering its already fragile prospects for promoting meaningful collective global security in the future.
While asserting the goal of Iraqi disarmament supported by numerous Security Council resolutions and basing its war plans on the failure of Iraq actually to disarm, the
Bush Administration simultaneously promotes the unilateral United States goal of regime change – a goal NOT SUPPORTED by any Security Council resolution. Furthermore, by changing objectives mid-stream, and adding democratization of the Arab world as the latest of reasons for going to war, the United States appears searching desperately for a reason convincing enough to turn around diminishing – almost non-existent – world opinion for invasion of Iraq.
This leads me to accept what cynics have claimed all along—that the Bush Administration never intended to seek consensus with the world community or seriously listen to its own citizens favoring any action short of enforcing regime change.
If such is the case, nothing Iraq does ON ANY TIMETABLE will ever satisfy the Administration—as the real goal is not disarmament, but removal of Saddam Hussein and the restructuring of Iraq according to our interests.
In this context, I am in partial agreement with President Bush. It is indeed time for the United Nations to demonstrate its relevance to world order, not by capitulating to U.S. demands, but by exerting the collective wisdom that war must not precede the reasonable pursuit of all non-violent initiatives.
By seeking Security Council resolutions endorsing military invasion without first seeking genuine world consensus, the Bush Administration has perpetrated a high-stakes charade on the world and its own citizens. This should be deeply disconcerting to all United States citizens as behavior symptomatic of unwarranted disregard for differing opinions in a democratic society. Combined with reliance on insufficient and questionable evidence to justify pre-emptive aggression—the Administration threatens to divide the American public by forcing a “take it or leave it” choice. Democratic debate of alternatives does not seem to be a real option!
It is time to recognize that the word “patriot” does not necessarily nor automatically demand the bearing of arms. Nor does civic responsibility in a democracy require that citizens routinely “follow the leader” simply because he asserts that he is right.
When war is being contemplated, it is especially important that alternative voices be heard at the highest levels of our government. One such voice is that of former President and Nobel Peace Laureate Jimmy Carter, who, in a March 9 editorial in The New York Times, cautioned that the war as now proposed by the Bush Administration cannot be labeled a “just war.”
Even assuming certain military victory, if we continue down our current road to war, we will miss the best opportunity since the end of the Cold War to display to the world that our nation welcomes the wisdom gained from sincere international collaboration and, in the traditions of our democracy, values non-military alternatives to war while championing global peace.