The Bush Doctrine

You're telling us, and you argue this in your book, that by missing this opportunity to deal with terrorism for what it is, we have chosen another route. It's almost "We do states, we don't do transnational groups" in a bumper-sticker way. But you are a student not only of the Middle East, but also of international relations, and what we're witnessing now is a change in a strategic doctrine that argues for what the administration calls "preemption," which maybe better should be called prevention. But whatever it's called, it's an argument that purports to tell us why we should "do" states and not transnational terrorist groups. And the argument goes something like this: because of their ties with so-called rogue states, these terrorist groups -- and I assume they have al Qaeda and others in mind -- will be in a position to obtain weapons of mass destruction, which would greatly magnify the threat that they pose. So you're looking at a chemical or biological weapon being dropped in a major city, or a nuclear device. What is wrong with that as an argument for justifying why we do states?

Let's separate the two ideas that you have here, because they really are two. One is the doctrine of preemption, and the other is the suggestion that states, menacing states or dangerous states, or whatever you want to call them, are likely to pass on weapons of mass destruction to militant groups that may then carry out attacks against America.

If you ask any proliferation expert, including within the administration, "What is the biggest fear of weapons of mass destruction getting into the hands of a group like al Qaeda today? Where are the likely sources?" the answer would be, first, the former Soviet Union; second, the former Soviet Union; third, the former Soviet Union. And then you'll probably go down to Pakistan, if its government collapses, if you have anarchy, because instability is the most likely source of these weapons, not a state handing them over.

In fact, if you look at the instances of where this has happened, you probably had cases of rogue scientists, not rogue states. Think about the anthrax attack here in America -- we don't know who's behind it, but that's the most likely theory. So, first, I don't think that [rogue states' weapons handover] is likely.

Second, in the case of states, you know whom to punish. Sure, it might be harder to trace, but do they want to take the risk of being found out, when, in fact, there is a country that can punish them ten times over? When you look at the history of states using non-state militant groups as instruments of policy, sure, if you look at a militant group like Hezbollah in Lebanon, certainly it's being supported by states like Syria and Iran. But the fact that it has that relationship with a state, in fact, has been a restraining factor. Hezbollah, yes, has attacked targets, largely on or near its borders and largely against Israeli soldiers. They have not dispatched suicide bombers into Tel Aviv to kill civilians. Had they done so, Israel would have retaliated against Syria, no doubt. There are red lines that are not crossed.

So, actually, states are restraining factors in the case of these groups. In the case of Iraq, the only reason we worry about this kind of contingency is that Iraq remains under very few incentives to move forward because of the sanctions regime and no hope, seemingly, of getting out of that. It could become effective, but it's not the same as worrying about the instability.

The preemption doctrine I want to address that separately, because it's a real important issue that worries me a lot. I take you back to 1991, the first Gulf War. In August of 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait. As I've told you earlier, if you look at the public opinion in the Middle East, they thought before the attack on Kuwait that this was going to be an era of America hegemony and Israeli hegemony, and they were all scrambling to figure out how to address that with the demise of Soviet power. And Iraq invades Kuwait. Very quickly, the U.S. builds an incredible coalition of weak states, medium-size states, strong states to fight the war against Iraq. The winning argument -- I was then at the U.S. delegation at the U.N. -- was this: Do you want the principle that a powerful state could invade a weaker state to become the norm of the post-Cold War era? And do you want to do it and then do it in confrontation with the most powerful state of all, the United States of America? No state wanted to uphold that principle, especially not weak states. That was the fighting prospect.

Today, that same logic is propelling people against bandwagoning with America. Because what they see today, what they fear, is that Iraq is the first case of a preemption strategy that is to be followed by other cases. They don't want to legitimize it by accepting the notion, so they're applying the brake, so as not to give it the legitimacy, because everybody feels frightened by it. If I were an aspiring and frightened third world country, if I thought I might be next, I would accelerate my weapons of mass destruction program, so as to deter the possibility of preemption.

If you look at North Korea, they did precisely that. They had every reason to think that they may be next after Iraq, given the rhetoric in Washington, and given the doctrine of preemption. And they have exploited the situation -- the U.S. is engaged in the Iraq issue -- to make clear that they're going to produce enough weapons to be able to deter an attack. I'd expect Iran to do the same thing. And I'd expect the tendency across the international community to be similar.

So the very strategy to prevent something is creating incentives for it to happen, at least to acquire nuclear weapons.

Let's go back now, because you started off talking about Iraq and why we were doing it. So why do we do Iraq? We have a lot on the table here. There's something in the president that wants this to happen. There is a doctrine out there that, actually, they floated in the first Bush administration, but was shot down, that we have to be preeminent in every region and prevent anybody from aspiring to [regional hegemony]. We now have an argument about prevention or preemption to achieve that. But why Iraq and why now?

Again, I go back to the president. Let me tell you why I go back to the president. I go back to the president for the following reasons: There's always been a school of thought in Washington that wanted to do Iraq, even before this administration came to power. Certainly, within the Republican Party, and, certainly, many of the people who now are in the Department of Defense and in the White House who advocate the use of force against Iraq have advocated even before the elections and in the political debates and while the Clinton administration was in power. The reasons are that weapons of mass destruction are dangerous to allies, especially Israel; the assertion of American power, so that people don't think they can get away with defying America; establishing a line of power; exploiting America's superiority in the post-Cold War era. All of that, certainly, is an argument.

But that argument would not necessarily have won, had the president's instinct not been in that line. Because if you look at what happened after 9/11 ... 9/11 could have taken America in a completely different direction. The public was fully behind the president. The president had a lot of leeway. The public was fully behind strategic decisions related to addressing al Qaeda, and it could have been a completely different decision, which would have said, "This is a different threat now. Iraq isn't as much of a threat. Let's put it down the line, downplay it and then move in a completely differently direction including, possibly, Arab - Israeli peacemaking, multilateralism, and perhaps, focus on al Qaeda more specifically."

Had the president decided to do that, I don't think the newer concern would have won the day. I think it would have been debated in America, but the president would have tipped at a different direction. So the president has been the tipping variable, and that tipping variable didn't happen because of 9/11. He, himself, arrived ... every person who knew him and met him knows that he was focused on Iraq. I don't want to psychoanalyze why he saw Iraq as a threat, but, clearly, he bought into that. And 9/11 created an opportunity to do it, to fulfill it. Before 9/11, it would have been difficult to get the American public and the international community. It's difficult now to get the international community. Imagine how difficult it would have been without 9/11. So 9/11 opened up an opportunity and the neoconservatives and others rallied behind that.

Now, why do so many people strategically think it's a good thing, still, in Washington, aside from the president himself? There I see something, even aside from issues like oil and Israel, I see something about the exercise of American power. I see something about a sense that America has not exploited its power advantages that came with the end of the Cold War in the way that it should have, and that today, America can achieve its objectives by a more aggressive employment of that power. You can see, in a way, this dramatic shift in mood between 9/11, which was one of the lowest points of vulnerability in America, psychologically, and then the morning after the collapse of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, which happened more quickly and efficiently than most people believed; you had this incredible shift in mood from weakness to almost invulnerability that came with this, the sense of power that came with the exercise of new technology in the war in Afghanistan. That sense of power emboldened the strength, and we're still sailing on the aura of that power. I see that as extremely dangerous, because I do not think that any power, let alone in an era of globalization, can achieve its primary objectives and stay powerful through strict reliance on brute force.

This new, very ambitious vision, on the one hand, seems to suggest that building on this power, and this psychological high, however you want to characterize it, can reshape all the regimes in the region and turn them into a string of democracies.

Yes. I always wonder whether everyone who says that believes it, or whether some people employ it as a tactic, and I don't know. Some people believe it, no question in my mind, some people believe it. But it seems to fly in the face of history. Think about this issue pertaining to the Middle East. There is this notion that if we go to Iraq, topple a government, we're going to install a democratic regime and then start changing and putting pressure of emulation, at least, if not direct pressure, on other governments to follow suit.

The reality of it is the minute the regime in Iraq is gone, America inherits a broken country, and Iraq becomes a top priority in a way that bears directly on national security -- protecting what will probably be 75,000 troops for a number of years. And the American public wants them to be safe, maintaining a unified Iraq at a time when you're making deals with all the countries. Look at the deals made with Turkey, including allowing them to intrude into northern Iraq, in conflict with the interests of the Kurds, who are also allies of the U.S. in this effort. You have the oil issue, that the U.S. is going to need the help of a lot of producers to put pressure on the oil prices, particularly after the war. You have the war on terrorism intensifying, which means that you need to make deals with governments and their security services to provide you information and closed financial shops.

In addition to that, think about the lead-up to a war, think about what sort of thing we're facing. In a country like Jordan, which has a monarchy that actually believes that liberalizing a little is going to be in its interest. They actually think that that's helpful to them, both economically and politically, but they're facing public opinion like everyone else that is decisively against American policy and decisively against the war. And the U.S. is asking them, "Join. We need you. We need to put troops on Jordanian soil. We need to have Special Forces, we need to have some Air Force units on Jordanian soil. We need your political support." The Jordanians will come and say, "Well, we have a choice -- either responding to our public, or responding to you," and they will likely respond to the U.S. And in responding to the U.S., they worry about the public so much that they unleash the security services and they tighten control, and they arrest people, and they prevent demonstrations and free expression. And in the process, you don't have more democracy; you have less democracy.

Think about Pakistan. Since 9/11, Musharraf has become an American ally, an important American ally, for the task of defeating al Qaeda. The American priority there has not been to bolster democracy. Pakistan, today, is not more democratic than it was before 9/11, and in some ways, maybe less. If you couple that with the America fear, when they look at the results of elections, as happened in Pakistan, they see that those who are winning are those who are more hostile to America, more friendly to America's enemies. That fear then drives America not to emphasize democracy as a priority. So I am considerably less confident that America will make it a priority to spread democracy, particularly in an era where you're fighting issues that are going to be more critical for national security, as is likely to be the case.

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