The Guardian
America's way - Bush's new doctrine is deaf to history
Tue Sep 24 18:36:28 2002
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Bush's new doctrine is deaf to history

Leader
Tuesday September 24, 2002
The Guardian

In Ulysses, James Joyce disparagingly describes Americans as
"the scrapings" of the world. Nearly 100 years after Leopold
Bloom and Stephen Dedalus navigated Dublin's streets, George
Bush, of all people, has exacted revenge. In his view, as set out
in a definitive new document, US National Security Strategy,
just about everybody now wants to be American.

The whole world, Mr Bush argues, is "increasingly united by
common values" and "common interests"- and these values and
interests, it transpires, are America's own. He recasts
humanity's entire history as a struggle between an absolute,
Founding Father-style concept of freedom and "war, terror,
poverty... and the evil designs of tyrants". Mr Bush (and advisers
such as Condoleezza Rice) find, unsurprisingly, that America is
uniquely equipped to fight and finally win this battle. After the
defeat of communism and fascism, the US represents the
"single sustainable model for national success", declares this
philosopher-president. He deems it "our common calling" and a
proud "mission". And like it or not, we are all putative, co-opted
Americans now, or else non-persons, to be sustained by a
US-tilted "balance of power that favours freedom" and protected
by America's "unparalleled military strength".

The strategy paper collates Mr Bush's earlier treatises on
weapons of mass destruction, the fate awaiting terrorists and
their "rogue state" sponsors, the self- given right to launch
pre-emptive attacks, and the determination of the US to defend
itself unilaterally if allies or multilateral organisations such as the
UN cannot or will not furnish "coalitions of the willing". It is a
document of sweeping scope, untroubled by self-consciousness
or nuance. It champions global free trade and environmental
protection, unabashed by the contradictions of current US
policies. It trumpets alliances such as Nato while unintentionally
demonstrating that their importance derives from the degree to
which they further US interests. It promotes the creation of
global standards and rights yet pointedly rejects the
International Criminal Court.

This Bush doctrine is by turns arrogant, patronising,
complacent, amazingly presumptuous - but above all,
aggressive. It brooks no opposition. It will tolerate no perceived
threat. In the world according to George Bush, an irresistible
America, convinced of its rightness and its altruism, always
decides. Fatally, but in the true, naive American tradition, this
doctrine is deaf to history, oblivious to consequences, and
wondrously lacking in self-knowledge. But those who ask what,
in the shorter term, is in store (and not just in Iraq) should read
this document. It marks the moment when the US, shifting up
from superpower to hyperpower, unveiled the new age of the
have-a-nice-day totalitarians. It's official: the US rules the world.
====================================================================
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