Dialogue: Caution needed if America widens terrorism assault

By TERENCE O'BRIEN*

New Zealand needs to deliberate carefully and seriously about the position it will adopt if the United States carries the hot pursuit of terrorism into Iraq and other Middle Eastern or Asian countries.

The impression is emerging that the US is, if necessary, prepared to act alone or with one or two of its closest allies. Even Britain, however, with France, is exhibiting reticence over the prospect of an attack against Iraq because the history and evidence of implication with terrorism are not clearly established.

The justification for US attacks in Afghanistan against al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden is solid, even if the case for striking, too, against the Taleban may be less well substantiated. As a friend but not an ally of the US, New Zealand has supported the action. But the widening of the American assault to other countries on the grounds that they, too, provide a haven for terrorists must give New Zealand serious pause.

Likewise, an assault on the grounds that a state may possess nuclear or similar weapons would cross a significant threshold. Ownership of a given weapon, as distinct from transparent intention to use it, has not previously been a justification for aggression.

The spiral of violence in Israeli-Palestinian relations is deeply disturbing. Taking its cue from the US, Israel has employed copycat rhetoric and tactics against the PLO. The murderous activities of Hamas and others are unacceptable. If the world is to prevail over terrorism, however, the socio-economic and political causes must be squarely faced.

Precisely the opposite is now occurring in the Middle East. Israel has largely succeeded in obscuring the basic causes behind the murderous spiral. Its end-game, which appears to be the destruction of the Palestinian Authority, guarantees that the seeding ground for terrorism remains fertile.

By committing itself in a small way to eventual peacekeeping in Afghanistan, New Zealand sidesteps pressure to support fresh anti-terrorist assaults elsewhere, where justification is highly controversial. It is important here to recognise that the campaign against terrorism is not a re-run of the Cold War, with its binding loyalties in support of an overriding cause.

Terrorism is not the prism through which every dimension of international relations must henceforth be viewed. Other issues will be understood and pursued in their own terms.

Yet New Zealand wishes to remain a friend of the US, and the way it articulates its position will need to be carefully considered and phrased. Many other countries who share genuine anxieties about the drift towards assertive American unilateralism confront exactly the same diplomatic challenge.

For the US, on the other hand, the ultimate legitimisation of its world role depends upon a leadership which is bestowed by, not asserted over, others. That is a vitally important distinction which the US cannot afford to forget.

The hope that coalition-building plus the mandate sought from the United Nations heralded US recommitment to multilateralism and the rule of law is proving misplaced.

Since September 11, Washington has repudiated the missile treaty, the nuclear test ban and the biological weapons convention. And its opposition to the landmines ban, the international criminal court and environmental law remains unyielding.

It is a case, it seems, of business as before right across the international agenda except for terrorism.

There is no sense that September 11 requires reconsideration of America's policies or purpose.

There is no accepted definition of terrorism. Yet its ruthless disregard for humanity and thirst for publicity is 2000 years old. It is frequently described as the weapon of the weak, of those unable to exert grievances through conventional political or military means.

The US is unrivalled in history as the greatest power ever, with longstanding military deployments around the world. It represents, because of this, a lightning rod for terrorism. Its unceasing search for yet greater power is epitomised in the plans for missile defence.

It is a venerable tradition that all governments justify increases of military strength for purposes of defence. Yet missile defence is a system which unambiguously augments US capacity for offence in the world and in space.

The first obligation of those who possess disproportionate power is to respect the interests of those who lack it.

The US needs now, above all, a capacity to listen because the sense of strategic restraint, of moderation in the exercise of power, is less evident in the Bush Administration. Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld is surely the most powerful unelected individual in world politics.

America's friends and allies have testing times ahead.

* Terence O'Brien is a teaching fellow in international relations at Victoria University.