Unilateral power in a multicrises world

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See the Sol Sanders Archive By Sol Sanders SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM

You have to scour the websites to find good news anywhere between the Dardanelles and Kamchatka.

There are tidbits despite the PC mediaÕs BBC-speak self-hating pessimism. Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee has won his blackmail against the Hindu revivalists; a dialogue between South AsiaÕs two nuclear armed powers is creeping with Sec. of State Powell barking at their heels. The Iraq museum antiquities were hidden not stolen for the most part. [Does any good news ever catch up with the headlines?] The oil is beginning to flow even if OPEC doesnÕt want to talk to Iraqi oil officials. Police, water, electricity, telephones are beginning to be restored in Baghdad, and U.S. forces are batting diown the hatches over the underground remnants of the BaÕath.. You have to scratch to know but Basra has water 24 hours a day because of British military ingenuity; it hadnÕt had in decades, if ever.

But having enjoyed that bit of Pollyanna, reality is that Washington is facing an incredible scene of disorder. Whatever the origins ø many lie decades past, others lie in the miasma decade of the Clintonesque dream of multilateralism.

There is a jungle out there and there is no magic, Harry Potter notwithstanding.

The worldwide terrorist threat continues unabated. Not because the U.S. has not found Bin Laden or Saddam [or for that matter, the Baghdad monsterÕs weapons of mass destruction], but because of the nature of the new 21st century scourge. A half dozen sanctuaries in South and Southeast Asia are already plugged in, loosely, granted, to the amoeba-like spread of this new nihilism. If the IndonesiansÕ attempt to shock and awe the decades-long fight for independence in Aceh fails, it could well turn into a sanctuary for a further radicalized guerrillas. The steady if slow cleanup of the tribal areas of Pakistan must continue ø with the help of German peacekeepers in Afghanistan ø while President Musharraf beats off his gnat-like Islamic ÒparliamentaryÓ opposition. If President Megawati Soekarnoputri does not continue to wrap up the Al Qaeda tenatacles in Indonesia which, among other atroicities, staged the Bali nightbclub bombing, the vast archipelago offers fanatics unlimited opportunities If Prime Minister Mahthir will not leave the stage, the Islamicist opposition is bound to grow ø with its ties to Aceh and other parts of Indonesia. If Bangkok continues to ignore its Moslem southern provinces, they offer just the kind of opportunity they gave the extended Malay Communist insurgency in the 1950s-60s. If Philippines President Arroyo cannot somehow manage American technological military assistance as well as dicey politics [with or without the aid of Qadaffi] against Moro Moslem ÒnationalistsÓ who have dogged every Manila regime since the arrival of the Spaniards in 1521, Mindanao could produce another sanctuary. It was, after all, in Manila OsamaÕs acolytes first framed the idea of using commercial airliners against building targets ø even if they failed there.

Nor is the other threat, pariah states with weapons of mass destruction ø one that in a nightmare scenario could merge with non-state terrorists ø in better shape. Suddenly the Kremlin is shocked, shocked, I tell you, to find out that the Iranians with one of the largest inventories of fossil fuels in the world ø to whom it has been selling huge nuclear capabilities, ostensibly for generating power ø may be moving toward nuclear weaponry. That bogus international guardian of the nuclear Pandora box , the UN International Atomic Energy Agency, has chimed in. The ugly footnote: the Iranians seem to have found a source of uranium on home grounds and thereby not in the long run subject to IAEA controls on British fuel imports.

Meanwhile, North Korean propaganda, exploiting the seemingly limitless gullibility of the current South Korean leadership and its appendage of Red Guards manquŽ, has a new bumper slogan. Pyongyang says its bankrupt economy [tread regime] ø there are ghastly reports of cannibalism Ñ can only be saved from disaster if it can reduces its million man army [in a population not exceeding 20 million at least two million deaths from starvation] by substituting ÒcheaperÓ nuclear. Meanwhile, lack of coordination among neighbors who would ÒlogicallyÓ have an interest in preventing a Northeast Asian nuclear arms race, is all too apparent.

U.S. policymakers are scrambling to meet these challenges, in the face of having fallen behind the curve that long since required restructuring and redeployment of its Cold War military forces and alliances.

Washington faces the contradiction that it needs international coordination and collaboration in the nitty-gritty of pursuing the terrorists through methodical police techniques. On the other hand, the pariah states must be opposed with the threat of force they understand, and for which they are building their WMD, against the wishful thinking of U.S. allies.

To paraphrase an old cry, gentlemen, if this be unilateralism, make the most of it!