Notes from a nervous city

29 October 2001

Last week Chang Noi was shut out of the US Library of Congress. So was everyone else. They wanted to search for anthrax. Congressmen used the time-out to hold a seminar under the title ‘What if Congress were obliterated’.

Two days later, Chang Noi was shut out of the university office in downtown Washington. So was everyone else. In a nearby street, something had exploded. The whole block lost power. Traffic jammed up. People gathered along the sidewalks and read newspapers about Afghan refugees gathering in the deserts in thousands. The explosion was nothing more threatening than ageing power lines. But the wail of sirens, Washington’s constant soundtrack, seemed to rise a couple of points on the urgency scale.

Six weeks after September 11, people still rally around defiance. ‘Let’s keep America rolling’, urges one of many ads desperately offering a price deal on new cars with a dash of popular mood. President Bush mutters sub-Churchillian phrases (‘We shall not relent.’ ‘Evil will not triumph.’) at every opportunity. American flags are still going up everywhere. The cover girl on this month’s soft-core magazine has stars on the left one and stripes on the right. But the slow, steady spread of anthrax cases makes the war more personal. And besides anthrax, there are deeper signs of unease.

Strategic Fall-out. Bush launched the war with the impression that the US could target the terrorists and the regimes that support them. It sounded simple and contained. But as the campaign in Afghanistan gains momentum, the strategic implications become more complex. What happens after the Taliban is felled? The Northern Alliance are the warlords whose thuggery made both the Afghan people and their neighbours welcome the Taliban. A king dragged back from 25 years of exile will fare no better than the region’s other propped-up monarchies. How will this case differ from the political disasters of central Africa?

The Washington Post asked the views of strategic experts. One professor suggested a comparison to the summer of 1914 ‘when a cascading series of incidents spun out of control and led to World War I’. A veteran diplomat feared that US manipulation would ‘blow Pakistan sky high, and the mullahs will take over the missiles’. Another official added that Pakistan was only the first and most critical of many regimes that could crumble in the nutcrackers of US pressure and popular sentiment. A retired airforce officer reckoned any trouble in Pakistan would trigger an Indian reaction. In every one of the 25 war games simulated by the US military, this ended in nuclear conflict. A general concluded that the Afghan campaign ‘seems to be a short-term, possibly shortsighted strategy’.

Culture Wars. At the outset, President Bush stated that the enemy is not Islam but terrorism. By implication, Muslim moderates ought to rally to the US cause. But in reality, things have been simpler and cruder. For many Muslims, the US attack on Afghanistan is another expression of US power and violence in the homeland of Islam. Whether or not they agree with Sheikh Omar’s theology or Osama bin Laden’s politics, they react in defence of nation, region, and culture. Appearing on Larry King Live, Pakistan’s President Musharaf, appealed to the US to end the bombing before Ramadan ‘because this would certainly have some negative effects in the Muslim world’.

The Muslim reaction has boomeranged back to America. TV viewers have watched in dismay as street crowds burn US flags, and Osama T-shirts become the year’s fashion statement. For middle America, distinguishing between ‘Islam’ and ‘terrorism’ has always been difficult because for years the only stories from the Middle East have been about violence. But now this confusion is gaining intellectual credentials. In a long Washington Post essay, Michael Skube argued that Islam ‘exhibits a frightful intolerant streak ... its very nature seems to be one of intolerance ... this is a religion that seems to place more stock in retribution than mercy ... Islam pays tribute instead to dictators’. The article quoted with approval Samuel Huntington’s assertion that ‘Muslims have trouble living peacably with their neighbours’, and caused over half the ethnic conflicts of the 1990s.

The strategic implications of this view of the world are, of course, that the US will have to suppress Islam for the sake of world peace. There is no sign that the policy-makers envision anything so ambitious. But there is little doubt that the conflict is taking on something of the ‘clash of civilizations’ that everyone wants to deny.

The Return of the Hawk. In one Washington discussion held just a few days after September 11, a professor suggested it was providential that the US had a new administration packed with the hawkish types who presided over the dying stages of the Cold War. Dubya’s daddy’s friends were the right guys for the job. The Congress gave the president unprecedented powers, and showered money on the military and the CIA.

But as the initial horror of September 11 recedes, and the complications of the war and the world mount, more are beginning to have doubts. Some hawks seem to be enjoying it too much. In a chilling vignette, the Washington Post described vice-president Cheney bathing in the applause at a society dinner. ‘There wasn’t a dove in the room,’ he said with evident glee.

Letters to the press complain about the administration’s efforts to censor the news. In private, Washington insiders confess that the CIA earned its reputation for bungling, and has given no reason for that reputation to change. At the thought of the CIA loaded with cash and pressed again into the front line, they hang their heads and cross their fingers. Every day, you meet another person who says, I’m not against the war, but I’m against the bombing, the strategy, the hawks.

The spread of anthrax spores prompts one kind of apprehension. The spread of strategic doubts, cultural warriorism, and hawkish glee spreads another.