Why US foreign policy has�
become baffling
By PAUL UDOTO
Since the September 11 terror attack, political analysts have sought to explain why global public opinion shifted from immense goodwill to hostility.
For instance, why did US troops fail to get the ovation they expected for "liberating" Iraqis from Saddam Hussein?
The truth is that suspicion of America's global intentions seem to boil down to its policy-makers' inability to appreciate the role of nationalism in other societies.
This fits in well with Prof Joel Barkan's article in the January 2004 edition of Foreign Affairs journal where he says the Bush administration's obsession with war on terrorism is alienating its own allies.
Virulent opposition by Kenyan Muslims to the enactment of the Suppression of Terrorism Bill, 2003, shows the difficulty this Bill will have gaining parliamentary approval.
The commitment to liberty and freedom by human rights activists makes them natural allies with the US, yet their opinion on how the war on terror should be executed works against America's strategic interests.
That's where the goose parts ways with the gander.
Mr Joseph Nkaissery, the Kanu shadow Minister for Defence, hinted at the fate which awaits the anti-terror law when he dared the Government to come clean on reports in the Wall Street Journal that the US planned to set up a military base in Kenya.
The Government flatly denied the claims.
Instead of nudging Narc to pass the Freedom of Information Act and the equivalent of the First Amendment to buttress the fight against corruption, the US seems bent on taking away citizens' liberties as the price for fighting terror.
Where the US has sought to be faithful to its values by imposing economic sanctions (Iraq, Haiti, Cuba and North Korea), it has only ended up impoverishing citizens and empowering dictators.
It is on record that the US has imposed 85 new unilateral sanctions on foreign nations from 1996 to 2001.
Americans are among the world's most nationalistic people, yet when they encounter nationalism in other societies, they become very insensitive.
This was witnessed in Vietnam, a country inhabited by people whose nationalistic fervour had been informed by resistance to domination by the Chinese and the French.
It also happened with Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser with his brand of post-colonial Arab nationalism, which rejected alliance with the US against the Soviets.
In the Iraqi war, US commitment to democracy was under test in the Turkish Parliament. Eyes were on the US to confirm if it would pressure the Turks into joining its "coalition of the willing" against Iraq, hence bypassing the people's representatives.
What is most troubling is that after the US baby-sat despotic regimes for so long, it is now not ready to tolerate new converts to democracy who may disagree with its policies.
Will it safely midwife the birth of democracy in the Middle East and elsewhere even if this works against its strategic interests?�
Recently when US President George Bush's said that the "establishment of a free Iraq at the heart of the Middle East will be a watershed event in the global democratic revolution," many analysts sneered.
Like the proverbial leper who wants an embrace as soon as one shakes his hands, they argued, the new democrats in the mythical Arab street might want democracy on their own terms. They have noticed how the US puts realpolitik ahead of the values its citizens prize at home.
Some commentators faulted Bush's praise for many authoritarian governments as being driven more by US policies than democratic credentials.�
When America's Middle East allies faced extremism which they had bred, they sought to crush it but ended up exporting it to their friend, the US. Yet American foreign policy claims to support freedom, human rights and democracy.
Mr Udoto reports for the Nation.
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