Beyond the "war on terror"

Beyond the "war on terror" A landmark of air. But the shadow cast by the absent twin towers is no longer the defining feature of world politics in the way that the shadow cast by the Berlin Wall was for nearly thirty years. Most people don't any more feel that we live in a war on terror in the way that we did feel that we lived in a cold war. Not across the world. Not in America. Not even in New York. At the end of last month, Janet Napolitano, the US secretary for homeland security, confirmed that the Obama administration has junked the term global war on terror. So as a slogan, what was billed as an epochal struggle like the cold war or World War IV according to the neo-conservative Norman Podhoretz, for whom the cold war was World War III lasted little more than seven years, from the autumn of 2001 to the autumn of 2008, when Obama won the presidential election. For most Americans Iraq is over though not, of course, for those Iraqis who are still alive and have to go on facing the consequences. Goodbye Iraq, And Good Luck is the headline on Tom Friedman's column in Wednesdays New York Times. The headline doesn't do justice to the column, but it perfectly sums up a general American attitude which, if I were Iraqi, would make me incandescent with rage. As a grieving Britain knows only too well, a war in Afghanistan continues. The original, necessary and justified response to the 11 September 2001 attacks has been deformed and betrayed by the disastrous diversion of resources and attention to an unnecessary, unjustified war in Iraq. Obama has staked his reputation on success in Afghanistan, but the definition of success has been realistically downscaled. Not a flourishing democracy is the goal, just a half-way stable state that is not a safe haven or breeding ground for terrorists. Even in the United States, he can no longer depend on public support for this war. A USA Today/Gallup poll this March found 42 per cent of those asked saying that the US made a mistake in sending military forces to Afghanistan. In November 2001, the figure was just 9 per cent. The headline Goodbye Afghanistan, And Good Luck may be only a few years away. Americans do not necessarily feel that they are that much safer from terrorist attack, despite all the extraordinary measures that have been taken in the name of making them so. In a series of polls, the Pew Research Center has asked whether Americans feel that terrorists ability to strike the US is greater, the same or less than it was on 9/11. In August 2002, 39 per cent said it was the same, 34 per cent less, and 22 per cent greater. In February this year, 44 per cent said the same, 35 per cent less, and 17 per cent greater. So nearly eight years on, a clear majority still considers that terrorists' ability to strike the US is the same as or greater than it was on 9/11. They may be wrong, but that's what they say. So there is a general and surely correct sense that a long-term struggle against diverse terrorists continues. However, a decreasing number of Americans think their own safety will be secured by foreign wars. There's still a sharp partisan divide on this. In this years Pew poll, nearly two out of three Republicans insisted that military operations would have a greater effect in reducing the terrorist threat than diplomatic efforts; with Democrats, its the other way round. In sum, exactly half of those asked say decreasing the US military presence abroad would reduce the threat from terrorism. As important, the terrorist threat has been joined or overtaken by other problems, some of which feel more urgent and others of which seem more important. The economic meltdown, first of all. The people I watched hurrying to work past the construction site at ground zero early on Wednesday morning were surely not thinking about buildings collapsing as a result of terrorist attack. Nearly eight years have elapsed, and, in the meantime, that same financial district has seen banks collapsing as a result of what the Oxford economist Paul Collier calls bank slaughter. So those New Yorkers hurrying to work are more likely to be thinking about saving their jobs, or stoking the embers of a fragile market recovery. Meanwhile, looming in the background are other epochal challenges such as climate change and the rise of China. If future historians ask who was the winner in the war between America and al Qaeda? They may yet answer China. To be sure, China was rising anyway. But geopolitically it is also the unintended and unintentional beneficiary of a diversionary struggle in which the United States, under the Bush administration, has also harmed itself. Even leaving aside the economic costs of the global war on terror, Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo have damaged the US far more than al Qaeda ever could by any direct assault. But then, this has ever been the terrorists dream: to provoke the target state into hurting itself, in a kind of bloody judo. Lest we forget, Dick Cheney is still with us and most recently stands accused of having instructed the CIA not to report to Congress the development of a covert anti-terrorist operation, reportedly including assassination plans. Yet Cheney still has the gall to suggest that dropping the term war on terror will increase the terrorist threat to the United States. Sure-footed and nuanced, president Obama is doing his best to restore America to its better self, in Michigan (where unemployment now exceeds 14 per cent) as in Washington (where healthcare reform and climate change are at last being addressed, albeit with painful compromises in the offing), in Egypt (where he spoke eloquently to the Muslim world) as in Ghana. But though Obama is himself a weapon of mass attraction, the national power resources at his disposal are significantly less than they would have been had he assumed office in January 2001, and the challenges he faces, at home and abroad, are in many ways larger. Down at ground zero, the foundations of a new tower are already visible. In five years time, therell be a new landmark on the Manhattan skyline, and not merely the haunting presence of an absence. According to the local authorities, the building will officially be called 1 World Trade Center, but I trust that it will continue to be widely known by the title of Freedom Tower. Its base will be fortified against terrorist attack. But whether the United States will again appear as a beacon of freedom, whether the heart will lift again at the shimmering prospect of the Manhattan skyline that will depend on American policies on many different fronts, among which the incremental struggle against terrorism is only one, and probably not the most important. This article originally appeared on Guardian website A war in Afghanistan continues (Beta/AP) The first thing I see every time I come to New York is something that is not there. That soaring absence of the twin towers on the skyline of Manhattan remains this city's most haunting presence. Timothy Garton Ash "As important, the terrorist threat has been joined or overtaken by other problems, some of which feel more urgent and others of which seem more important."

Beyond the "war on terror"

A landmark of air. But the shadow cast by the absent twin towers is no longer the defining feature of world politics in the way that the shadow cast by the Berlin Wall was for nearly thirty years. Most people don't any more feel that we live in a war on terror in the way that we did feel that we lived in a cold war. Not across the world. Not in America. Not even in New York.

At the end of last month, Janet Napolitano, the US secretary for homeland security, confirmed that the Obama administration has junked the term global war on terror. So as a slogan, what was billed as an epochal struggle like the cold war or World War IV according to the neo-conservative Norman Podhoretz, for whom the cold war was World War III lasted little more than seven years, from the autumn of 2001 to the autumn of 2008, when Obama won the presidential election.

For most Americans Iraq is over though not, of course, for those Iraqis who are still alive and have to go on facing the consequences. Goodbye Iraq, And Good Luck is the headline on Tom Friedman's column in Wednesdays New York Times. The headline doesn't do justice to the column, but it perfectly sums up a general American attitude which, if I were Iraqi, would make me incandescent with rage.

As a grieving Britain knows only too well, a war in Afghanistan continues. The original, necessary and justified response to the 11 September 2001 attacks has been deformed and betrayed by the disastrous diversion of resources and attention to an unnecessary, unjustified war in Iraq. Obama has staked his reputation on success in Afghanistan, but the definition of success has been realistically downscaled.

Not a flourishing democracy is the goal, just a half-way stable state that is not a safe haven or breeding ground for terrorists. Even in the United States, he can no longer depend on public support for this war. A USA Today/Gallup poll this March found 42 per cent of those asked saying that the US made a mistake in sending military forces to Afghanistan. In November 2001, the figure was just 9 per cent. The headline Goodbye Afghanistan, And Good Luck may be only a few years away.

Americans do not necessarily feel that they are that much safer from terrorist attack, despite all the extraordinary measures that have been taken in the name of making them so. In a series of polls, the Pew Research Center has asked whether Americans feel that terrorists ability to strike the US is greater, the same or less than it was on 9/11. In August 2002, 39 per cent said it was the same, 34 per cent less, and 22 per cent greater. In February this year, 44 per cent said the same, 35 per cent less, and 17 per cent greater. So nearly eight years on, a clear majority still considers that terrorists' ability to strike the US is the same as or greater than it was on 9/11. They may be wrong, but that's what they say.

So there is a general and surely correct sense that a long-term struggle against diverse terrorists continues. However, a decreasing number of Americans think their own safety will be secured by foreign wars. There's still a sharp partisan divide on this. In this years Pew poll, nearly two out of three Republicans insisted that military operations would have a greater effect in reducing the terrorist threat than diplomatic efforts; with Democrats, its the other way round. In sum, exactly half of those asked say decreasing the US military presence abroad would reduce the threat from terrorism.

As important, the terrorist threat has been joined or overtaken by other problems, some of which feel more urgent and others of which seem more important. The economic meltdown, first of all. The people I watched hurrying to work past the construction site at ground zero early on Wednesday morning were surely not thinking about buildings collapsing as a result of terrorist attack. Nearly eight years have elapsed, and, in the meantime, that same financial district has seen banks collapsing as a result of what the Oxford economist Paul Collier calls bank slaughter. So those New Yorkers hurrying to work are more likely to be thinking about saving their jobs, or stoking the embers of a fragile market recovery.

Meanwhile, looming in the background are other epochal challenges such as climate change and the rise of China. If future historians ask who was the winner in the war between America and al Qaeda? They may yet answer China. To be sure, China was rising anyway. But geopolitically it is also the unintended and unintentional beneficiary of a diversionary struggle in which the United States, under the Bush administration, has also harmed itself.

Even leaving aside the economic costs of the global war on terror, Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo have damaged the US far more than al Qaeda ever could by any direct assault. But then, this has ever been the terrorists dream: to provoke the target state into hurting itself, in a kind of bloody judo. Lest we forget, Dick Cheney is still with us and most recently stands accused of having instructed the CIA not to report to Congress the development of a covert anti-terrorist operation, reportedly including assassination plans. Yet Cheney still has the gall to suggest that dropping the term war on terror will increase the terrorist threat to the United States.

Sure-footed and nuanced, president Obama is doing his best to restore America to its better self, in Michigan (where unemployment now exceeds 14 per cent) as in Washington (where healthcare reform and climate change are at last being addressed, albeit with painful compromises in the offing), in Egypt (where he spoke eloquently to the Muslim world) as in Ghana. But though Obama is himself a weapon of mass attraction, the national power resources at his disposal are significantly less than they would have been had he assumed office in January 2001, and the challenges he faces, at home and abroad, are in many ways larger.

Down at ground zero, the foundations of a new tower are already visible. In five years time, therell be a new landmark on the Manhattan skyline, and not merely the haunting presence of an absence. According to the local authorities, the building will officially be called 1 World Trade Center, but I trust that it will continue to be widely known by the title of Freedom Tower. Its base will be fortified against terrorist attack. But whether the United States will again appear as a beacon of freedom, whether the heart will lift again at the shimmering prospect of the Manhattan skyline that will depend on American policies on many different fronts, among which the incremental struggle against terrorism is only one, and probably not the most important.

This article originally appeared on Guardian website