Friends in need

Those who offloaded our star-studded military delegation from an American airliner did us a huge favour.

Those who offloaded our star-studded delegation from an American airliner did us a huge favour. Some gains we immediately cashed. By calling off the visit the military’s standing at home improved further. Washington’s apology, symbolic or insincere, should also count for something. If a routine visit, it saved us precious time; if of substance, it would be rescheduled and give our side an opening advantage. The real benefit however would only accrue, if one got the big picture right.

We have enough problems of our own, but may still profit a great deal if we understood what has afflicted the post 9/11 America. If al Qaeda did in fact hate American liberties, as President Bush would have us believe, it eminently succeeded. The episode at the Washington Dulles International Airport was yet another proof that once the freest of all societies was now under siege. That is not half as bad as the all pervasive paranoia that has infested America. Obama’s heritage and the colour of his skin did not come in the way when he was elected to the high office — thanks to George W, but the bigoted in a society don’t take too kindly to such slights. The racist America got even with O J Simpson, a coloured superstar who was charged with killing his (white) wife and acquitted by an all black jury. The myth of the melting pot was already cracking. Smarting under the humiliation of the presidential election, these forces of darkness were not going to let Obama, with that extra baggage of his middle name, get away with even upholding basic American values — the right to freely practice religion, for example.

The ruckus over the ‘ground zero mosque’ is not essentially about Islam and the enormity of the twin towers. It is the old empire: a coalition of military-industrial complex, neo-cons and assorted lobbies, hitting back. America is economically not in the best of shape. The largest credit rating company in China, the country that keeps the US on a monetary lifeline, has declared it insolvent. The British historian, Niall Ferguson, has warned that the American empire may collapse under its debt sooner than expected. The Brotherhood was still not willing to let an upstart liberate the US economy from its stranglehold. Obama’s economic reforms were threatening to do precisely that.

In normal times, one might not have cared whether he succeeded or not. In fact if the still surviving superpower were to come crashing down due to its imperial overreach or wars within, one would even thank the Almighty for the retribution of American war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. But then these are not normal times.

Both these wars have long been lost. The former head of the CIA’s Bin Laden unit too has conceded that. Obama was still blamed for cutting the US losses in Iraq. He therefore cannot withdraw from Afghanistan without declaring some victory. It is more or less clear how to do it: leave behind a consensus dispensation, which is the only insurance for a stable Afghanistan, and thus provide the much-needed ‘face saving’. The problem is that with the country divided along all possible fault lines, only a confident American leader can pull it off.

We therefore have a vested interest in America not going down the pipe. Not yet, because we want it to vacate our neighbourhood before it does so. The damage that its presence in Afghanistan has done to that country is obvious, its fallout on Pakistan not always so. As long as the drones continue killing our citizens, a few amongst us will blow up whatever comes their way. We may talk about the rights and wrongs of the matter, but for some it is a matter of life and death. Saving the US from this eastern version of the Bermuda Triangle is therefore for our own good.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 10^th, 2010.