9/11 Did not Change World Politics

Brian Frederking

April 26, 2006

            To understand the global reaction to the war in Iraq, we must realize something that is counter-intuitive to most Americans: the events of September 11, 2001 did not fundamentally change world politics. Sure, it changed US politics: our security policies, our campaigns, etc. But it did not change global reactions to US uses of force.

            Consider the following quotes:

* Russian foreign minister: “Russia is deeply outraged by (this)….action that is nothing short of undisguised aggression…Only the UN Security Council has the right to decide (if) the use of force should be taken to maintain or restore international peace and security...The true aims are obvious. To impose on the world the political, military, and economic dictate of the United States.”

* French foreign minister: “We believe Iraq no longer has any nuclear capability, and large quantities of chemical and biological stocks, we know, have been found and destroyed by the United Nations teams. We do not believe there is any point in going back in and continuing to look for the last test tube, because we’ll never find it. What we need is a new system of continuous monitoring that allows us to make sure Iraq does not try to build new facilities to acquire these things again.”

* Canadian diplomat: “With no remaining alternative centers of power, the USA has developed a marked and growing impatience with the constraints of multilateral diplomacy. The give and take required within the UNSC in order to secure support for US policy initiatives is increasingly perceived in Washington as an unnecessary tyranny. There is also a decreasing disposition to convince allies and others of the wisdom of Washington’s views: it is deemed sufficient that they be stated. Any disagreement with US policy is seen by many in Washington as driven by irrational anti-American sentiment or posturing.”

* Middle East specialist: “The United States and its British ally have argued that they were acting to enforce the ‘will’ of the UN Security Council, that they were responding to a ‘material breach’ of the cease-fire that ended the 1991 Gulf War, and also that they were pre-empting Iraq’s future potential use of weapons of mass destruction. Neither of the first two arguments stand up to legal scrutiny, while the third suggests a doctrine of preventive war that carries with it extremely dangerous implications for international relations.”

* Chinese Foreign Minister: “We insist that the international community make joint efforts to fight against terrorist activities in accordance with the principles of the UN Charter and international rules, on the basis of respect of a country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

            While today we would recognize these as criticisms of the Bush administration and the US decision to invade Iraq, they are actually criticisms of US uses of force during the Clinton administration! We need to understand that the world has consistently criticized the US whenever it has bypassed the Security Council and unilaterally used force since the end of the cold war. Disputes arise when the US relies on its military supremacy rather than political cooperation.

            The events of 9/11 did not change this. The continuities of the post-cold war era are more important than any shift in US foreign policy after 9/11. Current US policies are based on the flawed assumption that 9/11 created an entirely new international system that legitimates US uses of force when threatened by terrorism. The US expected others to recognize this “new” system and support its policies.

            But to a great extent this did not happen. The world (again) criticized post-9/11 US uses of force not authorized by the Security Council. If we understand global criticisms of US uses of force prior to 9/11 – and if we understand that 9/11 did not fundamentally change world politics – then we can understand why so few countries supported the US invasion of Iraq. September 11 did not create a “new” world. The dispute over the invasion of Iraq replayed a debate that has dominated the entire post-cold war period.