The Iraqi War and an American Hobbesian World

Why does America insist on going to war with Iraq while France opposes it? Indeed, the military solution to disarm Saddam Hussein’s regime of its weapons of mass destruction is opposed by the whole world. Though the UN will not authorize the use of force, America is going ahead. Why have France, Germany and other countries in the European Union, formerly America’s allies and heirs of the renaissance who adore the values of liberty, individual autonomy and democracy, been so against the war?

The conflict between America and Continental Europe over Iraq is more than a dissagreement over the choice between war and peace. Robert Kagan, an expert on American international relationships, has discussed this in his book Of Paradise and Power (2003) wherein he defends American interests.  According to Kagan, currently there is a sharp divergence between America and Europe over national priorities concerning the Iraqi threat as well as in defining common defense and foreign policy affairs. In Kagan’s idiom, Europe is living in a “Kantian worldly heaven”, while America is living in a “Hobbesian authorized universe.”

The heavenly Kantian world refers to the concept of a perpetual peace as described by Immanuel Kant, the German 18^th century philosopher. This concept highlights the idea that to reach eternal peace on an international scale, a foedus pacificum should be formed. This is a peace federation which is approved of by countries that accept the Republican arrangement which honors moral autonomy, individualism and social order.

The Hobbesian universe refers to Thomas Hobbes’s dark view of society. This British philosopher from the 17^th century regarded the natural human state to be one of anarchy, a constant war of all against all. Hobbes saw life as solitary, brutish, poor, nasty, and short. In these circumstances, a Leviathan power is needed which has absolute authority and the power to control anarchistic and brutal tendencies.

Continental Europe prefers the idea of a Kantian heaven world because they are wary of a world based on pure power politics, a world that they have endured for centuries and which involved dictatorships, narrow nationalisms and finally two ruinous world wars.

Today Europe is enjoying the foedus pacificum heaven. They are no longer interested in enlarging their defense and military budgets. Instead they prefer to rely on international constitutions, negotiation, diplomacy, and transnational teamwork for solving world problems. That’s why in the Iraqi case they call for a peaceful and multilateral resolution for the crisis. 

America, as the leading hegemonic state since the second world war and the only hyper- power since the Soviet collapse, views the world as the battlefield between good and the evil in a Hobbesian way. As the idiom says, “If you have a hammer, everything appears as nails.” For America, with its unassailable powers, it is the hammer which views the world as nails. In a Hobbesian world view, America is the Leviathan that controls anarchy through force and power. 

In Kagan’s point of view, America’s position is natural because basically the choice is between peace and war, Kantian or Hobbesian. During the 19^th century, while American military power was deteriorating, it tended towards Kantianism, while Europe tended to Hobbesianism. Now as America turns into a militaristic state and Europe’s power wanes, their positions shift correspondingly. 

I feel disturbed by this kind of thesis not because it is a weak argument, but because of its worrying implications, particularly in the geopolitical context of the WTC tragedy in which global terrorism is haunting everyone. Kagan concludes that peaceful and multilateral approaches are merely signs of weakness. In short, if you are powerful, why behave in a multilateral way? This thinking characterizes the Bush government’s foreign policy.

America is the only invincible hyper power at the moment. Its defense budget is much larger than all the defense budgets of the European Union put together. According to the latest Newsweek, next years American defense budget will be greater than the defense budget of all the 191 countries in the world. Its economic power eclipses that of Japan, Germany, and Britain combined. A country that is populated by five percent of the total world’s population possesses 43 percent of the world’s economic industry and is responsible for 50 percent of high end technological production.

Due to its hyper power, America can do anything it wants in a unilateral fashion, finding it unnecessary to have other’s authorization or to listen to other’s suggestions. This is really ironic because when the September 11^th tragedy occurred, the majority of the world’s people, except Osama Bin Laden and the fundamentalists, affirmed their sympathy and solidarity for America. For example, Le Monde, a French magazine, proclaimed that “We are all American now” and NATO expressed total support for America. America’ s call for “War against global terrorism” was welcomed virtually everywhere.

In the war against the terrorism, you cannot neglect the weak party, even though you are a superpower. Not because you could not do it alone, but because when you are very powerful, you will always be the target of terrorism. Therefore you should build and expand the networks of trust in both strong and weak circles to isolate the terrorists.

Unfortunately Bush is not doing this. Instead of isolating the terrorists, he is isolating America through unilateral action and thus wasting the international sympathy for the WTC tragedy. He appears to feel capable of ordering the world’s anarchy alone. It is as if America is proclaiming through its unilateral actions—“I am a Leviathan, therefore I am.”

It is even more worrying that the basis for the attack of Iraq is the belief that it involves liberation rather than conquest. According to Bush, “Liberty for the Iraqi people is the magnificent moral motive.” Overthrowing Saddam is merely the beginning of a campaign for spreading democracy across the globe.

In the American context, actually it is not Bush alone who possesses this belief.  American history is full of similar examples. Since the beginning, the self-image built by America is that it is a concrete manifestation of the universal liberty’s idea, which becomes the human liberty’s realization model in the future.

Abraham Lincoln said in America’s declaration if Independance,  “Liberty, is not only for the people of this country, but also the hope for the world in the future.” In order to manifest this, Lincoln was not reluctant to execute war. In his famous speech at Gettysburg during the civil war, Lincoln called for the war against the South because their refusal to abolish slavery. Lincoln’s two objectives were to liberate slaves and to assure that the government is from the people, by the people and for the people.

At that time America had not yet become a hegemonic state. After the second world war, when America became a superpower, its role as a liberator was accepted by the world because the American president at that time, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman, prefered to uphold international co-operation not imperialism. Then, as a superpower, America took the multilateral initiative.

At present, Bush combines the American belief as the liberator and a hyper power which does not trust others. Thus moral absolutism emerges. This happens when the Leviathan thinks it deserves to judge between good and evil, to provide “liberty from God” and to decide which countries are in the axis of evil.

Shakespeare said in Julius Caesar: “The abuse of greatness is when it disjoins remorse from power.” A Leviathan which only believes in its own power because it feels unbeatable is an example of power disjoined from remorse. While the US Leviathan boasts about delivereing liberty through attacking Iraq, the world’s people do not see this as the libertion of the Iraqi people. Instead, they percieve an arrogant Leviathan that agonizes the world. American unilateralism is a form of ignorance which has no trust in the world’s voice. Consequently, the world does not trust the US either.

Bush’s main mistake is that he violated Thomas Jefferson’s original message that America should always harbour “a decent respect to the opinions of humankind”.

Ahmad Sahal, Director Deputy of Freedom Institute

(Translated by Lanny Octavia, edited by Jonathan Zilberg)