WASHINGTON. (Galina Zeveleva for RIA Novosti) - Commentators seem to have missed one point, which U.S. President George W. Bush made in his speech on April 10.
He identified two enemies, which are preventing America from winning the war in Iraq - al-Qaeda with its ideology of terror, and Iran, the bulwark of Islamic fundamentalism.
Let's note that both enemies are ideological. For the American president, the Iraq war is a major front in the new battle against the evil after the victory in the Cold War. Bush believes that in upholding values of freedom in the 21st century, America is leading the battle against a hostile and dangerous ideology.
Just before the start of the war in the spring of 2003, George Bush said that the main threat faced by America emanated from Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction (which have never been found). But in reality, Washington's plan was not at all limited to overthrowing the dictator. Bush announced that his goal was to build a "democratic" Iraq, which would be a model for other Mid-Eastern countries, and an American ally in the war on terrorism. Now, five years later, the United States continues to fight a war it seems no nearer to winning, and Iraq is by no means a functioning democracy. It is not quite clear who controls that country, if anyone does, and what will happen to it in the future.
Now Bush has pointed to a new threat. He is worried that Iraq's Shia population, and later on the whole of the country, may find itself under Iran's control. He has essentially offered the Iranian leadership an ultimatum: "The regime in Tehran also has a choice to make. It can live in peace with its neighbor, enjoy strong economic and cultural and religious ties. Or it can continue to arm, train and fund militant groups, which are terrorizing the Iraqi people and turning them against Iran." He added: "If Iran makes the wrong choice, America will act to protect our interests and our troops and our Iraqi partners."
Bush considers no less important the ideological struggle between "freedom" and "terror". He has once again drawn his favorite parallel between the war against terror and the Cold War, and attempted to justify the vast expense of the Iraq war by comparing it with the defense budget during the ideological and military confrontation with the U.S.S.R.
Having mentioned that in certain years of the Cold War, this budget reached 13% of the U.S. GDP, he said: "Our citizens recognized that the imperative of stopping Soviet expansion justified this expense. Today, we face an enemy that is not only expansionist in its aims but has actually attacked our homeland, and intends to do so again. Yet our defense budget accounts for just over 4 percent of our economy, less than our commitment at any point during the four decades of the Cold War."
The president addressed the costs of the war for a reason. The overwhelming majority of experts do not believe that the war in Iraq is the cause of the current slump in the U.S. economy, but ordinary Americans are coming to associate it with the growing financial difficulties at home and the danger of recession. Reports about increasing spending on the Iraq war against the background of a deepening financial crisis only fuel such suspicions. In his recently published book "The Three Trillion Dollar War," Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize winner in economics, and his co-author Linda Bilmes wrote that every 10 days of the Iraqi war are costing America five billion dollars.
Despite huge financial costs, human losses, the nation's discontent with the war, and the risk of becoming America's least popular president, Bush refuses to give up: "Iraq is the convergence point for two of the greatest threats to America in this new century: al-Qaeda and Iran." The president dogmatically believes that the victory is possible if America is as tough as it was during the Cold War. As many of his compatriots, Bush adamantly rejects the view that it was the domestic changes in the U.S.S.R., rather than U.S. military might and tough policy that ended the Cold War.
Paradoxically, it seems that Bush and his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speak a very similar language, although they are on opposing sides of the new ideological barricades that have replaced the Iron Curtain. Bush continues to rely on force, thereby multiplying the army of terrorists more quickly than he can suppress them, and convincing Iran that possession of nuclear weapons is the only guarantee of its security. If John McCain becomes the next president, the U.S., and the Middle East may be unable to break this vicious circle.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
