“I want to hear whether or not we’re winning the war on terrorism,” said Phil Caper, one of the 20 directors of the World Affairs Council of Maine (WAC). This was a common sentiment among the approximately 90 people who had come to listen to Charles Dunbar, professor of international relations at Boston University and former ambassador from the United States to Yemen and Qatar, address the WAC during last Tuesday’s breakfast briefing titled “The War on Terror 2005-2008: Possible coming attractions,” at the Double Tree Hotel in Portland.
Dunbar’s speech did not specify what American’s could expect to see coming up in the war on terror if the current presidential administration stays its course. Instead he spoke on what he saw as the three biggest challenges the United States must overcome to ease tensions in the Middle East: “Squaring the circle,” the upcoming “clash of civilizations,” and how “to get the American people to follow and pay the price.”
Following the question and answer period after the briefing, the ambassador received a plaque from the WAC as a token of their appreciation.
According to their mission statement, the WAC is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization seeking “to develop an informed public, aware of the political, cultural and economic factors that affect international relations.”
USM donates office space to the WAC. Through this arrangement, students at USM receive free or discounted admission to all events the Maine chapter hosts.
Previous international speakers include Geunter Wehrmann, the deputy German Consul, and Adel Al-Jubeir, the foreign affairs advisor to the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, and most recently Jean-David Levitte, the French ambassador to the United States.
More information about the World Affairs Council of Maine can be found on their website (http://www.wacmaine.org). The online calendar of events also lists any upcoming WAC events.
The following are excerpts from Charles Dunbar’s speech to the World Affairs Council of Maine on Tuesday, November 9, 2004. During this speech Dunbar outlined what he saw as being the three biggest challenges facing the United States in regards to its relationship with the Middle East.
Squaring the circle:
“I would argue that in the President’s war on terrorism that there is no country in the world, and I’m speaking really of every country great and small, that matters more to the United States than Pakistan and with whose government we must have a cooperative relationship with if we’re going to be successful in the war on terrorism. I do want to say that I think the Bush Administration, the first Bush administration, has been quite successful in managing that relationship and I think that the situation in Pakistan shows how difficult it has been for us to develop that relationship and how difficult it has been for the Pakistan government to sustain. As you remember, the Pakistani strongman General Parviz Mosharraf decided early on to sign on with the United States shortly after 9/11 and the US decision to invade Afghanistan.
That decision by Mosharraf has been bitterly opposed. There have been several attempts on President Mosharraf’s life, a very direct expression of how his policies are viewed by segments of the population. But he has stuck to it fairly well.
In the three years since we began this cooperation General Mosharraf has moved into a policy of taking control of what are called ‘federally administered tribal territories’ in the northwestern part of Pakistan, an area that has not been under formal control of the Pakistan government or of the Afghan government since time immemorial. The Pakistani show signs of moving heavily into this region and eventually bringing it under formal control. If and when they do I think it will be much more difficult for Al Qa’ida to use this area as a base of operations.”
How to get the American people to follow and pay the price:
“We will pay any price, make our military forces as large as they need to be in order to fight wars, and we have demonstrated that the American people are prepared to support that.
What I’m speaking of is giving our diplomacy the sort of muscle that it needs. One part of the muscle is large resources for development purposes. Very frankly, to have money that can be spent over a long period of time, particularly in countries that are important to us.
To just give you some numbers of what I’m talking about: The Truman administration asked for 17 Billion dollars, got 12, and spent 11 billion dollars in the late 1940’s and very early 1950’s. If you inflate those dollars up till now we’re looking at a figure of 137 billion dollars.”
Clash of civilizations:
“I would contend that since September 12, 2001 the chances of Samuel Huntington’s view that there will be a clash of civilizations between the United States, standing more or less for the western world, and the Muslim world has increased. This was a theory that I tended to debunk. I’m really now not so sure and I think that this is a problem that the Bush administration needs to look at with great seriousness as it determines how it is going to deal with the Muslim world for the next four years.
I think that the invasion/occupation of Iraq was a great mistake. I say that with some sadness because I believe no matter what happens to the United States is a result of our having done this.
I think the reason this was a mistake was not because of what it did to Iraq but because in invading Iraq we have created a second pole, a lightning rod, for Muslim anger in the Middle East. The first pole, of course, is Palestine and the Israeli policies for Palestine.
We now have two focuses of anger, and the two blend in to one another as a focus of anger against the United States. We will get out with all deliberate speed. In the mean time we face a kind of hostility. And this hostility makes it very difficult for us to deal with these governments, governments that we must deal with if we’re going to be successful in the war on terrorism. I think, not to belabor the point, the Bush administration has been terribly wrong in the way that it has approached the Palestine-Israel conflict. I say that with the full realization that I don’t think even with the best of will to charge forward and get to a settlement they would have been able to do very much. But I think the point was it was important to look busy.”