The war is in full swing and the protests against it continue. What motivates the US is a desire to eliminate vulnerability, argues Jonathan Eyal
Almost regardless of how the war in Iraq ultimately develops, one conclusion is already evident: America has embarked on a new international strategy, and one which will transform security relations around the world. Some of the reasons for this new US strategy are limited to Iraq, while others owe their origin to the demise of the Cold War. But the outcome is the same - a global superpower which is now determined to eliminate potential threats before they even arise, rather than tackle immediate enemies as they emerge. The war in Iraq is not so much about the present, but about the future, as seen from Washington.
The diplomatic dispute about Iraq that preceded the war can be summed up as a dialogue of the deaf; both America's opponents and Washington's supporters frequently talked over each other, and often in mutually-exclusive terms.
For those who oppose the war, the conflict is either just about oil, or simply about US pique with a ruler who dared defy Washington and who humiliated the current US president's father years ago.
For Washington and its supporters, the battle is about preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, a noble war designed to bring peace and democracy to the Middle East.
All these arguments are ultimately irrelevant or downright wrong, as both sides in the dispute know only too well.
The fact that Iraq has the world's second-largest proven oil reserves is a major consideration for everyone, including, incidentally, Washington's chief opponents, who are equally keen to have influence in the country. But the Americans realise that they cannot simply occupy Iraq's oil wells for years to come, and milk them at will. And, even if a pro-American government is installed in Baghdad, that government would try to maximise oil revenues, just as America's other Middle Eastern allies have done. Kuwait was liberated by US forces and is currently flooded with US troops. Yet this did not translate into a greater American leverage over the price of Kuwaiti oil.
Indeed, if all that Washington wanted was cheap oil, no war was required: the mere lifting of the sanctions on Iraq would have flooded the markets with oil and would have depressed the price of this commodity for years to come. Nor is the US particularly obsessed with leaders who defy its will: provided these leaders are strategically irrelevant - as many in Africa are - or easily contained, as Cuba's Fidel Castro is, the US will ignore them.
Iraq has tried to develop a variety of weapons of mass destruction. Yet nobody doubts that the threat from Iraq is smaller today than it was a decade ago. The alleged links between Saddam Hussein and terrorist organisations have never been proven. Much of the supposed evidence produced by America's allies in the last few months to suggest Saddam is still trying to acquire a nuclear capability has been exposed by the UN inspectors as a crude forgery. And the claims that the war will bring "democracy" to the Middle East are also pure fantasy.
So, what are Washington's real objectives? There are a variety of calculations, all concerned with the future, rather than past or current Iraqi deeds.
The catalyst to the crisis actually came when the US realised that the old strategy of containing Iraq through a mixture of economic sanctions and military threats had been exhausted. Saddam remained in power, defiant and unbowed. The sanctions were increasingly detested throughout the Middle East, and every six months their renewal in the UN Security Council became more uncertain.
As seen from Washington, something had to be done, for the alternative was dire: the slow disintegration of the sanctions regime and the re-emergence of Saddam as a regional leader, this time hailed by most ordinary Arabs as their hero. If that happened, all of America's allies in the region would have been under immediate threat.
The pro-US monarchies of the Gulf, militarily weak and increasingly resented by their own people, would have tottered on the brink of collapse. Turkey and Iran would have been forced into an accommodation with Saddam. And the most radical Palestinian elements, including those sworn to destroy Israel, would have gravitated towards Baghdad.
So the war is not so much about disarming Saddam, but about ensuring that he never becomes the region's leader. It is not immediately concerned with capturing Iraqi oil, but with preventing one ruler from ultimately becoming the world's chief oil supplier.
Europeans will be making a big mistake if they dismiss the current war as an aberration. For the terrorist attacks on the US on September 11th, 2001, have irrevocably changed Washington's strategic perspective. The myth of America's territorial invincibility died in the rubble of the twin towers in New York; the threat of sudden death at the hands of far-away enemies, difficult to identify and seemingly impervious to reason, obsesses most ordinary Americans.
It is no good claiming, as some governments do, that similar threats are constantly faced by many European nations, and that the response should be international disarmament treaties, coupled with the settlement of conflicts which breed terrorists. For the citizens of the US still continue to expect instant solutions, a return to the period of invincibility.
When stripped of its diplomatic noise and histrionics, the trans-Atlantic debate over Iraq revealed a profound difference in psychology. Living in close proximity in relatively small, vulnerable countries, the Europeans are accustomed to believing their best hope is to manage, rather than eliminate, security risks. This was largely accomplished by assigning prerogatives of their nation-states to international or regional institutions.
A collection of European nations instinctively believe in the power of diplomacy at all costs, recoil at any show of patriotism, pretend that they no longer espouse national interests and are often fatalistically resigned to the idea that some international crises simply do not have any solution.
The US, however, stands diametrically opposed to every one of these concepts. Vulnerabilities are not to be managed, but must be eliminated; hence the total "war against terrorism" or weapons of mass destruction. And national interests are held sky-high, in a bunting of US flags.
In essence, the Cold War - when the US had one equal enemy and therefore had to think carefully about the consequences of each regional conflict - has now truly been buried. The world will have to come to terms with the emergence of its only superpower. Some, like Britain, have already sought to accommodate themselves to this reality by offering the US unswerving support. Others have presented this support in more gingerly, reserved and nuanced terms.
And France has decided to maintain outright, determined opposition. All these approaches have their merits. But whether any of them actually makes the slightest bit of difference to the US is a question which, at least for the moment, finds no conclusive answer.
• The author is Director of Studies at the Royal United Services Institute in London