An Alternative to Empire

Editor's Note: This is an excerpt from the newly released book, "Power Trip" (Seven Stories Press, 2003) edited by John Feffer in association with Foreign Policy in Focus.

A week before the first anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, the heads of state of a hundred countries assembled in Johannesburg for the U.N. World Summit on Sustainable Development. They gathered to accelerate efforts to raise living standards around the world without destroying the global environment in the process, a plan established a decade ago at the historic Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

In symbolic gestures – an empty chair and pair of shoes planted at one session, a sea of buttons asking "Where Is W?" – delegates in Johannesburg noted the conspicuous absence of the U.S. president. Unlike his father ten years before, George W. Bush skipped the summit and sent his secretary of state as his designated hitter. Bush's boycott was supported by a collection of oil companies, including mega-giant Exxon Mobil, who wrote the president congratulating him on his good judgment. Petroleum, after all, is a major driving force behind unsustainable development (otherwise known generically as "business as usual").

Colin Powell arrived on the summit's last day, during an impassioned speech by the Palestinian environment minister describing the environmental devastation wreaked by the Israeli occupation. The U.S. secretary of state could be seen chatting with the minister next to him, his translation earphones on the table by his side. Powell's schedule at the summit focused not on sustainable development but on behind-the-scenes lobbying to convince the assembled leaders to back U.S. plans to attack Iraq. The United States had clearly come to lecture, not to listen.

Indeed, the United States has been suffering gradual hearing loss for some time. The louder the world raises its objections, the more deafly the United States soldiers on. The historical moment created by the Sept. 11 attacks could have accomplished a minor medical miracle by restoring to the United States the ability to hear. In fact, the American government and the American people gratefully listened to the expressions of sympathy that came pouring in from around the world and were surprised to hear from some unexpected quarters such as Libya's Muammar Qaddafi and Cuba's Fidel Castro. But the restoration of hearing was only partial. Our leaders still could not hear why so much of the world is unhappy with U.S. foreign policy. They could hear the sweet strains of sympathy but not the bass rumblings of dissatisfaction.

The United States needs to listen for two reasons: our allies and our adversaries. The challenge of international terrorism clearly requires international cooperation, so the United States must listen to allies. Listening is central to the practice of multilateralism. Multilateralism, like politics, is the art of the possible, and this art is practiced through conversation. Virtually every state views terrorism as a threat to its existence, but most ongoing resolutions (in Ireland, in Spain) are being negotiated, not imposed by force of arms. Coalition-building among our allies requires greater acknowledgment of their strengths, experiences, and concerns. If the U.S. government abandons the fundamentals of diplomatic engagement, U.S. allies such as Israel and Colombia will be even less likely to alter their own hard-line policies.

With our adversaries – actual, potential, or imagined – listening is also critical. Popular opposition to U.S. policies is rising around the globe. Again the Earth Summit was symbolic: Secretary Powell's speech could barely be delivered over the loud and recurrent chorus of disapproval. The unilateralism of the Bush administration – crystallized in "The National Security Strategy of the United States" released in Sept. 2002, and implemented most recently in the war in Iraq – has been the exact opposite of a dialogue, and this marks a dramatic change in how the United States conducts foreign policy. Our present leaders have graduated from the take-it-or-leave-it school of diplomacy. This is the art of the impossible, a mafioso's take on democracy, and this is the art that the United States practiced so deafly at the World Summit on Sustainable Development: nonattendance, nonengagement, nonnegotiation.