The fractious prelude to war has done much to disguise its true and truly awesome significance. The future of the UN; the fissure within the European Union; the post-war direction of New Labour: these are all perfectly legitimate issues, worthy of our attention. But, as fire rains from the sky, there is still too great a fixation with process, diplomacy and political in-fighting. What should preoccupy us now is the conflict itself, the sheer scale of what is at stake, the risks the war entails, and what it means for the world.
At such a moment, all words are freighted with the danger of instant obsolescence. That is true of all wars, but doubly so in this case. The last Gulf war was, of course, a new kind of conflict, in the sense that the technology deployed by the West was of a sophistication never before seen. But the grounds for war in that case the invasion of one nation state by another were reassuringly familiar and immediately recognised by the world.
A voyage without maps
Twelve years later, we are in terra incognita. In principle, the assault on Iraq is not an exercise in pre-emption, but a response to Saddam Husseins repeated and flagrant violation of numerous UN resolutions since the 1991 ceasefire. In perception, however, this is very much a pre-emptive war, and will be judged by the world as a test of the new doctrine of preventive strikes which the President announced in his State of the Union address last year (I will not wait on events).
Pre-emption is not an easy concept to proselytise. By definition, it requires people to contemplate that which has not yet happened. By definition, it requires politicians to go out on a limb, to face the blizzard of popular scepticism. The success or failure of this campaign will do much to determine the future of pre-emption as a viable military doctrine. Tony Blair understands that this is a revolutionary step. I am not sure how many other world leaders have grasped its full implications or the sheer novelty of the Wests strategic situation.
In times of conflict, the greatest mistake is to use old maps. During the Cuban missile crisis, the Kennedy brothers constantly referred to Barbara Tuchmans The Guns of August, an analysis of how the world stumbled towards the first world war by adhering to the old rules of warfare.
What strikes me is how many people are still, so to speak, living in September 10 2001. They see the world through the old prism of the post-1945 era, the Cold war, and its immediate aftermath. They have yet to absorb the lessons of 11 September: specifically, that the old doctrines of containment, deterrence, and non-proliferation are no longer sufficient to the needs of a world in which fanatical terrorist groups pursue their objectives by any means at their disposal, and rogue states develop, and possibly trade in, weapons of mass destruction with apparent impunity.
The Bali and Mombasa attacks last year not to mention the many other planned atrocities which have been foiled around the world show that we are living in a completely new geopolitical context. You may not agree with the American and British response. But if you dont agree with it you at least have to come up with an alternative way of dealing with the new challenges posed by, and implicit in, the 9/11 attacks. What unites the opponents of military action, I am afraid, is their conspicuous failure to do so.
The changing landscape
The war to disarm Saddam has been caricatured as the product of a dynastic grudge and of right-wing ideology hence Robin Cooks claim in his resignation speech that if the hanging chads in Florida had gone the other way and Al Gore had been elected, we would not now be about to commit British troops to action in Iraq.
But it is neither the Bush familys undoubted loathing for Saddam nor the US administrations political character which has driven us to this point. Much deeper historic forces are at work. What America, Britain and their allies have recognised is that the global landscape has changed, and that the old ways no longer work. We have reached in global affairs what the literary critic Frank Kermode called the sense of an ending, accompanied by an apprehension that a completely new chapter has begun.
I am a supporter of the Bush-Blair strategy: I believe that the analysis it reflects is right, and that the present campaign is necessary. But those of us who have taken this position must nonetheless face the conflict with humility, respect for opposing views, and a clear mind. By definition, this is unexplored terrain and the compass which the West now clasps in its hand is new and untested. In the weeks ahead, many questions will be asked and answered.
The Clinton administration was terribly scarred by the death of eighteen American troops in Somalia in 1993, and resorted thereafter to blowing up empty training camps with cruise missiles. Ever since 11 September, however, President Bush has made it clear that US soldiers and, by implication, their British counterparts would die in the war on terror. If the liberation of Iraq is protracted, and God forbid the number of Allied casualties high, Bush and Blair will face a true moment of reckoning with their respective electorates. And it is simply impossible to predict how the American and British people would respond in such circumstances.
No less important is the question of Iraqi casualties. Saddam may not care about his people, but the rest of the world takes a much less cavalier approach. What will happen if US Admiral Timothy Keating is wrong to predict a campaign of breath-taking speed, agility, [and] precision? Again, whatever happens, we shall learn much about the tolerance of Western publics to the realities of modern warfare in the next few days and weeks.
Into the open sea
The challenge is political, as well as military. And it is huge. The leaders of the coalition must explain, explain and explain again why they are doing what they are doing, and why it is right. The war has begun, and one longs for it to be short and as bloodless as possible. But whatever shape the conflict takes, the world will not be the same when it is over.
Joe Klein ended his recent book on Clinton with the observation that there was a smug, shallow serenity about the 1990s, and that the former president may be remembered as a politician who served before history resumed its contentious dance, before life got serious again. That is absolutely right. And what precisely that means what a serious life entails we are about to discover.
Matthew dAncona is Deputy Editor of The Sunday Telegraph
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