Different New World Order Asserts Itself

Throughout the last few weeks, Americans have been understandably captivated by the conflict between the Clinton administration and Saddam Hussein. But there has been a much broader struggle as well, one whose implications extend well beyond Iraq.

The underlying issue has been America’s role in the post-Cold War world. The most recent conflict with Iraq has defined more clearly than ever the limits of America’s authority as the world’s only superpower.

The deal worked out in Baghdad last weekend represented, above all, a victory for the U.N. Security Council members unhappy with the idea of an American-led military action against Hussein: that is, Russia, France and China.

For all of them, the dispute over the U.N. inspections took on larger meaning. Over the last few years, all three of these countries have voiced strong support for the concept of what they often called a “multipolar world”--a phrase that, at its heart, means one where the United States does not always get its way.

Thus, we are now seeing how remarkably different the world looks and operates today from the time of the Gulf War seven years ago. The truth is that as the 1990s have progressed, other leading nations have become more uneasy about the power of the United States.

Remember the “new world order”? Those were the words invoked by President Bush and his national security advisor, Brent Scowcroft, after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait.

At the time, new world order meant several things. One was the idea that Washington and Moscow would cooperate in an area like the Middle East where they had formerly opposed one another. Scowcroft, who first used the phrase in August 1990, had borrowed the very words from an earlier speech by Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

He gave the words a broader meaning as well. With a new world order, Scowcroft asserted, the United Nations would function as originally intended “to mobilize the civilized world against aggression and against aggressors.” And, indeed, the U.N. Security Council proceeded to authorize the American invasion that dislodged Iraqi troops from Kuwait.

Look, by contrast, at what has happened over the last few weeks. No matter how much the Clinton administration may try to pretend otherwise, the sobering reality is that some of the world’s other leading powers were working not with the United States, as in 1991, but separately or, at times, in opposition to the administration.

Much attention has been devoted in this country to the ways in which Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin and Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov opposed the use of force against Hussein.

Yet the Russians were hardly alone. France--which has in recent years contested U.S. foreign policy in Africa, the Middle East, NATO and China--was also reluctant to follow America’s lead in dealing with Hussein.

As for China, its performance during the Iraq crisis made a mockery of some of the extravagant boasts made by the Clinton administration about its China policy.

Last fall, administration officials claimed that the United States and China now share similar interests in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf, supposedly because both countries want to ensure the stability of oil flows from the region.

However, the supposed Sino-American cooperation hasn’t been evident over the last two weeks. When U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Bill Richardson sojourned to Beijing looking for Chinese support for American airstrikes against Iraq, he got completely stiffed.

Then, trying to cover up this debacle, U.S. officials said Richardson’s mission hadn’t been a failure, because China had suggested it would abstain from (and thus not veto) a Security Council resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq. Within days, China said publicly that no such assurances were given.

As if to underscore Beijing’s message, when Chinese Premier Li Peng and Yeltsin signed a joint statement in Moscow opposing the use of force against Iraq, Li said China and Russia had agreed “no country should claim absolute dominance in resolving international matters.”

It is clear that for all three of these countries--France, Russia and China--the Iraq crisis has represented a golden opportunity to show that they can still exert some influence in the world and that America cannot always do what it wants.

Seven years ago, these countries were willing to join with the United States in helping to reverse Iraq’s move into Kuwait. This time, there was no Iraqi invasion, and France, Russia and China seemed to be more threatened by the prospect of American military action than by anything Iraq is capable of doing.

This week, after U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan concluded his agreement in Baghdad, Russia seemed happier than any other nation. “The question has been resolved,” said Yeltsin, at a time when, in Washington, Clinton administration officials were still talking about the need to examine the details.

In short, several of the world’s other leading powers have teamed up to restrain the United States from bombing Iraq. We are now witnessing a new world order, but it is one quite different from the one America envisioned seven years ago.

Mann’s column appears here every Wednesday.