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Can
public opinion stop the U.S.-led war against Iraq?
By Marwan Al Kabalan, London
, Gulf News
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Less than 24 hours after Hans Blix, chief UN inspector, reported to the UN
Security Council on the progress his team had made concerning Iraq's
disarmament, millions of demonstrators took to the streets in major world
capitals.
Theirs was a movement without a leader and its members belonged to no
obvious political caste. What united them was opposition to Bush and
Blair's policy to attack Iraq. Pro-war western media recalled the Vietnam
demonstrations and feared that this impressive show of public anger could
hinder the U.S.-led military venture.
Anti-war activists, on the other hand, hoped that policymakers in
Washington and London would listen to the voice of reason and be deterred
by the lack of public support. To the relief of the former and the
disappointment of the latter this wont be the case. The hole in democracy
has never been as wide as it is today and the purpose of millions of
demonstrators around the world, to halt the war, is by definition
negative, and their goal unattainable, bar a miracle.
The Vietnam experience is unlikely to be repeated simply because it was a
myth created by media fallacies and anti-democracy practices in the U.S.
There is little doubt that the Vietnam experience forms the backdrop of
the excessive sensitivity of U.S. policy-makers towards public opinion.
Vietnam left deep bitterness and frustration in the foreign policy
establishment, among political elites and in academia.
The idea that the U.S. was defeated by a small and poorly equipped
Third World nation was hard to accept. In political circles the media was
blamed for turning public opinion against the war; whereas some in the
academic community placed the criticism on the U.S. democratic system.
On the political level, President Richard Nixon exclaimed to his staff:
"[t]he press is the enemy". In academia, George Kennan, author
of the containment doctrine, deplored democracy and considered it as a
hindrance for the conduct of a successful foreign policy.
He believed that preserving democratic values and the achievement of a
high degree of effectiveness in foreign policy are two incompatible
objectives and hence one should be sacrificed if the other was to survive.
Samuel Huntington, a Harvard scholar and author of the clash of
civilisation thesis, wrote in 1975: "some of the problems of
governance in the United States today stem from an excess of
democracy". For him, lesser participation on the part of domestic
actors is necessary to "enable democracy to function
effectively".
Most threatening to political authority, Huntington argued, was public
opinion, which has become a "new source of national power in
1970". John Gaddis, professor of Naval History in Yale, concurred and
explained the success of Stalin's foreign policy during the early years of
the Cold War on the grounds that "[t]he Russian dictator was immune
from pressure of Congress, public opinion, or the press".
The idea that public opinion was responsible for the Vietnamese debacle
was disputed in more sophisticated studies, nevertheless, a wide
conviction that public opinion can drive foreign policy persisted.
As a consequence, policy makers emphasised the need to having the public
on the side of the government before engaging in any military venture.
Cyrus Vance, former Secretary of State, wrote in his memoirs underlying
the interplay between American domestic politics and foreign policy:
"our foreign policy should be understood and supported by the
American people" without that support, he added, our policies are
"vulnerable to misunderstanding, public disillusionment and
repudiation".
Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Advisor (NSA) in the Carter
administration, demanded that the executive must enlighten the public
about global complexities and generate support for their policies. Without
domestic support, foreign policy, in his opinion, was doomed to failure.
The perception that public opinion can influence foreign policy was
accompanied by a keen tendency in policy circles not to allow it dictate
the foreign policy agenda.
Particularly when military action was considered, policy makers were to
show their utmost determination that under whatever circumstances not to
lose a public relations battle at home before wining a war abroad.
Sustaining public support through proper media coverage was considered
indispensable if war objectives were to be achieved.
This task became part and parcel of the decision-making process in the US.
For example, in the winter of 1998, as the U.S. was preparing to launch an
attack on Iraq after Baghdad refused to let the UNSCOM inspectors carry
out their disarming mission, the Clinton administration contacted top
executives at CNN and arranged for a world-wide broadcast of a national
'town meeting'.
The meeting was attended by top administration officials: Secret-ary of
State, Secretary of Defence, and NSA. Although the meeting was considered
a public relations disaster, it showed the importance politicians attach
to winning the support of the public instead of leaving them easy target
for alternative media coverage.
Since mass media became a factor in modern decision-making in the second
half of the 20th century, policymakers employed three "pathways"
to shape or influence public opinion. The first is the "direct path
of influence" in which principal policymakers address the public
directly and try to manipulate them emotionally.
The second is the "indirect path of influence" in which
officials leak information to the media in an attempt to shape and direct
the public debate on a policy issue. The third pathway is a variation on
the two first.
Here, policymakers rely on supportive media coverage to win the public by
invoking patriotic sentiments. In all these cases public opinion does not
mean the general public but the public-foreign policy-making elites.
Those elites are targeted because they are intelligent enough to spoil
policy and determine its fate by presenting opposite views, which could
divert the attention of the general public from the official agenda. For
example, the official story that deposing Saddam is necessary to dismantle
Iraq's arsenal of weapons of mass destruction was damaged when the counter
argument was presented and claimed that it is, in fact, motivated by the
lust for Iraqi oil.
Public opinion, however, is not the only factor that produces the
necessary conditions for decision-making in the U.S. Public opinion is one
aspect of a structure within which policy-makers work with constraints and
choices in mind.
Anthony Lake, NSA in the first Clinton administration, argued that
domestic support is indeed important when military action is considered
but we must bring other considerations to bear as well.
They are: the clarity of the case for intervention; cost; feasibility; the
national interests involved; the chances of success; and, finally the
willingness of regional and international bodies to do their part. But the
critical factor in power politics was and remains the quality of
leadership and its ability to clearly define its objectives and rally the
public behind them.
In fact, public opinion is likely to play a role in directing U.S. foreign
policy only when the leadership is divided and lacks a clear vision in the
foreign policy domain. It is widely accepted now that the critical role
played by public opinion during the Vietnam War, which seemingly resulted
in shifting the country's foreign policy, was a result of division in
policy circles.
Support for Vietnam intervention fell below 50 per cent only after
President Lyndon Johnson implied in a March 1968 speech that he considered
the war unwinnable.
Johnson's statement was at odds with the dominant views held by his key
advisors. It also marked the first sign of division among power elites in
Washington and opened the window for speculative media coverage that ended
in the public losing faith in the war and hence affecting policy outcomes.
The issue of certainty on the part of policy makers regarding a policy
issue and the likelihood of it leading to different media effects on
public opinion is probably the single most important factor which could
lead to taking foreign policy out of the hands of the elite and open the
process to an ill-informed public.
The mechanism here is that if the government is certain about a policy it
is likely to influence the public by feeding the media with a consistent
daily news line. Media coverage in this case is expected to echo the
policy of the government and, hence, play the role of manufacturing
consent. Conversely, if the government is uncertain about a policy, the
public debate is likely to slip away from the hands of policymakers.
Policy certainty here is measured in relation to the absence or presence
of a policy regarding an issue. The absence of policy includes
disagreement, conflict of interests or uncertainty within an executive.
In this instance, the outbreak of more frequent elite debates and
congressional opposition to presidential foreign policy initiatives
provide journalists with a more regular supply of safe, reportable
opposition views to put in the news.
This aspect of media's activity must be looked at in the light of the
traditional conflict between the different branches of the executive: the
NSC, the State Department, the Pentagon and occasionally the CIA over
foreign policy orientations and implementations.
These different parties, along with Congress, tend to leak information
with the aim of undermining the policy of their opponents and weaken their
case before the public. Here, leaks and trial balloons function as
effective devices of elite communication.
In all cases, however, the role of the media proves critical for the
shaping of public opinion where the government relies on them to
disseminate certain information. Because the media look to the casual
observer, like no power at all, the information they supply gain more
credibility among the public and can easily shape their opinion.
The tendency of the media to tilt in favour of the official story is
strengthened by their sensitivity to signals emanating from the
"golden triangle": the White House, the Pentagon and the State
Department. Given the fact that media distribution in the U.S. is among
the highest in the world, their effect on the U.S. public is tremendous.
In the U.S. almost the entire population has access to an extraordinary
volume of media output in print, broadcasting, and recordings. In
addition, Americans, public and leadership, retain strong belief that
their media are trustworthy, a survey by the Chicago Council on Foreign
Relations showed.
Indeed, state-media relations in the U.S. are not based on mere
manipulation by one side to the other. What governs state-media relations,
instead, is mutual dependency in which the media and policymakers use each
other to promote their own objectives. These relations enable officials to
send their massage across, while providing journalists with a perfect
channel of information to make their news stories.
Here, the interaction between officials and reporters is governed by
unwritten rules, regulations, and practices which developed over time to
produce well-established patterns of normal reporting providing the ethos
to decide on what to put on the news.
These patterns transform journalists into "gatekeepers" or
passive transmitters of news from officials to public in a way that helps
shape the latter opinions.
In conclusion, policy certainty and elite unity are the important factors
in U.S. foreign policy decision-making and with the doves joining the
hawks in the campaign against Iraq, public opinion is likely to be left on
the sideline.
The writer is a scholar in International Relations and freelance writer.
He is based in the UK and can be contacted at malkabalan@gulfnews.com