Shifts in American Political Thought

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

Change of circumstance (taghayyur) usually precedes deliberate change (taghyeer), and circumstantial change presses on nations, individuals, and groups until deliberate change occurs. Circumstantial change is objective, occurring because conditions shift over time across the various levels of life. Deliberate change, by contrast, is subjective, carried out by the human being intentionally, from a prior vision of what conditions ought to be.

A continuous shift occurs in people’s economic and social lives, and in their public relations with one another, and customs, traditions, and moral and national values shift, and patterns of life, technical means, and sources of knowledge change, and people usually adapt gradually to every such shift, continually weaving for themselves lifestyles that keep pace with a change that never stops, always taking care, automatically, to keep their way of life integrated, working to close the social and moral gaps that likewise arise automatically. People do not usually wait for decisions from the authorities to adapt to new developments — rather, new developments press with their own weight so that the intellectual and moral structure remains proportionate to what is new.

Because of this circumstantial change, governments and institutions find themselves before conscious or unconscious popular pressure to make laws, instructions, and general controls proportionate to the repercussions of that change. This means the state, in all its branches, has no choice but to deliberately bring about the administrative, political, legal, and moral changes needed to absorb the demands circumstantial change imposes. A rational state, one that adopts scientific thinking and believes in planning according to expected future horizons, does not need to wait for circumstantial change to press upon it — rather, it continually works to study the various conditions within the state and gets ahead of events, deliberately, and according to prior planning, bringing about the various changes needed to absorb the future.

To make the picture clearer, let me offer some examples: the world rushed to conclude agreements concerning weapons of mass destruction, because the existence of these weapons imposed itself on every state and called on it to manage weapons affairs rationally; states adopted legislation concerning women, the poor, and the unemployed; and every state was forced to reconsider its plans for opening streets and public roads because of the pressure of the ever-increasing volume of means of transportation, and so on.

America Responds to Circumstantial Changes

The United States does not differ from other states — indeed, it may be the state most exposed to the pressures of circumstantial change, because of its rapid technical development, which constantly imposes new conditions. It is clear that scientifically and technically advanced states have built societies that accept deliberate change proportionate to circumstantial change, and they do not face great difficulty bringing about social and moral transformations proportionate to scientific reality and the technical developments that accompany it.

But these states face difficulties recognizing global transformations, often stumbling in their foreign policies, and frequently failing to find the point of balance between the circumstantial change arising on the global stage and the deliberate change required in the performance of their foreign policies.

America found itself the world’s leader after the Second World War, because of its military and economic capabilities, and the world was not up to the challenge of its authority until some states, the Soviet Union especially, developed deterrent nuclear capabilities capable of flexing muscle against America. Since 1945, the United States has remained the world’s leader, despite the challenges the Soviets posed. Across all these years, America made a point of sticking its nose into every rift or problem arising on the international stage.

It extended its arms across the various regions of the world, drawing on its economic and military capabilities. But it never paused to consider the responsibilities resting on its shoulders, continuing instead to confine itself to its own private interests, even at the expense of other peoples. And instead of being a global leadership working to establish justice and spread fairness in the world, it began behaving like a thug or a hoodlum, carrying his weapons on his back, roaming the world threatening and warning, striking this one at times and punishing that one, imposing his will on nations. The United States continued living in the atmosphere of the World War, without much concern for the circumstantial changes arising on the international stage, until it came to suffer the hatred of many peoples and nations toward it. No one clung to it as leader of the world except those who benefited, who saw their own security and financial collapse without submitting to it.

American Globalization

America never paused at its global role to assess it and learn the views of nations regarding that role — rather, it escalated its greed for dominance over the world after the collapse of the Soviet Union, which had been restraining its ambitions for control, through its programs for globalizing the world according to the requirements of American culture and thought. America thought to move out of the phase of imperialism, or colonialism from a distance, into a phase of spreading American culture and thought, so that the peoples of the earth would become American through upbringing, not through economic dependency or military dominance. The American intellectual and scientific machine began working day and night to develop programs that would achieve this goal, relying on America’s financial capabilities. America began setting many restrictions, instructions, and controls on the conduct of states, and began establishing associations and non-governmental organizations across most of the earth, to be assured of spreading its culture and thought at the hands of local experts who believe in American superiority.

America appeared cautious after its defeat in Vietnam, developing feelings of frustration and the necessity of exercising self-restraint, but it broke out of that restraint after the collapse of the Soviet Union, following several policies to dominate the world:

1. Using financial aid to impose its will on many economically weak states, Arab states among them.

2. Imposing its will by providing security to backward political regimes, or regimes incapable of protecting themselves, such as a number of Arab states.

3. Using financial and economic sanctions, and the like, on states to force them to submit to American and, generally, Western will, as happened with Libya, Sudan, Iran, and other states.

4. Using direct military force, by sending soldiers to areas of tension or areas rebelling against American will, and becoming preoccupied with wars, as happened in Afghanistan and Iraq.

5. Establishing non-governmental organizations to re-educate the peoples of other states, saturating them with American culture.

American Failure

America has failed in a number of places and a number of policies; I note some of them here:

At the domestic level, America has failed to control its economic and financial conditions, and could not reduce the racist tendencies still present in the United States. This condition forced the Americans, capitalism’s own senior theorists foremost among them, to adopt state intervention in the financial and economic systems, after the principle of keeping the state away from these two axes had been a sacred capitalist principle. The state intervened forcefully to rescue the financial situation and stimulate the economy, so as not to fall into an economic and financial depression leading to a global collapse. The American people accepted the government’s direction and the experts’ encouragement of new policies. This weakened capitalist theory, calling for the necessity of following new financial and economic policies that prevent new global shocks.

Externally, several kinds of failure have been recorded:

First: the failure of the war on terror. Instead of America reducing the terrorist activities threatening it, as they threaten other states, terrorism spread further at the global level, and no state on earth remained safe from terrorist acts. America created terrorism, and it is the one that found itself fighting it years later. Clinton stated as much during her election campaign, when she noted that America is the one that funded the very terrorism it now fights. Americans spent a great deal of money feeding terrorism and then fighting it, and paid with thousands of their sons killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and were forced to confront domestic measures restricting their freedoms.

Because of the failure of the war on terror, and the wars in the Arab-Islamic region that accompanied it, an American popular position developed opposing wars and the sending of American soldiers abroad. Americans have grown weary and tired of wars, becoming certain that no benefit is to be had from them, and are no longer enthusiastic about fighting outside their own country. This may be what deterred the American president from waging wars on Iran and Syria — he may have calculated that domestic popular mobilization would stand against two new wars, and so leaned toward methods and means that might prove useful instead. His new methods failed, achieving no positive results for the United States, but the matter could not have been otherwise, had America intervened militarily in a direct manner.

Second: the failure of sanctions on states. America and the European states that joined it aimed to bring political regimes accused of being “rogue states” or “havens for terrorism” to their knees, and to incite their populations against the existing ruling system. Sanctions could not bring any state to its knees, and no people rose up against its ruling system because of them. All America and Europe achieved was threatening people’s security and their daily bread, reaping people’s hatred and their rejection of foreign policies interfering in their affairs. Beyond this, the sanctions inflicted great losses on Western economies because of the loss of important markets, such as the Iraqi and Iranian markets.

Third: the rising level of American frustration at the domestic level.

Failure on the external front led to the frustration of the American public, and to a shaking of their trust in their political leaderships. An impression has become entrenched among Americans that their political leaderships are failures, more concerned with their own personal interests and the interests of capitalists than with the country’s future. Popular suspicion has been reinforced that the political leaderships are lying, failing to keep their promises to people. Beyond this, the level of American prosperity has declined, salaries have shrunk, and the number of unemployed has increased. Note that the economic issue is what most affects the American individual’s decisions, orientations, and level of belonging to his own country.

Observers of internal American conditions have noted that this frustration has been translated into a proliferation of social ills, drugs, racism, and mass killing without cause foremost among them. The number of drug users has risen, costing the American treasury a great deal of money, African Americans have repeatedly clashed with police, and some cities have been forced to declare curfews at times. America has also come to suffer from a rising number of people opening fire from their guns on ordinary people in markets, schools, and parking lots.

This means America has developed its own particular terrorism, one it stands nearly alone among nations in possessing.

Expectations

Americans, academics, thought leaders, and public opinion figures especially, will reexamine themselves. There will be a reconsideration of the traditional capitalist system, and some new ideas will be introduced into it, expanding the state’s role in stimulating the economy and preserving financial balance. There will be reconsiderations of the thinking built on American dominance and hegemony, and many will relinquish the notion of America’s intellectual greatness and its right to lead the world. America will become absorbed in searching for methods and means to rid itself of a public debt reaching into the trillions.

It is possible we will witness a new intellectual orientation that appreciates other states and deals with them with respect rather than recklessness. American arrogance will shrink, and America will concede to the world that it is not the sole pole, returning to an era of respecting other cultures and civilizations.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “تحولات الفكر السياسي الأميركي” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.