ABSTRACT
The Anglo-American attack on Afghanistan followed by a similar but more comprehensive and controversial invasion of Iraq may have come about for a variety of reasons, but they nevertheless highlight some unique and variable features of global politics since the 1990s when the erstwhile global bipolarity gave way to a US-led unipolar world. The dissolution of the Soviet bloc may have temporarily signalled ‘the end of history’ and an ebullient optimism for global peace, democracy and cooperation but the outburst of ethno-regional conflicts and increasing differences between the rich and poor presented a new spectre of instability. The UN, NATO and the EU found themselves confronted with the civil wars of fragmenting ‘imperial’ states such as Yugoslavia. The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait after an extended and equally taxing Iraq-Iran War, the harrowing Balkan imbroglio, increased tensions in a de facto nuclearized subcontinent, volatile civil war in Afghanistan, and ethnic cleansing in Rwanda deflated the growing tide of optimism, engendered by the overthrow of Apartheid and a thaw in Israeli-Arab tensions. The eventual consolidation of the Taliban by co-opting most of the former Mujahideen, a defiant Saddam Hussein and an assertive trans-regional Islamic activism as embodied by groups such as Al-Qaeda seeking sustenance from historic and contemporary grudges against the United States, were initially perceived as mere localist irritants. But such a low-priority image was soon dramatically jolted through the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington in September 2001. The newly established Bush administration, still searching for viable policy measures amidst the signs of neo-isolationism and unilateralism on environmental and other global commitments, took upon itself the responsibility of seeking revenge as well as the ‘reordering’ of a turbulent world. To many observers, Bush was catapulted into a global role without any personal credentials in that domain nor was he clear on the direction in which he planned to lead the fuming American juggernaut. However, to his supporters, the Republican president was candid, decisive and confident.2
