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The World's True Rogue States

By Dr. Marwan Al Kabalan


Gulf News
10 January, 2004

In 1976, former US Secretary of State Dr. Henry Kissinger came up with a list of countries his administration accused of sponsoring international terrorism. For obvious reasons, the list included Cuba and North Korea, alongside three Arab countries: Syria, Iraq and Libya. Iran was added after the Islamic revolution and Sudan joined the club following the Islamist coup of 1989.

But as the concept of terrorism was elusive and extremely difficult to define, it meant different things for different parties. Hence, the list remained exclusively American, reflecting the national interests of the US, rather than becoming something universally accepted.

In pursuit of more consensus and to make the list internationally acceptable, Dr. Martin Indyk, special advisor to president Clinton on the Middle East and former US ambassador to Israel, suggested in the early 1990s a new term to describe these countries: rogue states.

Despite the fact that defining a "rogue state" was much easier than defining terrorism, the new concept created more problems than it solved.

Most political analysts describe a state as rogue when it does not abide by international laws, violates the UN Charter and uses force or the threat of force to maximise its gains in the international arena. According to this definition, most states can, therefore, be classified as "rogue states" as the majority of them tend to break international law when they think their national interests are threatened.

In the absence of an overarching, universal authority, the international system is an environment of self-help, where the quest for survival requires states to seek their security, sometimes by violating the law. This assumption is based on the fact that all states exhibit similar foreign policy behaviour despite their different political systems and the structure of the international system makes them act the way they do.

Although states are functionally similar, they differ greatly in their capabilities. They may face the same tasks, but may differ in their ability to perform those tasks. The capacity of states to pursue and achieve their objectives varies according to where they are placed in the international system and, even more fundamentally, their relative power.

In this context, states, like individuals, break the law on a small or massive scale, depending upon the power they have and whether they can break the law with impunity.

Smaller states, therefore, have limited freedom to act outside the law. They are usually constrained by the forces of the international system, which is dominated by the big powers.

Hence, when Saddam Hussain invaded Kuwait in 1990, the international community - led by the US - punished him, but when the US invaded Iraq last year it got away with it. The different responses to similar actions mirror the different degrees of power each country possesses.

Besides, weak or small states in an anarchic system may break the law in pursuit of their own survival, but big or powerful states do so in pursuit of universal or regional domination. Here, strong states conduct their policies with complete disregard for international law and conventions and, hence, are considered the ultimate rogue states.

The only two states which qualify for this title are the US and Israel. Both countries defy international laws and violate the UN Charter, not out of security requirements, but in pursuit of supremacy and material gains.

They occupy foreign lands, violate the rights of populations under occupation and use excessive force to subjugate them. They steal the national resources of other nations - water and fertile land in Palestine and oil in Iraq - and make the lives of the locals really miserable.

While Washington lists some countries as "rogue states" in accordance with its own national interests, in the court of world public opinion things do not look quite the same. Recent surveys in many parts of the world have shown increasing unease with the US and its policies.

In Europe, for example, two-thirds of all Europeans think that the US and Israel, not Iran, Libya or Syria, are the biggest threat to international peace and security.

Gone are the days, when Le Monde, the most prestigious French newspaper, could write: "We Are All Americans".

The current resentment may have focused on President Bush, who is seen by many as a gun-slinging cowboy knocking over international treaties and bent on controlling the world's oil, if not the entire world. Yet, in the view of many others, the Iraq war has not so much caused a new rift as it has highlighted and widened one that existed since the end of the Cold war.

In the absence of a rival superpower, the US has probably gained more freedom to disrespect international law, but has also become more prone to losing the respect of the world and, hence, earn the title "the world's true rogue".

Dr. Marwan Al Kabalan is a scholar in international relations based in Manchester, UK.