Foreign Policy: Did the September 11 attacks make a change in America?

The Americans woke up on September 12, 2001 to find the world that had changed forever, or so it seemed to them;On the morning of the day before the United States was attacked, the first of its kind on its soil since the Japanese attack on the Pierre Harper port on Hawaii Island in 1941 during World War II.

A few days after these attacks on the cities of New York and Washington on September 11, 2001, then US President George W. Bush announced a "war on terror."

Soon the analysts unleashed their dramatic expectations about the change of the United States, and show the validity of some of them, and the side of others right.

In its latest issue, Foreign Policy magazine requested 7 of its journalists and collaborators from the writers to make their opinions about how the September 11 attacks re -formulated American policy, and what this means for the future.

America's relationship with the Arab and Islamic world will not return as it was

Under this title, journalist Mina Al -Uraibi, the writer of Porty Policy, and the editor -in -chief of the National newspaper, reported that the September 11 attacks changed the United States' relationship with the Arab and Islamic world, and set borders for it for the past two decades.

That change in relations was based on energy security, common interests, and to preserve the military superiority of Israel, and make it largely concerned with combating "Islamic terrorism".

In the second half of the twentieth century, the coalition established by the United States with most Arab and Islamic countries was based on whether these countries were under American or Soviet influence, but after September 11, American policy towards the Arab and Islamic world became based on the principle of "condemnation until provenThe innocence ", although most of these countries have suffered more terrorism than the United States.

The writer pointed out that America's "unjust suspicions often" towards Arabs and Muslims have exacerbated tensions with peoples throughout the globe, and added that its invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq did not achieve the desired results.

As for the administration of former President Barack Obama, it focused on withdrawing from Iraq, and soon returned to take care of its interest in Afghanistan after the emergence of the Islamic State on the scene.

While former President Donald Trump greeted the phrase "war on terror" aside, the current President Joe Biden did not offer a substitute for countering terrorism except for strikes with drones against specific targets.

It does not seem that Washington has learned from the mistakes of the past two decades - according to Mina Al -Uraibi - who believes that the danger of "extremist" groups still exists, claiming that despite the change of the leadership of these groups, their principles have not changed.

Displacement rejuvenates political discourse

Perhaps it appears to be in the eyes of writer Stephen Cook in Foreign Policy, and researcher in Middle East and Africa studies at the Council of Foreign Relations;Many things have changed in the foreign and US interior policies as a result of the September 11 attacks.

According to his opinion, the American political discourse also suffered from the "greatest side damage", and shortly after the fall of the World Trade Towers in New York, and the extinguishing of the fires that died at the headquarters of the Ministry of Defense (Pentagon);The Americans poured into articles and comments dealing with the analysis of the Middle East.

Cook adds that some of these actions were useful, but many critics, commentators and writers who installed themselves analysts terrorist issues have caused eloquent harm to the United States.

The wrong information about Islam and the Arabs, the history and culture of the Middle East and its policy was "unfair";Words such as "school" and "Sharia" were used so that they appear with "malicious" connotations.

The writer goes on to say that the quality of the national dialogue gave an opportunity for "professional committed" to promote an agenda behind it racism and fear of Islam (Islamophobia).Perhaps in this era the Americans began to hear phrases such as "the advance of Sharia" and the alleged penetration of the Muslim Brotherhood in the American government, along with other conspiracies related to the descendants from the Middle East.

As a result, Muslims and Arabs - and other people were targeted by their affiliation with one of the two parties - at airports and public places, and perhaps such incidents would have occurred after the attacks even if the commentators and critics analyzes were based on extensive sources.

However, it is difficult - in the opinion of Stephen Cook - ignored the impact of the post -September 11 speech on nationalism and those that the eggs that spread today.

The war lost its luster as a tool for change

Ancel Fahra (the baptism writer and correspondent of Foreign Policy, a specialist in Middle East affairs in Beirut), believes that the West in Afghanistan and Iraq, which was held in the wake of September 11, broke the collective will of the United States as a state and a people in involvement in more conflicts abroad.

The writer believes that this feeling is understood;This is because the United States lost thousands of its soldiers and trillions of dollars over the past two decades, and its attempts to build the state in Afghanistan and Iraq failed, and everything that has been arranged by an international reputation as a state that ignites wars.

American presidents have now abandoned their "naive hope" in establishing democracy in authoritarian states that are torn by conflicts;All presidents, since George Bush, tried to put an end to those wars, withdraw from the Middle East, and preoccupy with the rise of China instead.

With his withdrawal from Afghanistan, Joe Biden will be the first American president to succeed in this, but his withdrawal - according to Fawhara - turned into a heavy humanitarian catastrophe that made analysts wonder whether the United States retaining a limited presence best serves the Afghan people and American interests alike.

Fawhara believes that the attack by the "Islamic State-the State of Khorasan" against the departed American soldiers and Afghans at Kabul Airport indicates that Afghanistan will remain a haven for "terrorists" determined to harm American interests.

In her estimation that the war - as a tool for change at a time when all means - has lost its luster in the global system after September 11, but the free world must study the possibility of replacing military power to prevent a tyrannical tyrant from using chemical weapons, or deterring the "religious killers" fromWomen's heads, or protecting minorities from massacres.

September 11 caused a shift in political science

As an American of Indian origin, he is rarely exposed to prejudice and harassment as he was subjected to after the events of September 11.

The writer narrated examples of what he faced after these events targeting suspicion that it poses a potential threat, while he was traveling in the United States, whether to carry out some of his duties as a university professor and expert in the field of anti -terrorism, or to testify before the American Committee on freedom of religions in the world.

He continued that the American invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq led to the attention of the study of combating the phenomenon of terrorism and the methods of confronting it and financing it by private institutions and the government of the United States.

State authority expanded

Perhaps the most permanent change in the September 11 attacks is the way in which the US policymakers have turned the American force into a movement force outside the military field, according to Peter Feiver, a professor of political science and public policy at Duke University.

He explained that the prevailing wisdom is that the attacks were an incentive for the militarization of American foreign policy, and that this concept is not a mistake in its entirety;The successive presidents referred a large part of the underlying military force into military action.

He pointed out that the defense budget doubled between 2001 and 2008, as well as for external aid, which increased to more than weakness during the same period.

Politics makers also benefit from America's economic power in supporting the goals of foreign policy, and the armed forces remain a vital element in the national power, but they remain - in the opinion of Vivar - a tool that is supported and can be replaced in most cases with other tools.

American wars against terrorism are not over

The writer in Foreign Policy Janen de Giovanni believes that September 11 changed everything.She says that the wars that covered it as a press correspondent in the nineties of the last century from Bosnia to Sierra Leone were horrific and brutal, but they were largely emanating from ethnic or kissing rivalry, or it was a product of the emancipation of republics of the colonialism, or it was from the remnants of the Cold War.

It recounted how it moved between the conflict areas in the world until it landed in Afghanistan, where it was an eyewitness to the fall of a cable in the hands of the US -led coalition forces in November 2001.

She said that there is a common denominator between the wars that it covered after September 11 was the rebellion movements, the emergence of extremist groups and the rise of jihadism.

De Giovanni believes that the United States' reaction to the September 11 attacks turned conflicts into wars against terrorism, in a gene, whose simultaneous attempts to build states were subjected to a catastrophic failure.

She added that most of the conflicts that broke out after September 11 are proxy wars raised by a great international force, and then other countries in the region were involved in the region, such as what is happening in Yemen, Syria, even Afghanistan, and soon Ethiopia.

The United States is no longer an indispensable force

From Stephen Westhim's point of view (researcher in the Art and Management Program at the Carnegie International Peace Corporation), September 11 brought about a change in the way the United States understands its role in the world, but not what its leaders aspired to.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union - as Wrashim says - the United States has chosen not to reduce its compulsive power around the world, but rather sought to give this tremendous power.

"If we have to use force, because we are America, we are an indispensable country."

And and Writom comments on that statement that in the absence of any major threat, and in times of prosperity, it was not clear at the time the amount of the burden that American citizens can bear to make their country cannot be dispensed around the world.

At first glance, it seemed that the September 11 attacks resolved this dilemma by adding a significant dye to the American power based on an unprecedented goal.

And if the term "indispensable state" means at that time launching a virtual and endless war, then the United States needed a new way to communicate with the world.

Former President Donald Trump has renounced the concept that the United States is responsible for guarding the global regime by force, although he continued to pursue a military hegemony policy "coated with a oppressed nationalism."

Now, his successor, Joe Biden, withdrew the American forces from Afghanistan, pledging to put an end to "an era of large military operations aimed at reshaping other countries."

According to Stephen Written, America's leadership of the world is barely close to its end, "On the contrary, it is likely that it will increase and influence after it has been freed from expensive conflicts."

He concludes by saying that the United States will become two decades from now from among the countries, which will no longer be with its strength to others to get what it wants.