Description
The War on Terror was driven by the desire for sovereignty and morality. The U.S. wanted to impose its sovereign desires on the world and imagine itself as a legitimate and moral actor. The U.S. began the war as a victim-hero fighting evil terrorists, convinced that it will be succeed. As the War on Terror continued and evil terrorists seemed difficult to defeat, the U.S. adopted different ways to understand the war. While President Bush’s discourse was melodramatic, President Obama’s tenure marked a shift into seriousness, where the U.S. imagines itself as the rational-hero of geopolitics, seeing the world as it is, and acting out of necessity and responsibility. These performances of seriousness and the policies it engenders feeds into feelings of victimization in Pakistan, which is both an ally and an object of U.S. sovereignty. Pakistan’s seriousness frustrates the U.S. as it feels itself a victim of double-games and deceit. My paper explores the politics of melodrama and seriousness as it unfolds between two nation-states, where both Pakistan and the U.S. imagine themselves as victim-heroes and rational-heroes of geopolitics. I explore the tension between sovereign and moral desires, discourses that rehabilitate these desires, and the relational nature of affective dispositions.
