Preparing to Unleash Violence
by
Kim Petersen
Dissident Voice
March 5, 2003
You
cannot prevent and prepare for war at the same time.
-- Albert Einstein
Einstein’s
admonition aside, the US and UK continue their military buildup while
maintaining that war is not inevitable. Troop numbers are swelling and the
attacks in the illegal no-fly zones have increased. A few days ago American and
British war planes targeted missile installations in the no-fly zones with more
civilian fatalities – all this while inspections continue. Iraq is disarming;
scientists are being interviewed without minders; overhead U2 reconnaissance
flights are happening. It is truly an absurd scenario: while a nation is being
compelled to disarm it is simultaneously being attacked.
Simon Carr writing in The
Independent suggested that the war has started. (1) But the war hasn’t started
because it has never ended. Bombing has never ceased in the no-fly zones. The
world is witnessing a re-escalation of the Persian Gulf War on a nation that
has never recovered from the first onslaught. Now the people of Iraq are faced
with the devastating scenario of “Shock and Awe” -- a bombardment never before
unleashed in the history of warfare. Humanitarian agencies warn of millions of
Iraqis, especially children, being imperiled in the case of a
re-intensification of war. Apparently there is no plan in Washington to deal
with a humanitarian catastrophe. Similarly Washington has been criticized for
not having an exit strategy.
Some of Iraq’s neighbors,
such as Jordan and Saudi Arabia, have already conceded that another invasion is
inevitable. Indeed even if UNMOVIC determines that Iraq is unequivocally
disarmed of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) the attacks will happen. The leading
hawks have demanded more than just disarmament. Prime Minister Blair has pinned
himself in a corner; for him, not to attack would be immoral. It must be really
difficult for Mr. Blair to back down now, with his Labour Party members in
barely concealed revolt, since doing so would appear quite ridiculous after
trumpeting that the party was at its best because of its boldness. That would
provide a field day for the press. But then on the other hand, Mr. Blair has
been able to pontificate on the British case relatively undisturbed by his
having, not so long ago, passed off a plagiarized graduate student article as
the latest intelligence. The compliant media quickly confined this indiscretion
to the dustbins of memory. For President Bush, not to attack would leave the US
continually exposed to the menace of an untrustworthy rearming President
Saddam. Iraq under Mr. Hussein must remain disarmed of WMD even though its arch
nemesis Israel, also bound by UN Security Council Resolution 687 to dismantle
its WMD, will probably never be forced to disarm. It would seem that there is
only one scenario now that could avert a re-conflagration of the war and that
is for Mr. Hussein to be removed. Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair have staked so much on
regime change that it is one demand they cannot back down on. The political
repercussions of Mr. Hussein still being in power would signal the demise of
both leaders.
Several effete war pretexts
have been proffered but were refuted with discomfiting ease. (2) Former CIA
analyst Bill Christison delineated the true pretexts for an attack as being
equally control of oil, geostrategic considerations, and colluding with Israel
in the reshaping the Middle East. (3) Of course, Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair cannot
justify war on these shameless pretexts so they are left with regime change,
which they have pushed harder recently. UN Security Council Resolution 1441
does not provide for regime change and its legality is highly questionable.
Whether or not Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair are granted their second resolution at
this stage is unclear but it is unlikely to sanction regime change. Both the US
and UK have mandated that Mr. Hussein must be removed even if there is no
second resolution. As such, Washington and London have made it clear that the
second resolution is merely a fig leaf to shield their intentions and
propitiate the anti-war movement.
There is nothing that Mr.
Hussein can do avert an invasion. The fustian rhetoric emanating from
Washington and London is ominous: The game is over; He is not co-operating;
Saddam had his last chance; It is too little, too late; Saddam is a threat.
Former Presidents Bush Sr. and Clinton stated that the end of the genocidal UN
sanctions required a regime change. Leaving Mr. Hussein as Iraqi leader would undermine
US foreign policy.
The implications for failing
to change the Iraqi leadership are many. The downfall of Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair
is one highly possible outcome. Other governments considered rogue by the US
administration would be emboldened. The Muslim world will view the US in a more
skeptical light and that could have a profound effect on the occupation of the
territories. It will be difficult to continue the War on Terrorism (if al-Qaeda
and other terrorist groups remain silent in the US). A future threat to use US
force might face a degree of scorn. The US currency would be at risk. Iraqi oil
sales are now denominated in Euros. If other OPEC members should decide to
carry out transactions in Euros it would have wider implications for the dollar
and the sagging US economy, something that the spectre of war has averted
public attention from. It will still be
hard to shake the view of the US as unilateralist even though the US didn’t
attack. The governments of Mr. Blair and Mr. Bush have bribed, blamed, and
threatened the international community in an unseemly manner. The UN, NATO, and
the EU have all been challenged by this debacle.
Mr. Blair will especially be
in a tight spot if there is no second resolution forthcoming from the UN
Security Council. The Americans have always ingenuously held that Resolution
1441 gave them license to attack Iraq without further UN resolutions and the
British have concurred. Both nations have questioned the relevance of the UN if
it doesn’t bow to their will. Mr. Blair is now in a haste to force the issue on
the Iraqis. His lead partner has run out of patience.
Mr. Bush in the event of no
Persian Gulf War would return home to face the ignominy of the backsliding US
economy, rising unemployment, corporate scandals, and the elite making out like
bandits. Mr. Bush would be in an even more untenable position than his father;
at least Mr. Bush Sr. liberated Kuwait. Mr. Bush Jr. will be seen as having
bluffed and being called. It may very well augur a renewed outbreak of Vietnam
Syndrome.
The anti-war movement has
done all they can to throw wrenches into the war machine. It has gone
head-to-head with the antithetical, dismissive governments and their
sycophantic mainstream media. The demonstrations were historical in magnitude.
Turkish activists gave courage to their parliamentarians, who defeated a
proposal for the US to use Turkey as a northern front in war. The peace mongers
won’t concede that a renewed war is ineluctable. Public sentiment is against
the war, particularly if there is no second resolution. Neither Mr. Bush nor
Mr. Blair is prepared to entertain such a scenario. Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair’s
duplicity has made them prisoners of a tangled web of their own weaving. So
there must be regime change at great cost.
Mr. Bush and his lead poodle
Mr. Blair, likely with co-poodles Mr. Berlusconi and Mr. Aznar (who face
enormous public antipathy to war) in tow, will have their war. No one can
really know the outcome of war. Surely Iraq is in no shape to withstand an
aggression from the world superpower and its poodles. However, the nightmarish
scenarios are myriad: a UN gone the way of the League of Nations, NATO rife
with dissension, an EU driven to find its own way outside the shadow of the
American eagle, the US an iconoclast in the world, an opportunistic Israeli
ethnic cleansing of the Occupied territories, Arab uprising, Turkish
adventurism in Northern Iraq, Kurdish rebellion, and, of course, the
obliterated landscape of Iraq are all possible outcomes of a non-UN sanctioned
invasion. It might very well be a pyrrhic victory.
Kim Petersen is an English teacher living
in China. Email: kotto2001@hotmail.com
References
(1) Simon Carr, The Sketch: Don't panic. The war has
started but nothing significant has changed, The Independent, 4 March 2003: http://argument.independent.co.uk/regular_columnists/simon_carr/story.jsp?story=383680
(2) Kim Petersen, Grasping at Straws: The search for a
War Pretext, Dissident Voice, 4 March 2003: http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles2/Petersen_Iraq-Pretext.htm
(3) Bill Christison, “Categories of war: The US
Gameplan for Iraq,” CounterPunch, 8 February 2003: http://www.counterpunch.org/christison02082003.html