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COMMENTARY
The Bush family's phony
wars
By K Gajendra Singh
Former
Indian ambassador to Amman, Jordan
For the Bush
family, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is the tempting
Apple in the Middle Eastern Garden of Eden. The results
of succumbing to the temptation to take a bite could be
as disastrous as they were for Adam and Eve.
In
1991 George Bush Sr sought the removal of Iraqi
President Saddam Hussein. He failed and left the region
in a mess. Now his son, President George W Bush, having
inherited Dick Cheney and other chieftains from his
father's presidency, is pursuing the family vendetta.
Ordinary Iraqis continue to pay the price of this
vendetta, with more than half a million children
reported to have died from lack of medicines and
malnutrition since the 1990 embargo. Iraq's US-friendly
neighbors like Jordan and Turkey are suffering too. Even
during the hiatus of Bill Clinton's presidency, Iraq was
not spared: it was bombed whenever Clinton's popularity
went down or he got deeper into the Monica Lewinsky
mess.
It is difficult to know what to believe of
the leaks regarding the US's current options to oust
Saddam, ranging from assassination, fomenting a coup or
internal rebellion, air strikes against Baghdad and
other Iraqi command centers, to a vast amphibious
invasion with massive air support, involving up to
250,000 soldiers. The latest plan, involving around
60,000 troops backed by heavy air power, will begin with
a swift attack on Saddam's elite Republican Guards
around Baghdad, in the hope that the regular Iraqi army
would then abandon Saddam. Such balderdash. The result
of any such actions could be as catastrophic as Adam and
Eve's expulsion from the Garden of Eden. However, there
is room for hope that worse may not come to worst: a
saving grace of the US constitutional system of checks
and balances is that Bush may be the most powerful man
in the world, but he can't ignore Congress. And, however
much George Bush Sr might hate Saddam, he would not want
his son's presidency to end in disgrace.
Secretary of State Colin Powell, one of a few
sane voices in the administration, remains opposed to a
military strike just as he was in 1991, as it has no
clear strategic objectives. Recent media leaks from the
Pentagon and the State Department suggested that "many
senior US military officers contend that Saddam Hussein
poses no immediate threat and that the United States
should continue its policy of containment rather than
invade Iraq". Soon another leak countered that some in
the Establishment favored an "inside-out" plan to "take
Baghdad and one or two key command centers and weapons
depots first, in hopes of cutting off the country's
leadership and causing a quick collapse of the
government". Such a plan was once dismissed by General
Anthony Zinni, the US Middle East envoy, as a recipe for
a "Bay of Goats" disaster, like the 1961 Bay of Pigs
fiasco in Cuba. (Remember too the mess of Jimmy Carter's
1979 attempt to rescue US hostages in Iran.)
As
Powell knows, there are no clearly defined strategic
objectives for an attack on Iraq. Instead, Bush has his
hands on a Pandora's Box that would release incalculable
forces and consequences if he were to open it.
One of these incalculables, for example, is
Jordan's Prince Hassan. The prince's unexpected
appearance at a mid-July Western-rigged assembly of
disunited and disgruntled Iraqi opposition leaders led
to speculation that he might even emerge as a new
consensus ruler of post-Saddam Iraq.
King
Abdullah of Jordan has himself repeatedly refuted
reports that the US could use his country as a base for
attacking Iraq, and furthermore has warned that an
attack would further destabilize the region. This is
also the consensus of many strategic analysts. But
Hassan's cameo appearance remains intriguing.
An
intellectual, married to late Indian vice president M
Hidayatullah's niece, Hassan was crown prince for
decades. But just before his death, King Hussein -
Hassan's elder brother - anointed his eldest son
Abdullah, from his British wife, as the next king, and
made another son, Hamza, from his American wife, the new
crown prince, thus creating some emotional Anglo-Saxon
vested interest in the perpetuation of the Hashemite
dynasty. (The last Iraqi king, Feisel II, was Hassan's
cousin and was assassinated after a military coup in
1958.)
Background and seeds of
disputes
The Tigris and Euphrates basin has a
turbulent history. The armies of Islam carved an empire
from the Atlantic to China in the Seventh Century, and
the Arabian peninsula became part of it. After Ottoman
Sultan annexed the caliphate and guardianship of Mecca
and Medina, the peninsula became a peaceful backwater
until World War I. But when Turkey sided with Germany,
Britain, to protect its Indian possession and the Suez
Canal lifeline, encouraged Arabs under Hashemite ruler
Sharif Hussein of Hijaj to revolt against the caliph in
Istanbul (and deputed spy T E Lawrence to help out). The
war's end did not bring freedom to the Arabs as
promised; at the same time, by secret Sykes-Picot
agreement, the British and French arbitrarily divided
the sultan's Arab domains and their warring populations
of Shi'ites, Sunnis, Alawite Muslims, Druse, and
Christians. The French took most of greater Syria,
dividing it into Syria and Christian-dominated Lebanon.
The British kept Palestine, Iraq and the rest of Arabia.
When Sharif Hussein's son Emir Feisel arrived to
claim Damascus, Syria, the French chased him out. So the
British installed him on the Iraqi throne. When the
other son, Emir Abdullah, turned up in Amman, British
Prime Minister Winston Churchill, dining in a Jerusalem
hotel, reportedly drew on a napkin the borders of a new
Emirate of Trans-Jordan, encompassing wasteland vaguely
claimed by Syrians, Saudis and Iraqis.
Later, as
Sharif Hussein (who wanted the Caliphate after Ataturk
had abolished it) proved obdurate to the British
viewpoint, Britain let Ibn Saud and his Wahhabis hound
him out of Mecca. Britain also denied Kemal Ataturk's
new Turkish republic the oil-rich Kurdish areas of Mosul
and Kirkuk, now in northern Iraq. To thwart Germany
posing a danger to India via the Berlin-Basra railroad,
the British had earlier propped up oil-rich Kuwait,
traditionally ruled by Ottoman pashas in Basra. This
throttled Iraqi access to the Persian Gulf. Iraq became
somewhat (though not fully!) reconciled to an
independent Kuwait only in 1961.
By 1917
Britain's Balfour Declaration had also promised a
homeland for Jews in Palestine. European Jews began
emigrating to Palestine, and the trickle became a flood
with the rise of anti-Semitic policies in Nazi Germany
and elsewhere in Europe. After World War II, the state
of Israel, carved out of British Palestine, was not
recognized by the Arabs. The 1948 Arab-Israeli war
allowed Israel to expand its area, while Jordan annexed
the West Bank and Egypt took over Gaza. In the Six-Day
War of 1967, Israel captured the West bank and Gaza.
Thus were laid the foundations for most of the problems
of the region.
Following the rise of Arab
nationalism in the early 1950s led by Colonel Gamal
Nasser of Egypt, socialists and nationalists, mostly
military officers, took over the medieval kingdoms of
Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Libya - much to the consternation
of Western oil companies.
From its very
inception, almost all its neighbors coveted Jordan. But
astute King Hussein not only survived a dozen
assassination attempts, he also fended off conspiracies
against his land. When he died in 1999 of cancer, the
kingdom had become a keystone of equilibrium in the
region and a modern flourishing state, despite lacking
oil amd other resources. The sop of the Iraqi throne to
Prince Hassan could just be another trick. But it is
true that rulers in the region have patience and long
memories. Even during the 1991 Gulf War it was put about
that neutrality on the part of King Hussein could lead
to his kingdom being parceled - but if he sided with the
US, he might get parts of Iraq, which after all was once
a Hashemite patrimony.
Palestinians make up 60
percent of Jordan's population (some Israeli leaders say
that in Jordan Palestinians already have their own
state). PLO militants and Palestinian army officers
conspired against King Hussein (King Abdullah, his
grandfather, was assassinated by a Palestinian in 1951),
who expelled the Arafat-led PLO to Beirut in the early
1970s.
Jordan's business community relies
heavily on transit and direct trade with Iraq, and still
gets free oil from it. Thus, Prince Hassan's maneuver
could cost a lot if Iraq so decides. Before the 1991
Gulf War, Saddam Hussein had promised full support to
the Palestinian cause. During the war, King Hussein
maintained neutrality despite Western pressure, anger
and bad-mouthing. Palestinians and their leadership had
fully supported Saddam in 1990-91, and Jordan's stand.
But adroit King Hussein remained a major Arab player in
a Middle East peace settlement and was brought from his
death bed to bless the White House ceremony for the
Arafat-Rabin accord. Some cynics say that Hussein never
favored a powerful Palestinian state, and that suits
Israel and the US. To survive in Amman, a Hashemite
ruler has to be extremely nimble.
Gulf crisis
and war, 1990-91
The US stumbled into the 1991
war without any strategic thought or planning. In fact,
the West had supported Iraq's long war against
Khomeini's Iran, and the US had granted loans to Baghdad
worth billions of dollars. Amid high tension between
Kuwait and Baghdad over common oil wells, two islands,
and the return of a $10 billion loan, Iraq threatened
Kuwait with war. A few days before the Iraqi invasion on
August 2, 1990, US Ambassador April Glaspie told Saddam
Hussein that his dispute with Kuwait was a bilateral
Arab affair. This was never clearly refuted by the US
and Ambassador Glaspie disappeared from view. The
Western media never pursued her as they do others, and
allowed themselves to become a handmaiden of the Western
propaganda machine. (Later, they wrote little about the
slaughter of retreating and surrendering Iraqi soldiers,
and their credibility has declined further since then.)
Meanwhile, all attempts to find a peaceful solution to
the Iraq-Kuwait row by Arab nations, led by King Hussein
of Jordan and later joined by King Hassan of Morocco,
were rebuffed by the US, as was Kuwait's offer of
indirect negotiations. Feelers for negotiations by the
Saudis were drowned in Western cacophony. Saddam's
reported offer to the UN secretary general to withdraw
from Kuwait, made just before the US retaliation, was
brushed aside. Efforts by Mikhail Gorbachev, who had
just unraveled the USSR, were treated with disdain.
Post-1991 Gulf War scene
Bush had
attacked Iraq in 1991 without informing the UN secretary
general, undermining the world body and further
diminishing it. For the countries of the region, the war
resolved nothing. Instead, the US made Kuwait, Saudi
Arabia and other allies pay through the nose, weakening
them by an estimated $100-$150 billion. Iraq was bombed
into the Middle Ages. Its enemy Iran, now a joint member
of the "Axis of Evil", was the major gainer. To guard
his back, Saddam in 1990 had agreed to the old boundary
with Iran in the Shatt-al Arab waterway, disagreement
over which had led to the Iran-Iraq War.
US
promises turned sour in the aftermath of the Gulf War.
George Bush Sr, without consulting his allies,
encouraged Iraqis, especially Kurds in the north and
Shi'ites in the south, to revolt. Saudi Arabia and the
Gulf states, most of which had large Shi'ite
populations, were horrified, as a Shi'ite state in south
Iraq would strengthen Iran. The prospect of independence
for Iraqi Kurds worried Turkey, whose own Kurds were
fighting for freedom. The hapless Iraqi Kurds, now
protected by the US-UK enforced "no-fly zone", and the
Shi'ites paid a terrible price. Tens of thousands were
killed by Saddam's biological and other weapons. The
Iraqi Kurds and Shi'ites still remember the false US
promises. Both Kurdish factions in north Iraq have now
expressed opposition to current US plans to attack Iraq.
Turkish President Turgut Ozal, seduced by US
hints of winning "lost" Kurdish areas of north Iraq, had
become an energetic supporter of the Bush coalition in
1990-91. He almost opened another front in the war
against Iraq, but was prevented by stiff opposition from
his powerful military. But instead of getting oil-rich
Mosul and Kirkuk, the economic sanctions against Iraq
and closure of the Iraqi pipeline via Turkey cost Ankara
$50 billion in lost trade. Unemployment rose as the
sanctions halted the 5,000 trucks that used to roar to
and from Iraq daily, aggravating the economic and social
problems in Turkey's Kurdish heartland of rebellion. A
deputy prime minister once ruefully told this writer,
"Mr Ambassador, you cannot trust the Americans, not even
their written promises." A sobering thought for those
who support the US blindly.
Iraq's emasculation
made Israel feel bolder. Now Ariel Sharon wants
Palestinians under Israel's heel. But the Palestinians,
the most radicalized among Arabs, will not give up.
Intifada was and is indigenous. (The PLO, now corrupted,
just took the credit.)
Arab and Muslim masses
the world over watch what is happening in Palestine with
great anger. This, and random US and UK bombing of Iraq,
are among the reasons cited for the September 11 attacks
on the US. Now, unlike 1991, the rage of the Arab masses
could flush away many pro-US regimes.
Turkey's
NATO Incirlik air base, used regularly to bomb Iraq, was
also used by the US in its war in Afghanistan, after
allies like Saudi Arabia had refused their bases. Turkey
was also the first Muslim country to offer troops to
fight against the Taliban and al-Qaeda, to help its
ethnic Uzbek cousins led by Rashid Dostum. It had
earlier supported the Northern Alliance against Mullah
Omar's Pashtun Taliban and Osama bin Laden's Arab and
Pakistani jihadis.
But watching how the
Anglo-Saxons conducted their war in Afghanistan, often
bombing civilians without catching the Taliban or
al-Qaeda leadership, the Turks have had second thoughts.
They were cajoled with money and other incentives to
take over the leadership of foreign forces in
Afghanistan from the British. In spite of its precarious
financial situation and dependence on the International
Monetary Fund, Turkey's political and military leaders
now strongly oppose current US plans to attack Iraq.
Saddam's counter moves
Even now, a
financially squeezed Saddam Hussein sends money to
families of Palestinian suicide bombers. Iraq has
normalized relations with most Arab states in the
region, including Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and the United
Arab Emirates. It has trade relations with Saudi Arabia,
and its relations with Kuwait have thawed. Its foreign
minister recently visited Algeria, Iran and Syria and
met with Jordan's king.
The Beirut summit of
Arab leaders last March rejected "threats of aggression"
against Iraq, called for lifting of sanctions, and urged
everyone to respect Iraq's independence, sovereignty,
and territorial integrity. Saddam, disingenuously or
not, has indicated willingness to talk about the return
of UN weapons inspectors. United Nations Secretary
General Kofi Annan himself opposes renewed US attacks
against Iraq.
Qatar - sympathetic to Iraq -
officially opposes war, but the US has an air base at
al-Udeid. The US also has bases in Saudi Arabia, which
opposes their use. But client and real estates in the
Gulf and elsewhere can be bulldozed by US pressure or
show of force.
Meanwhile, US and British special
forces in Afghanistan have little to show from
operations like Candor, Snipe, Anaconda, Mountain Lion
etc. Al-Qaeda and Taliban have vanished into Pakistan
and southern Afghanistan sanctuaries. The Northern
Alliance entered Kabul in spite of US opposition and
refuses to fully toe the US line. The Afghan regime, led
by former Unocal employee Hamid Karzai but dominated by
Tajiks, remains insecure. Afghanistan is returning to
the days of pre-Taliban warlords. With his US
bodyguards, Pashtuns now call Karzai "USA's Babrak
Karmal".
It is difficult to trust the US, with
its track record in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Somalia,
Bosnia and Serbia. What will Pandora's Box reveal in
Iraq? How will Iran and Turkey react in a free-for-all
over Kurdish north Iraq? The US was unclear in its
strategic aims in 1991 and still is in 2002. At least
there was a solid coalition in 1991; now there is none
except for British Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose own
people are opposed.
Opposition to US
plans
France, Russia and China had opposed US-UK
policies for expansion of no-fly zones over Iraq and
other measures, and now want action though the UN. Iraq
is Russia's old ally and owes it $8 billion. Russia has
to worry also about a backlash among its large Muslim
population. "Any attack would only be justified if a
mandate was approved by the UN Security Council,"
President Jacques Chirac of France said after a recent
meeting with Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder of Germany.
"That is the position of Germany and France." In his
election speeches, Schroeder has clearly expressed
opposition to US plans to attack Iraq. It is the
position of most other countries.
Afraid that a
new Security Council resolution would be vetoed by
Russia or China, US officials claim that in view of
Saddam's defiance of past UN mandates - including
his refusal to allow UN weapons inspectors to return - no further
UN action is necessary. (It is often reported that Saddam expelled the UN weapons inspectors in 1998: in fact the inspectors withdrew of their own accord shortly before the start of an Allied bombing campaign against Iraq.) To claim that there is already a UN mandate for an invasion is untenable. According to the
new Bush doctrine, an attack would be "pre-emptive
self-defense". But this doctrine could be used to
justify military adventurism from Chechnya to Palestine,
or to bomb a schoolboy studying nuclear physics in
Rameshwaram.
There is not even a casus
belli. Unlike 1990-91, there is no clear-cut
aggression. The US administration has failed to
establish any link between Iraq and the September 11
attacks. Blair had promised proof but has not yet
delivered. In fact, the fanatics who attacked America
came from Saudi Arabia and Egypt, staunch US allies. No
US bombs have fallen on these American protectorates.
Instead, more than 5,000 civilians have been bombed to
death in stricken Afghanistan.
There is no
persuasive evidence that Iraq has rebuilt weapons
facilities dismantled after the 1991 war. Even if Iraq
has small stockpiles of lethal chemical and biological
weapons and some Scud missiles, Saddam will use them
only if attacked. Even obedient weapons inspector
Richard Butler told the US Senate that there was no
evidence that Iraq had passed weapons technology to
non-Iraqi terrorist groups. Scott Ritter, another former
UN weapons inspector in Iraq, has said that the US has
not produced enough hard evidence to justify an attack.
Rolf Ekeus, the Swedish arms inspector from 1991 to
1997, accused the US last month of manipulating the UN
mission for its own ends. The US was more keen on
tracking Saddam's whereabouts, which "could be of
interest if one were to target him personally".
Saudi Arabia was misled in 1991 by doctored
evidence of Saddam's intentions. The stationing of US
troops on sacred Arabian soil after the war is resented
by Arabs and Muslims all over the world. They also
oppose oppressive pro-US Arab regimes and their
siphoning off of oil wealth. After September 11, most
Muslims see the Arab-Israel conflict and US plans to
attack Iraq as part of Crusade versus Jihad. In Saudi
Arabia, the union of corrupt princes and fanatical
Wahhabis is already under strain. The Shah of Iran had a
very powerful military machine but was forced to flee
the aroused masses. Reports now emanating from the US
say that Saudi Arabia should be treated as a US enemy
because it supports jihadis all over the world. If
necessary, its oil fields could be occupied. Anyway,
after Saddam's replacement with a "democratic regime",
Iraqi oil will be available as a replacement.
The morning after: Post-Saddam
Iraq
What of the post-Saddam scenario? Who will
run Iraq? In spite of Western belief, Saddam remains
popular with the masses, who blame the embargo and
frequent bombings for their misery. Given Iraq's 40-year
history of repression, it is highly likely that blood
will flow with the settling of old scores. And who would
stop the Iraqi people turning against the occupying
Americans?
What if a Shi'ite state based in
Basra declared independence with covert support from
Iran? North Iraqi Kurds, almost autonomous since 1991,
could also declare independence, leaving a
Sunni-dominated center. This could tempt Turkey to move
into Mosul and Kirkuk. To keep post-Saddam Iraq united
would need security forces of around 75,000, costing
about $15 billion, for a year or two, and a force of
more than 5,000 for many years after if the
reconstruction effort is to succeed. But would the
result be any different than in Afghanistan?
Most analysts scratch their heads, only to
conclude that US options make little strategic sense.
They feel that the leaking of "attack plans" are only
psychological warfare. Their preferred option is to
continue the existing policy of containment, combined
with attempts to destabilize the Iraqi regime. A US
attack could dangerously destabilize the region, harm
the global economy, and infuriate Arab and Muslim
masses. Former British chief of staff Field Marshal Lord
Bramall, warned in a letter to the Times that an
invasion would pour "petrol rather than water" on the
flames and provide al-Qaeda with more recruits. He
quoted a predecessor who during the 1956 Suez crisis
said: "Of course we can get to Cairo, but what I want to
know is what the bloody hell we do when we get there?"
The whole thing is only accentuating the image
of the "Ugly American". A respected non-partisan US
think tank, the Council on Foreign Relations, said in a
recent report to the White House, "Around the world,
from western Europe to the Far East, many see the United
States as arrogant, hypocritical, self-absorbed,
self-indulgent, and contemptuous of others."
Conclusion: Raging bull
With its vast
military-industrial complex, the US needs constant
conflict, ie, wars or near wars, to justify its
staggering expenditure. The only superpower, with the
most destructive power at its command in history, has
pretensions to be an imperial power without the grace or
obligations that go with it. After the stunning events
of September 11, it is behaving like a raging bull, as
if its manhood had been castrated. But the enemy
al-Qaeda, with its tentacles around the world, remains
free and hidden. Attacking Iraq would give the
impression that the flagging "war on terror" is going
somewhere. As Bush found in Afghanistan, whacking
foreigners is popular with many Americans and wins
votes. Iraq and hapless Iraqis would fit and foot the
bill. Moreover, an attack would distract attention from
financial scandals which threaten to enmesh both
president and vice president. To many, it seems that the
US administration represents but narrow corporate
interests, and already, in this respect, the impending
war seems to be going rather well.
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