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CounterPunch
February
15, 2003
The Choice Before the Security
Council
Stepping
Back from the Brink of War
By AHMAD FARUQUI
According to the Bush administration, it is time
for the UN Security Council to stand by its words and authorize
military action against Iraq. Otherwise, the US will follow through
on its interpretation of Resolution 1441, and attack Iraq to
enforce regime change in Baghdad. By framing the choice in such
brazen terms, the Bush administration has challenged the moral
legitimacy of the UN Security Council.
This is a defining moment in the history
of the Council. If it allows itself to be bypassed by the Bush
administration, it would be marginalized as an institution. It
is time for the Council to reframe the choice that it faces.
The Council should give serious thought
to passing another resolution that would forbid any nation from
taking military action against another nation without UN authorization.
Should any nation take such unauthorized military action, it
would be called as an aggressor nation, and be subject to economic
sanctions leading up to the threat of war by a multinational
coalition. This would be consistent with the Council's prior
history, and with the purposes for which the United Nations was
created. However, except in a few instances, such as the Gulf
War of 1991, the Council has not asserted its authority. It is
time for a re-assertion of such authority, or the agency of multilaterallism
will be finished.
As the leaders of several countries have
indicated, Washington has allowed its justifiable anger against
the perpetrators of the terrorist attacks of 9/11 to escalate
to irrational levels. When Washington began its military campaign
against the al-Qaeda terrorist organization, and the Taliban
regime that was harboring its leaders, people around the world
generally regarded it as a war of self-defense. A year later,
people around the world are apprehensive at Washington's desire
to pursue a war without just cause against Iraq, or against potentially
against any other nation that it perceives to be a threat to
US national security.
Speaking in December at the Commonwealth
Club of California, US Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz
said that "the war on terrorism is a global war, and must
be pursued everywhere. We cannot allow one of the world's worst
dictators to continue developing the world's worst weapons"
because they threaten American national security. Thus, unless
Saddam Hussein disarms himself, the US would step in and disarm
him, with or without UN approval.
In his state of the Union speech, President
Bush struck a defiant tone when he stated that the "course
of this nation does not depend on the decision of others. The
liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world, is it God'
s gift to humanity." In a speech last year at he US military
academy at West Point, he had declared with great certainty that
"Moral truth is the same in every culture, in every time,
in every place." Writing in the Financial Times, Philip
Stephens noted astutely that "you have to go back a while
to find such a stark assertion of moral certitude and strategic
power." In the past couple of days, the president has started
to assert that if war is forced upon the US, it will fight it
with the full force of its military and will win the war. A group
known as the Project for the Next American Century (PNAC) anticipated
this militarization of American foreign policy. They issued a
document prior to the 2000 presidential elections that stated
bluntly that America's armed forces abroad are "the cavalry
on the new American frontier." This document, written for
Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, went on to layout a "blueprint
for maintaining global US pre-eminence, precluding the rise of
a great power rival, and shaping the international security order
in line with American principles and interests."
Paul Wolfowitz is regarded by some as
the intellectual guru of the neo-conservatives in the Bush administration,
a group of people that are determined to impose democracy on
other countries in a style reminiscent of imperial Rome. For
this group of neo-imperialists, Iraq is "just the beginning
of a project to turn out the despots and replace them with freedom-loving
democrats."
The Security Council has to challenge
this doctrine of preventive war from being carried out by the
US, which is being led by people who want to impose Pax Americana
at all cost. If these neo-imperialists are allowed to have their
way, the world will soon descend into chaos.
Deconstructing
the logic of war
Washington's assertion that war against
Iraq is justified is a classic non sequitur. Its case for attacking
Iraq rests on three tiers of premises. It begins with premises
on which there is widespread agreement among the nations of the
world; progresses to those on which there is much debate; and
concludes with a few on which there is precious little agreement.
There are four premises in the first
tier on which there is widespread agreement. Firstly, Iraq is
governed by a tyrannical regime that has committed atrocities
against the people of Iraq. Secondly, Iraq has used biological
and chemical weapons against Kurds and Iranians. Thirdly, Iraq
has twice invaded its neighbors. And fourthly, Saddam Hussein
is an irrational man who has a deep-rooted hatred of the US.
Virtually no one disagrees with these premises. However, this
agreement cannot be taken as consent to the conclusions that
follow.
Then come the premises in the second
tier on which there is much debate. Firstly, that Iraq possesses
biological and chemical weapons in militarily significant quantities.
Secondly, that it has the means for delivering them over militarily
significant distances. These premises continue to be debated,
and may be partially resolved once the work of the UN inspectors
has been completed. When Dr. Hans Blix reports to the Security
Council on February 14th, he may be able to settle this debate.
Finally come the third-tier premises
on which there is little agreement. This is where the US case
breaks down. Firstly, the US has consistently maintained that
Iraq possesses nuclear weapons, but the UN inspectors have conclusively
rejected this contention. Secondly, the US has argued that present-day
Iraq poses a clear and present danger to its neighbors. If that
were the case, one would expect that all of its neighbors would
be supporting this war, but none of them are supporting it. They
view Iraq as a lesser threat than a US-led invasion of the region.
This situation contrasts sharply with the consensus that existed
after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990. Thirdly, the US has argued
that Iraq poses an immediate threat to the US. Hardly any nation
is convinced of Iraq's ability to hit its sworn enemy, Israel,
with ballistic missiles. Unlike North Korea, Iraq's ability to
hit the US with its ballistic missiles is non-existent. One cannot
rule out the possibility that Iraq may provide its weapons to
terrorist organizations that would smuggle them into the US,
but then so could any other nation. This is too weak an argument
to justify attacking a sovereign nation.
Fourthly, that Iraq has ties with al-Qaeda
and may have been involved with the attacks of 9/11. The Bush
administration has presented no evidence that the Iraqi regime
had any connection with the attacks of 9/11. Earlier on, it had
tried to establish such as link by repeatedly referring to a
meeting that the lead 9/11 hijacker had with some Iraqi officials
in Prague. But it has not mentioned that visit in a long time.
Nor has the administration demonstrated convincingly that the
regime is harboring al-Qaeda terrorists. The evidence that Washington
has provided on this topic is very sketchy, and would not hold
up in any court of law.
Fifthly, attacking Iraq will not involve
civilian casualties, because precision munitions will be used.
All one needs to do is recall the several instances in which
bombs went awry or faulty intelligence kicked in killing large
numbers of civilians during the 1991 Gulf War, the war in Kosovo
and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.
Sixthly, attacking Iraq will lead to
democracy and stability in the Middle East. As cited by H. D.
S. Greenway recently in the Boston Globe, after the Gulf War,
an ebullient US Secretary of State James Baker wrote, "Look,
we've done everybody in the region a favor, including Israel."
Even Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak said the American victory
represented "a new chapter in the history of the Arab nation."
Today there is no Arab coalition or consensus against Saddam,
because the US has ignored the centrality of the Palestinian
question in its Middle East policy.
What is
not mentioned
In all discussions of the evil character
of Saddam Hussein's regime, Washington never mentions the role
it played in supporting that very same regime during the eight-year
war with Iraq. During that time, Donald Rumsfeld is known to
have visited with Saddam Hussein on behalf of US president Ronald
Reagan. The US provided agricultural and biological aid to Iraq
that many regard has been used by the Iraqis to produce biological
weapons. It also used chemical weapons against its Kurd minority
during that time, with the knowledge of the US administration.
When such double standards are raised with Washington, the response
is that Iraq was an ally at the time.
Washington has been working hard to minimize
the threat posed by North Korea. It has openly admitted to be
working on the production of nuclear weapons and has a variety
of ballistic missiles in its inventory. It could cause significant
harm to the civilian populations of Seoul and Tokyo with these
weapons of mass destruction. Some have argued that parts of the
western US are already within the range of its ballistic missiles.
A recent British survey indicates that
a majority of Britons regard North Korea as a bigger threat to
world peace than Iraq. Nevertheless the Bush administration continues
to say that the situation in North Korea does not constitute
a crisis, and is simply a big problem. Comments Ivo Daalder of
the Brookings Institution: "The notion that this is not
a crisis either makes the word meaningless or it means this administration
is self-delusional."
Given these inconsistencies in its foreign
policy, Washington has failed to persuade the rest of the world
to support its case for going to war against Iraq. While the
Prime Minister of Britain is willing to risk his political career
supporting this war, more than 75% of Britons are opposed to
the war. Almost the same situation exists in Spain. In France
and Germany, whose leaders are opposed to the war, more than
80% of the people are opposed. The US Defense Secretary is so
miffed at France and Germany for opposing the war that he has
called them "Old Europe." At the recent gathering of
NATO defense ministers, the German foreign minister Joschka Fischer
expressed his frustration with Donald Rumsfeld's articulation
of the well-known US position by saying that, "Why this
policy now? Saddam Hussein is a terrible dictator but we have
known that for years." In India, the visiting French prime
minister responded to President Bush's assertion that "the
game is over" by saying: "It is not a game. It is not
over."
The US Secretary of State, General Colin
Powell, who was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during
the Gulf War, and was thought to be the moderate in a hawkish
administration, has called the latest proposal by France and
Germany "a diversion, not a solution." Since giving
his speech at the Security Council, he has now made it his mission
to lay the groundwork for a second resolution that would authorize
the use of military force to depose the Saddam Hussein regime.
Faced with a rising anti-war movement,
the White House is seeking to create an impression that only
the countries of old Europe are opposing the war. However, Russia
has now joined the French and German proposal. On Sunday, the
Russian president Vladimir Putin said, "the positions of
Russia, France and Germany are by and large in line." In
Washington's back yard, both Canada and Mexico have expressed
their opposition to the war. All of the Latin American countries
remain opposed to the war as well. China, concerned that one
day the logic of preventive war may be used to disarm it as well,
has reiterated its wish to seek a peaceful resolution of the
conflict in Iraq. If the matter comes to a vote in the Security
Council, it is expected to abstain from exercising its veto out
of respect for its economic ties with the US. There is little
support for the war in Japan or South Korea, traditional American
allies.
Not surprisingly, with the exception
of some small Kingdoms along the Gulf, the entire Muslim and
Arab world is opposed to the war. Long-standing US ally Saudi
Arabia has been particularly outspoken in this regard. Editorial
writers are concerned that the war would involve the use of untested
weapons such as microwave bombs, and precipitate further terrorist
attacks against American and other Western targets. The Arab
News ran a story provocatively entitled, "Washington planning
to nuke Iraq," based on an article in the Los Angeles Times.
Arab opinion leaders cannot figure out how President Bush could
accuse Iraq of being in "utter contempt for the opinion
of the world" when he is himself ignoring world opinion.
They ridiculed Bush's assertion that Iraq posed the "gravest
danger facing America and the world" because it "possess
nuclear, chemical and biological <weapons.that> could be
used for blackmail, terror and mass murder." New York Times
columnist Nicholas Kristoff mirrored Arab skepticism when he
asked whether an invasion of Iraq would make America safer. Kristoff
noted, "While none of us know the answer, there is clearly
a significant risk that it will do just the opposite."
After meeting the French president Jacques
Chirac in Paris, Saudi foreign minister Prince Saud bin Faisal
said that a US attack on Iraq would result in "a calamity
of immense proportions." Elsewhere, the prince said, "Saudi
Arabia will not join the conflict and will not [allow its territory]
to be used to attack Iraq."
Amr Moussa, the secretary general of
the Arab League, is reported to have met with German foreign
minister Joschka Fischer in Berlin, and said that a war with
Iraq would " fuel popular resentment and anti-American unrest."
A few months earlier, Moussa had warned that such a war would
"open the gates of hell."
Contrary to how they are being portrayed
in the US media, religious scholars in Saudi Arabia have used
the opportunity provided by the gathering of two million pilgrims
to remind Muslims everywhere that Islam means submission to the
Will of God. This means obeying all His injunctions, one of which
holds that all human life is sacred. The Imams of the two Holy
Mosques cited Quranic verses and instances from the life of the
Prophet Muhammad to assert that Muslims should not harm any non-Muslim
civilians, even during times of war.
At the World Economic Forum in Davos,
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad admonished the US,
"out-terrorizing the terrorists will not work." He
forecast a long period of war driven by hatred, revenge and greed,
unless the US changed its tactics. Witnessing the rising tide
of anti-Americanism across the globe, Eric Alterman wrote in
the American magazine, The Nation, "There is a pro-American
world out there, in Europe in particular but elsewhere as well.
It is just waiting for an America it can respect as well as admire."
On the day of the State of the Union
speech, forty American Noble Laureates called on President Bush
to stop his plans to fight a preventive war in Iraq, because
even a victory in such a war would "undermine, not protect,
U.S. security and standing in the world." One hopes that
the call has not come in too late. According to the Financial
Times, General Tommy Franks has already informed the Kuwaitis
that the US has made a decision to go ahead with the war.
Leadership does not consist in issuing
propaganda, otherwise it leads to hubris. One need only recall
the chilling statement from Reichmarschall Hermann Goering at
the Nuremberg trials: "Of course the people don't want war.
But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine
the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people
along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a
parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the
people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That
is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked,
and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing
the country to greater danger."
Faced with widespread opposition to his
war plans, both inside and outside the US, President Bush faces
the biggest challenge to his presidency. He needs to step back
from the brink, and realize that real leadership consists in
listening to all voices, not just the ones that echo his voice.
Ahmad Faruqui,
an economist, is a fellow with the American Institute of International
Studies and the author of Rethinking
the National Security of Pakistan. He can be reached
at faruqui@pacbell.net
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