Essay on Iraq-America Tension and Its Fall Out

Politics almost as existing as war, and quite as dangerous. In war, you can be killed once, but in politics many times said the great statesman Sir Winston Churchill. This is absolutely true in respect of American stand on Iraq, West Asia and the so called war on terrorism.

How truth is sacrificed at the altar of real politics and enlightened self-interest is evident in the case of the hue and cry over Iraq’s alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction, in the appeasement of Israel, and in adoption of double standards in dealing with global terrorism.

The USA had been itching go to war for months and years but had been postponing the D-day because of overwhelming pressure from her own allies in the European union as well as from Russia, China and Muslim world. Even after the 1991 Gulf War during the last decade, both USA and Britain have on their own embarked any number of air raids over Iraq air space, without any kind of sanction of any international authority.

The sun of the British Empire set long ago, but Tony Blair is still nostalgic and shares with his Big Brother an insatiable greed for world hegemony. No nations, however small, would like to be dictated by U.S.A. and Britain. Britain, which dominated most parts of the world for decades, knows it and U.S.A. which itself fought a war of Independence and that too against Britain, must know it far better.

In fact for George W. Bush September 11, 2001 was a godsend to strike the posture of a bully once again against Iraq as part of its unfinished agenda of the global war on terrorism.

But here too, the rest of the world was not willing to go along with Mr. George Bush simply at the dawn of the New Millennium because it was not the Iraq of 1990 that invaded Kuwait and that brought Saddam Hussain eyeball to eyeball with George Bush Sr. Both Iraq economy and social fabric have been crippled by sanctions that have killed several hundred men, women and children.

The Gulf war of 1991 waged by a coalition led by USA achieved its basic objective, the withdrawal of the Iraq forces from Kuwait but Washington’s interests went farther-the ouster of Saddam Hussain, the same Saddam Hussein whom they nurtured with all the weapons they could supply during the Iran-Iraq war. USA never learns from history. Otherwise how on earth they could face that the Osama Bin Laden they nurtured against Soviet forces in Afghanistan would one day punch at their face.

Sensing their total isolation USA sought the legality of the sanction of the UN Security Council before it could mount a full-scale invasion on Iraq. The UN has sent its inspectors to verify whether Saddam Hussein has still Weapons of Mass Destruction. The inspectors have drawn blank and the chief inspectors of United Nations Monitoring verification and Inspection Commission Mr. Hans Blix has complained that he is not getting enough cooperation from London and Washington which claim to have evidence through sky satellites about Iraq’s possession of WMD.

It would appear from the speeches of the American leaders that they are not after Iraq as much as they are after Saddam Hussein. During and after the Gulf War U.S.A openly supported an internal rebellion of Kurds to unseat Saddam Hussein but failed. Right now once again they have organized broad meetings of Iraq leaders opposed to Saddam in a bid to throw him when an invasion from outside takes place. They have succeeded in their attempt to over throw Saddam and capture Iraq completely.

Does the UN charter confer any right on any country to unseat by violent means the head of government of another country? But USA has its own laws that run counter to all norms of international laws.

The US determination to route the regime of Saddam using whatever means at hand raises important questions pertaining to the evolution of international law in increasingly inter connected world. The efforts directed at a regime change bring into sharp focus the principle of noninterference in the internal affairs of individual countries.

In fact George W. Bush is living up to Mau Tse Tung’s dictum “polities are war without bloodshed while war is polities with bloodshed.” That is why he takes different stands on Iraq which has no nuclear weapons. North Korea which has become a nuclear weapon state and Pakistan. Which has nuclear blackmailed India are softly treated by him.

Saddam must go even if the UN inspectors return with a blank card and this is politics what is U.S.A up to in its proposed confrontation with Iraq? Iraq says that US wants to gain access to its oil reserves, the second biggest in the world after those in Saudi Arabia.

With a world indifferent to the whims of a great military power U.S.A – reported by Britain and a few other countries had its way in Iraq, but to consequence of the megalomania of one country and one individual well have to be shared by all the countries of the world.

Economics of most countries have still not recovered from the fall out of the collapse the Twin Towers in New York and nobody can foretell what another war in Gulf region will bring forth. At least USA may not suffer in terms access to oil in case of a war with Iraq.

Even Europe imports only 35% its oil requirements from the Gulf. But the countries that are quite likely to bear the brunt could be Japan, China if the supplies get disrupted Japan imports 75 percent of its oil and gas from the middle least. Asia a whole imports 60% of its oil from the Middle East with China and India making up most of the demand.

Oil supply disruption is inevitable case of war. Iraq is an important member of OPEC adding 2.2 mil” barrels a day to the global supply of oil. If ever Iraq gets an opportunities to use oil export as a bargaining counter it never misses it. Between April 8 and May 7, 2002 Iraq suspended its oil exports entirely as a protest against Israel action against Palestine.

Saddam Hussein had followed policy during Gulf war damaging oil installations in Kuwait. He mid repeat that performance in case of another war. If he does destroy Iraq a wells, the global oil supply would come down by a million barrels a day.

According to experts and analysts the consequences of war could be still worse “The straits of Hormuz through which’14 million barrels of a pass every day in just two miles wide at the narrowest. Either Iran or Iraq could block the Straits of Hormuz and chock off supplies from the entire region. The Europe and Americans can draw from strategic reserves an stave off short-ages but that luxury is unavailable to India and China.

The Head of United Nations nuclear watch dog said on January 2003 that there was no evidence so far of any nuclear weapons programme in Iraq. Mohammad El Barardei, Director General of the international Atomic Energy Agency told media in Bughdad that inspectors have found no proof that Iraq lied about nuclear weapons in its declaration of weapon of mass destruction to the United Nations. His statement came at a time when the USA was seen to be inching towards a war in Iraq.

In what could be a worse exercise than the one caused by the 1991 Gulf war about 10 million Iraqi civilians will face hunger and disease U.S.A. led coalition invades Baghdad, the UN said in a 13 page secret document prepared by the task force. The Iraqi people will pay a terrible price due to the impact of the US air ground invasion.

It is pity as the entire world is reduced to the status of a passive looks on; the USA and Britain backed by a few other countries, are embarking on war against Iraq, the purpose of which nobody knows. This explains why there is a growing volume of public opinion is the USA and LI against this mindless war.

Even before the first shot was fixed, US President George W. Bush national security team, on Jan 6, 2000 was assessing plans for a posts Saddam Iraq that included a US military presence in Iraq for at least 18 months with a civilian administrator running the country’s economic and political institutions. The paper said the plan calls for military trials of the most fields Iraq leaders and a take­over of the country’s oil fields to pay for reconstruction.

Will war waged against the people of Iraq bring peace? Will the downfall of Saddam Hussein followed by the destruction of Iraqi economy already torn to shreds and killing of thousands of lives, the outbreak of hunger and diseases on a large scale and flow of refugees bring to an end global terrorism? Will the war bring stability to West Asia and the rest of world?

Won’t it bring more war and give more fire power to terrorist to strike anywhere they choose? But the tragedy of history has been that those who plan senseless wars seldom think. When passion walks in, reason walks out. Let the trigger happy listen to the voice of sanity of one of the greatest of their own countrymen.

“No man who witnessed the tragedies of the last war, no man who can imagine the unimaginable possibilities of the next war can advocate war out of irritability or frustration or impatience” John F. Kennedy.