The
UN Should Try to
End Iraq's Occupation
By
Farhang
Jahanpour
Professor and
Department for Continuing Education at the University of
Oxford
June 14 , 2004
The unanimous approval of UN
Security Council Resolution 1546 about the transfer of
sovereignty to the interim Iraqi government was a welcome
move. It helped heal some of the wounds caused as the
result of the illegal invasion of Iraq by US and UK
forces, and has again put the United Nations at the
centre of global politics. However, as far as the
situation in Iraq is concerned, the resolution should
only be regarded as the first step in a long process
before a legitimate Iraqi government assumes power. The
resolution went through a number of drafts but after a
great deal of haggling and the incorporation of
amendments proposed by France, Germany, China, Russia and
a number of other countries, it was greatly improved.
While the passing of this
resolution provides a glimmer of hope for the
hard-pressed Iraqis, the push for a UN mandate had more
to do with US presidential elections and to repair Bush
and Blair's damaged reputations than a genuine desire to
establish democracy and sovereignty in Iraq. In order to
understand some of the problems that lie ahead it is
important to briefly remind ourselves of what has gone
before, what is happening on the ground and what is
proposed for the future. It is also important to remind
the US and UK governments that the passing of the
resolution does in no way absolve them of the guilt of
deceiving public opinion and invading Iraq for dubious
reasons. It has not washed the slate clean and it does
not mean business as usual.
The
Background
Despite the objection of most
people in the world; despite unprecedented anti-war
marches and demonstrations in many countries, including
in the United States and Britain; despite the pleading of
some of the most respected political, religious and
intellectual figures throughout the world; and despite
failing to obtain UN backing, George Bush and Tony Blair
launched an illegal invasion of Iraq. At that time, US
Administration described the UN as irrelevant and
scornfully dismissed the views of the vast majority of
the peoples and countries of the world.
The war was preceded by many months
of deliberate lies and unsubstantiated propaganda, often
engineered by the members of the Neo-Conservative cabal
(neocons) who have embedded themselves in the Pentagon.
There were three main reasons given for the war: (1) The
existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq; (2)
close links between Saddam Hussain's regime and
Al-Qa'ida; (3) the humanitarian desire to liberate the
Iraqi people and to establish democracy there; (4) and
finally the neocons claimed that occupation forces would
be welcomed by the Iraqi people and that it would put an
end to terrorism.
1. The main reason given by US and
UK politicians for waging war on Iraq was that Saddam
Husayn had possessed and continued to possess and
continued to possess weapons of mass destruction and
posed an imminent danger to the West and Iraq's
neighbours. Yet all the false dossiers and all the clever
propaganda failed to convince the people that war was the
only option available to resolve the Iraqi problem. Tony
Blair's dodgy dossier that had been allegedly based on
the latest intelligence information was found to contain
a plagiarised account of an old student research paper.
Colin Powell's allegations in his UN speech about the
Iraqi purchase of nuclear material from Niger were
declared by the IAEA director general Muhammad al-Baradei
to have been fraudulent. All the sites that were
allegedly producing weapons of mass destruction were
inspected by 1,400-strong US survey group and were found
to be empty of any such weapons. Iraqi officials and
scientists allegedly involved in the manufacturing of
those weapons were arrested, incarcerated and
interrogated, but they could not produce any clues to
banned weapons.
A respected UK inspector and
scientist, Dr David Kelley, committed suicide. As he had
promised the Iraqi scientists that if they co-operated
there would be no war, he could not live with himself
when he discovered that even he had been misled by his
government. He was put under intolerable pressure for
revealing some of the information that has now become
common knowledge &endash; that the evidence regarding
Iraqi WMD had been exaggerated, that the government had
influenced the security forces to "sex-up" the dossier,
and that there was widespread opposition inside the
intelligence circles to the 45-minute claim. Instead of
investigating the real issue, the government asked Lord
Hutton to concentrate on the causes of Dr Kelley's death,
and he produced a bogus report that was totally at odds
with the evidence that had been presented at the
hearings. The chairman and director general of the BBC
resigned due to minor offences of a journalist who was
substantially correct in his reports, yet those in charge
of fabricating intelligence and misleading the public are
still in place.
Two leading members of Tony Blair's
cabinet - the former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook and
former International Development Secretary Claire Short -
resigned in disgust. Some leading members of the Bush
Administration have also jumped the sinking ship and have
revealed some damaging secrets. The former treasury
secretary Paul O'Neill has revealed that the Bush
Administration was intent on attacking Iraq from the time
it seized power. The former counter-terrorism
co-ordinator Richard Clarke has denounced Bush and his
top aides for using the September 11 terrorist attacks as
a pretext for waging war against Iraq, thus diverting
attention from the real war on terrorism.
Eventually, in the light of all the
leaked information, both Bush and Blair have been forced
to admit that the information that they provided as the
justification for the war was based on lies and
misinformation, although Tony Blair still refuses to
admit it publicly. In an interview with the BBC, the
chief US arms inspector and the head of 1,400-strong Iraq
Survey Group David Kay, referring to Tony Blair's
insistence that WMD may still be found in Iraq, said that
such views were 'delusional'.
We now have the unedifying
spectacle of the CIA and the neocons in the Pentagon
blaming each other for all the lies. Lately, we have had
the comical claim that Ahmad Chalabi &endash; the
neocons' favourite person to run Iraq &endash; had been a
double agent for the Iranians all along! So now we know
that the war that was imposed on the Middle East by the
neocons was really the work of the clever Iranians who
consistently opposed the war and who favoured a weakened
Saddam Husayn as their neighbour rather than the invading
American forces. Ahmad Chalabi's real crime seems to have
been his effort to form a political grouping of all the
disparate Shi'is. He is believed to be the mastermind
behind the creation of a body called Al-Beit Al-Shi'i
that would unite Iraq's Shi'is and would co-ordinate
their political views over key issues. Meanwhile, Iyad
Allawi, a secular Shi'i who worked for years as the agent
of both the CIA and MI6 and who provided the information
about the 45-minutes claim, has been appointed as the new
prime minister of Iraq.
2. The second reason given for the
invasion was that there had been close links between the
Iraqi regime and Al-Qaida. Western intelligence sources
leaked documents contradicting that claim. They confirmed
that they had informed their respective governments that
they had not found any evidence of collaboration between
Al-Qaida and the Iraqi regime. However, as the result of
effective propaganda, deliberately linking the invasion
of Iraq with the 'war against terrorism', public opinion
was misled. Opinion polls have shown that prior to the
invasion a majority of Americans believed that there had
been close links between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin
Laden.
3. After the war, Bush and Blair
have claimed that they attacked Iraq for 'humanitarian
purposes' and in order to liberate the Iraqis from Saddam
Hussein's tyranny. This assertion is also false, because
Saddam Hussein was committing most of his atrocities
during the period when he was backed to the hilt by
Britain and the United States. During the eight-year war
with Iran &endash; which had allegedly started with US
encouragement - he was given billions of dollars worth of
weapons, including chemical weapons, that resulted in the
death of hundreds of thousands of Iranian forces. By
contrast, during the last few years, as the result of
no-fly zones and crushing sanctions that killed hundreds
of thousands of Iraqi children he had become much less of
a threat to his people and to the world.
The idea that you can export
democracy to a country by raining missiles on the people
and destroying the foundations of a civilised life is too
ridiculous to be taken seriously, especially when the US
has itself been chiefly responsible for the installation
of some rogues regimes, including the Taleban in
Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Amnesty
International's cover letter to its 2004 annual report
provided a clear rebuke to those who maintained that the
violent war on Iraq was waged in order to bring democracy
and to protect human rights: "The global security agenda
promulgated by the U.S. administration is bankrupt of
vision and bereft of principle. Sacrificing human rights
in the name of security at home, turning a blind eye to
abuses abroad and using preemptive military force where
and when it chooses have neither increased security nor
ensured liberty."
4. Lastly, the neocons claimed that
as soon as they attacked Iraq, there would be a popular
uprising throughout the country, and the Iraqis would
welcome the invaders with roses and smiles. In a sworn
testimony to the US Congress on February 27, 2003, just
before the US lunched its war on Iraq, Paul Wolfowitz
announced: "These are Arabs [in Iraq], 23 million
of the most educated people in the Arab world, who are
going to welcome us as liberators. And when that message
gets out to the whole Arab world it is going to be
[a] powerful counter to Osama bin Laden. The
notion that we're going to earn more enemies by going in
and getting rid of what every Arab knows is one of the
worst tyrants, and they have many governing them, is just
nonsense . . . We're dealing with a country that can
really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively
soon." The intensifying uprising in Iraq from the Kurdish
areas in the north to the so-called Sunni triangle in the
middle and the Shi'i heartland in the south has put the
lie to those claims. Far from being welcomed by the
Iraqis and putting an end to terrorism, the invasion has
been greeted with widespread opposition and has turned
Iraq into a recruiting ground for Al-Qa'ida and other
terrorists.
The unspoken reason for the war was
that the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime would
neutralise one of the leading Arab opponents of Israel
and would cow the rest of the Arab world to give in to
Israeli demands. Although many Arab regimes have seen
what the present US Administration is capable of doing,
they have refused to surrender to Israeli demands and the
situation in Israel/Palestine, far from being resolved,
has gone from bad to worse. In the long-term the invasion
of Iraq and the humiliation of Arab regimes may work
against the best interests of the Israeli people as it
would remove any means of compromise and would intensify
the feeling of hatred and hostility on both sides. It has
also further alienated world public opinion from Israel
and has undermined the genuine feeling of sympathy that
existed in most parts of the world for an oppressed
people, as they are now seen as the oppressors. The
Arab-Israeli conflict cannot be resolved by force and the
only option is for both sides to engage in realistic and
genuine dialogue and negotiations.
The
invasion and its aftermath
The invasion started with the
barbaric 'Shock and Awe' operations that devastated the
capital city of one of the oldest civilisations in the
world, killing thousands of civilians. The massive
attacks on Iraqi civilians included the use of napalm,
weapons containing depleted uranium and cluster bombs,
forbidden for use in civilian areas and constituting a
war crime. It was followed by the destruction of much of
the infrastructure, the looting of one of the most
important archaeological museums in the world, destroying
some unique items, and creating a climate of total
lawlessness and violence throughout Iraq. The killing of
the Iraqis and the destruction of the country, including
some ancient shrines that apart from their religious
significance form part of the heritage of mankind, have
continued unabated. With the looting of the Iraqi oil
income, all the multi-billion contracts have been given
to US companies, while the Iraqi firms have been allowed
small bids of $50,000 or less.
Any resistance to the occupation
has been described as the work of the 'terrorists',
'Saddam die-hards', 'dead-enders' or 'foreign fighters'
and has been brutally put down. Thousands of Iraqis
&endash; between 70 to 90 percent of whom were innocent
according to the Red Cross report that was handed to the
Pentagon as early as February 2004 &endash; were
incarcerated in Saddam's jails. Recently, we have seen
the evidence of the criminal way that they have been
treated. This has totally undermined the US and Western
cause in the eyes of Muslims and non-Muslims alike. It
will take a very long time before this damage to Western
prestige can be repaired. Many human rights activists in
the Middle East will have a hard time to be listened to
when they advocate Western-style democracy and human
rights. People are bound to ask: 'What human rights?'
Contrary to the claim that the mistreatment, rape,
torture and murder of Iraqi prisoners were rare incidents
committed by a few low-grade soldiers, it is clear that
the directive for the 'softening up' of the prisoners had
come from high up in the chain of command, and that those
atrocities were not limited to Abu-Ghraib prison.
Meanwhile, the British government
has pulled off another major coup &endash; similar to the
Kelley affair &endash; regarding the claims about the
mistreatment of the prisoners under British control. The
government concentrated its onslaught on the photographs
that were published in Daily Mirror that were found to be
forged, and thus diverted public attention from the real
issue &endash; the abuse of prisoners including death
under detention &endash; that had been documented by the
Red Cross and Amnesty International. Although the scale
of atrocities by British forces has been much less
extensive than those under US control, nevertheless, it
has now emerged that the military police is investigating
75 cases of abuse, twice the figure originally given. It
is extraordinary that it seems that nobody in the British
government, from the prime minister down to the defence
secretary and junior ministers, had seen the report that
had been handed by the Red Cross to the British
government months earlier. No one has been dismissed for
this lack of knowledge or inaction or for the abuse of
prisoners.
The uprising in Fallujah was put
down by massive bombardment of the city, inflicting
collective punishment and killing and injuring of
thousands of civilians during two major attacks on the
city. US aircraft fired missiles and dropped two
500-pound bombs on the courtyard of the city's Abdel Aziz
al-Samarrai mosque, allegedly as people assembled for
afternoon prayers. Iraqi witnesses claimed that as many
as 40 people were killed in that attack alone. In direct
violation of the Geneva Convention, US marines climbed
the minaret of the al-Muadidi mosque and used it as a
firing platform against the Iraqi fighters.
Shaykh Ahmad Abu-al-Ghafur
al-Samirra'i, imam of Umm al-Qura Mosque and member of
the Iraqi delegation who visited Al-Fallujah to negotiate
a cease-fire, told reporters that "When we arrived in
Al-Fallujah, there was no ceasefire. Instead we saw the
jet fighters conducting raids. We saw hospitals full of
casualties and ambulances arriving at hospitals from
everywhere." As to the numbers of the people killed and
injured, Shaykh Al-Samirra'i quoted a doctor who was
treating the injured as saying that "the number of
martyrs was 518 at 0900 today." He noted that "those
martyrs were in field hospitals since the only main
hospital was seized by the occupiers who did not allow
anyone to take the wounded to the hospital." He went on
to say that "the toll of martyrs" includes 46 children
under five, 83 children under 15, and 157 women. "I was
even told that most of those women were killed by
snipers," Shaykh Al-Samirra'i added. He said that 1224
people were wounded. This was just one raid, and was
repeated a couple of weeks later by another massive
onslaught.
Meanwhile, the neocons and their
agents in the press pushed for a more brutal response to
the insurgents. The New York Times' William Safire in an
OpEd on 7th April declared: "Having announced we will
pacify rebellious Baathists in Fallujah, we must pacify
Fallujah. Having designated the Shiite Sadr an outlaw, we
must answer his bloody-minded challenge with whatever
military force is required and with fewer casualties in
the long run." Washington Post's commentator George Will
declared in his column that the US "empire" had to
establish a "monopoly on violence" in Iraq. "It is too
late for debate about being in Baghdad," he wrote. "And
the relatively pretty phase of empire&emdash;the swift
dispatch of an enemy army&emdash;is over. Regime change,
occupation, nation-building&emdash;in a word
empire&emdash;are a bloody business. Now Americans must
steel themselves for administering the violence necessary
to disarm or defeat Iraq's urban militias..."
Nevertheless, having failed to pacify the city, American
forces withdrew and the city's control was put in the
hands of a former Ba'thist general. So much for the
de-Ba'thification!
The war against the forces of
Muqtada al-Sadr who clearly enjoys the support of a large
number of Iraqis, given the vast level of support for him
in many cities in the south of Iraq, is still going on.
Serious clashes between Sadr's militia and security
forces on 10th June in Najaf ended a lukewarm truce that
had been in force for a few days. That unnecessary
confrontation started with the banning of his newspaper
al-Hawzah, which had criticised US proconsul Paul Bremer
III, and the arrest of one of his aides. Indeed, while an
early poll had shown that Sadr enjoyed the support of
only one percent of Iraqis, recent polls have shown that
no fewer than 70 percent of Iraqis support him now. Then
there was the attack on the wedding guests near the
Syrian border, and the disgraceful and flippant denial of
the story by the main US military spokesman &endash;
'even bad guys have parties' - until the Arab media
produced the evidence of the wedding ceremony.
Sovereignty
without power?
It is important to review these
developments in order to remind ourselves that we cannot
take the claims of the British and US governments at face
value. They lack any credibility in the eyes of the world
and their present assertion about 'transferring
sovereignty to the Iraqis' must be taken with a pinch of
salt. Of course, what is important now is to help the
Iraqi people and to find a way to put an end to the
occupation that has proved so costly both to the Iraqis
and to the West. However, one will not be helping the
Iraqis if one justifies the occupation under a different
name. Despite the passing of the recent resolution,
people are entitled to be sceptical of the claim for the
so-called 'transfer of sovereignty to the Iraqis' for a
number of important reasons:
First of all, Iraqi sovereignty
does not belong to the occupation forces for them to
transfer it to the Iraqis. Apart from the Iraqis'
inalienable right to their sovereignty, UN resolutions
1483, of May 22, and 1511, of October 16 2003 have
confirmed full Iraqi sovereignty. At best, one can
describe what is now planned as a transfer of
administrative authority, and even that is going to be
exercised under the watchful eye of the occupying forces.
The new Iraqi government will have as much independence
as a dog on a leash. Far from withdrawing the UK and US
forces from Iraq, it is proposed that they will be
increased and that they will remain in Iraq for 'as long
as the job is done'. On 3rd June 2004 US Secretary of
State Colin Powell again stressed that Iraq's new
government would not have a veto over actions by US and
UK forces after the 30 June transfer of power. This
clearly contradicts what Tony Blair said earlier during
his weekly press conference. The resolution also
significantly omits any mention of an Iraqi veto over any
possible operations by the occupying forces, such as the
debacle in Fallujah.
Although Bremer is going to leave
Iraq, John Dimitris Negroponte, US ambassador at the UN
and a Jewish neocon of Honduras and Nicaragua fame, is
going to replace him. He will be at the head of the
largest US embassy in the world, appropriately housed in
Saddam Hussein's Republican Palace. His appointment as
someone who is to bring democracy to Iraq is either
incredibly insensitive or deliberately provocative. The
United States is building some 14 permanent bases in
Iraq, hardly a sign of transferring sovereignty to the
Iraqi people. In the revised Security Council resolution
the US-led multinational force is given authority to take
all necessary measures for security but envisages a date
for the end of its mandate when a fully elected Iraqi
government is in place in January 2006. Even after that
date, US forces can stay 'at the invitation' of the Iraqi
government. However, they have made it clear that if they
were asked to leave they would cut off any aid to the new
government. Even if that invitation is not forthcoming, a
US veto at the Security Council will be sufficient to
block any resolution for US withdrawal from Iraq. At the
same time, the new Iraqi government is to guarantee that
US and UK forces will be immune from any prosecution for
war crimes and will not be subject to Iraqi laws. This
last provision is clearly necessary in view of the past
behaviour of the occupying forces.
Secondly, how can one transfer
sovereignty without transferring the power and authority
that go with it to a legitimate government? What has
happened is that a few Iraqi exiles who have been
organised by the CIA and who have been largely handpicked
by the US proconsul will be declared as the new Iraqi
government. Although the UN special envoy Lakdar Brahimi
was supposed to pick the members of the new cabinet
&endash; itself a dubious undertaking &endash; it has now
become clear that Iyad Allawi, the Iraqi prime minister,
was chosen in Lakdar Brahimi's absence in a meeting of
the Provisional Authority chaired by Bremer. The report
that he was not Brahimi's first choice but was hoisted on
him by Bremer shows that the UN was used merely as a fig
leaf and that the US proconsul was the one who was
calling the shots. According to Adnan Pachachi, even
Ghazi Al-Yawar, the new president, was Bremer's first
choice, despite reports to the contrary. Brahimi has
called Bremer the dictator of Iraq who was in charge of
the money and the signature. He pointed out that it would
be wrong to assume that he had "a free hand" in carrying
out his mission in Iraq. Those remarks were echoed by UN
secretary-general, Kofi Annan. "I think we all have to
recognise that the process wasn't perfect and it was a
difficult environment," Annan said. "And I think given
the circumstances, I believe Mr Brahimi did as best as he
could."
There has been no election and no
popular mandate for the appointed Iraqi government. The
views of leading Iraqis, including Grand Ayatollah Ali
Sistani, have been ignored. The Security Council
resolution has received a very cool reception in Iraq as
a whole. There have already been massive demonstrations
by the followers of Ayatollah Sistani demanding a veto
over occupation forces. The Kurds have openly voiced
their displeasure at the omission of the clause about
Kurdish autonomy in the resolution. The new government
will also still operate from behind the 'green line'
manned and cut off from the rest of Baghdad by US forces.
The
Shi'i-Sunni divide
The suspicious explosions and the
assassination of some leading Shi'i religious and
political figures, including Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir
Al-Hakim, the leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic
Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), and more recently the
assassination of the Shi'i chairman of the Iraqi
Governing Council have led some Iraqis to claim that some
shadowy forces are determined to sideline leading Shi'i
figures. Governing Council member Abdul Aziz Al-Hakim,
the brother of the assassinated leader of SCIRI, has
openly accused the Americans of wanting to isolate main
Shi'i leaders. The least that can be said about those
assassinations is that the occupying forces have failed
in their duty to protect the lives of those under their
control.
The US should realise that the best
way to stop the radicalisation of the Shi'is and reduce
the influence of clerics such as Muqtada al-Sadr is to
align herself with moderate Shi'is, such as Ayatollah Ali
Sistani. This may mean the acknowledgement of some role
for religion in Iraqi politics, but the alternative would
be a much more militant regime. The Shi'is form more than
sixty percent of the Iraqi population. Ever since 1533
when the Ottoman Empire conquered Iraq it marginalised
the majority population, due to the rivalry between the
Ottomans that held the title of the Caliph of the Sunnis
and the Safavids who were at the head of Iranian Shi'is.
The suppression of the rights of the Shi'is continued
under the period of the monarchy and was further
intensified under Saddam Husayn's regime.
American antipathy to Ayatollah
Khomeini and the Iranian hostage crisis should not stop
them from granting the rights of the majority Shi'is in
Iraq. It should be borne in mind that while at the time
of the Islamic revolution in Iran Shi'ism was the main
source of Islamic radicalism, Shi'i militancy has
gradually declined since the death of Ayatollah Khomeyni
in June 1989. However, during the past 20 years a
virulent form of Sunni Wahhabi radicalism has been behind
the emergence of strongly anti-Western Islamic groups,
such as the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Al-Qaeda and
their supporters in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iraq,
including those affiliated to the Jordanian born
terrorist Abu-Mus'ab Al-Zarqawi. At the moment, the
Americans need the help of the majority Shi'i moderates
in Iraq &endash; and Iran &endash; to defeat the forces
of Wahhabi and Al-Qaeda terrorism in Iraq and in the rest
of the world.
Instead, the Americans have opted
for secular figures such as Iyad Allawi who for long has
been in the pay of the CIA and the MI6. The establishment
of a religiously oriented government may not be a good
thing and may not suit Western designs for Iraq.
Nevertheless, we were told that the aim of the invasion
of Iraq was to establish democracy, and surely democracy
means respecting the will of the majority, even if the
majority favours a religious government not to the liking
of the Americans. It would be very dangerous if the new
transitional government were to collapse during the
tumultuous months ahead due to the lack of legitimacy and
popular support. That would create a situation even more
complex than the present chaos. This is why it is
essential that the new government must have broad support
and must be seen to be independent of the occupation
forces.
Iraq
not a launching pad for further
adventurism
It is clear that US and British
forces, faced with a deteriorating situation and mounting
casualties, wish to withdraw from the line of attack,
while continuing their occupation of the country and
maintaining their control of the Iraqi oil resources.
They would like to persuade other countries to put their
soldiers on the front lines to suffer the brunt of the
casualties, while US forces withdraw to their bases out
of the harms way, but continue to exercise the real power
from behind the scenes. That scenario is not in the
interest of the global community, of the Middle East, or
even of America's long-term interest. Now that Saddam has
been toppled, and a new interim government has been
formed, US forces must leave Iraq in an orderly fashion
and must relinquish their control of Iraqi oil. This
should start now and should be completed before elections
are held in Iraq. The issue of who controls the forces
during the interim period and who will be in charge of
the Iraqi oil is still vague and was not clearly spelled
out by the UN resolution.
As far as the domestic situation in
Iraq is concerned, the US and the neocons within the
Administration must be content with having toppled Saddam
and must relinquish the hope of using their occupation of
Iraq as a launching pad for adventurism in the rest of
the Middle East. They should also realise that their
efforts to monopolise Iraqi oil would create a major
backlash in the Arab world, not to say among some Western
countries, particularly Russia and France that had signed
billions of dollars worth of contracts with the previous
regime. If Iraq can find a stable government and can
export oil to the full capacity that it is capable of, it
would stabilise the oil market and would drive down the
price, while a US control of the Iraqi oil will always
meet with Iraqi opposition and will encourage acts of
sabotage that would further aggravate the oil crisis.
America should also refrain from
using her control of Iraq as a means of giving Ariel
Sharon a free hand to push for the dream of Greater
Israel. There is a widespread belief in the Middle East
and beyond &endash; supported by the developments on the
ground since the invasion of Iraq - that apart from the
desire to have full control over Iraqi oil, another main
aim of the neocons was to bolster the position of Israel
in the Middle East. If Israel is not willing to adjust
herself to the realities in the Middle East, then the
rest of the Middle East should be forced to adjust itself
to Israeli demands. This fact has even been grasped by
some leading US figures. Retired Marine Gen. Anthony C.
Zinni, a former US envoy to the Middle East, said: "I
couldn't believe what I was hearing, that the road to
[peace in] Jerusalem led through Baghdad, when
just the opposite is true, the road to Baghdad led
through Jerusalem."
The same logic seems to be behind
Bush's latest idea about the Greater Middle East. Rather
than stopping Israeli excesses that are at the heart of
the Middle East crisis, Bush wants to mould a new Middle
East to US and Israeli liking. The issue of greater
democracy in the Middle East is a fine and admirable
concept, but it cannot be imposed on the Middle East,
while many people in the region question the motives
behind those efforts. This is why the leaders of some
major Arab countries, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia,
refused the US invitation to the G-8 summit to discuss
the issue. Given Bush Administration's blind support for
all criminal acts committed by Sharon's government, it
lacks any credibility in the eyes of the people in the
Middle East to be speaking of democracy and human rights.
Everyone knows that a dubious project driven by the
neocons does not serve the real interests of the people
in the Middle East. Such cheap efforts would only help to
undermine people's belief in democracy and human
rights.
However, despite being caught in
the Iraqi quagmire, the neocons are not giving up. They
have already forced a resolution on the US Congress to
impose sanctions on Syria, and they are still continuing
with lies and threats against Iran. There is a lot wrong
with both countries, and both of them need to have a
greater degree of democracy, but neocon pressures based
on dubious motives are not the way of achieving the
required improvements. It is not clear whether the
resignation of the CIA director George Tenet was at the
behest of the neocons or not, but it is clear that the
real authors of the invasion, the Likudnics in the heart
of the Pentagon, are still firmly in place. They should
be sacked as a minimum requirement for the Bush
Administration to regain some international credibility.
The world and the UN are at a very
critical juncture at the moment. Bush and Blair were fond
of repeating that if the United Nations did not act it
would go the way of the League of Nations. They were
quite right in that assertion, but they were absolutely
wrong in the conclusion that they drew from that
statement. The League of Nations failed because it did
not act when Mussolini invaded Abyssinia. The UN also
failed to stop the invasion of Iraq, but at least it
steadfastly refused to sanction that illegal action. To
their credit, even the non-permanent members of the
Security Council refused to be bullied by the US, despite
all the threats, and opposed the second resolution that
would have authorised the invasion of Iraq. Now that the
UN has once again stepped in and has approved the
resolution for the transfer of sovereignty to the Iraqis,
it must make sure that this resolution is carried out
fully and honestly.
The UN will be totally undermined
and discredited if it fails to ensure that the occupying
forces leave Iraq and the Iraqis regain control of their
oil resources. Apart from the liberation of the Iraqi
people from the clutches of this illegal occupation, many
other global issues, including the very credibility of
the United Nations is at stake. If the UN fails to ensure
an end to the Anglo-American occupation of a Muslim
country it would persuade many Muslims that they are on
the receiving end of the 'clash of civilisations'. That
perception would further alienate the Arabs and the
Muslims from the West and might result in a long-lasting
conflict. This is why even for the long-term interest of
the United States and the defeat of terrorism, it is
essential that the UN is seen as a truly independent,
international organisation that can bring big powers to
account.
The UN should make sure that there
is a clear timetable for the withdrawal of Coalition
forces. As they leave, they should be replaced by a
multinational force, preferably including forces from the
Arab and Islamic countries. The reason why the UN
headquarters was attacked in Baghdad last September was
that the Iraqis regarded the UN tainted by long years of
sanctions. They also believed that the UN presence in
Iraq was to provide a cover for the continued US
occupation. However, if the UN is able to show its
independence and can indicate that a UN force would
provide the means for the withdrawal of US and UK forces,
the Iraqis will co-operate with it.
Arab-Israeli
conflict, the main cause of instability in the Middle
East
Meanwhile, it is essential to find
an equitable solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict that
in the eyes of many people in the Middle East is behind
most of the turmoil in the region. The issue of Israeli
nuclear weapons must be also seriously addressed if the
campaign against alleged Iraqi and Iranian weapons of
mass destruction is not to ring hollow. Practically all
Middle Eastern countries have accepted the existence of
Israel. The question is no longer about whether but about
what kind of Israel should exist. During the Madrid
Conference, the Oslo Peace Process and the Camp David and
Taba negotiations the Arabs acted in good faith and
clearly spelled out their acceptance of the state of
Israel living within safe and secure borders. During the
years when the Palestinians could see a light at the end
of the tunnel there was very little violence. However,
all those promising developments were sabotaged first by
the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, then by the Netanyahu
government, the doubling of the illegal settlements in
the occupied territories, and finally by Sharon's push to
tear those agreements into shreds and occupy more
territory and imprison the Palestinians behind an
Apartheid wall.
It has become abundantly clear that
due to many domestic constraints US governments are not
capable of playing the role of an honest broker in the
Arab-Israeli conflict. The other three members of the
Quartet &endash; the UN, the EU and the Russians &endash;
should not allow the present dangerous stalemate to
continue any further. They must seize the initiative and
must force Israel to end its illegal occupation and
withdraw behind the internationally recognised borders.
They must rescue the vast majority of moderate Jews from
the clutches of a few fanatical zealots. Most Jews know
too well that if they wish to live in the Middle East
they must find a way of coexisting with vastly superior
numbers of their Arab neighbours. The present violent
policies of the Israeli governments, backed by their
ultra-zealous supporters in the US Administration, will
only lead to more violence and bloodshed without bringing
safety to the Israelis. On the contrary, they jeopardise
the long-term peaceful presence of the Jews in the heart
of the Middle East.
Instead of solving the real issue
at the heart of the Middle East conflict, some
irresponsible US leaders are trying to widen the scope of
hostilities and are openly threatening Syria and Iran,
and if they have their way they would do to those
countries what they have done to Iraq. This would plunge
the entire Middle East into war and bloodshed, something
that the hawks in the Pentagon seem to be dreaming of
&endash; perpetual war for an illusive peace! The fact
that not only known hawks such as Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas
Feith, Richard Perle, David Frum, Donald Rumsfeld and
Condoleezza Rice, but even the allegedly moderate
Secretary of State Colin Powell are joining the bandwagon
shows that people must take such threats seriously. It is
particularly revealing that recently both George Bush and
Colin Powell have made anti-Syrian and anti-Iranian
threats at the gathering of the main pro-Israeli lobby
AIPAC. These remarks support the widely-held suspicion
that the aim of the war was not to get rid of the
fictitious weapons of mass destruction in Baghdad or to
introduce democracy, but to redraw the map of the entire
Middle East on Israeli and American lines.
The remarks about an invasion of
Syria and Iran made in the wake of the Iraqi war were so
irresponsible that even the British Foreign Secretary
Jack Straw had to repudiate them and distance himself
from his allies. Speaking on BBC Radio-4, he said that
Britain would have "nothing whatever" to do with military
action against Syria or Iran. Referring to Iran, he said:
"Iran is an emerging democracy and there would be no case
whatsoever for taking any kind of action…. We have
had good co-operation from the Iranian government," he
added. "The Iranians have more reason to know of the
terror imposed by Saddam Hussein, not just on his own
people but on other peoples in the region, than almost
any other country including Kuwait."
Before the rest of the Middle East
is consumed in the fire of endless unilateral war waged
by the neocons in the US Administration, the world must
act to stop this madness and must address the problems of
the Middle East in a comprehensive and responsible
manner. That course of action would not only benefit Iraq
and the Middle East but would also serve America's
long-term interests and would be the best way to defeat
the menace of global terrorism.
* Farhang
Jahanpour received his PhD from the University of
Cambridge in Oriental Studies. He is a part-time tutor at
the Department for Continuing Education at the University
of Oxford and a member of Kellogg College, Oxford. He was
formerly professor and Dean of the Faculty of Languages
at the University of Isfahan, and also worked for 18
years as the Editor for Middle East and North Africa for
the BBC.
You may write to professor
Jahanpour at fjahanpour@btopenworld.com
©
TFF and the author
2004
Tell a friend about this article
Send to:
From:
Message and your name
|