- I have no doubt that George Bush will launch an attack
on Iraq, with or without United Nations Security Council approval. I have
no doubt that the United States will win the war, though some Iraqi defectors
have said recently that it might not be as easy as American officials think.
But we will win.
-
- So let's look at what the consequences are likely to
be:
-
- 1. American lives will be lost. I've heard some military
brass refer to the 146 killed in the first Gulf War as "negligible."
I personally don't think the loss of even one American life is negligible.
I think the casualties will be much higher. The fact that Iraqi soldiers
ran from Kuwait - whose invasion they didn't think much of in the first
place - doesn't mean that they will run away >from defending their homes,
their wives and their children.
-
- 2. America will be morally discredited. We will have
attacked a country with a population of 20 million that did not attack
us. Nobody in the world except politicians in Washington and London (if
them) believe that Iraq, so terribly weakened by the Gulf War and the sanctions,
is a threat to anybody. How can President Bush keep saying Iraq is a threat
to its neighbors, much less the world, when Iraq's neighbors keep saying,
"No, it is not a threat"? Every one of Iraq's neighbors - Turkey,
Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iran and, most especially, Israel - is more
powerful than Iraq.
-
- 3. The Islamic world will be enraged, and that's more
than 1 billion people. Terrorism directed against the United States will
be increased, not decreased. However we see it, the war will be seen as
an attack against Islam, as an attempt by the United States to recolonize
the Arab world and to establish between ourselves and Israel domination
and hegemony.
-
- 4. The United States will be tied down in Iraq for a
year or more. We should learn from the Israeli experience. They went into
Lebanon like a hot knife through butter, but they found that they couldn't
stay. We will find out the same thing in Iraq. Even if we install a puppet
government, we'll have to prop it up or else it will be overthrown.
-
- 5. The war will cost us between $100 billion and $200
billion. The president has not budgeted for that expense. The war and its
likely effect on oil prices will certainly damage and could wreck our economy.
Nobody is going to help us pay for it. The Arabs in the Gulf States are
already saying to America about Iraq, "You break it, you buy it."
-
- 6. The Middle East will be destabilized - to what extent,
it's impossible to predict. Some now-friendly governments could be overthrown.
Nearly all will be forced to change their attitude toward the United States
to appease their people. The forces of extremism will be greatly strengthened,
and the moderates will be greatly weakened and perhaps rendered completely
ineffective. Again, we should learn from the Israelis. They have not been
able to kill their way to security and peace. Every time they crush an
enemy militarily, they generate more and more hatred. The Middle East is
not a region where memories are short or where forgiveness has much of
a standing. Revenge is deeply imbedded in the culture of that region.
-
- 7. Finally, the United States will have served notice
on every other country in the world that it will launch a pre-emptive attack
against any country it imagines might be a threat, directly or indirectly,
in the future. If you want a formula for a dangerous, unstable world, that's
it. No country in the world will trust us again.
-
- © 2003 by King Features Syndicate, Inc.
- http://reese.king-online.com/Reese_20030210/index.php
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