- The year 2003 started with a hoax about weapons of mass
destruction (WMDs) in Iraq. It ended with a bogeyman in Libya. But still,
both the US and the world are not any safer because of it.
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- Indeed, 2003 will be remembered as a year of lies, not
only because the motives for the war in Iraq were dubious and the facts
distorted, but also because the prime minister of the oldest western democracy
bluntly lied in Parliament about Iraq's capability to launch deadly missile
attacks in 45 minutes.
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- Besides, the Secretary of State of the wealthiest western
democracy blatantly lied at the UN about Iraqi WMDs hidden in storage places
"which can't even be communicated to allies for security reasons".
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- However, nobody was able to find any such weapons after
the invasion. Such misleading statements, which cost the lives of many
Iraqis and coalition troops since "the war ended" would normally
have led to resignations in other democratic countries.
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- Let's forget about Saddam Hussain's capture, which was
said to be a "turning point" in the war which is proving to be
increasingly silly every passing day. Let's dismiss the "revival of
a normal civic life in Iraq", which is not true or "avoiding
the partition of the country", which can still happen. The real question
is this: Is the world better off as a result of the war against Iraq? The
answer is obviously no.
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- A dictator was deposed, which is excellent news, but
there are still many around. It is hardly conceivable that a war will be
launched against all of them. Christians can go on being massacred in Sudan
and pregnant North Korean women can continue to face forced abortions if
they try and fail to leave their country. There is no oil in Sudan or in
North Korea.
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- Historian Bernard Lewis has recently claimed that "respect
for America has only increased with its demonstration of strength and purpose".
One should offer him a ticket to London the next time President Bush visits
the city. As Britain's Financial Times wrote, "Just imagine how many
people around the world would demonstrate against Bush's policies, looking
at the number of Brits who took to the streets".
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- A more worrying element is the growing imperial approach
of the US, as perfectly described by America's Wall Street Journal in its
editorial on January 2: "Another global benefit of the war is the
end of the illusions about the UN and a certain kind of 'multilateralism'·
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- The lesson of Iraq is that only the US has the political
will and military means to defeat global threats. American presidents in
the future will likewise have to build coalitions on an ad hoc basis, often
working around a UN Security Council obstructed by France".
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- This is usual rhetoric from the neo-conservative and
ultra-Zionist lobbies and the premises for future dictatorships. Yet, the
same administration on the same day showed a different side through its
Secretary of State in the French daily Le Figaro: "Are we being unilateralist?
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- This is not true. Do we favour military means? Not at
all. Is our strategy obsessed with terrorism, leading us to carry out pre-emptive
strikes? This is totally erroneous". Whom to believe? In any event,
two things are for sure. Firstly, as long as the Bush administration believes
that Iraq is integral to the war on terror, terrorism will continue. Is
the world really safer today when the entire US is placed on an "orange
alert" and violence is a daily reality in the Middle East?
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- The truth is that the occupation of Iraq has re-launched
terrorism and made the place receptive to it, notably because an occupation
can never become an act of liberation without legitimacy.
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- Pope John Paul II said in his Christmas address: "A
victorious fight against terrorism cannot be limited to repression and
punishment. It must be accompanied by a courageous and lucid analysis of
the underlying motives for the attacks."
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- Secondly, it was wrong to assume that a regime change
in Iraq would become a springboard for the resumption of serious talks
to resolve the Middle East dispute.
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- "The Israeli government of Ariel Sharon has hidden
behind the lethal assumption that it can dictate the terms of any peace
with the Palestinians," wrote Ph. Stephens in the Financial Times,
even before Sharon spoke of a new plan to build 900 houses in the occupied
Golan Heights as an answer to Syrian President Bashar Al Assad's proposal
to resume peace talks.
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- More widely, democracy itself is not emerging unscathed
from the Iraqi misadventure. Of course, there is Guantanamo; but there
is also Libya, like a cherry on the top.
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- "Colonel Gaddafi needs to be applauded in unqualified
terms as he has shown great statesmanship," British Foreign Secretary
Jack Straw dared to declare, thus joining a group of mentally deficient
zombies. Quentin Peel put it aptly in the Financial Times: "Such adjectives
seem incredibly inappropriate".
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- It is indeed an ironically cruel co-incidence that the
first democratic achievement of Bush's "forward strategy for freedom
in the Middle East" be the recognition of a bogeyman, who paid the
Lockerbie victims' families $ 2.7 billion to make up for 35 years of absolute
dictatorship and sponsorship of all kinds of terrorism.
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- But success with Iran against proliferation of WMDs had
too much of a European flavour and the Bush administration needed something
more. In the wait for George and Tony to visit their friend Muammar in
Tripoli next Summer, Israeli Defence Minister General Shaol Mofaz threatened
to bomb Iranian nuclear installations in a pre-emptive strike. At least
the Arabs will now know where Gaddafi stands.
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- Neo-conservatives intend to change the world according
to their own beliefs and bring "culture" to countries that were
merely able to build cities such as Damascus and Isfahan.
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- In doing that, as Martin Wolf wrote in the Financial
Times, they have "humiliated allies, undermined international institutions
and projected a narrow vision of US interests".
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- This is why Harvard university's Ignatieff thinks that
a war against terror without friends and allies will fail because "the
Achilles heel of American power has been its inability to understand its
dependence on others".
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