Armageddon is scheduled for next Sunday and all I can think of is the Chinese curse, condemning me to live in interesting times. This is at least partly due to some serious intellectual deficiency on my part. I cannot, for instance, understand some of the things that George Bush, president of the United States of the united world, has said and repeated.
For instance, he has called his proposed conquest of Iraq, scheduled to start with 3,000 precision-guided missiles and bombs in the first 48 hours, followed by the Marines, the “war of the willing”. There was a chap in a Charles Dickens novel called Barkis, and his principal claim to fame was a phrase about himself: “Barkis is willing.” Barkis was always willing. The trouble was that no one else was equally willing. As far as my limited information goes, three of the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with a veto, Russia, France and China, are not quite willing. Germany is not willing. I checked out the neighborhood of Iraq. Most of it is not willing. The Arab League does not endorse this Bush war. Iran might be willing, but not for reasons that would go down very well with the State Department. Those who are willing, are willing because of the billing.
The most flagrant case of billing was Turkey, which was promised $15 billion in grants and loans plus a stranglehold over the future of the Kurds. The government acquiesced but Turkey’s Parliament turned the bribe down. Kuwait of course has a particular reason for anger against Saddam Hussein, but it is also looking at post-war contracts. Qatar has already been cleaning up from the American defense, or, in this case, offense, budget. Most of Asia and Africa are not willing. Prime Minister Vajpayee wonders why Bush does not attack North Korea first, and President Pervez Musharraf has pointed out that while he is loyal he cannot stretch such loyalty so far.
The UN seems to be particularly unwilling. Possibly to his shock and horror, even Dad appears a bit hesitant. Speaking to an audience at Tufts University in the last week of February, George Bush the Elder remarked that the evidence in 2003 was “a little fuzzier” than it was in 1990, when Saddam had invaded and occupied Kuwait. Bush the First also noted: “The more pressure there is, the more chance this matter will be resolved in a peaceful manner.” Could Dad be a closet peacenik? He would be, in that case, the silent part of the majority. Unprecedented demonstrations across the world, and particularly in the West, have opposed this Bush war. Governments, like those of Britain, Spain and Australia, which have offered unequivocal support to George Bush are facing a backlash from voters who do not want a war they cannot understand.
President Bush has attempted to explain why precisely he is going to war. Want to know? Well: “A new regime in Iraq would serve as a dramatic and inspiring example of freedom for other nations in the region.” War this week, democracy the week after.
I checked the region. Would regime change in Baghdad lead to regime change elsewhere? Would democratic agent provocateurs instigate a new dawn in Damascus? And Amman? And Cairo? Would George Bush cheer from his pedestal and ask the 100,000 American troops stationed in Iraq to lend a bit of support to democracy as they had done in Iraq? Would the entrenched regimes, all protected so far by the Americans, shiver and fall? Or would they protect their interests, and divert any such political tide in a different direction, one implicit with other forms of war and confrontation? Is America actually prepared for the consequences of genuine democracy in the region? It has already tasted a bit of it, in Turkey, where a genuine democratic vote seriously disrupted the American plan and forced Washington to lean on Turkey’s generals, which is not very democratic. And what happens if the decision of the Turkish Parliament is now reversed under American pressure? The credibility of the moderate Islamic party now running the government collapses, and who enters this space? Not secular leftists, of that you can be sure. In any case, is democracy acceptable to America only when a democratic government agrees with America? Or is a democracy permitted to disagree as well? Democracy is unlikely to provide as many Quislings as an army regime or a royal family. I don’t know all the answers. I told you my mental faculties had weakened under the strain of contemplating Armageddon. But I am sure George Bush has all the answers.
Bush the Junior continues his persuasive arguments. “Success in Iraq could also begin a new stage for Middle Eastern peace, and set in motion progress toward a truly democratic Palestine state.” Well, at least he used ‘could’. Anything more certain would have shaken my confidence in the word of the United States beyond repair. But how could one lead to the other? Would the next Iraqi government become Israel-friendly? Would the Iraqi people, who presumably will continue to live in their country, suddenly change their views on Israel just because Saddam has been removed? Even in Kuwait, the most anti-Saddam nation, 75 percent of the people might support a Bush war, but 99 percent would oppose America’s policy on Palestine. Is Ariel Sharon going to Baghdad this summer to hug the post-Saddam leader and declare peace through a joint statement that makes Yasser Arafat weep in gratitude? Or is the president of the united world actually telling us: “Look, you guys in the Arab deserts. Gimme Saddam. I need him for all sorts of reasons, which I cannot really explain logically but believe me it will all turn to be all right, OK (aside — even if some of you end up losing your palaces in the process!). Once that evil horrible dictator is gone, the region will be full of only friendly, aftershave-sprinkled dictators. That’s when we’ll get together and tell Sharon where to get off, won’t we ha ha ha…”
I don’t know how long the queue of Bush-believers is, but something tells me it will be a short line. And even in that queue someone is bound to ask which country in the neighborhood has proven weapons of mass destruction, and has ignored UN Security Council resolution for decades. (Answer: Israel)
It is possible that President Bush had got a bit tired of persuasion by the time the wretched European Hans Blix produced a second report for the United Nations noting that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was cooperating with the weapons-inspection regime. After all, as leader of the most powerful military machine ever assembled he has every right to get tired of those who refuse to share his latest world-view. President Bush had the last word on this whole business of getting a sanction from the United Nations for his war. “We really don’t need anybody’s permission,” Mr. Bush told a press conference. You can’t get more specific than that. This rather proves the point made by the majority of the world, that the decision to go to war had little to do with the reasons being offered for it, but I suppose the United States can handle that.
Will it handle the logic of what it has begun? Will all ‘odious’ regimes within the ‘axis of evil’ have to stand in queue, awaiting execution? The militarization around North Korea has been stepped up. So after Iraq, North Korea? Or, as the Muslim world is beginning to believe, will Iran be the next Bush war zone? Does President Bush understand the theory of over-reach? The best-run empires understand the law of limits, and indeed the truth of limitations.
Defeat is always easier to handle than victory. Time heals the pain of defeat, and life goes on. If you are a victor, you have to find answers to the problems of the life that goes on. Victory can purchase a laurel today and create the next generation of enemies tomorrow. The most disturbing part of the American, and British, steamroll toward Armageddon is that the principals have not been able to explain, convincingly, why they want war, and why they want it now. In comparison 1990 was crystal clear. That war had a moral foundation, and a military objective; which is why it had the support of the world, and succeeded.
The world also paid for that war, which it will not do this time. Since there are no certainties in war, there cannot be a budget: It will cost what it will cost. The Pentagon has variously estimated this cost to be somewhere between $60 billion and $200 billion; and the time for what might be called the ‘pacification’ of post-Saddam Iraq to be between two and ten years. Those extra eight years will be required if the three old vilayets, or provinces, into which the Ottomans very sensibly divided the land area of what is now Iraq begin to explode in different directions. The Turks kept the Shias, Sunnis and Kurds apart, which their successors, the British, did not. There will be two spirals at work: One created by the war on the region, and the second created by the war in America. Americans may be as reluctant to pay for a war and occupation that could become sticky, as the region may be to deliver on the Bush vision of a new Middle East.
Nothing is certain, so pessimism may seem like bias. For the sake of peace on earth, goodwill to men, the future of mankind and any other cliché you can think of, I hope I am wrong. Who cares if I am wrong as long as George Bush is right? God forbid that George Bush should be wrong and a mere columnist proves right.
Arab News Opinion 9 March 2003
