The war-hungry United States has sent more than 250,000 soldiers to the Gulf with all their destructive weapons, including 300 fighter planes and bombers, to drop tons of bombs on the unarmed people of Iraq.

It has deployed five large warships in the Gulf waters to launch the latest missiles and destroy everything in Iraq. It has also brought armed carriers and tanks to raze Iraqi cities and towns. The Iraqi Army, which was once a formidable force in the Arab world, does not have nearly the same combat capability. Nearly a quarter of a century of wars have weakened not only the Iraqi people but also the Iraqi Army.

On the one side, the UN inspectors have been destroying Iraq’s weapons, and on the other the US and British planes have been bombing its military installations over the past years. They recently destroyed 120 Al-Samoud-2 missiles. The US and Britain do not need to mobilize all these soldiers and weaponry to attack a weak prey.

Is the war on Iraq part of a bigger plan to weaken Muslims and Arabs and make them subservient to the sole superpower? Is the war on Iraq a prelude to the US plan to divide the Middle East?

US Secretary of State Colin Powell has said Washington had noticed that Iran was making progress in its production of nuclear weapons. Is this a forerunner to a standoff with other Islamic countries?

However, it gives us great relief that a large number of officials, intellectuals and artists in both the US and Britain oppose the war against Iraq and say that Iraq does not pose any threat to their countries or the world.

Jimmy Carter, America’s 33rd president, denounced the plan to invade Iraq as an unjust act. “The war plan includes dropping of 3,000 bombs and missiles on the defenseless Iraqi people in the first five hours. These attacks will cause harm and destruction to only the Iraqi people as their hateful president will be hiding in his bunkers,” wrote Carter, who recently won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Henry Kissinger, the former US secretary of state, was another major opponent, who said North Korea posed a greater threat to the US than Iraq. Journalist Thomas Friedman wrote in an article last week that the war on Iraq was not vital for American security, adding that Saddam Hussein has no intention of threatening the United States.

Britain’s Clare Short said she would resign her post if a war on Iraq was launched without UN endorsement. Many officials in the Blair government have threatened to quit their jobs if their country backed the war on Iraq without waiting for new Security Council resolution.

Prominent British journalists like Robert Fisk and newspapers like The Independent continue their campaign against the war. The Independent’s editorial last Monday was titled “Mr. Blair, Not in Our Name,” as the paper rejected Prime Minister Tony Blair’s statement that he would support war with or without a UN resolution.

But this opposition did not and never will change the minds of Bush and Blair. Even if Saddam comes to them barefoot, bending his head and carrying his burial clothes, they would not accept. Rather, they would seek other justifications to launch the war, saying Saddam’s steps were not symmetrical, or his head was not bent properly, or his burial clothes were not made of the most dismal cloth.

Arab News Features 14 March 2003