As widely predicted a few weeks ago (OK, as widely as this column goes) the major clash of civilizations in the month of March is taking place between the forces of the United States and the forces of world cricket. There is not much chance of a clash between the forces of the United States and the forces of Saddam Hussein, because Saddam Hussein has no force left with him (not even much of a moral force, but that is another story). Jay Leno, that seasoned political commentator, may have summed it all up when he pointed out that George Bush might be the smartest military commander in the history of the United States. He first got Saddam to hand over the few effective weapons he might have had, and then announced he was going to war in any case.
At the moment of writing both the confrontations have reached the semifinal stage. While the final outcome may not be in any real doubt — both Australia and America are, on paper, too powerful for their competition — one significant and surprising development has already taken place in both events. The rise of Kenya in world cricket is as stunning as the decline of America in world affairs. I repeat, neither the rise nor the decline will have much impact on the immediate outcome. If the United States does decide to ignore world opinion and go to war against Iraq its military supremacy will be established without much fuss. But a long shadow has already begun to loom over the coming decade. No one is so invincible as to become unilateral.
This weekend newspapers and news agencies have begun to ready for battle. The New York Times for instance has placed 30 reporters on the field, and agencies have opened war rooms on the supply lines of their information feed. War is in the air, and will soon hit the ground. The final reason for this war will be nothing more rational than the pride of George Bush, which will be explained in terms of the strategic interest of the United States. But Bush has already lost more from this confrontation than he will gain from any military victory.
When Washington, working on a plan that had to be dusted out of a few hard-line minds, began turning the heat up on Baghdad, Saddam Hussein was the issue. As this much-advertised war shifts into active gear, George Bush has become as much of an issue as Saddam.
Thank George Bush, and George Bush alone, for two developments, both of them minor miracles by the terms of political calculus. George Bush deserves full credit for creating the first international anti-war movement in history that has happened even before the war has started. This is unprecedented. The last successful anti-war movement took place over Vietnam, and it needed many years and thousands of deaths for it to catch fire and burn history. Not a shot has been fired so far, and millions of Christians, Hindus, Buddhists and Muslims have marched on the streets of dozens of capitals to assert that Bush has not been able to justify, through either evidence or logic, his demand for regime change in Iraq. One reason has been the crudity of the Bush propaganda offensive. It is simply too personal. There are, further, no limits. Ari Fleishcer has suggested, from the official forum of the White House, that a bullet should kill Saddam.
This might be the preferred language of the Bush White House, and might even win a few votes in Texas, but the rest of the world is not equally enthusiastic about murder as an instrument of policy. Bush is not interested in disarming Iraq. That is only an excuse. In order to disarm, you first have to find the arms, and the chief weapons inspector appointed by the United Nations, Hans Blix, has not found them yet. It is not about United Nations resolutions either, because the most consistent violator of UN resolutions lives actually next door to Iraq, and is called Israel (it also possesses weapons of mass destruction, which it does not publicly acknowledge:
It is believed to have more than 200 nuclear bombs and of course the capacity to use them). It is not about the war against terrorism. No link has been proven between Saddam and Al-Qaeda, despite almost desperate American efforts to do so.
George Bush has only one fixation. He wants to eliminate Saddam Hussein. Death is his proclaimed purpose, and he will go to the extent of war to achieve it. The reasons he offers vary. Sometimes Bush is saving Iraqi children from watching their parents being tortured by Saddam; at other times he is saving the Kurds from being gassed by Saddam; and on some occasion he is saving the whole of the Middle East, no less, from doom. The starting point of every scenario is a bullet inside Saddam. He would be very pleased if that magical assassin could be found who managed to achieve this; but failing that, an army of over 250,000 backed by half a dozen aircraft carriers and unprecedented air power should do nicely. Such thinking does not sit well with the idiom of modern international relations. This is why Bush has managed to engender, without wanting to do so, a second startling fact.
In 1991, George Bush Senior began alone and united the world behind him. The enemy was the same, but the cause was different. The first Gulf War had a moral foundation, and a defined strategic purpose which the world could understand. Even traditional friends of Saddam’s Iraq, like India, could offer only feeble resistance. It is forgotten now, but Osama bin Laden wanted to personally lead a jihad against Saddam Hussein in 1991. The mobilization against Saddam cut across all kinds of other differences. Not only did the world unite to fight under America’s leadership, it also paid Washington to do so.
In 2001 George Bush started with the world behind him, and bit by bit destroyed the coalition until he was left alone. Even his alleged poodle, Tony Blair, finds it difficult to toodle alongside. Britain has effectively withdrawn from the war. The price of loyalty to Bush could have been Tony Blair’s job. Leaders who have supported Bush are in trouble with their voters.
It is even more startling when you consider that public opinion has rallied around to protect a thoroughly unsavory loser. Saddam Hussein is not your preferred paragon of anti-imperialism virtue. He is not a preferred paragon of anything. Bush believes that a quick military success will change the mood, and public opinion will cheer the victor. That is self-deception. No one believes that Saddam Hussein will be able to put up a serious fight; nor is it anyone’s case that he runs anything but a harsh dictatorship by concentrating power in the hands of a small clique. The Saddam elite is not revolutionary how many airs it might give itself.
He does not realize this yet, since no one has pointed it out to him, but George Bush has done us all an inadvertent favor by provoking an international peace movement. The peace movement has deflected, although it cannot totally eliminate, a nasty fallout of this coming war. The protest by millions of Christians in the United States, Britain, France, Spain, Germany and Australia has prevented this war from becoming a black-and-white Christianity-versus-Islam issue. Instead it is being regarded as what it is: An effort by an American administration to use its acknowledged superiority in arms to impose its will upon the world, irrespective of international law, and unmindful of established order. This is not Armageddon; it is only a mistake.
George Bush has hurt his personal credibility in this crisis, possibly beyond repair. One cannot see how he can emerge out of this morass with clean hands (Blair might have wriggled away just in time). If he removes Saddam, he cannot remove the odium that will have surrounded the process. And victory does not mean that he knows what to do with the consequences of victory. The rosy view is that Iraqis will weep with joy once Saddam is dead and democracy begins to sprout from the undergrowth. The bleak view is that American generals do not make good pro-consuls, and it may need upwards of 400,000 American troops and ten years to deal with the consequences of regime change. America is preparing for a long occupation. Indication? Some 21,000 key men, including intelligence analysts and translators, have been banned from quitting the armed services. No one knows, including Bush, what will really happen, which is the problem. A hypothesis in the hands of a speculator is one thing; a speculator in the White House is quite another.
By next Sunday I may be eating every word of this column, unsweetened by hindsight, but no scenario is completely impossible. Suppose the Iraqi armies, against all expectations, actually manage to give battle and delay an American victory by a fortnight filled with casualties. Then what happens? Saddam has to convince his armed forces on two counts: First, that defeat will mean death, so fight for your lives; second, that time is on the side of Iraq, and if they can hold out for a while, and inflict casualties, the rest of the world could bring pressure on Bush to negotiate a settlement. Iraq has seen world pressure work. And hope breeds resistance. Saddam will collapse quickly only if his armed forces feel hopeless.
Saddam has about as much chance of survival if America starts a war as Kenya has of winning the World Cup. But twelve weeks ago no one gave either a chance to last as long as they already have.
Arab News Opinion 16 March 2003
