Last month the leaders of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) met in Santiago, Chile. They agreed on combating international terrorism but differed on economic issues, namely establishing a free trade zone, a sign that the differences this time concerned economic interests.
Also, in the Algerian capital leaders and representatives of 22 African countries held a summit to review the continent’s homespun development plan, known as Nepad, which seeks to boost growth in Africa. The plan seems to have scored some success in such areas as agriculture, transport, and technology and also in attempts to reconcile African states.
Sharm El-Sheikh resort in Egypt hosted an important international gathering on the future of Iraq, a country under occupation. Views differ over the merit of the resolutions adopted by the meeting but it became quite clear that the American administration had no vision as to how Iraq could be governed.
Some regard the Sharm El-Sheikh outcome to be so modest it would not lead to any genuine change in Iraq because simply the summit failed to set a timetable for the withdrawal of the foreign forces. The longer the occupation remains in Iraq, the more violence and killing the country would witness and this would ultimately block any reconstruction attempt. The question is: What was the merit of convening such a meeting as long as Washington refuses to set a timetable for the withdrawal of its forces and seems to have no intention at all to end its occupation of Iraq?
Looking at the heart of the matter we find that the Bush administration has failed to deliver the security it promised the Iraqi people. Every day we witness new forms of security problems, including looting, armed robbery, theft etc. This has been the case from the first day of the invasion. The destruction has not been confined to private and public property but extended to cover Iraqi heritage and history.
More than a year after the invasion the Bush administration has failed to implement any reconstruction plan to rebuild what American military machine has destroyed, especially the infrastructure. Instead its sole concern remains exploiting the country’s rich resources. It failed to bring forward a democratically elected strong Iraqi government capable of running the country efficiently and effectively and not one imposed on the Iraqi people. It even failed to prove that Saddam Hussein was indeed in possession of weapons of mass destruction or that he had ties with Al-Qaeda — claims the administration used to invade Iraq.
The picture now is quite clear: America is about to sink into a quagmire similar to that of Vietnam. The Sharm El-Sheikh meeting was meant to provide some kind of legitimacy to the American atrocities in Iraq and pave the way for America to tighten its grip on Iraq. It must however be stated that the neocons running American foreign policy and others in the administration lack the qualifications that would enable them to read and understand history better. Those who understand the history of Iraq and the characteristics of its people know that the Iraqis will never accept colonization and will resist no matter what.
The American administration would not achieve its objectives in Iraq. Finding and destroying WMD was definitely not part of those objectives because from the onset Washington knew there was no such weapons. Fighting terrorism, too, was not among the objectives since Iraq was not known to have any links with Al-Qaeda or global terror acts. Iraq was most of the time busy with the war with Iran, invasion of Kuwait and the international sanctions imposed on it for a period of ten years. Likewise, oil was not the main reason for occupying Iraq since long before the second Gulf War in 1991 Iraqi oil has been the property of Washington and Western companies.
Why then was Iraq occupied? Was it for imposing the American brand of democracy, getting rid of a dictatorial regime, preparing the ground for the invasion of Iran by finding a foothold for American forces in neighboring Iraq, gain access to the Caspian Sea, serving Israel’s interests and enabling the Jewish state to establish a presence along the Euphrates to realize the Zionist dream of creating a Grater Israel that extends from the River Nile to the Euphrates, redrawing the map of the Middle East through interfering in internal Arab affairs or was it to wage war against Islam? President Bush said he would start a new Crusade, though he withdrew his statement later. Only future would reveal Washington’s designs and tell us why America occupied Iraq.
