Another Vietnam-like quagmire

In an interview broadcast on British television, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said that (in his opinion, I presume) the Us-led war in Iraq hasn’t made the world any safer. Said Annan: “I cannot say the world is safer when you consider the violence around us and see the terrorist attacks around the world and you see what is going on in Iraq.” Annan mused, “We have a lot of work to do as an international community to try and make the world safer.” Annan had previously described the United States war (invasion) that toppled Saddam Hussein and his nefarious regime as “illegal” because Washington and its coalition partners never got UN Security Council backing for the invasion. Well, given the sense of newly apprehended national vulnerability after 9/11, George W Bush was able to say, loud and clear, that he wasn’t inclined to give anyone outside his administration veto power over Am-erica’s power to defend itself, even if it meant taking pre-emptive strike at anyone deemed to be an imminent and dangerous threat to national security, especially those falling along George W Bush’s “axis of evil.”

Of course, the litmus test of Washington’s “moral high ground” is the effectively genocidal (that’s not too strong a word) scorched earth economic stranglehold of Cuba for four decades — an unconscionable and untenable act of monumental folly which the entire international community continues to condemn with one voice. Incidentally, although George Bush Snr took pains to get and keep a coalition together in his “Desert Storm” venture that first brought Saddam to heel, he was heard to show some disdain for UN endorsement when he said, “When last I checked, the UN had no responsibility for our national security.” George Bush Snr and Colin Powell may or may not have had an exit strategy in “Desert Storm” but after the Kurds were led to believe that it was safe to rise up and challenge Saddam they were abandoned to Saddam’s tender mercies. (It was Margaret Thatcher who raised her voice at his betrayal.) Ronald Reagan, before, had the UN on the “slower burner,” and perhaps even off “the stove.”

Remember, Reagan branded the soviet union and its satellites as “the evil empire” and is credited with having faced down the soviet leader Gorbachev and his “evil empire.”  The truth, I’m afraid, is far more complex than this. The soviet union had been dead on its legs for sometime and it was a question of when and how it would collapse among its own economic and political rubble. Ironically, an earlier communist leader Nikita Khrushchev had promised to bury capitalism but subsequently communism buried itself. It was a bipolar world with world peace being maintained by “the balance of nuclear terror.” With the collapse of the soviet union, America remained as the sole superpower. The dangers of the Cold War and the proxy-wars of the two superpowers were not followed by international tranquillity. To return specifically to Annan’s musings on the Iraq issue. Annan felt that the existence of the international terrorist network was a very serious problem and could only be dealt with at an international level.

No one needs to be reminded that the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction — nuclear, chemical and biological — especially falling into hands bent on mindless mischief must be of serious concern to any thinking person on the planet. We’ve seen of late, some of the most diabolical, barbaric and senseless automatons who have embraced “the culture of death” and are devoid of anything approximating to human impulses. Annan pointed out that two battles have to be carried on simultaneously. The battle against the terrorists must be unabated and the battle for the minds and hearts of the ordinary people. I seem to recall a much earlier UN secretary general lamenting the plight of the Palestinians and the world’s (including the Arabs!) indifference to their being a marginalised and lost generation, it may have been those festering cauldrons that were conducive to “the hydra-headed culture of death” syndrome. According to Annan, “The Iraqis and most people are probably happy that Saddam Hussein and his brutal regime are out of power.” But they’re all concerned about the aftermath.

All the “gun talk” and bravado notwithstanding, it appears that an exit strategy may not have been thought through or given the priority it deserved. Caught in another Vietnam-like quagmire? It’s been said that, in war, the first casualty is the truth. For a long time the American public were kept in the dark about the Vietnam war. In fact, John F Kennedy all but admitted that the Vietnam war was a complete fiasco and lives were being needlessly lost but he considered his presidential re-election as having a higher priority. Losing face appears to be far more important to political leaders than losing the lives of others. I’m not letting out any secret when I say that both Bush and Blair have moved on from the rationale that they first proposed for taking their countries into war. They had been “misled” by the “intelligence” that reached them. The intelligence was probably “sexed up” so they claimed. In any case they have no regrets about getting Saddam out of power, and making Iraq free from the machinations of the international terrorists. Of course, as can’t be said too often, one has also to “carefully calibrate” that other battle of “winning the hearts and minds” of the average citizen who only yearns for security and satisfying the basic human needs.

Annan told ITV that Iraq was “on track” to hold elections at the end of January, but (ominously?) warned that he will speak out if he is not satisfied with the way they are conducted. He added: “If that sort of judgment or any decision is made which we think detracts from the credibility and viability of the elections, we will be duty bound to say so.  However, grafting democratic institutions on an alien Arab culture may be easier said than done. “To be constructively critical of Washington’s perspectives and/or specific strategies is not necessarily to be anti-American or unpatriotic. New-sweek’s columnist Fareed Zakaria “observed” that the US presidential candidates did not have a discussion on foreign policy but one on Iraq. And thousands of miles away, there’s a new world coming into being — one that America is quite unprepared to handle. “The West has long taken Asia for granted — only as a stage where great power rivalries are played out.” Zakaria admitted that the US invasion of Iraq was relatively quick and clean, only, to be undone by disastrous post-war operations. Among those was the US’ failure to recognise strong nationalist feeling in Iraq, which quickly turned into anti-American sentiment.