Iraq
Is World's Living Wound
By Salim Lone
09 July 2004
Electronic Iraq
Before
Iraq had unraveled, Tony Blair last November delivered one of his most
impassioned defences of the war at the Lord Mayor's banquet, hoping
to undercut domestic critics before President Bush's state visit. Iraq,
he said, was "the battle of seminal importance for the early 21st
century. It will define relations between the Muslim world and the West.
It will influence profoundly the development of Arab States and the
Middle East."
The Prime Minister
had it exactly right, except he was a decade late in understanding the
centrality of Iraq in the current world order - yet another reflection
of how little those who decided to wage war in 2003 understood the region.
It was in fact the first Gulf war in 1991, waged ironically with the
strong urging of then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, which was "the
battle of seminal importance" and which directly gave rise to the
age of global terror as we now know it, beginning with the first World
Trade Centre bombing in 1993.
To say this is in
no way to underestimate the impact of the current Iraq war and occupation,
which have made the US a reviled power in the Arab and Muslim world,
created powerful new hatreds globally and driven thousands of new terrorist
recruits to the anti-US battle. It was the fear of precisely this outcome
which had led most of the world to clamorously oppose this war, but
everyone now feels powerless to influence the US in the face of its
determination to "stay the course."
But blaming President
Bush for this sorry mess is an unfair, and ultimately short-sighted,
view if we are to ever set about healing the ever-deepening cleavages
between Muslims and the west. The groundwork for the current crisis
was in fact laid by the first President Bush and his European and Arab
partners who in 1990 had gone along with his decision to mete out severe
punishment to Iraq for its invasion of Kuwait. Many had warned there
would be unprecedented Muslim fury and violence if Iraq was attacked,
since the United Nations had never before approved the use of force
to counter an invasion. More importantly, Israel had for years been
allowed to occupy Palestine and parts of Syria and Lebanon with impunity.
The UN's approval for the war generated intense Arab hostility towards
the UN, which Boutros-Ghalis's selection as Secretary General partly
but temporarily alleviated.
But the US, wanting
to send the message that as the now sole superpower it would not hesitate
to use force in the Middle East to advance its interests, was not to
be deterred, and prosecuted the war ruthlessly. Then UN Under-Secretary-General
and later Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari told the General Assembly
after visiting Iraq that "nothing we had seen or read had quite
prepared us for this particular form of devastation. The conflict has
wrought near-apocalyptic results and most means of modern life have
been destroyed." Worse was to follow, with the most punitive sanctions
in modern history ravaging Iraqi society, and claiming the lives of
at least half a million children, the latter carnage immortalized in
Clinton administration cabinet member Madeline Albright's telling Leslie
Stahl in a 60 Minutes interview that US strategic interests could possibly
justify that price. And the American troop presence in Saudi Arabia
was unleashing fatwas describing them as desecrating holy soil.
There was glee in
the nascent neoconservative movement when predicted upheavals in Arab
countries failed to materialize, but no one cared to see the more seminally
destructive phenomenon unfolding: the profound alienation developing
among Muslims world-wide, which would facilitate the establishment of
a vast terrorist network.
In a reprise, the
US again seems to be focused on its ideological and force-driven agenda
with no discussions on how to arrest the exponential growth of anti-western
sentiment, confident in the ability of its raw power to prevent what
could be an even more cataclysmic replay of the 9/11 scenario.
There is no graver
challenge the world faces than stemming the growth of terrorism practiced
by aggrieved Muslims. The rise of such militancy is driven by specific
US policies and cannot be glossed over with incendiary, self-righteous
assertions that "they" hate western freedoms and are inherently
barbaric and uncivilized. Beheading the innocent is indeed so, but so
is the killing of over 600 innocent Fallujans in a week of aerial bombing
and the death of 500,000 children through sanctions.
The depth of this
anti-US animus is recent. Muslims and Arabs gravitated towards the US
for decades until the 1980s, and the mujahideen fighting the Soviet
occupation of Afghanistan sought American support. But with even the
most moderate Muslims now seeing the US as bent on crushing them, the
reforms the Islamic world is aching for will remain a mirage.
Terrorism will only
be curbed when Muslims themselves forcefully challenge it. But that
will not happen unless the US addresses the many legitimate grievances
that drive young men to terror. Merely rolling back the excessively
aggressive Bush administration policies will not be sufficient to win
Muslim trust; many more far-reaching changes than are part of current
American, and indeed western, political discourse are needed.
In the quest for
winning Muslim support, justice for the long-serving Palestinians remains
a vital priority, but it is Iraq which has for millions replaced Palestine
as the touchstone of Muslim pain over the last 14 years. Despite the
current western demonization of its entire Ba'athist history, Iraq was
the pride of Muslims not only for its storied past in providing a civilizing
model for the world and for its many holy sites but also for having
achieved levels of development, secularism and equality (including for
women) still unknown in any Middle East nation. Saddam Hussein's dictatorship,
his brutality against the Kurds and other opponents, and the unprovoked
invasion of Iran posed no problems for the west, until he invaded Kuwait.
The unprecedented
devastations visited upon Iraq's people twice in 12 years have made
it a compelling, living wound for Muslims. Unless there is peace there,
world instability will grow. But there is seemingly no end to the trauma
in sight as the US-appointed government seems determined to intensify
the occupation's heavy reliance on the use of force. Prime Minister
Allawi now has the right to declare emergency rule and he has already
indicated a possible delay in elections, while his defence minister
astonishingly threatens "to cut off their [insurgents'] hands and
behead them." So this is what the glorious drive to bring democracy
to Iraq was all about: the installation of a new Iraqi dictatorship
- but one that it is "ours."
All of us will pay
the price.
Salim Lone writes on Muslim relations with the West. His last
assignment with the United Nations was as Director of Communications
for the UN mission in Iraq headed by the late Sergio Vieira de Mello
last year.