6 - 12 December 2001
Issue No.563
|
Al-Ahram Weekly Online 6 - 12 December 2001 Issue No.563 |
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Current issue | Previous issue | Site map | ||
A ruckus over Iraq
The press and hawks in the US administration are talking tough on Iraq. But Russian influence may defer the resumption of hostilities between old foes. Michael Jansen reports
On 2 December, US Secretary of State Colin Powell dismissed reports of an imminent attack on Iraq. US President George Bush has "made no decisions," Powell said, adding that advisers have presented no recommendation to the president, so he "retains all of his options."
Speculation has soared recently that Iraq will be next on Washington's hit list, after Bush reintroduced the dormant issue of Iraq's refusal to admit UN arms inspectors as a possible casus belli and spoke of expanding the "war against terrorism" by including countries which "develop weapons of mass destruction...to terrorise [other] nations."
But in the view of Professor Victor Bulmer- Thomas, director of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House, London, Bush will not be able to convince his allies to fuse the war against terrorism and the entirely separate issue of the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction.
In a lecture delivered in Nicosia on "Cooperation and Tension in the Transatlantic Relationship," Bulmer-Thomas said that targeting Iraq would cause Arab members of the broad anti-terror coalition to defect and would stoke "tensions" in the "transatlantic relationship." These "tensions" would involve the entire European Community and Russia because the "transatlantic relationship" is no longer a bilateral Anglo-US affair.
Bulmer-Thomas said that British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his advisers firmly oppose the "Iraq next" proposition. The professor believes that Blair's strong public support for the Bush administration entitles Britain to be heard in private on this issue. But Bulmer-Thomas was not certain that Bush and the hawks in the US administration would listen to Blair. In conversation with Al-Ahram Weekly, Bulmer-Thomas said that representations would be made by a number of British officials to the moderate members of the Bush administration.
Nevertheless, Bulmer-Thomas admitted that the moderate camp, led by Powell, is weak compared to the hawks, which include National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, senior defence adviser.
The hawks have been winning new allies, too. Last week, Britain's opposition leader, Conservative Iain Duncan-Smith boosted the hawks by breaking ranks with Blair. Ending two months of bipartisanship on British foreign policy, Duncan-Smith said his party would back a US offensive against Iraq. This stand weakens Blair just when he is urging caution.
Emboldened by Washington's early and easy victory in Afghanistan, the hawks have launched an anti-Iraq blitz in the Western press. Daily, US and British newspapers report on Iraq's "misdeeds" and its connection to "terrorism" in an apparent effort to justify impending military action. On 2 December, for example, the Los Angeles Times published an opinion article entitled "Saddam's Time is Up." The piece, by Henri J Barkey, outlined a diplomatic strategy to oust the Iraqi leader by compelling him to accept the return of weapons inspectors and isolating him from his people. On the same day, the Observer of London carried an article claiming that Washington has a "secret plan" to topple the Iraqi leader by bombing key targets, while US forces help Kurds in the north, radical Sunni Islamists in the centre and Shia factions in the south to mount an uprising.
Former Central Intelligence Agency Director James Woolsey, who has been acting as the hawks' envoy, has even attempted to enlist Ankara's support in exchange for control of Iraq's northern oil fields. Turkish Defence Minister Sabahattin Cakmokoglu took Woolsey seriously enough to hint that his country might drop its objections to a US attack on Iraq if "circumstances change."
Powell bluntly dismissed such reports. "It is highly inappropriate and speculative and hypothetical... to talk about a war that nobody has declared," he said. Others agree. Authoritative analysts in the region and Washington believe that the US-Russian compromise resolution on sanctions, adopted by the Security Council on 29 November, could defer the decision over whether or not to take military action against Iraq for another six months. After Russian opposition last month, Washington was forced to accept a third postponement of its "smart sanctions" plan which was designed to tighten UN controls over Iraq's imports and oil revenues. The joint resolution extended the oil-for-food plan until 1 June next year, while the 11-year-old sanctions regime is revised. Russia has agreed to approve by that time a shortened list of goods banned for import by Iraq in exchange for a US pledge to consider easing or lifting sanctions if Iraq cooperates with weapons inspectors.
The compromise suited all concerned. It bought time for Bush to wind up his war in Afghanistan before deciding what to do about Iraq, and it bought time for Russia to persuade Iraq to agree to inspections. The compromise also gave Iraq the chance to secure a firm commitment from the Council to lift sanctions if inspectors return. Meanwhile, Washington can be expected to maintain pressure on Iraq through tough statements and bellicose articles in the press. For now, the Washington hawks may have to be content with deploying bombers and special forces to help local troops contain Islamists in Somalia, Yemen, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Iraq, it seems, can wait.
© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved
 |
|
|||||||||||||||||
| ARCHIVES Letter from the Editor Editorial Board Subscription Advertise! |
WEEKLY ONLINE: www.ahram.org.eg/weekly Updated every Saturday at 11.00 GMT, 2pm local time weeklyweb@ahram.org.eg |
 Al-Ahram Organisation |
Recommend this page