Issue No. 598
Opinion
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8 - 14 August 2002 Issue No. 598 Opinion |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Recommend this page | ||
An American Bin Laden
The world is living through an unusual conflation of wisdom and folly, of the vanity of power and the legitimacy of its use. As to whether or not Iraq should be attacked, for example, there is Britain and the US on the one hand, and the rest of the world on the other.
Within Washington the issue is already the subject of wide-ranging debate: the gains and losses to be achieved by waging war on Iraq are being discussed and Congress is demanding that President Bush submit his plans for its approval before embarking on any military adventure. In fact the American administration no longer seems to keep any secrets about its plans for Iraq and Saddam Hussein: President Bush takes every available opportunity, and some less available, to announce and publicise his intentions.
When the Iraqi government invited the head of the UN observers to begin "technical talks" concerning the removal of anything that remains in the way of weapons of mass destruction, with the aim of agreeing on a mechanism to implement Security Council resolutions, Washington felt no need to slow down or reconsider its plans, claiming that the granting of access to Security Council observers was no longer the issue. The search for weapons of mass destruction has clearly fallen off President Bush's radar screen, even as a convenient excuse, and he now makes no bones about the object of any attack. It is to topple Saddam Hussein.
Irrespective of whatever opinions are expressed within the Security Council, Washington remains firm in its insistence on the necessity of targetting Iraq. At a time when his allies in Europe had resolved not to support a war on Iraq without the sanction of the Security Council Bush is determined to defy the entire international community.
Iran and Saudi Arabia have both declared their opposition to any military operation against Iraq or any attempts to overthrow its regime by force. It is a position that echoes that of other Arab countries, whose interest in the issue are paramount: Egypt, Jordan, Syria and the Arab League have all expressed unequivocal opposition to the targetting of Iraq and have warned of the political consequences of such actions on the Middle East.
The increasing belligerence coming from the White House; Bush's insistence that war is the only choice and his claim that in waging war on Iraq Washington is upholding the principles of civilisation and protecting the world against evil, suggests that what we are seeing is the emergence of a new Bin Laden, an American Bin Laden driven by the same (religious) zeal and reserving for himself the right to reform the world and eliminate anything he perceives of evil only he perceives. The great difference, though, is that this new Bin laden commands far more terrifying resources than the old.
Given Washington's failure to gain the trust of the Arab world or adopt a balanced policy vis-a-vis Israel's ever greater aggression against Palestinians -- President Bush blindly endorses Sharon's every crime, coldly dismissing the Palestinians' right to self defence against the daily abominations to which they are subjected -- there can be little doubt that Bush's war on Iraq is only the first stage of a dark era of American intervention in Arab affairs, tailor made by the Pentagon and the CIA to suit Israeli interests and undertaken on the pretext of democratic reform of autocratic regimes.
The nightmare of American force, with its advanced weapons of mass destruction -- Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld does not deny that Washington is ready to use such weapons irrespective of international law or UN resolutions -- leaves little doubt that American plans for the Arab world will be implemented. The current media campaigns against Egypt and Saudi Arabia are enough to show that the dangers and threats are very real.
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