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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: goldworldnet who wrote (343736)	1/16/2003 11:31:38 AM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

And now... for a completely different opinion from Islamists in India: American imperialist ambitions make war inevitable in Iraq, say Indian experts siliconindia.com IANS Thursday, January 16, 2003 While criticising U.S. policies in West Asia and urging the world to fight against "American imperialist ambitions", experts in the Indian capital Thursday rued that war seemed inevitable in Iraq. NEW DELHI: At a symposium organised in Jamia Millia Islamia university here, former ambassadors and scholars shared the opinion that the real aim of the U.S. is not to establish democracy in Iraq but to capture the oilfields in that country and to prop up a puppet regime. K.N. Bakhshi, former ambassador to Iraq, said: "There is no doubt that the U.S. wants to change the regime in Iraq. But why only Saddam Hussein? There are other dictators in that part of the world. And there are countries like Pakistan and North Korea that have weapons of mass destruction. "The important factor is oil. Iraq is sitting on the second largest oil deposit in the region. If this is the underlying factor, then war is inevitable in Iraq." Washington has accused Baghdad of stockpiling weapons of mass destruction and charged President Hussein with suppressing democracy. Hamid Ansari, former Indian ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Iran, said: "Nobody likes Saddam Hussein, but any change in the Iraqi establishment should come from within. Let the Arabs and the Iraqi people react. Any outside attempt would be disastrous." Ansari, who was also vice chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University, said Iraq has been following all international conditions after the Gulf War, so there is no real justification for an attack on it. "They have given access to U.N. weapons inspectors," he pointed out. According to him, the U.S. is using the threat from Iraq to reach a settlement to the Middle East problem that will be favourable to its allies such as Israel. "The U.S. is trying to rearrange things in West Asia so that the Palestinian problem can be solved on their (U.S. and Israeli) terms," he said. Bakhshi echoed his sentiment: "Israel is concerned because Iraq has military power and experience in fighting a long battle. It is the only country to challenge the U.S. and Israeli policies of subjugation in the region." It was pointed out that Saddam Hussein and his Ba'ath Party still had a large following in Iraq and in neighbouring Syria. Arshi Khan, a scholar of international affairs at Jamia Hamdard university, said: "About 33 percent of Iraqis are members of the Ba'ath Party. Very few political parties in the world have such a following. "The reforms brought by Saddam Hussein are remarkable. Education is free and compulsory and all government-run hospitals provide free treatment." "Assuming that the U.S. stays in Iraq after overthrowing Saddam Hussein, there would be a bloodbath on the streets," said Bakhshi. "Despite all his flaws, Saddam is not like other dictators who have big business establishments in other parts of the world. In the eventuality of war, I believe he will die in his own country and it will not be a smooth run for the U.S." Apart from problems from within Iraq the U.S. will also have to deal with a hostile Iran. Even though it had fought an eight-year war with neighbouring Iraq in the 1980s, Tehran would never like to see a pro-U.S. government in Baghdad. Jamia Millia Islamia vice chancellor Siraj Hussain said: "There are anti-war demonstrations even in the U.S. and the world should unite to fight against the American imperialist expansion." Bakhshi felt India should not help the U.S. directly or indirectly in a possible war against Iraq. "Even if the war has U.N. sanction, our support must be only symbolic as it was in 1992."