The real "axis of evil"
'The Axis of Evil'
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Hasan Abu Nimah, Electronic Iraq
20 February 2003
We live in a world that has never lived without a natural or man-made catastrophe in one
or other of its corners. We have come to accept that some of these disasters are simply
inevitable. But that is not the case when a superpower decrees that we must have a war
for the most unconvincing, fabricated reasons, for an openly imperialistic ideology, for
power and greed, and for distraction from other, glaring, failures. These reasons, and
nothing more, lie behind the US drive for an attack on Iraq, supported primarily by the
United Kingdom and Israel.
The irony is that more and more people in the world, especially in the Middle East, are
starting to see these three countries acting together as the true "axis of evil". Haaretz
confirmed that Israel's "military and political leadership yearns for war in Iraq".
("Enthusiastic Israeli army awaits war in Iraq", Haaretz, Feb. 17, 2003)
Israel's leadership hopes that the destruction of Iraq will lead to the total subjugation and
defeat of Syria, Lebanon and Iran. Israel also hopes to benefit from deep divisions about
Iraq among the United States and its European allies. According to the Israeli newspaper:
"There is also excitement in the Israeli army's planning department over the stand-off
between the US and its NATO allies. A paper distributed to the army's upper echelons even
spoke of an opportunity to remove the pro-Palestinian Europeans from the Middle East. A
senior source said Saturday that the US will punish the Europeans for their back-stabbing
on the road to Baghdad, and will no longer ask them for input regarding Israeli
concessions."
This zeal for war and destruction is supposed to lead to an outcome where a defeated Arab
world and a marginalised Europe cannot stand in the way of Israel, backed by an
increasingly extremist and isolated United States, imposing any settlement it wants on the
Palestinians. At best, what the Palestinians can hope for is direct Israeli rule with all their
civil and national rights cancelled. This will be Israel's "generous" alternative to what many
in Israel's leadership really want, which is the total ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians.
Looking back, this is no more than an attempt to achieve what was tried -- but failed --
more subtly after the 1991 Gulf War. The main difference is that the first war was widely
seen as justified by Iraq's clear transgression of invading and occupying Kuwait. What
followed was essentially not different from what is planned this time. The 1991 war created
"convenient" circumstances for an Arab-Israeli settlement. The PLO was severely
weakened politically and hard hit financially, as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians
working in Gulf states were expelled and governments cut off their assistance to the
leadership. The PLO was not even accepted as a direct participant in the October 1991
Madrid conference, and the talks which followed in Washington.
With Israel's position thus strengthened, and unlimited American diplomatic support (except
for token and temporary US resistance to aid for Israel's colony-building on Palestinian
land), Israel did not respond to any of the far-reaching Palestinian compromises offered for
peace, including full recognition of Israel in advance and full acceptance of the two-state
solution. Rather, Israel took advantage of the weakness and desperation of the PLO and,
behind the backs of the Washington negotiators, hatched the secret Oslo agreement which
must go down in history as one of the worst deals ever made. This disaster simply
laundered, with full PLO approval, all of Israel illegal war gains, at the expense of the
Palestinian people. Negotiations were dragged on indefinitely in order to allow Israel the
necessary time to achieve de facto annexation of all of the conquered territory.
By imposing, by brute force, a scandalously unjust and humiliating deal on the Palestinians,
entirely denying their political and national rights, and by reducing the PLO to nothing more
than a South Lebanon army-like police force for the Israeli occupation, Israel laid the
grounds for the present Intifada and did not achieve the "peace" of the strong that it hopes
for.
The warmongers in Washington and Tel Aviv believe that this time round they can get it
right, having failed twelve years ago, by going all the way. Once they impose "total defeat"
on the Palestinians and Arabs, they believe a golden age will open for Israel, which will
face no obstacles before it. This will not happen.
It is quite possible that an attack on Iraq will destroy that country and produce immense
political pressure on Syria, Lebanon and Iran. It is also possible that Israel, while world
attention is focused on Iraq, will further intensify its campaign of war crimes against the
Palestinians. It is even possible that by raising the level of atrocities even higher, Israel will
claim to have imposed some sort of order on the situation, to have "defeated" the
Palestinians. None of this will succeed. Israel, instead, will be guaranteed only more unrest,
more determined resistance, more bloodshed and more horror.
The planned war against Iraq is an idea of a small group of ultra-pro-Israeli hawks who
hatched it in the mid-1990s when they were advising the Israeli government of Benjamin
Netanyahu. Today, this same small group has hijacked American policy at the Pentagon.
This group, that gathered around figures like Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, is not
concerned with Iraqi "weapons of mass destruction", human rights or terrorism. Their
concern is the pure pursuit of power. For this group, there is no difference between
American interests and the interests of Israel as defined by the most extreme elements.
They have an obsession with the Arab and Muslim world that borders on hatred.
While it is easy to trace the growing influence of this group on an American establishment
that has always allowed Israel to set the agenda for US policy in the Middle East, the UK's
slavish commitment to this group is more puzzling. The British people are clearly
concerned about how their prime minister seems to have transformed himself into
America's deputy secretary of state in pursuit of an agenda that holds nothing positive for
Britain. The UK always calculated that by forging a "special relationship" with the United
States, it would gain influence both in America and in Europe. Prime Minister Tony Blair's
foolish policies have done the opposite. The Americans simply take British support for
granted, while Britain's position in Europe is worse even than it was under Thatcher. And
for what? Blair claims that the UK is in danger from global terror. Maybe so, but many of
his people answer that his dangerous policies are exposing the country to such terror
rather than dealing effectively with any threat.
The voices of the tens of millions who marched for peace all over the world are sending a
loud message to the United States, Britain and Israel, the three pillars of this new axis, if
not of "evil", then at least of raw, dangerous power and colonialism. These are voices of
truth and reason. They are voices which bridge the gulf of misunderstanding, fear and
suspicion between the West and the rest of the world, that figures like Bush, Blair and
Sharon are fuelling. Let us hope that the millions who came out will act as an urgently
needed check on the forces who relish war and use words like "justice" and "peace" only to
mock them.
Hasan Abu Nimah is former Ambassador, Permanent Representative of Jordan at the
United Nations |
