Another interesting article...
"The first of these is the most pressing in the short term. How this military intervention comes to be viewed will turn on whether the response of ordinary Iraqis suggests that they have been liberated, not conquered. What doubts remained about the legitimacy of American action in Afghanistan 18 months ago were, for most observers, dispelled by the obvious relief of men in Kabul to be at liberty to shave their beards and for women to escape from the confines of their homes and shed the burka. Television cameras will be poised in Baghdad and Basra to record the reactions of Iraqis once they find themselves under American and British administration. The demands of war should not detract from the provision of resources for their welfare.
The second element is of immense medium-term importance. Iraq will not be transformed into a Nordic polity overnight at the behest of the White House. There are many practical limits to democracy. It should be perfectly possible, nonetheless, to substitute constitutionalism and the rule of law for arbitrary tyranny and to encourage the evolution of political parties, a diverse press and representative institutions. Before the curse of Saddam Hussein, Iraq was regarded as one of the most advanced cultural, economic and political entities in its region. This is relatively promising territory in which to encourage political pluralism."
timesonline.co.uk
War and after
A conflict that could not be avoided after September 11
"After the fierce Battle of Fredericksburg, Robert E. Lee, the Confederate commander, remarked: “It is well that war is so terrible. We should grow too fond of it.” Tony Blair would concur with those sentiments. The war to which British forces are now committed, alongside those of the United States, will, even if matters proceed in the most favourable manner, involve death and destruction. Enormous efforts will be made to limit civilian casualties, but some will inevitably occur and, in any case, the distinction between combatants and civilians loses part of its ethical edge when the bulk of an army consists, as that of Iraq does, of young men who have been conscripted and serve under duress. They will also be innocent victims of this conflict.
Mr Blair is, though, right to have taken the fateful step and initiated this campaign. He has sought with admirable resolve to work through the United Nations and to provide Saddam Hussein with the opportunity peaceably to surrender his weapons of mass destruction. There has not been, despite what some critics charge, an unseemly rush to war on the part of the United States and the United Kingdom. Six months have passed since George W. Bush first went to the United Nations, five months since he acquired the political authority from Congress to deal with Iraq and well over four months since the UN Security Council backed Resolution 1441 and provided Saddam Hussein with his final, final chance.
The path towards that final chance started not in 2002 but 1991. In the aftermath of Iraq’s expulsion from Kuwait, the Security Council approved Resolution 687, accepted by Iraq, which insisted as a condition of the ceasefire that Saddam Hussein declare all of his biological, chemical and nuclear material in a matter of days. This was not a controversial demand — nor were voices raised in the council to protest that such a notion was impractical. That resolution remains in force, placed firmly under Chapter VII of the UN Charter which deals with military enforcement, but has not been implemented some 12 years later.
That a dozen years have elapsed since the international community first served notice on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction should, logically, constitute overwhelming justification for military action. Yet that very delay has been seized upon as reason for prevarication. If, it is contended, Iraq has not used its banned weapons over the past 12 years then why it is necessary to move against Saddam Hussein now rather than persist with an admittedly imperfect disarmament effort backed by containment and deterrence? Why should an American president or a British prime minister today regard the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime as a matter of urgency?
There are three answers, political, tactical and strategic. Iraq’s long defiance has weakened not only the authority of the UN but contributed to the unravelling of the global non-proliferation effort. At a tactical level, sanctions were increasingly ineffective. But the great catalyst and ultimate response to such questions, put bluntly, is “September 11, 2001”. The destruction of the twin towers and assault on the Pentagon settled whatever doubt might have existed that terrorist organisations have been formed for whom the extinction of the maximum number of “infidels” is an end in itself. In these circumstances, it is wholly reasonable to assume that groups such as al-Qaeda, and it is not alone in its ambitions, would seek to secure weapons of mass destruction and, were they to be acquired, would use them in the United States and Europe. Indeed, Osama bin Laden himself referred to that quest as a “religious duty” for his supporters. He should be taken at his word.
This idea is so alien and chilling that it is tempting to ignore it. It is impossible to reconcile with the rational mind and is a fundamental violation of the principles of Islam. Some European politicians, although utterly appalled by the events of September 11, have been inclined to treat it as though it were the “conventional” terrorism of the IRA, Eta or the Red Brigades and not as a different and infinitely more dangerous development. They find it comforting to conclude that Americans, long viewed on this continent as unsophisticated actors, have reacted disproportionately to September 11 and that the Iraqi enterprise is the consequence of that outlook.
Mr Blair, to his enormous credit, instantly appreciated the extent to which September 11 would change not only US foreign policy but the nature of the international system. He did not regard that assault on New York and Washington as an isolated if atrocious affair, but the moment at which what had seemed an abstract threat — collusion between rogue groups in pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and rogue states in possession of such material — became a clear and present danger. The threshold of acceptable risk was dramatically lowered on September 11. It is now the principal challenge not only to American but British national security. It must be confronted and it is best to do so from a position of relative strength.
This need has sharpened the focus on Saddam Hussein. He is a particularly vile dictator but there are, alas, many sadists in power across the planet. He has murdered and tortured on a vast scale but that alone would not make him a menace to the populations of London or other cities. His fall will bring welcome relief to a people impoverished and oppressed for more than two decades but that is a secondary, though significant, contribution. The Iraqi leader has invaded his neighbours and has hegemonic ambitions in an unstable, oil-rich region. But what makes action imperative and urgent is his arsenal of banned poisons and, possibly, illicit nuclear materials. The issue is that of weapons of mass destruction.
Mr Bush and Mr Blair have been accused of a wanton disregard for international order and institutions. The harsh truth is that international order has been challenged already by others. The two men are today attempting to establish a framework appropriate to a world in which order is not imperilled as it was by traditional state-on-state conflict but new menaces. These consist of either group-on-state hostilities or situations where a small state can undermine a larger one via an alliance with terrorists. As one former Director of the CIA observed long before September 11: “The least likely way at present for a nuclear weapon to arrive in the United States is at the end of a missile. The most likely way is in the hold of a tramp steamer in New York harbour.”
A core question in the aftermath of September 11 is whether international institutions born of and shaped by one political era — that of the Cold War — can adapt themselves to that of another. This applies directly to the United Nations and its Security Council. Mr Blair has sought to convince others that they must take the combination of messianic terrorism and weapons of mass destruction as seriously as is required. He has not received the support that he was entitled to anticipate. The stance of Jacques Chirac, in particular, has inflicted enormous damage on the UN and says more about his personal weakness than institutional fragility. The Prime Minister has been forced into conducting a war in the name and spirit of the UN — but without the extra political reinforcement he wanted from that body.
The ultimate success of this conflict will depend less on the speed at which tanks can sweep towards Baghdad than on three other factors. These are the sensitivity with which the Iraqi people are treated during the war itself; the political blueprint adopted for Iraq once Saddam Hussein has been overthrown and Washington’s skill in refining the concept of “pre-emption” so as to reassure the law-abiding; and its speed in addressing the Israel-Palestine question.
The first of these is the most pressing in the short term. How this military intervention comes to be viewed will turn on whether the response of ordinary Iraqis suggests that they have been liberated, not conquered. What doubts remained about the legitimacy of American action in Afghanistan 18 months ago were, for most observers, dispelled by the obvious relief of men in Kabul to be at liberty to shave their beards and for women to escape from the confines of their homes and shed the burka. Television cameras will be poised in Baghdad and Basra to record the reactions of Iraqis once they find themselves under American and British administration. The demands of war should not detract from the provision of resources for their welfare.
The second element is of immense medium-term importance. Iraq will not be transformed into a Nordic polity overnight at the behest of the White House. There are many practical limits to democracy. It should be perfectly possible, nonetheless, to substitute constitutionalism and the rule of law for arbitrary tyranny and to encourage the evolution of political parties, a diverse press and representative institutions. Before the curse of Saddam Hussein, Iraq was regarded as one of the most advanced cultural, economic and political entities in its region. This is relatively promising territory in which to encourage political pluralism.
The final dimension is essential in the long term. The diplomacy of the United States in the past few months has not always been what friends and allies might have hoped for. This has assisted the drawing of a grotesque caricature of a nation bent on imposing its will all over the world led by a man more akin to Dr Strangelove than Dr Kissinger. The phrase “axis of evil” made for compelling rhetoric and accurately identified those nations — Iraq, North Korea and Iran — whose known interest in weapons of mass destruction make them a particular threat to peace and stability. But it also left the impression that the Oval Office was operating on the basis of a hitlist compiled in the basement of the Pentagon.
The Bush Administration would be wise to recognise that this distorted picture exists and address it. There is a coherent “Bush doctrine” on America’s role in the world, and the impact of September 11 has been such that his successors are likely to be strongly influenced by it. It requires constant explanation and repetition to those who live outside its borders. It demands patience and fortitude. Sophisticated battlefield technology does not constitute an irrefutable argument.
Now that British forces have been committed, the country should and almost certainly will rally around them. The Prime Minister deserves the support of all political parties. The peace may prove harder to win than the war, but war will still be a difficult endeavour. It rarely proceeds precisely as planned. Ulysses Grant, the general who took charge of the Union army after its rout at Fredricksburg, eventually received Lee’s and the South’s final surrender at Appomattox with the words: “The war is over — the rebels are our countrymen again.” His respectful tone was such that it prevented his men from cheering the defeat of their opponents. Mr Bush and Mr Blair must welcome the people of Iraq back into the civilised world in exactly the same spirit." |
