The dividing line between a just and unjust war is proverbially tenuous. But when the head of the Roman Catholic church berates the march towards war in Iraq and men, women and children across the world hold anti-war demonstrations on a scale matching the anti-Vietnam war rallies, the moral argument is heavily tilted against the United States. It was World War II that was to end all wars, the streak of idealism after the devastation giving birth to the United Nations. No specious argument advanced by the war camp in the Bush administration can justify a new war against Iraq.

 I caught a glimpse of the happy days in Iraq just before the Gulf War. Iraq was both prosperous and highly literate. True, President Saddam Hussein's method of governance left much to be desired and his invasion and annexation of Kuwait was totally indefensible. But it was in the main a modern secular regime, which gave the people what communist countries gave their populations: security and a measure of prosperity, reserving various forms and degrees of punishment for dissent. Indeed, thanks to their oil wealth, Iraqis had a far higher standard of living than their counterparts in the communist world.

 The American-led UN-imposed sanctions have impoverished an entire middle class, led to the deaths of scores of thousands of the vulnerable through malnutrition and paucity of medicines and permanently stunted the growth of a new generation. Over the last decade, every time the question of reviewing sanctions came up before the United Nations, US spokesmen from Madeleine Albright down produced satellite photographs from thin air as it were to sway votes. Washington had a hammer lock on sanctions and they stayed, with the oil for food programme proving inadequate in alleviating the misery. Granted President Saddam is no angel, but must the people of Iraq be ground to dust for achieving geopolitical objectives?

 The tapestry of the Middle East is a curious mosaic of clashing colours. It is the cradle of ancient civilisations, a setting for modern wars and a favourite hunting ground for colonial powers which zealously rearranged countries and borders on the ruins of the Ottoman Empire to suit their interests. Oil has been both a blessing and a curse for the nation states of the region because while it brought wealth and prosperity, it invited the avaricious attention of outsiders. As the last century progressed, the old European colonial powers gave way to the US in exploiting oil and seeking control.

 Apart from the indefensible nature of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, the Bush pere's decision to lead a coalition to war to reverse President Saddam's moves was guided by oil politics. The US considered it unacceptable that one country and one ambitious ruler outside its sphere of influence should control such a large proportion of the world's oil reserves.

 Pan-Arabism has waxed and waned since the Nasser days, but President Saddam's invasion of Kuwait was a great blow to the Arab nation, the philosophical concept of all Arab countries belonging to one entity. Egypt made its own peace with Israel under American auspices, to be rewarded with the return of the Sinai and $ 2 billion a year in economic and military assistance. In addition to the tensions within the Arab world, two major non-Arab countries impinge on it: Turkey, an American ally of Nato and interlocutor with Israel, and Iran, living with the legacy of the Ayatollah Khomeini revolution.

 The Gulf War came after the American phase of helping the Afghan and other mujahideen to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan. There were thousands of trained guerrilla fighters who became unemployed after the withdrawal of Soviet troops. Many aligned themselves with the Taleban rulers who triumphed over the warring landlords in Afghanistan. One such mujahid was Osama bin Laden.

 American ambitions grew after Iraq's defeat and instead of withdrawing all their troops from the region as they had promised, they sought to maintain a tighter grip by stationing troops and basing military assets on Arab land, including in Saudi Arabia. Osama's opposition to this scheme of things was vocal, if imperfectly understood in the West. The simultaneous bombing of US embassies in East Africa was a clear warning, provoking missile attacks on terrorist training camps in Afghanistan by the Clinton administration. They proved to be in the nature of grape shots.

 The dramatic terrorist strikes in New York and Washington on September 11, 2001 brought the collision between the US and Al Qaeda centre stage, leading to the forcible deposition of the Taleban, the hosts of Al Qaeda. America had already been preening itself as the world's sole superpower and Nine Eleven fortuitously played into the hands of the new Bush administration run by neoconservatives who ambushed the novice George W. Bush and made him the symbol and spokesman of their vainglorious dreams.

 Power and war became that much easier to sell to the American people, suffering as they were from a new sense of vulnerability. In due course, a national security strategy was unveiled arrogating to the US the right to attack any sovereign state viewed as hostile or potentially hostile and proclaiming the goal of maintaining US supremacy over any nation or group for eternity. Afghanistan was a necessary task, but President George W. Bush's heart was on Iraq. President Saddam had the temerity to outlast in office Bush father and his successor and Bush Junior had to settle his father's scores. More importantly, Iraq's vulnerability was a perfect American target for flexing muscles and rearranging the map of the Middle East to begin with.

 President Bush went to the UN reluctantly, and however the minuet in the Security Council is played out, Washington's warning that the world organisation remains relevant, to the extent it is, only insofaras it serves American interests is plain for all to see. Thus far, the oppositionists led by France have used the UN mechanism to delay America's war plans somewhat, but the Bush administration has traditionally shown its impatience with the UN, other international organisations and international treaties.

 A new war on Iraq will have the effect of further humiliating and marginalising Palestinians. The traditional US bias towards Israel is no secret and the glee in Israel over the looming war in Iraq is a measure of Tel Aviv's expectations. Palestinians will suffer more and as Israeli oppression increases with US support, newer generations of terrorists will be nurtured faster than they are killed to seek vengeance against Israel and the US in the only method Palestinians can.