Blair is in no-win situation as U.S. plan for Iraq fails, Patrick Seale

Opinion, June 2003, Al-Jazeerah.info

Blair is in no-win situation as U.S. plan for Iraq fails

Patrick Seale
Gulf News, Paris | | 27-06-2003

This week six British military policemen were killed and eight other soldiers wounded in what the British government has called two "serious incidents" north of Basra in southern Iraq.

The serious question, however, is what are British soldiers doing in Iraq? What British national interest is served by their presence in a hostile, anarchic and war-ravaged country? What possible British interest was served by the rash decision to commit 45,000 British troops, or more than a third of Britain's armed forces, to America's war against Saddam Hussain?

These questions are now being demanded of Prime Minister Tony Blair at a time when he already faces a number of deeply embarrassing charges.

Firstly, the reasons he advanced for going to war have proved not only false, but fraudulent. It is now clear that Iraq possessed no operational weapons of mass destruction. None have been found despite intensive and desperate searches over the past two and a half months.

In claiming that Saddam posed an "imminent threat" to the region and the world, Blair was either lying or he was unacceptably misled by his American allies and intelligence agencies. His credibility with the British public has been damaged, and he will no doubt pay a political price. A recent poll has already showed the lead of Blair's Labour Party over the opposition Conservatives falling to its lowest in 30 months.

Secondly, by so recklessly invading Iraq, Blair has made Britain a hostage to an American imperial project, which was not only deeply flawed and a violation of international law, but one which is hateful to much of the rest of the world.

He endorsed President George W. Bush's dangerous doctrine of "preventive" or "pre-emptive" war, by which the United States gave itself the licence to attack and overthrow the government of countries it did not like, or which, it believed, might one day challenge its global supremacy.

The United States and Britain smashed their way into Iraq, killed several thousands of its citizens and conscripted soldiers, and are now misruling the country. Is it surprising that they are meeting increasing armed resistance?

The Americans and British have impaled themselves on the horns of a dilemma: their occupation of Iraq breeds mounting resistance. But the greater the resistance, the more dangerous and costly it is for them to walk away.

Split the EU

Thirdly, by siding with the United States against France and Germany, Blair split the European Union. He undermined the EU's key ambition to forge a common foreign and security policy, and prevented the emergence of a united Europe strong enough to act as a counterweight to American power.

Indeed, by encouraging the U.S. to pursue a policy of "divide and rule" in Europe, he has damaged Europe's traditional ability to rein in reckless American behaviour.

Fourthly, right-wing friends of Israel inside the U.S. government – the so-called neo-cons – were the main advocates of "regime change" in Iraq. They pressed insistently for war in the belief that overthrowing Saddam, destroying Iraq, and changing the geopolitics of the Arab world would consolidate Israel's regional dominance and allow it to impose on the Palestinians the harsh terms of its choice.

This programme was always a geopolitical fantasy by armchair ideologues who knew only how to hate the Arab world. But, by joining in their crusade, Blair aligned himself – and Britain too, despite its groundswell of revulsion against this lunacy – with Likud extremists in the American administration, diehard enemies of Palestinians. This was in blatant contradiction to Blair's oft-repeated mantra to see the creation of a viable and independent Palestinian state.

The miserable conclusion is that, instead of influencing Bush and moderating his warlike instincts, Blair has landed Britain in a no-win situation in Iraq, where more British casualties and no rewards are to be expected.

At the same time, Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will continue his criminal policy of targeted assassinations of Palestinian activists and his horrible reprisals against a devastated civilian population, in the knowledge that Blair has helped him immeasurably. To placate Bush, Sharon has paid lip-service to the Quartet's roadmap providing for the emergence of a Palestinian state by 2005, but without abandoning his "Greater Israel" ambitions.

The global empire which the United States has built is essentially military. It is underpinned by America's $400 billion a year military budget, by its mastery of long-range precision weapons and of the information networks they depend on, and by its military bases which span the globe. The Pentagon's regional commanders are far more powerful, and have far greater resources at their disposal, than State Department envoys or ambassadors.

But despite such overwhelming military strength, the United States has been a dismal failure at nation-building and at resolving conflicts.

It is hampered by a fear of taking casualties, by a reluctance to spend money, except on the military, and by the huge influence of special interest groups, such as the pro-Israel lobby, on American foreign policy. The result is disastrous on several fronts.

In Afghanistan, the U.S.-appointed president, Hamid Karzai, is starved of funds and powerless in the face of regional warlords, of mafia bosses trafficking in drugs, and of remnants of Al Qaida and the Taliban, who may well make a comeback. As American forces continue their search-and-destroy operations there, impervious to the needs of the population they have decimated, nation-building is sorely neglected.

Increased threat

Far from ending terrorism, America's global "war on terror" appears to have increased its threat, as recent attacks in Riyadh and Casablanca, and heightened security in London and at U.S. nuclear plants, demonstrate so awfully.

On the Israeli-Palestinian front, half-hearted diplomatic efforts seek to rescue the dead-end roadmap from collapse. But recent public statements by Bush, echoed by his Secretary of State Colin Powell, placing sole responsibility for Middle East violence on Hamas, while leaving Israel blameless, is widely seen as more evidence of America's unwillingness to broker anything like a just settlement.

Far from curbing the spread of weapons of mass destruction, America's war on Iraq has evidently spurred other states to seek to acquire a deterrent capability as soon as possible, if only to protect themselves against American attack.

North Korea may already have nuclear weapons, with Iran possibly not far behind. Bush's ringing declaration on June 18 that "we will not tolerate construction [by Iran] of a nuclear weapon" is widely read as saying that Israel alone should have such weapons.

Any military strike against Iran by the U.S., Israel, or both together, would unleash ferocious forces far more lethal than those the U.S. and Britain are now facing in Iraq.

In Iraq, the U.S. has destroyed the state and seems either reluctant or unable to put it back together again.

Above all, as in Afghanistan, reconstruction work has been hampered by a severe shortage of funds.

The U.S. Congress has allocated $2.4 billion for Iraqi reconstruction, but most of this, shockingly enough, is going straight back to U.S. companies such as Bechtel and Halliburton for major infrastructure projects. Such cronyism may be what the Bush regime does best, but in the meantime, there has been little progress in restoring law and order in Iraq.

Progress in Iraq will remain slow and uneven until the Iraqis have a state of their own, under their own control. But this would require the United States to abandon its untenable and immoral imperial project, together with the fantasy of "refashioning" the Middle East map to suit Israeli interests.

The writer is an eminent commentator and the author of several books on Middle East affairs. He can be contacted at: pseale@gulfnews.com

Earth, a planet hungry for peace

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).