Analyse This. Review on War on Iraq: Case For 'No'

We have seen the end of the first war of this century, something that the world and the long-suffering citizens of Iraq could have done without. Thanks to the shenanigans of the most powerful man on earth, what could have been easily solved by less destructive means, was decided instead by pitting an army of elephants against a molehill of ants. Here’s my take on why the war should NOT have been fought.

The preemptive strike is unjustified

The strike by Bush is unconstitutional as it is against the International laws which state that one country cannot attack another unless the latter has attacked, or is on the verge of attacking the former. It’s as clear as daylight that Iraq was not the perpretator nor did it intend to ever attack the US or its allies. What’s more shocking is that in his over-enthusiasm to play with guns, the bumbling gun slinger from Texas even brushed aside the UN, a body set up by it in the earlier half of the century to mediate and solve all issues relating to world peace. What’s the big point in having the UN then? Is there no sanctity and importance left in the world body of which almost all the countries of the world are members?

The case of Black Gold

Oil is a fast deleting commodity and voices been raised in some quarters that the ulterior motive of the US and its supporters were hell bent on driving Saddam out of power in order to lay their hands on the Iraqi oil supplies which has the second largest reserves of oil are roughly caters to 10% (that’s huge!) of the total demand for oil in the world. Dick Cheney publicly disclosed before the US congress last year that Iraq had 10% of the oil reserves and if Saddam were to really have nukes and other WMD at his disposal, he could seek to dominate other neighbouring oil producing countries like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, which meet 30% of the total demand for oil. However despotic Saddam might have been, it’s a fact that he has never set his eyes on another country unless he was compelled to (more about that later).

US and UK companies like Shell, BP, Exxon, etc. have all made extensive investments in setting up infrastructure to tap the oil in Iraq. With Saddam out of power, a dummy government in Iraq would be run on puppet strings handled by the US and the entire oil reserves would automatically fall into its lap. France, Russia and China too have strong interests in the Iraqi oil fields but decided to stay away from the war which only proves that greed for power and money cannot stop even the strongest of bloodthirsty hounds.

Do we need a global policeman?

The US has inadvertently been led to believe that being the most powerful nation on earth, it also had to take the responsibility for handling the law and order around the world. The moot point is that when they don’t have the capability to defend themselves from external terrorist attacks, what right do they have to poke their nose into the governance of other countries? Agreed that Saddam was a tyrannical ruler who terrorized his people for nearly 24 years, what then of other countries (most in Africa and a few in central Asia) which have been sagging under the burden of dictatorship for the last so many decades? Is our Don Quixote going to don his cowboy’s garb and go to rescue them all?

Iraq supporting terrorists?

The flimsiest of reasons for the war has been that Iraq has been arming and supporting terrorists who are waging a “Jihad” against the US. Thanks to the extensive research and coverage from experts and TV channels, we now know that there is not even a strand connecting the Al Qaeda and Iraq. On the contrary, there have been a few unpleasant face offs between the two gentlemen in the past which clearly shows the inherent hatred they carry for each other. The question of Iraq supporting Osama and his merry band therefore does not arise at all.

Saddam is “Clear & Present Danger”

Its widely pointed out that Saddam had earlier started off 2 wars–against Iran and Kuwait and now that he was supposed to have WMD, he could target any other country too. Whatever be Bush’s idiosyncrasies, the fact remains that Saddam has never used force against anyone on a preemptive basis. The 8 year Iran-Iraq war, as we all know was triggered off by the hegemonic ambitions of Iran which sought to capture a sizeable part of the Iraqi territory. It was but natural that Iraq fought back to defend itself and who do you think covertly provided military intelligence, weapons and armament to Iraq but the US?

As for the Gulf war in 1990, Saddam was neither over ambitious or reckless. He was only extracting his pound of flesh by asking the cash rich Kuwait to give it a few million dollar loans to help rebuild itself after the war with Iran had taken a heavy toll on its economy. Iraq had indirectly helped most of the other small neighbouring gulf countries from being attacked by Iran and was rightfully entitled to some form of monetary assistance to bring itself back to normal health. Kuwait not only refused to give loans on flimsy grounds but also rubbed salt into Iraq’s wounds by over producing its oil quotas and bringing down Iraqi oil profits. Pushed into a corner, Saddam decided to fight-not to annex Kuwait but to teach it a lesson.

The mystery of the unfound WMD

Dubya has been shouting from the top of his White House that Iraq has WMD and could use them against any other country on a pre-emptive basis. Now that the war is over, we know how “true” Dubya was. Logically speaking, if Saddam really had WMD, why would he refrain from using them when the US troops were on the verge of victory? If he really was as desperate a man as Bush paints him to be, he would have gone ahead and used the weapons before US troops entered Baghdad. As Mr. Hans Blix (chief weapons inspector of the UN) sadly noted on the eve of the war, “Iraq neither had the capability nor the intention to use WMDs”.

What does it forebode for other countries

Bush now poses a serious threat to world peace and security. With big brother Iraq out of the way, the smaller gulf countries dread that the US artillery is going to be trained on them next. Even the fact that 3 of the 5 members of the UN Security council were against the war did not deter US from beating the daylights out of Saddam (and I was told in school that there’s something like “veto power” which forbids one country from unilaterally taking punitive action against any other without the express approval of ALL 5 members).

If dictatorship, suppression of citizens, support for terrorism, ownership of nukes are all the criteria for the US to declare a war, why do they turn a blind eye to the mischief mongering of our none-too-friendly neighbour?

The bottom line is that with the US elections barely an year away, Bush wants to be remembered as a leader who proactively defended his country from the supposedly evil plans of Saddam. Everyone loves a victory and Mr. Bush’s campaign staff must be hoping to drum up considerable support for him going in to the election year and hope that he retains his seat of power for another 4 years. But it looks like this is one victory that the US citizens would look upon with shame and willingly boot out their cowboy all the way back to Texas and beyond.