Pete Vincent is quite right to write that Bush lost the plot as soon as
American troops crossed the border into Iraq.
Here's an interesting extract from a recent exchange between Daniel
Cohn-Bendit (leader of the Green Party in the European Parliament) and
Richard Perle (US National Security Council).
<<<<
Cohn-Bendit: With Iraq, you are talking about nation building. Yet we have
not finished our job in Afghanistan. We see a backlash against women and
deteriorating security. We have barely secured the capital, Kabul. It is my
biggest fear that Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar will take over Kabul
while you are fighting in Iraq. After the war, you will neglect Iraq and
shift your attention to Syria, then Saudi Arabia. Because you are
Americans, you have the biggest army in the world -- you can do anything
you want. This is revolutionary hubris.
>>>>
Nasty though Saddam Hussein is, he did, at least, stimulate the rise of a
western-orientated middle-class since he took over the Iraqi oilfields from
vastly greedy western oil companies in the 70s and this was gradually
establishing a modifying influence over the tribal sheikhs. (I have been
agreeably surprised to see Iraqi surgeons interviewed on TV with
qualifications like FRCS -- Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons. There
is a far higher variety of books for sale in the average second-hand
bookstall in Baghdad than published in the whole of the rest of the Islamic
world -- about 300 titles a year.) Like Iran, and despite Saddam, Iraq was
slowly feeling its way towards a more democratic and open structure. Iraq,
like Afghanistan, is still an intensely tribal country. I have even heard
it said that if the Americans are going to make a success of installing an
effective government in Iraq which will stop the different religious and
tribal ethnic groups getting at one another's throats then they'll have to
find another dictator quite as cruel and oppressive as Saddam!
The fact of the matter is that WMDs (and all the previous justifications
given for the invasion by the US) are red herrings. Saddam was quite
containable militarily and, in time, rather like Iran, Iraq would have
struggled through to a more representative system. Instead, I fear that
Iraq will now follow Afghanistan into renewed disaster -- probably even
nastier than previously. But, so long as the Americans are controlling the
oilfield lozenge stretching from Kirkuk in the north to Basra in the south
in the east of the country, then they'll wash their hands of the problems
and poverty in the rest of Iraq and leave the mess to Europe.
Keith Hudson
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Keith Hudson,6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England
Tel:01225 312622/444881; Fax:01225 447727; E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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