Tide turns
against Bush
THOMAS WALKOM
The Iraq crisis is no
longer about stopping Iraq. It is about stopping the United States.
This is the real significance of
what is going on now at the United Nations, of the peace marches around
the world, of the political turmoil that rocks staunchly pro-U.S. leaders
such as Britain's Tony Blair and Australia's John Howard.
Most countries outside the U.S.
are no longer worried about rogue Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. They are
worried about rogue American President George W. Bush.
It is this that finally pushed
Russia and France to announce yesterday that they will veto any attempt by
Washington to have the U.N. Security Council authorize a March 17
ultimatum to Iraq and, in effect, a March 18 war.
It is this, rather than some kind
of Gallic spleen, that sends French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin
flying around the world lobbying against an Iraq war.
When Bush's father cobbled
together a political and military coalition in 1991 to oppose Iraq's
invasion of Kuwait, he won widespread support from the rest of the world.
At the time, most of those who
dissented argued either on the basis of timing (as did then opposition
leader Jean Chr�tien) or consistency: Why make war to reverse Iraq's
annexation of Kuwait but not, say, Israel's occupation of the West Bank or
Turkey's invasion of Cyprus?
However, the principle behind the
1991 Gulf War � that nations do not have an open-ended right to invade
other countries � was generally accepted.
The United Nations itself was
established to codify that principle. Germany and Japan had tried to
justify their World War II aggression in many ways: The rectification of
old grievances, anti-colonialism, economic necessity, even energy
security. But the U.N. Charter swept all of these excuses away.
Except in the most narrow
instances, war was to be outlawed. The fact that one country might not
approve of another's leader or system of government was to be no
justification for aggression.
Indeed, those who did make war
were liable to be tried and punished. This was the message of the U.S.-run
1946 Tokyo war crimes trials, where 15 of the 25 Japanese military and
political leaders found guilty were convicted, not for crimes against
humanity (those who used chemical and biological weapons against civilians
were quietly pardoned in exchange for their expertise) but for waging
"unprovoked" and "aggressive" war against sovereign states.
When, at Washington's urging, the
Security Council gathered again last fall to debate Iraq, these same
principles were at the forefront. Iraq had committed an international
crime 11 years earlier; the U.N. had ordered it to rid itself of certain
weapons; there was no evidence that this disarmament had occurred.
The 15-member Security Council
unanimously ordered weapons inspectors to enter Iraq again and make sure
it had done what it was supposed to do.
However, two things have occurred
since then.
The first is that inspections
worked. When pushed to the wall, Iraq reluctantly co-operated. Chief U.N.
weapons inspector Hans Blix and his team have found no evidence of a
chemical or biological weapons program.
Nor, as Blix told the U.N. last
week, have they found evidence supporting any of the more extravagant U.S.
allegations, such as mobile anthrax labs or underground chemical
factories.
Where they concluded that weapons
did break the rules (as in the case of the Al Samoud 2 missiles that fly
30 kilometres farther than they should), Iraq grudgingly agreed to destroy
them.
Similarly, nuclear inspectors
have found no evidence that Iraq tried to restart its atomic bomb program.
In fact, they found that some of the evidence suggesting otherwise,
provided to them by Western intelligence agencies, was forged.
But the second, and more
important, development since last fall has been a worldwide reappraisal of
U.S. motives.
Initially, some argued that
Bush's bellicosity was a skilful tactic designed to pressure Iraq. But
now, it's clear that simple disarmament is not his aim.
Rather, Bush wants to occupy Iraq
for an indeterminate period of time and eventually replace Saddam's
government with one more to his liking.
As Chr�tien noted on Sunday, this
makes the rest of the world nervous.
For now it is not Iraq, a minor
Middle Eastern power, that is in potential defiance of the U.N. system,
but the mighty U.S. In effect, Bush has served notice that the painstaking
logic of collective security, which the U.S. itself did so much to create
58 years ago, is to be junked.
War is to be no longer a last
resort but an active part of superpower foreign policy. Decisions on the
international order are to be made not at the U.N. but in Washington
alone. The sovereignty of other nations is now to be wholly contingent
upon U.S. geopolitical interests.
No wonder the rest of the world
is nervous. No wonder that France, Germany, Russia and (maybe) China have
forged their unlikely peace coalition. No wonder that even Canada is
alarmed.
Thomas Walkom's column appears on Tuesday. He can be
reached at [EMAIL PROTECTED]. |
