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CounterPunch
November
11, 2002
Bush Crosses
the Rubicon
by ROBERT FISK
The
Independent
When Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon river,
he wrote, in his Gallic Wars: "Alea iacta est [The die is
cast]."
Just after 5pm yesterday, when the United
Nations Security Council voted 15-0 to disarm Iraq, the US President
George Bush crossed the Rubicon. "The world must insist
that judgment must be enforced," he told us.
The Rubicon is a wide river. It was deep
for Caesar's legions. The Tigris river will be more shallow--my
guess is that the first American tanks will be across it within
one week of war--but what lies beyond?
For Rome, civil war followed. And, be
assured, civil war will follow any American invasion of Iraq.
"Cheat and retreat will no longer be tolerated," Mr
Bush told us --forgetting, of course, UN Security Council
resolutions 242 and 338 which call for Israel to withdraw from
the Arab territories occupied during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
 And after eight weeks of debate in the Security
Council, no one mentioned the crimes against humanity of 11 September
2001, because--of course--Iraq had absolutely nothing to do with
11 September. If the United States invades Iraq, we should remember
that.
And what do we get from Mr Bush? Absolutely
no gesture towards the Arab world. The joy of the Israeli Prime
Minister, Ariel Sharon, can be imagined. "Should we have
to use troops," Mr Bush tells us, "the US, with friends,
will move swiftly--with force--to do the job." In other
words, he will invade Iraq, the "friends", presumably,
being British. The United Nations can debate any Iraqi non-compliance
with weapons inspectors, but the United States will decide whether
Iraq has breached UN resolutions. In other words, America can
declare war without UN
permission.
So how many of the American tanks entering
Baghdad will be flying UN pennants? None, I suspect.
The BBC, with CNN and all the other television
networks, was billing Resolution 1441 as "the last chance"
for Saddam Hussein. In fact, it is the "last chance"
for the United Nations. As the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan,
said, the road ahead will be "difficult and dangerous".
He
can say that again.
It's easy to see the traps. America's
UN ambassador, John Negroponte, insisted that the Security Council
resolution "contains no hidden triggers". But of course
it does. It allows the United States to decide if Iraq has opposed
the resolution. It allows the Security Council to discuss non-compliance
without restraining the United States from attacking Baghdad.
"One way or another," Mr Negroponte
said, "Iraq will be disarmed". It's the "another"
way that the UN should be worried about. Sir Jeremy Greenstock,
Britain's nightmare headmaster at the UN, performed appropriately.
"Crystal clear", "unequivocal choice", "serious
consequences", "ambiguous modalities". You could
almost feel the cane. No mention, of course, of the CIA's manipulation
of the last team of UN weapons inspectors in Iraq.
Iraqis want peace and an end to sanctions--let's
forget President Saddam for a moment--and President Bush seems
to want war. So Mr Bush must be praying that the Iraqi President
does something to obstruct the UN arms inspectors. In which case--I
quote Mr Bush--"we will act in the interest of the world".
Thanks George. And thanks Saddam if this feckless, vicious dictator
chooses to defy the UN.
Washington wants a UN fig leaf for a
war on Iraq and is willing to go through an inspection process
in the hope that Iraq obstructs it. Mr Annan was talking yesterday
about the "unique legitimacy of the UN". But the cruel
dictator of Baghdad cares as much about that as President Bush.
Yesterday's
Features
Ali Abunimah
Sharon's
Appendix
M. Shahid Alam
Political Geography
Zionist Theses and Anti-Theses
Michael Neumann
Demonstrating a Genteel Reticence
Rosemary & Walter
Brasch
Personal Possession:
War and Iraq, a Recollection
Ralph Nader
The Mid-term Elections
Mark J. Palmer
Bring Back the Grizzly
Robert Fisk
Bush's "Clean Shot"
Dave Marsh
And the Beat(ing) Goes On
Adam Engel
No Blood for Marijuana in Iraq
Josh Frank
Sleater-Kinney
Rocks
Our Protest Songs Are Here
Clifford Lyle Marshall
Give the Trinity Back to the Salmon
Zeynep Toufe
Turn These Children into Stone
Philip Farruggio
In Name Only
Charles Sullivan
Mountain Party Rising!
Bernard, Krieger, Alam
Poets'Basement
New
Print Edition of CounterPunch Available Exclusively
to Subscribers:
- The Shafts of Death: Bush, Coal Mines, and Death
in the Tunnels;
- Speak Memory!: Carter and the Draft;
- Daniel Pipes' World: Smearing Pro-Arab Academics;
- Ashcroft's Gays: the War on Free Speech;
- Saddam's Amnesty: Could It Happen Here?
- Criminalizing Dissent: a history and preview;
- Iraq 1987: When the Going Was Good;
- Egypt in Turmoil: an Anthropologist's Account;
- Green and Grounded: Profiled at the Gate.
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