|
CounterPunch
September
4, 2002
Who's Afraid
of Iraq?
by Gary Leupp
"Those who favor this attack now
will tell you candidly, and privately, that it is probably true
that Saddam Hussein is no threat to the United States. But they
are afraid at some point he might decide if he had a nuclear
weapon to use it against Israel."
Gen. Wesley Clark, former NATO Supreme
Allied Commander, CNN military consultant, in a Guardian interview
(Aug. 20)
Now there's a quotation to ponder. President Bush
has said on a number of occasions that Saddam Hussein "must
not be allowed to threaten the U.S. and its friends and allies"
(plural) with weapons of mass destruction. This is the official,
public justification for war on Iraq.
But what does the statement mean, exactly?
In February the CIA declared that it had no evidence for any
Iraqi terrorist attacks on Americans since the Bush I assassination
attempt in Kuwait in 1993, and never any on U.S. soil. Saddam's
missiles can't come close to the U.S. They can reach Moscow,
but the Russians aren't concerned; they're signing a $ 40 billion
economic and trade cooperation package with Iraq. Iraq's missiles
can reach Sicily, but the Europeans aren't concerned; they firmly
oppose U.S. war plans. Iraq's neighbors, including U.S. friends
Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, even Kuwait, say they don't
feel threatened by Iraq and also oppose a war. Emphatically.
Only Israel's Prime Minister Sharon is egging Washington on.
So, taking our cue from plain-talking soldier Clark (who has
taken the trouble to write an editorial for the London Times
urging a cautious approach to war with Iraq), we can fairly
restate Bush's declaration cited above as follows: "The
U.S. must not allow Saddam Hussein to ever, ever threaten our
friend Israel with weapons of mass destruction."
Israel, that is to say, constitutes a unique category in Bushite
geopolitical thinking, as the nation that must never, ever have
to factor into its defense strategy the existence of WMDs held
by any hostile nation. The 22 Arab nations, meanwhile, constitute
another distinct set: these are nations that must never, ever
acquire WMDs, especially nukes, because Arabs might use them
against Israel. (Whether or not such thinking is reasonable and
valid, it's best to just state it honestly, lest we abominate
our lips with Bush-like incoherence or Rumsfeld-like doublespeak.
See Proverbs 8:7).
Israel is obviously concerned about Iraq's
weapons programs. In June 1981 it bombed and destroyed the Osiraq
nuclear reactor in Iraq, which the French had taken a lot of
trouble to build, saying Iraq was five to ten years away from
acquiring nuclear weapons. The action was illegal, of course,
condemned by the UN and even (mildly) by the U.S. The concern
of the settler state was not entirely unrealistic; ten years
later, during the Gulf War, Iraq lobbed Scuds at it. But as everyone
knows, Israel is itself an (undeclared) nuclear power, and its
nukes similarly cause concern throughout the region. (It's interesting
to note, though, that while the U.S. cut off aid to both Pakistan
and India after they joined the nuclear club, Israel didn't even
get a slap on the wrist when it went nuclear, ca. 1973). In any
case, Israel, as it showed by the Osiraq attack, can probably
take care of itself, just like Pakistan can take care of itself
vis-à-vis India, India vis-à-vis China, China vis-à-vis
Russia, etc. The chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Forces
himself, Moshe Ya'alon, recently told Ha'aretz that "In
the long term, the threat of Iraq or Hezbollah doesn't make me
lose sleep."
For obvious reasons, there is a great
deal of hostility towards the Jewish state in the Arab world.
Egypt and Jordan have recognized Israel, and have trade and diplomatic
relations, but then, they are U.S. client states (Egypt receiving
$ 2 billion a year in U.S. aid), and even in them, in what Colin
Powell calls "the Arab street," there is outrage towards
the treatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories. As
the largest, most populous, most "modernized" Arab
nation in Southwest Asia that is not a U.S. ally or client
state, Iraq could, especially in the absence of a solution to
the Israel-Palestine problem, pose a challenge to Israel even
under a leader far kinder and gentler than Saddam Hussein.
One can easily imagine even a "democratically
elected" leader in a secular government in Baghdad thinking,
"Israel has nukes. Russia, to our north, has nukes. So do
China, Pakistan, and India. Our unfriendly neighbor Iran has
a nuclear program. Don't I owe it to my people to acquire them
for our defense-indeed, for the defense of the entire Arab nation?"
"Democratically elected" leaders of India have for
years felt that obtaining nukes was a reasonable enterprise.
Turns out that successive Australian governments have been pursuing
a nuclear weapons program, and that Argentina has sought one.
Is it satanic for technically advanced nations to want
to follow in the footsteps of the U.S., U.S.S.R., Britain, France
and China---or merely normal?
It seems as though some very powerful
people in Washington think the only way to prevent Iraq from
eventually following the course of these other normal nations,
and acquiring nukes that could some day be targeted at Israel
(just as Israel has nukes targeted at Iraq), is for the U.S.
to occupy Iraq and create a new government that will play
ball like those in Egypt and Jordan. They've been urging an
attack on Iraq for years, long before Sept. 11 gave them an opportunity
to push their agenda (through crude attempts to link Iraq with
al-Qaeda-which continue through reports citing unnamed government
sources, citing classified reports that strain one's credulity).
But (as Madeleine Albright has recently stated) the issue is
not really U.S. security. Nor is it the security of other Arab
nations, and surely (from the U.S. government's point of view)
not that of the biggest victim of Iraqi aggression, Iran (lumped
into the "Axis of Evil" along with Iraq, and also targeted
for "regime change"). Rather, it's the enhancement,
to the nth degree, of the security of an Israel already
armed to the teeth and capable of nuking Iraq or Syria or lots
of other places, big-time. It's what Scott Ritter has called
the "ideological" motivation for an Iraq attack.
I'm not saying that the proponents of
the forthcoming Iraq War aren't also thinking about oil, and
a range of other geopolitical issues. I'm simply observing that
defense of "our friends" in official statements really
means defense of Israel, through the establishment of a kind
of "no-fly zone" from the Khyber Pass to the Jordan
River, making Israel absolutely safe from Muslim neighbors who
presently resent its (nuclear) existence. But is it rational
and moral to send American troops to create that imagined sea
of tranquility, establishing client-states which, Egypt-like,
trade acceptance of the Zionist project for massive infusions
of Marshall Plan-type U.S. aid? Is the project feasible, the
goal just, the method even legal? Is it really likely even to
enhance the security of Israeli Jews, Israeli Palestinians, and
Palestinians in the occupied territories? Personally, I don't
think so. I think it's a recipe for apocalyptic blowback. You
want more terrorists? Follow the recipe.
"We're all members of the Likud
now," a (Democratic) U.S. senator told a visiting Israeli
politician in Washington. That's very scary. It's scary when
a U.S. Congressional delegation visits Ariel Sharon at the height
of his invasion of the West Bank, officially opposed by the Bush
administration, to assure him that he has their full support;
or when House Republican Leader Dick Armey cheerfully tells
Chris Matthews on CNN's Hardball, "I'm content to
have Israel grab the entire West Bank" and that the Palestinians
should just get out of there. When Defense Secretary Rumsfeld
opines to a Pentagon audience that Israel's "so-called territories"
are really legitimate spoils of war, or when a RAND researcher
at the Pentagon calls Saudi Arabia the "kernel of evil"
and advocates the creation of a U.S.-sponsored oil state in Eastern
Arabia, one has to feel scared. Scared about the rage, not just
on the Arab street, but on the global street, that the Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz
plan for the world is likely to generate towards even decent,
honest, peace-loving Americans (who are already, in their foreign
travels, finding it convenient to impersonate Canadians). The
craziness may be spinning out of control.
Steering the hijacked ship of state, energized by an ideology
as threatening to world peace as the doctrines of the Taliban,
are a cabal of men and women who are prepared to provoke the
Muslim world (no, the entire world) by actions that even senior
Republicans like Henry Kissinger, Lawrence Eagleburger and Brent
Snowcroft seem to consider unwise. What to call the members of
this warmongering cabal? If we're talking about "Islamist
extremists," how should we label these folks? "Judeo-Christianist-Zionist
fundamentalist imperialist extremists"? Nah, that's too
many "---ists." So I propose just "crazies,"
who unfortunately, by some random (just possibly reversible)
fluke of our planetary history, have acquired the ability to
threaten the whole human race, your friends and mine---Christians,
Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists and everybody else----with
weapons of mass destruction.
Gary Leupp is an an associate professor, Department of
History, Tufts University and coordinator, Asian Studies Program.
He can be reached at: gleupp@tufts.edu
Today's Features
Kathleen Christison
Thomas
Friedman Bashes the Palestinians...Again!
New
Print Edition of CounterPunch Available Exclusively
to Subscribers:
- War Talk As White Noise:
Anything to Get Harken and Halliburton
Out of the Headlines;
- First Hilliard, Then
McKinney: Jewish
Groups Target Blacks Brave Enough to Talk About Justice in the
Middle East; Intimidation
is the Name of the Game; Smearing
"Insane" McKinney As Muslims' Pawn;
- The Missing Terrorist?
Calling Scotland
Yard: "Where's Atif?"
- They Never Booed Dylan!:
Tape Transcript Shows
Famed Newport Folkfest Dissing of Electric Dylan Not True. The Catcalls were for Peter
Yarrow!
- New Shame from the Liffey
Shrike
Remember, the CounterPunch website is
supported exclusively by subscribers to our newsletter. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe
Now! Or Call Toll Free 1-800-840-3683
home / subscribe
/ about us
/ books
/ archives
/ search
/ links
/
|
September
3, 2002
Nabil Amro
Leadership
& Legitimacy:
An Open Letter to Arafat
Robert Fisk
A Forgotten
Holocaust:
The British in Palestine
Uri Avnery
The Return
of the Dinosaurs
September
2, 2002
Francis Boyle
Flashback:
US War Crimes During the Gulf War
Lou Cohan
Confessions
of a Downloader
Philip Farruggio
Labor
Day Antidote to Apathy
William Blum
Cuban Political
Prisoners
in the US
September
1, 2002
Dave Marsh
No Surrender:
Springsteen's The Rising
August 31,
2002
Gavin Keeney
Return to the
Charterhouse of Parma
David Vest
Porkland:
Confronting Republicans & Police in Portland
Ralph Nader
The Highway
Lobby
M. Shahid
Alam
CNN Reporting
(poem)
Neve Gordon
Sharon's
Subjugation Strategy
Dr. Susan
Block
The Gangbang
Asthete
The Sexual Life
of Catherine M.
Kurt Nimmo
Clueless
at the State Dept.
August 30,
2002
Alexander
Cockburn
American
Journal:
Hitchens, Kissinger, Springsteen, Haggard & Elvis
August 29,
2002
Chris Floyd
The Secret
Sharers:
The CIA and the Murder of Frank Olson
August 28,
2002
William Ring
War on Iraq:
The Brightest Scenario
August 27,
2002
Sam Bahour
The Violence
of Curfew
Wenonah Hauter
From Johannesburg:
Pacts with the Devil: Public-Private Partnerships and the Global
Environment
Jerre Skog
Wanted:
"Our Kind of Guy"
in Iraq!
Uri Avnery
Letter
to a Pilot
August 26,
2002
Sami Al-Arian
Fighting
for the Right of
Dissent and Due Process
Ruebner /
Turaani
What
is Israel Hiding?
Norman Madarasz
Brazil
and the IMF:
Democracy and Emerging Market Liberalism
Robert Fisk
War Crimes:
Reporters Aren't Prosecutors
Douglas Valentine
Phoenix,
CIA and Maj. Gen. Bruce Lawlor: From Vietnam
to Homeland Security
August 24
/ 25, 2002
Susan Davis
Proverbial
Wisdom:
Of Clogs and Enron
Falk / Krieger
No War
Against Iraq
Ceylon Mooney
Fasting
for Iraq
Jonathon
Wright
Police
Brutality in Atlanta
Ralph Nader
Congress's
Pay Raise Scam
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Chainsaw
George
Alexander
Cockburn
Alterman
Cheapens Holocaust
August 23,
2002
Dave Marsh
Selling
Out?
Anthony Gancarski
Super-Duper:
Oil, al-Qaeda and a West African Adventure
William Hughes
Lieberman's
Conflict
of Interest?
Kurt Nimmo
The Lapdog
Conversion of CNN:
They Didn't Want to "Criticize" a Popular War
Sean Donahue
Hardline
in Colombia
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By
Alexander Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
(Click Here to Order from CounterPunch
Online at 20% Off Amazon.com's price!)
Read
Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
|