MGG Pillai Commentary View

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Did the US invade Iraq to set up a military base in the Middle East?

THE UNITED STATES IS losing badly in Iraq. It does not release news of any kind from there. In the past, before the reality struck in, one could not escape from Iraq, which it saw as evidence it is winning, whatever that means, the war. The government there is bothered about bird flu, as if that is the most important thing amid the mayhem the US has caused, is causing, in that country since it invaded it in 2003. The citizens have become the insurgents, and more join them daily as they see their life more hopeless day by day. There is the occasional talk from Washington of cutting down troops, but the aim of the invasion, based on false reasons like Iraq's nuclear capabilities, was to set up a permanent base in the Middle Eat in Iraq. That alone will make sure the continued insurgency. The Sunnis, in power since 1920, accepts that it will never rule Iraq again, so it will destroy the country, probably more viciously, than the US armed forces have done.

It is today a test of wills. Washington's inopportune attack on Iraq for reasons other than stated was aimed at a military presence in the Middle East. Its military presence in Lebanon was ended 25 years ago with a car bomb and 241 US Marine deaths. It wants to set up one in Qatar to keep an eye, it is said, on Al-Jazeera. It does not trust Saudi Arabia any more, wants to put the Saudi royal family out of business. But it has touched more than it chew in Iraq. It put Saddam Hussein on trial for crimes he is alleged to have committed when President 25 years ago. It has been stressed time and time again that his trial is not vendetta, that the rule of law will prevaile all of Iraq. But the trial is in shambles. What happened in Halabja is not as interesting as what happens in court. It is an impartial tribunal, so the Americans claim, but it chief judge, a Kurd, cannot stand the heat, his successor is found to be a Baathist, and his successor is from Halabja. Whatever happens to the trial, Saddam Hussein has won. He has already written himself into Iraq, and Middle Eastern, history as a Sunni martyr.

More important is what this means to President Bush. He can be put on trial one day for all those prisoners held without trial at Guantanamo Bay prison. When the poliical climate changes, he would be asked to explain why he did what he did. No amount of grandstanding would help him; his Administration has not allowed a President that courtesy, that there are events in the conduct of a presidency, he has to do ultra-legal acts. It has denied that of Saddam Hussein by charging him with offenses that were not when it happened. The enemies of President Bush, especially Americans, would adopt the methods he ordered to try Saddam Hussein. The Middle East is in ferment, often at loggerheads with their rulers as of the United States. This will be clearer with the passing days. Its control of the air waves ensures that only its version is broadcast, but the ground, often illiterate and with no stomach for philosophical or diplomatic argument, listens to another voice. It might be Al-Qaeda, or it might be someone else. And what the Muslim ground knows of the conflict is now what CNN says, not even what Al-Jazeera says. but what is told them by the mosque officials.

But Al-Qaeda is an American creation. It was used to get the Soviet Union out of Afghanisation so that it could get into the mess there. It forgot, or did not realise, that Al-Qaeda members were Islamic fundamentalists, who accepted American money and training to eventually overthrow them as well. To it, the Soviet Union, now Russia, and the United States were foreigners out to rule Afghanistan, and that it would not allow. The US knows a lot of about Al-Qaeda – its operations, its senior operatives. that it is built like an American organisation – but Al-Qaeda is successful because it gives its leaders in the field the freedom to operate within a set of rules given it. Washington pokes holes in what it sees as Al-Qaeda's operations, but it says them so that the Americans are not unduly frightened. Al-Qaeda taunts the United States with frequent video and audo tapes to keep the Americans frightened. It came into Iraq after the US invaded the country. Most of its fighters are foreign, now in about the same proportion of the US-led coalition. For all this interest in seeing Osama bin Laden dead, it is a fact that if he is, the Americans would in time leave Iraq with their tails behind their back. It took only seven years after Ho Chi Minh's death for the Americans to leave South Vietnam in defeat.

America would have been acceptable if it did not have its political baggage about it. In December 1991, the fundamentalist Islamic Salvation Front had won handsomely in the first run of the elections in Algeria. It was declared an illegal outfit. It went on an offensive, more than 10,000 people died in the violence, and Algeria would, for the second time, be hostile to the West. In December 2005, Hamas won three quarters of the seats in the Palestine elections. The Western nations saw that as a dangerous trend, but not the people who voted them in. Hamas will rule Palestine, but the West will not have any role because of its opposition to Hamas, regarded in Washington as a terrorist organisation. But elections are held elsewhere so that it would return pro-Washongton administrations. Hamas obviously has support among the Palestinians. But this is not unusual. The Israeli terrorist group that created havoc in Palestine before the state of Israel was set up was headed by Manechen Begin, who later become the prime minister of Isreal.

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@streamyx.com