- "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."
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- Gen. Wesley Clark, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander,
CNN military consultant, in a Guardian interview (Aug. 20)
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- 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.
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- 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).
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- 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-¦-vis India, India vis-¦-vis China, China vis-¦-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.
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- 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.
-
-
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- Gary Leupp is an an associate professor, Department of
History, Tufts University and coordinator, Asian Studies Program.
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- He can be reached at: gleupp@tufts.edu
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- http://www.counterpunch.org/
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