World rebels against America
HAROON SIDDIQUI
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates—Having positioned enough U.S. troops and
equipment all around this Persian Gulf neighbourhood, George W. Bush can
launch a war on Iraq any time, with or without United Nations' approval.
But he has already lost the political war.
That came through loud and clear in my journey through Europe, the Middle
East and Asia in the last three weeks. It should become evident to North
Americans in the days ahead.
Tomorrow, the United Nations arms inspectors will call for a continuation
of their work to disarm Iraq peacefully.
On Tuesday, Bush will deliver his State of the Union address and be
applauded on Capitol Hill and in the obeisant American and copycat neo-con
Canadian media. But around the world, his words likely will bring public
derision, so eroded is American credibility. A similar fate awaits the
promised American "evidence" against Iraq.
On Wednesday, when the Security Council meets, France, assisted by Germany,
will lead Russia, China and others in resisting American calls for a U.N.
mandate for war. For the first time in its history, the council may be
confronted with an anti-American resolution.
On Friday, British PM Tony Blair will go to Camp David. He will pledge his
fidelity but hedge it, in deference to opposition brewing in his cabinet
and caucus.
There already is a global rebellion against America, separate and apart
from the recent terrorist attacks on U.S. civilians and soldiers in Yemen,
Pakistan and Kuwait.
Governments everywhere are dreading the dawn of American imperial
unilateralism. They are even more scared of their riled-up citizenries.
Most Muslims are characterizing American designs on Iraq as racist. Others
are calling it a colonial endeavour — the return of the Ugly American.
From Europe through Africa and Asia to the Far East, public opinion is
solidly ranged against America. The dissidents include the Pope, the
archbishop of Canterbury and Nelson Mandela.
This anti-war movement may be more potent than the one against the Vietnam
War. It is worldwide and it has gelled before the war has even begun.
North American pundits have it that Bush has a small window of opportunity
for war because a delay would push it into the unbearable heat of the
Middle East summer. The greater truth, as seen from here, may be that his
options are closing because of growing people power, even in America.
The president's poll numbers are dropping. Public skepticism is rising, as
is a chorus of influential voices, including those of Senator Ted Kennedy
("This is the wrong war at the wrong time"), Jimmy Carter, Gulf War
veterans, stalwart Republicans, Hollywood celebrities and unions.
The longer Bush delays the war, the more difficult it will be to launch it.
But the only way he can go quickly is to abandon the fig leaf of the United
Nations, proving that his enlisting of the U.N. was a sham all along.
But with 150,000 troops and equipment lined up and so much rhetorical
capital invested, how can he not proceed?
Bush is in a box of his own making.
His biggest mistake has been to try to undermine the U.N. inspectors every
step of the way.
Chief inspector Hans Blix, a seasoned Swedish diplomat seeped in U.N.
culture, wasn't going to blink under American bullying.
When Americans and Britons charged that their intelligence showed Saddam
had weapons of mass destruction, Blix said: "Show me."
When Bush called the discovery of a dozen empty Iraqi warheads "troubling
and serious," Blix said: "It's no big deal." (Anyone who covered Saddam's
1980-'90 war on Iran would have seen dozens of such spent Iraqi shells all
along the border.)
America has been clutching at other straws, such as looking for an Iraqi
scientist or two to supply a plausible excuse for U.S. action — in return
for immigration to America or, in one reported case, a bribe of free
medical care for an ailing wife.
But with no smoking gun, no proof of any Iraqi terrorist links, no weapons
of mass destruction, Washington changed its tack. The issue was no longer
weapons but Iraqi deception. (When was the last time a war was launched
over a lie?) Or Saddam himself.
American commentators duly obliged with essays on the benefits of bringing
democracy to Iraq. But people across the Atlantic just laughed.
Aren't America's best allies in the region autocrats, monarchs and assorted
potentates? Didn't Donald Rumsfeld, now defence secretary, meet Saddam in
1983 to convey American moral and material support in the jihad against
Iran? Didn't America acquiesce when Saddam used Western-supplied chemicals
to kill Iranians and his own Kurds?
Circumstances change, of course. But the American track record at
nation-building is not good, either, as witnessed in Afghanistan twice:
post-Soviet occupation and post-Taliban.
Nor, as noted recently by Human Rights Watch, is its record in protecting
the most fundamental human rights of Arabs and other Muslims on American
soil since Sept. 11.
The harassment of Muslim Americans hasn't helped. Nor have the recent
horror stories of returning Afghans, Pakistanis and Indians after spending
a year in American jails on suspicions of terrorism while being guilty of
no more than petty immigration violations.
In promising democracy to Iraq, Bush is dealing with devalued American
moral currency.
Most inconveniently, regime change in Baghdad is not part of U.N.
Resolution 1441, the ostensible basis of all the current American activity.
Even if it were, the idea of killing Iraqis to give them democracy does not
hold much appeal.
People in the Mideast have noticed that, in the plethora of Pentagon war
scenarios, there is none on how many Iraqis are likely to become collateral
damage when B-52s start bombing.
Arabs are not the only ones to flinch at the thought of more pain and death
on a people already suffering under American-led economic sanctions. The
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees envisages "a human disaster,"
with about 1 million refugees spilling into neighbouring nations and
between 4.5 and 9.5 million Iraqis inside the country needing emergency
food rations.
Complicating the Bush-Blair mission have been two unforeseen events since
Nov. 8 — the Israeli election and the defiant nuclearization of North Korea.
Bush had to bench a proposed American plan for Palestinian statehood until
after the election. Blair was embarrassed by Israel PM Ariel Sharon's
refusal to let Palestinians go to a peace conference in London. Meanwhile,
suicide bombings and counter-measures continue, with Palestinians by far
the bigger victims.
Bush's conciliatory approach to North Korea raised cries of double
standards. "Why is the U.S. dealing with them differently?" asked Al Sharq
newspaper in Qatar, one of the more pro-American emirates and, in fact, a
key staging area for an American attack on Iraq.
Such is the sad backdrop of the fateful days ahead.
Should Americans fail to swing Security Council support, Bush may proceed
with "a coalition of the willing" — reluctant allies who cannot afford to
anger America, including Canada perhaps. What would follow is anybody's guess.
A surgical war that topples Saddam quickly and liberates the Iraqi people
would nullify all the naysayers and make a hero of Bush.
The nightmare scenario is of heavy Iraqi civilian casualties and a long
siege around Baghdad, with Saddam ordering people on to bridges and other
infrastructure as human shields.
Reports out of London speak of Whitehall being inundated with cables from
British missions abroad warning of widespread fury. European diplomats I
spoke to talk of "long-lasting enmity in the Arab, Asian and African world
against the Western model," in the words of one.
And over at the staid Davos conference in Switzerland, Malaysian Prime
Minister Mohammed Mahatir told the corporate and political elite of the
world Thursday: "People want revenge. You kill our people, we will kill you."
He was not issuing a threat.
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