The problem with trying to be reasonable with the neoconservative hawks in the Bush administration is that all too often they take it as surrender. The announcement by key antiwar members of the UN Security Council that they would consider lifting sanctions on Iraq has been taken as total agreement with the U.S. agenda. It is clearly not.
Shiite And Sunni Muslims Struggle To Fill Leadership Void In Iraq By Ahmed Rashid | May 2, 2003 Editor : John Gershman, Interhemispheric Resource Center ( IRC ) Foreign Policy In Focus www.fpif.org
On the eve of the war in Iraq, Pete Du Pont published an essay in the Wall Street Journal entitled “Getting Serious: Questions for the Peaceniks.” Du Pont posed six “familiar” questions “we ought to be asking the peace protesters.” Although Du Pont’s tone is depreciatory and cynical, the challenge to peace advocacy that the questions convey merits serious response, especially in light of the neoconservative exultancy that the disposition of the Iraq war has elicited.
If the unilateralist hawks in the administration of President George W. Bush were hoping that the easier than expected military victory in Iraq would bring the U.S. public closer to their views, they are likely to be very disappointed by the latest public opinion poll. It shows that much of the public appears to be more in tune with the views of “Old Europe”–a moniker applied by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to describe European countries that opposed Washington’s rush to attack Iraq–than with those of the neoconservatives around Rumsfeld.
There has been a disturbing degree of triumphalism following the overthrow–perhaps “evaporation” is a better word–of Saddam Hussein’s regime in the face of invading American forces. Even putting aside the appropriateness of this kind of gloating in the face of such death and destruction–including thousands of civilian casualties–it is striking that few people are asking whether the U.S. or the rest of the world is safer now as a result of this overwhelming American military victory.
As U.S. forces consolidate the occupation in Iraq the neoconservatives are bringing the war home again, re-opening the front in Washington with an artillery barrage against the State Department.
“Democracy,” Winston Churchill declared, “is the very worst form of government in the world–except for all the other forms.” By that he meant it is a frustrating, time-intensive, messy affair, with bickering a central element in the process. So when some country attempts to export and guide the creation of democracy in another country, it undertakes an almost impossible task. And if it is not careful, the task itself can, literally as well as figuratively, lead to the demise of the very form of governance it attempts to foster.
With the main fighting in Iraq ending and the Ba’ath party hold on the levers of power broken, the U.S. and UK can justly claim military success. Coalition casualties have been low, and all coalition personnel known to have been held by the Iraqis have been freed. For the second time in 18 months, governments accused of harboring and supporting terrorists have been deposed. Iraqis, like their Afghan brethren last year, have been released from an oppressive and brutal regime.
Recent statements by top Bush administration officials have accused the Syrian government of aiding senior Iraqi officials to escape, possessing chemical weapons, and committing "hostile acts" against the U.S. by allegedly supplying military equipment, such as night-vision goggles, to the Iraqis. On April 10th, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz told Congress, "The Syrians are behaving badly. They need to be reminded of that, and if they continue, then we need to think about what our policy is with respect to a country that harbors terrorists or harbors war criminals, or was in recent times shipping things to Iraq." People should keep in mind the following points in response to administration claims:
When the British burned huge piles of dead farm animals to eradicate foot and mouth disease, one of the unforeseen consequences was that the highly infective virus was lifted on the plumes of smoke, and spread even further. We can foresee that the war that was waged to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction may have similar consequences, unforeseen as so often, by the Bush administration.