Between May 1, when President Bush declared that major combat in Iraq was over, and August 20, 131 U.S., nine UK, and one Danish military personnel have died in Iraq from all causes. That is more than one death every day. To the U.S. and UK toll must be added scores of Iraqis, both Saddamists–military, intelligence, fedayeen, non-Iraqi volunteers–and innocent civilians. And after August 20, 20 UN workers.
The invasion and occupation of Iraq posed new challenges to peace and justice activists. The growing credibility crisis of the Bush administration with respect to Iraq, as well as the ongoing crisis on the ground in Iraq, provides us with new opportunities. Below I present four theses on one campaign that could use these opportunities in a creative way: a campaign to turn the administration of Iraq over to the United Nations.
Under the pretense of safeguarding our nation’s security, President George W. Bush waged an unprovoked, pre-emptive military invasion of the nation of Iraq. Whether that war has made our nation and world more secure is certainly open to challenge. What is not open to challenge is the staggering financial cost of the war–$79 billion for just the first phase alone.
After September 11, Iranians set aside their differences with America and expressed public support for our loss in a candlelight vigil held in “Azadi” (freedom) Square in Tehran. Now, almost two years later, the U.S. may have lost a window of opportunity to improve relations with Iran, and currently faces resentment throughout the Islamic world. By proclaiming Iran as part of an “axis of evil,” continuing to implicate it in state-sponsored terrorism and nuclear weapons production, and threatening regime change, the U.S. has alienated a key regional player.
The Persian emperors used to have courtiers whose job was to whisper regularly in the rulers’ ears the message that they were only mortal. Looking at the Persian Gulf today and the respective pitfalls of U.S. President George W. Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in the Iraq war, it appears the courtiers’ profession needs reviving. Someone should be telling modern heads of state to avoid decisions based on weak evidence, unsubstantiated statements, and false hope. Contemporary leaders, like those of yore, ought to heed warnings to discount heady advice brought by people with their own agendas, be they the likes of neoconservative counselors to Bush and Blair or Hussein’s Baathist advisers.
U.S. President George W. Bush’s Road Map for Middle East Peace, while based on widely held hopes for an independent Palestinian state co-existing with a secure and safe Israel, may nonetheless fail to deliver peace in the region. The recent agreement between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Al-Aqsa brigade to temporarily cease all military activities against Israel for the next three months, and the withdrawal of Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) from some Palestinian territories does suggest that the road map is now becoming a practical guide for reaching fulfillment of these hopes. But the plan has strategic and ethical flaws that make me deeply pessimistic over its prospects for success.
“The coin of empire is always bought dear” was an expression that emerged from the great Irish Tithe War of the 1830s, when the British taxed the Catholic Irish to support the Church of England. After three years of opposition, bloodshed, and financial chaos, one colonial officer glumly pointed out that it was costing the Crown, “a shilling to collect tuppence.”
Two recent polls show signs of a sharp decline in popular support for the Bush administration’s policies in Iraq. One recent survey indicates that solid majorities of people in the U.S. now doubt the truthfulness of Bush administration claims regarding evidence about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and Saddam Hussein’s links to al Qaeda, with majorities believing either that the Bush administration claims were “stretching the truth” or deliberate falsehoods. The poll, carried out by the University of Maryland’s Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA), also shows a stark decline in public confidence in President George W. Bush and his administration’s credibility.
Chaos and lawlessness have gripped large parts of Iraq following the U.S.-British invasion. The country’s civilian population finds itself bereft of jobs and even basic services. Museums, hospitals, universities, power stations, water plants, and telecomm facilities have been stripped bare by looters, leaving the country in dire straits. Several weeks after the end of major fighting, ordinary Iraqis have seen little in the way of benefits from whatever reconstruction is going on. Indeed, the focus of the occupation regime is more on emergency repairs than on a major rehabilitation of Iraq’s dilapidated and war-destroyed public infrastructure.1