A futile course

It has been 10 years now since the sanctions on Iraq were imposed, and as yet, no end is in sight. The latest U.N. attempt to break the impasse was doomed to fail.

Meanwhile, the West seems to be waking up to the fact that Iraq is in the grip of a serious and wide-ranging humanitarian disaster. Seventy members of the U.S. Congress have called for the lifting of the sanctions, citing a direct relationship between the sanctions and the death of more than one million civilians.

Their protests, however, are likely to fall on deaf ears. The U.S. and Britain have since December 1998 flown more than 18,844 missions over Iraq. It is highly unlikely that both are willing to go to such efforts and such expense without some result.

Their stated aim: removing the regime in Baghdad. Their chance of success: near zero. It has become more and more obvious that the longer these sanctions have continued the more entrenched and popular the Iraqi regime has become.

It stands to the international community to realize the futility of their current course. People have suffered too long, there is no longer any need. Enough is enough.

-- The Jordan Times, Amman