Implications of a U.S. attack on Iraq

Riza Sihbudi, Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), Jakarta

The question whether or not the U.S. will attack Iraq seems increasingly irrelevant, than when it will strike.

Iraq has indeed declared its acceptance of the United Nations Security Council's Resolution No. 1441 and a UN team of arms inspectors has got down to work. The wave of anti-war action initiated by pro-peace activists has also spread over various regions, including in Western countries, including Britain and Australia, both U.S. allies.

Nonetheless, all this apparently will not dampen the ambition of U.S. President George W. Bush to launch his military action against Iraq as soon as possible, with the main target of deposing President Saddam Hussein. With the statements that Bush (and other senior U.S. officials) made before and after the issuance of Resolution 1441 and the even more intensive preparations by U.S. armed forces, it is very obvious that Bush is too keen to invade Iraq.

Before the above UN resolution was issued, Bush not only branded Saddam "a threat to world peace" for further developing weapons of mass destruction, but also blamed him for collaborating with international terrorists, particularly Osama bin Laden. Saddam was even charged with involvement in the bombing case in Bali, an accusation seen as ridiculous in many circles.

It may be true that Iraq still possesses different types of destructive weapons. But in the Middle East Iraq certainly is not alone. Israel has also been long known to own and develop various kinds of such weapons (including nuclear arms). Compared to Iraq under Saddam, Israel under Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has become the only Middle East country evading peace efforts.

Saddam may have massacred thousands of civilians (especially those of the Kurdish ethnic community and the Syiah group in southern Iraq), but Sharon has done the same to Palestinians. Ironically, the U.S. and the UN have so easily passed such a firm and strict resolution on Iraq, while they have never done the same to Israel. In fact, the strong domination of the Jewish lobby in U.S. politics, notably under Bush, is undeniable.

However, as an international body obliged to protect citizens of the world, the UN should have been able to give fair treatment to all its members. The reality is that the UN has just become further ensnared in the U.S.'s double standard policy in the Middle East.

Bush's allegation of an alliance between Saddam and Osama is also hard to accept by common sense and more like an invention. It is a mere trick employed by Bush to win the sympathy of the international community for his plan of war against Iraq, a plan decreasing in popularity even among Americans.

By spreading charges of the Saddam-Osama alliance, Bush wishes to declare that his war against Iraq is similar to the war against international terrorism, so that the world's citizens must support him. Actually, as a hardline fundamentalist, Osama has very a slim likelihood of collaborating with a socialist and secular Saddam.

Understandably, the war against Iraq is what Bush needs to boost his domestic popularity, or obscure his failures in handling various (especially economic) issues at home, or divert public attention from his unsuccessful hunt for bin Laden and Mullah Umar in Afghanistan, or create a puppet regime in Baghdad to better guarantee Middle East oil supply (and promote the Bush family's oil business?), or even merely give vent to the grudge of his father (Bush Sr.), who failed to topple Saddam Hussein.

But Bush and his advisers should realize that the U.S. plan to attack Iraq will just produce a negative impact on the doctrine of war against international terrorism that Washington is evolving.

If Bush really carries out its scheme to raid Iraq (reportedly no later than February 2003), then there will be no difference between him and the terrorists. The first victims of a U.S. military assault will be Iraqi civilians (who have suffered as a consequence of 11 years' UN embargo sponsored by the U.S.), rather than Saddam or other Iraqi authorities. Aren't terrorists always sacrificing civilians to achieve their political goals?

The other serious implication of a U.S. invasion of Iraq is a growing anti-U.S. sentiment in the Arab world in particular and in the Islamic community in general. So far the Arab and Islamic communities have critically spotlighted the U.S. policy, which always fully supports human rights violations committed daily by Israeli authorities and military forces against civilians of Palestine. Any U.S. attack on Iraq will just strengthen the assumption that the U.S. in fact is fighting Arab nations and people with Islamic majorities instead of fighting terrorism.

Violence begets violence. The planned U.S. attack on Iraq will basically open wide opportunities for pro-violence or pro- terrorism radical movements to arise from the oppressed or marginalized. Then who is essentially to blame and responsible for the phenomenon of thriving international terrorism? Is it Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, or George W. Bush himself?

The writer also chairs the Indonesian Society for Middle East Studies (ISMES).