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Should the U.S. Wage War on Iraq?
by Brian Risman, Publisher, www thelawjournal co uk - 19 August 2002
Continuation of the Article...Page 2 of 7
The first question is - would an attack on Iraq be justified?
Saddam Hussein is not a trustworthy person. In fact, he is one of the most evil leaders on the planet. His treatment of his own people, his dreams of world domination, and so forth make him a danger to the world and its survival. For if this man is able to use nuclear or chemical weapons, the impacts would be a disaster for all. Back in 1981, Israel was condemned for bombing the Iraqi nuclear reactor -- yet ten years later, their action was proven correct and thankful. Without their well-executed air raid, the Gulf War would have been a far more deadly affair with scary implications.
Does Saddam Hussein therefore present a threat? Obviously, yes.
However, why has world support been lukewarm regarding taking action? There are several reasons. First, many countries are rather cynical about their involvement in the Gulf War and the questionable manner in which it ended. Kuwait was liberated, but the instigator, Saddam Hussein, was barely touched. The incursions into Iraq were minimal. Remember, that war was presented as one to eliminate a new Hitler before he became too powerful -- yet that Hitler was allowed to remain and consolidate his power and support by presenting himself as a survivor, and therefore a victor, against the U.S.-led onslaught. The no-fly zones and weapons inspectors imposed were a joke -- the zones were routinely violated, and the weapons inspectors haven't been in Iraq for months because they were not welcome(?). The net effect, therefore, was that the U.S. dissipated the (somewhat) united alliance against the threat of Saddam Hussein. The war seemed too much as an attempt to reestablish U.S. oil interests in Kuwait, rather than a crusade against evil.
Then there are the memories of other conflicts and other times. In the U.K., memories of Suez are being revived in this situation. Remember the Suez conflict of 1956? Nasser, the President of Egypt, seized control of the Suez Canal as a statement of Egyptian and Arab nationalism. In response, the United Kingdom, France and Israel (the latter of whom had been subjected to commando attacks by Nasser's Fedayeen guerrillas) launched a war to take control of the Canal. While the war was militarily successful, President Eisenhower and Secretary of State Dulles of the United States worried about the reaction of Arab oil states -- and as a result of that fear (or pressure) took economic action and issued threats against the United Kingdom, France and Israel, who subsequently withdrew. Now, there is little doubt that the war on Suez would not have been launched without a go-ahead from the United States -- but in the face of subsequent Arab oil interest issues, the U.S. turned on the U.K., France and Israel. The question today in the U.K. is -- will the U.S. stay the course, or in the face of Oil issues, stop any action in midstream, or worse, engage in a Suez-style turnabout, leaving the other allies exposed? The slowness of the U.S. to acknowledge Saudi involvement in the World Trade Centre attack is symptomatic of that foreign policy bias.
The question is not whether an attack on Iraq is justified -- I don't think that too many countries would lose sleep over the elimination of Saddam Hussein -- but what are the U.S. motivations in waging that war? Would the U.S. stay the course and finish the job, and not turn on their allies? Or would their oil concerns dictate their actions?
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