Regards, Ivan
Posted on 03/20/2003 6:05:17 PM PST by MadIvan
WAR is a last resort, and always should be. So no-one can take any pleasure in the events now unfolding in Iraq. Those who reject war on any grounds whatsoever will not be assuaged. But those who see armed force as sometimes - regrettably - required to maintain security, or defend human rights, will find that the situation unfolding in Iraq justifies their position. Yesterday, as the liberation of Iraq began, the crumbling Saddam Hussein regime fired salvoes of missiles at Allied troop concentrations in Kuwait. It was the most eloquent admission by the Iraqi dictatorship that it had been taking the UN weapons inspectors for a ride for the last three and a half months.
Under UN Security Council Resolution 687, passed in 1992, Saddam should have destroyed his Scud and long-range missiles. Clearly, he did not. Under Resolution 1441, he was to declare where the remaining missiles were. Clearly, he did not. Some of yesterday’s attacks may have been made using the new al-Samoud rockets which the UN inspectors also wanted destroyed. Saddam prevaricated and only let 70 be sawn up. He went slow on destroying the rest, though they could all have been dispatched in a day. Now they are being used to try to kill British service men and women.
The moral of this sordid tale, as the fighting escalates in Iraq, is that Saddam Hussein is a proven liar. He will not disarm peaceably. He will not obey UN resolutions. He never has done. He never will. His regime can only be disarmed by force.
Nevertheless, yesterday saw protests continue around the world against the Allied action in Iraq. But closer inspection showed much of this was self-serving, meant for local consumption rather than to be taken too seriously. For instance, China accused the US of "violating the norms of international behaviour". But it was China that invaded sovereign Tibet in 1956 and, ever since, has remained in violation of many UN resolutions, including General Assembly resolutions 1353, 1723 and 2079 (which reaffirmed that China was in direct violation of the UN charter in regard to that country’s state genocide of Tibetans). While we are at it, didn’t China attack India in 1962 and Vietnam in 1979?
Then the Turkish parliament, which had ostentatiously voted against letting US troops use its soil to liberate Iraq, suddenly decided it had the right (from where?) to sanction the entry of the Turkish army into Iraq. And France regretted US action "taken without the approval of the United Nations", though France did not seem to think this mattered when it supported unilateral NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999. Or when the French sent its troops into the Central African Republic last weekend without asking permission, including of anyone in that country.
All of which suggests that most of what passes for international diplomacy on the subject of Iraq is fast becoming mere posturing, since the invasion is now a fact. There is an urgent need to move the debate on and consider a new agenda. This includes: (1) the need to stop giving Saddam Hussein any comfort that he still has friends, thus not tempting him to prolong the war by scorched-earth policies; (2) how to rebuild a democratic, prosperous Iraq; and (3) how to bring a lasting stability to the Middle East.
On the last point, the French are piously calling for a conference of all the interested parties. They are not well placed to take a lead. Do they include Saddam Hussein in their call, as they did the dictator of Zimbabwe in President Chirac’s recent pan-African summit? In fact, the removal of Saddam - opposed by the French - is one of the keys to restarting the quest for a Palestinian state, precisely because it removes one of the agents that has funded and promoted terrorism in Palestine and Israel.
Fortunately, though forgotten in the welter of headline-grabbing protests about the Allied invasion of Iraq, many more nations are joining in support for the overthrow of the Saddam regime - and thus creating the diplomatic climate in which this new agenda can be addressed. They include Australia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal and Spain, as well as the UK and the US. That list will soon include a free Iraq.
Meanwhile, in Britain, the extreme Marxist groups in the Stop the War campaign, rather than engaging in serious debate, are reduced to encouraging school-age children to play truant and disrupt traffic. This is physically dangerous for the children and it has now started to attract a rowdy element among the pupils who are not genuinely serious about protesting against the war. By all means, schools should organise teach-ins on this momentous subject. Of course young people have the right to hold an opinion. But this looks suspiciously like adults politically manipulating the young. War is too serious for such games.
Regards, Ivan
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