White House Hubris Will End With Domino Effect of Iraq War (gag alert)

The Salt Lake Tribune ^ | 4/14/2003 | Gwynne Dyer

[Utah Girl]

A reader's letter published in the Los Angeles Times last week said it all: "We have learned two things from the war in Iraq. We have learned that the Tigris flows through Baghdad, and the Hubris flows through the White House." Hubris -- the belief that you are so clever and so powerful that you can get away with anything -- is certainly the prevailing state of mind in Washington this week as the Iraqi regime collapses before the U.S. onslaught. So where is the next war?

There was never any doubt that the United States would win this war: The U.S. defense budget last year was 250 times bigger than Iraq's. Resistance was futile, and most of the Iraqi soldiers who fought and died did so knowing that they were throwing their lives away in a gesture of defiance.

But the next phase of the drama is already taking shape off-stage, and is likely to be more painful and difficult for the United States than simply smashing up a Third World army. In the north of Iraq, the Kurds want to control the mainly Kurdish cities of Mosul and Kirkuk because the surrounding oilfields would place an independent Kurdish state on a sound economic footing. Kurdish fighters have already seized Kirkuk -- but Turkey, anxious about the influence of an independent Kurdistan on their own huge and restive Kurdish minority, have said that if the Kurds take Mosul and Kirkuk, they invade.

The U.S. is trying to limit the damage, promising that the Kurdish fighters will be replaced by "coalition" troops in Kirkuk and inviting Turkish army observers to the city, but it won't find it easy to get the Kurds out. This is their best chance for independence in the past 80 years, and they would be mad not to try for it. They have been betrayed by the U.S. so many times that they feel they owe it nothing, and they say they would resist a Turkish invasion whether the U.S. helps them or not. There is no sign that Washington has thought this through any better than it did the request (ultimately rejected by the Turks) to let U.S. forces use Turkish territory for the invasion of Iraq.

The situation down south is even more precarious, for the long-oppressed Shia Arabs of the south are about two-thirds of the entire Iraqi population. If Iraq really became a democracy, the Shias would dominate the government, and naturally turn to their fellow Shias in Iran for advice and support. As Iran is allegedly part of the "axis of evil," the retired U.S. generals who will shortly be ruling Iraq are unlikely to turn the country over to people with that sort of friends. If U.S. troops stay in Iraq and the Shias feel cheated out of their fair share of power yet again, it won't be long before they start resisting U.S. rule.

It gets worse. Any Shia resistance movement in Iraq is bound to get support from Iran, and there will soon be U.S. troops all along the Iran-Iraq border, only a few hours' drive from Iran's main oilfields. Even if the Bush administration isn't planning another war before the next election, U.S. attempts to stop infiltration across the border from Iran could easily lead to a U.S. -Iran war much sooner than that -- and Iran has a relatively united population three times bigger than Iraq's.

Above all, there is the fact that the United States, abetted by Britain and Australia, has launched an unprovoked attack on a sovereign state. That is why most other governments are deeply worried: The American attack on Iraq could be used as a precedent, using exactly the same arguments as President Bush, to justify an Indian attack on Pakistan or a North Korean attack on South Korea. The U.S. action in Iraq has fundamentally challenged the rule of law in the world, which is a problem no matter how happy most Iraqis are at the moment -- and Washington clearly meant to do just that.

Consider the remarks of former Central Intelligence Agency James Woolsey, a Bush administration insider who was recently mentioned in a leaked Pentagon document as one of the possible administrators of post-war Iraq. Last week in Los Angeles, he described the war in Iraq as the start of the Fourth World War (the Cold War being the third), and warned his audience that "this Fourth World Warwill last considerably longer than either the First or Second World Wars did for us."

The real enemies this time, he explained, were the religious rulers of Iran, the "fascists" of Iraq and Syria, and the Islamic extremists of al-Qaeda. He made no distinctions between them (though in real life they have very little in common), and he promised a long crusade against them. There was no suggestion that the US would bother to get legal authority from the United Nations before attacking the sovereign states on his list.

"As we move towards a new Middle East over the years and the decades to come," he said, "we will make a lot of people very nervous. Our response should be, 'Good! We want you nervous. We want you to realize now, for the fourth time in a hundred years, this country and its allies are on the march'."

Eventually the American public is likely to rebel against the continual flow of casualties and the higher taxes that come with this new role of global vigilante, but in the meantime it is going to be a wild ride.

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Gwynne Dyer is a London-based independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries.

[Utah Girl]

Remember, Gwynne is a man.

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[sheik yerbouty]

Fooled me.

[Utah Girl]

Every time I post an article by dear old Gwynne, he gets ripped on, and everyone calls him a she. Of course, you can't tell by his writing that he is a man.

[mylife]

Remember, Gwynne is a Goober.

[Brett66]

That's a man, baby!

[Utah Girl]

LOL, that too.

[habs4ever]

Poor Gwynne would be about the ugliest woman, after Janet Reno, there is.He used to be a regular on Canadiin TV in the late 70's, early '80's, in his too tight leather blouson, and shaggy goatee, dispensing all sorts of verbiage about modern warfare.Imagine Aaron Brown ;-)

This is CYA for dear Gwynnie.He has been a putz for yrs and he's just another failed prognosticator who rails against the WH for demolishing all his most cherished assumptions.

[remitrom]

Gwynne Dyer is a Canadian. He thinks that 911 was not a provocation; that we should not have double crossed the Kurds and Shias in Gulf War I (So what Gwynne, should we have disobeyed your almight UN and taken out Saddam then?), thinks you have to say 'axis of evil' in scare quotes because your so damn superior, thinks that Stalinesque dictators should be tolerated as long as they only oppress their own people, thinks no amount of documented torture comparable to Pol Pot is reason to 'be your brother's keeper.' Of course, this is the same Dyer who whined about Kosovo being and 'illegal' war. Since Dyer suffers from total moral equivalence disorder, he uses his smug dismissiveness and contempt in his tone of voice to compensate. Moral perverts like Dyer cannot see that when a people embrace their liberators they are embracing the war and making it their own revolution. But when Anti-American hate (Canada's equivalent of national racism) clouds all your thinking, you cannot expect anything more than belated posturing. Gwynne, may you find your way into and Islamo-fascist dungeon one day. You are a disgusting shame to all Canadians.

[Nick Danger]

There was no suggestion that the US would bother to get legal authority from the United Nations before attacking the sovereign states on his list.

The idea that the United Nations is a planetary government that dispenses "authority" is in some dispute. It should not be used as the hidden assumption in an argument, even if the person doing so is a lying, liberal stooge.

[Burkeman1]

Resistance was futile, and most of the Iraqi soldiers who fought and died did so knowing that they were throwing their lives away in a gesture of defiance.

That is not known. Many Iraqi soldiers fought under duress. And still others fought most likely believing Sadaam's lies about his strength and their invincibility. Remember- this was a country in which only one voice was heard for 20 years. Many of the young fighters (too young to even remember the first Gulf War) had no idea what they were up against and many sadly thought they could win I imagine.

As for the situation with the Kurds and Turkey. I have no idea and perhaps the author has a point. But I can't imagine Turkey invading. That seems unlikely. And I think the Bush admin must have a plan whenit comes to controlling the Kurds. I can't imagine they didn't have one.

A Shia "resistance movement" supported by Iran is a concern. But I don't see it happening that soon and perhaps not at all.

I have always had a problem with the "pre-emptive" doctrine for just the reasons that the author of this article points out. Anyone can claim to be acting "pre-emptively."

[remitrom]

Correct Nick. The error that is so obvious to those with a brain is this: even if the UN WAS a world legislator, it could not render an unjust war just, nor could it make a just one unjust by witholding legal consent. Otherwise, there could not have been a just war in the history of the world before the UN came along. Law is subordinate to ethics, that is why we can judge laws to be just or unjust. Beside, UN votes are bought with bribes, how is that going to make any decision 'just'.

[Oldeconomybuyer]

...Hubris -- the belief that you are so clever and so powerful that you can get away with anything...

Kinda like what the meaning of is, is ... no?

[remitrom]

Hubris ends with the wrath of the gods, this story end with the wrath of the 3rd Infantry...

[Oldeconomybuyer]

Remember, Gwynne is a man.

7th grade gym class dodge ball musta been rough on Gwynne.

[CyberAnt]

"is a man"

Not by my standards!

[GOP_Raider]

Utah, Where The Women Are Women And The Men Are Too (sarcasm) ;)