The terror of pre-emption

MOST people outside the United States are sceptical about President George Bush’s argument that Mr. Saddam Hussein poses a serious threat. According to a recently published international poll, the majority of pollsters believe that it is “all about oil”. Even in Europe, about 75 per cent of the people in France, 54 per cent in Germany and 44 per cent in Britain believe Washington’s real intention is to control Middle East oil.

Another popular theory is that it is all about politics. George Bush is using the Saddam bogy to deflect attention from his country’s faltering economy — to ensure his re-election in 2004. This argument, however, appears to be less tenable because the elder Bush convincingly won the Gulf War but lost the election to Bill Clinton who skilfully exploited the administration’s economic failures under the slogan: “It is the economy, stupid.”

What then is Washington’s real reason for confronting Iraq? Perhaps it is not an oversimplification to say that it is fear. Even a casual visitor to the United States will testify that ever since September 11, the American people have been living constantly on their nerves. The Bush White House appears to be obsessed with a nagging fear that the US enemies may launch a second, even a more devastating, attack on the Americans. The argument is that if terrorist hijackers, armed with box cutters, could kill several thousand in a deadly strike, what havoc might they wreak with nuclear, chemical or biological weapons? Defending the smallpox vaccination, Bush said on December 13: “The U.S. has to gird itself even for a remote threat of biological attack.”

The Bush administration appears to be determined to confront Saddam Hussein because he is suspected of having amassed weapons of mass destruction. The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward says in his book ‘Bush at War’ the White House considered taking on Iraq right after September 11, because of the fear that Saddam Hussein might hand over weapons of mass destruction to his terrorist allies for use against Americans. Though President Bush decided to focus on Afghanistan first, Iraq has always been high on his list.

Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld saw the September 11 attacks as “opening a door” to a more hard line US policy worldwide. National Security adviser Condoleeza Rice says she asked her staff “to think seriously about ‘how do you capitalize on these opportunities’ to fundamentally change American doctrine and the shape of the world in the wake of September 11.”

The UN weapon inspectors are to submit their first report to the Security Council on January 26 on whether Saddam Hussein is complying with UN demands. However, without waiting for the UN inspectors’ report, President Bush has made it clear that his administration has evidence that Saddam Hussein is lying and he still possesses weapons of mass destruction.

It may be recalled that the Bush doctrine, enunciated a few months ago, portrays the United States as standing above all other states in its role as the guardian of the new global system in which Washington is at the centre. Having proclaimed a global war on terrorism as its main aim, the United States has reserved itself the right not only to decide who is a terrorist and which states are supporting terrorists but also to take unilateral preventive action without any formal go-ahead from the Security Council. Obviously, this policy is in conflict with international law and conventions and also contravenes a nation’s right to self-defence as laid down in the United Nations Charter.

The “big stick” foreign policy of President Bush bears close resemblance to that of another US President Theodore Roosevelt (TR). The Wall Street Journal recently printed a chart comparing their characteristics. In his first great national address, given to the Naval War College, TR declares: “No triumph of peace is quite so great as the supreme triumph of war.”

After ascending the presidency in 1901, TR did not hesitate to brandish the “big stick”. In 1903, he threatened to send American troops into the disputed Alaska territory, much to the chagrin of the Canadians. The same year he aided Panama’s revolution to secure the future site of the canal, much to the consternation of Colombians. He conceded that his method was extra-constitutional but declared: “I took the Canal Zone and let the Congress debate.”

Both TR and George Bush have invoked concepts of “civilization” and “righteousness” to justify their actions. Both have been unapologetic exponents of using US power to protect and promote perceived US interests.

In pursuit of the common objective, the US and Britain are building up forces in the Gulf region. Washington has asked NATO members to indicate what military assistance they might be able to provide if war with Iraq becomes inevitable. The US is conducting major war games from a new military headquarters in Qatar, which Defence Secretary Rumsfeld visited recently.

According to the New York Times, the US will soon have enough heavy tanks, warships, aircraft, bombs and troops in the Gulf region to enable it to launch an attack against Iraq, possibly next month. About 60,000 soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen as well as about 200 war planes are in or near the region. Four aircraft carriers are now poised to strike Iraq on short notice.

Secretary of State Colin Powell’s epoch-making statement, openly criticizing Arab rulers for keeping their people in poverty and oppression, indicates a major shift in US policy in the region. It is aimed at helping set the stage for regime change in Iraq.

The new US policy could reshape Washington’s relations with some of its closest Arab partners. It is more than significant that Powell rejected the hitherto followed policy of ignoring political oppression in oil-rich Gulf states in exchange for reliable supplies of cheap crude oil. “I no longer think it is affordable and sustainable”, Secretary of State Powell made it clear.

In a major speech on December 12 at Heritage Foundation, a Washington think-tank, Powell announced US support for democratic and economic reforms across the region. “America wants to align itself with the people of the Middle East”, he said. If the new US policy of withdrawing support from the repressive oligarchies in the Middle East is carried out effectively, the implications for the whole region and even beyond can be far-reaching.

Britain has not lagged behind in building up a case for confronting Saddam Hussein. It has released a dossier collecting evidence of Iraq’s many human rights abuses. No one disputes the awfulness of his regime, but if this itself is a reason for overthrowing him, will the US and Britain be willing to overturn similar other despotic regimes, some of which have the dubious honour of being the sole superpower’s close allies?

Underlying these war preparations is the paradox of the Bush administration’s Iraq policy: both wishing for war and wishing to avoid the attendant risks and costs. The irony is that those in Washington most eager to send troops in Iraq are also those least inclined to become involved in the messy exercise of cleaning up afterwards. Will George Bush make the same mistake that his father did in 1991: defeat Iraq on the battlefield and then hope for the best?

Vajpayee at 78: LETTER FROM NEW DELHI

LET me make the BJP’s landslide victory in Gujarat as the peg to write on Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, who celebrates his 78th birthday on December 25. The party, Chief Minister Narendra Modi and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad — all fought the elections in their own way. But all of them had a one-point agenda: to arouse hatred against Muslims who were painted as demons against the backdrop of hostility against Pakistan.

But Vajpayee does not have the image of being either anti- Muslim or anti-Pakistan. One can say that he does not stand by the Muslims. One can also say that he does not confront or curb those elements of the BJP which are inimical to the Muslims. But one cannot say that he takes such steps as are harmful to the Muslims. In fact, his reputation is that of a soft-liner who reportedly opposes the hard Hindutva stance of the Modi or the Tagodia type.

Again, Vajpayee is not considered a hawk when it comes to Pakistan. Even when he is hurt, he is not hostile. In Pakistan itself, his tenure as foreign minister in the Janata Party government (1977-79) is still remembered as the golden period in their relations with India.

The speech Vajpayee made at Lahore, after his bus journey to Pakistan some three years ago, moved the Pakistanis so much that tears rolled down many eyes. They were touched when he said that Pakistan did not require anybody’s certificate for its identity because it had delineated its own identity over the years. They still treasure his remarks in the Visitors’ Book at Minar-i-Pakistan that India’s prosperity and integrity was linked with Pakistan’s prosperity and integrity.

Still the fact remains that Vajpayee did little when Modi, to dupe the voters, projected the line that the anti- Muslims feeling was no different from the anti-Pakistan feeling because of cross-border terrorism. Why didn’t Vajpayee, as the top man in the BJP, take any step to stop the campaign of vilification against Indian Muslims?

In the same way, Vajpayee did not lift his finger when the Muslims were pilloried in the state or when the election campaign was reduced to Hindu versus Muslim. Is his stance of a liberal within the BJP only a convenient posture? Or is he just a mask for the RSS, as one of its ideologues, Govindacharya, had put it three years ago? To dub him a communalist will be unfair. But not to criticize him for staying quiet when he should be speaking out will be still more reprehensible. He looks like a person who knows too much but does not say anything lest the harm should be greater.

One thing is clear: Vajpayee does not assert himself. A person who has shown the knack of running the government comprising 24 political parties for five years can have his say. If he does not, the fault lies with him, not the circumstances. He could have stopped the communalization of politics as well as of the government. But he did not. The best that can be said in his favour is that he at times mutters something which gives the impression that he is not happy with his partymen. Even he distances himself at times to register his unhappiness. But he doesn’t persist with those postures to show his annoyance. Ultimately, he gives in.

Gujarat exemplifies his attitude. That he was displeased with Modi was clear. When he went to the riot-affected areas for the first time he was visibly upset. The rumours then were that Modi might be removed. True, the RSS moved in to protect Modi. But Vajpayee capitulated at Goa. Why couldn’t he say that the party would have to choose between him and Modi? Apparently, something held him back.

Even during the electioneering in Gujarat, Vajpayee gave the impression of a person who had come to register his presence. “I am only an advocate,” he said at a meeting. But a two-thirds majority of Modi has changed his tone and tenor. He was present even at Modi’s swearing-in ceremony at Gandhinagar. Should the country’s prime minister be doing so, particularly when the government-appointed Nanavati Commission is examining the case of Modi’s involvement in the Gujarat carnage?

Is success the only criterion? The fig leaf of his liberalism comes off when he hails the Taliban-like elements in the BJP in Gujarat. India is a pluralistic society. Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, the frontier Gandhi, and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, like Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Patel sacrificed all to establish independent India as much for the Hindus as for the Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and Parsis.

Vajpayee is the prime minister today. There will be somebody else tomorrow. And as he himself said that there was nothing else for him to seek when he had already reached the top. It is the country that matters and not individuals or parties. Today when religion is sought to be mixed with politics and the state, he should have stood up and said: I would rather defend the country’s diversity than accept religious conformity.

True, Hindus are in a majority. But we have opted for a pluralistic society that provides sustenance to a democratic system. I recall Vajpayee’s article, entitled ‘BJP Philosophy’, where he said, “the Hindu society has been regenerated which was the task of the RSS.” Surely, Gujarat is not an example. He should realize that he is the prime minister of India and belongs to its people, whatever their religion. He does not do justice to the country or to his image when he tilts towards a particular community, however big it is in number.

Either Vajpayee has changed or I got him wrong. When Advani was riding the rath towards Ayodhya, Vajpayee came to England. I was then India’s high commissioner. I asked him how he had come to London at a time when the party was in the midst of the rath yatra. His reply was that all those who were Ram bhakt had gone to Ayodhya and those who were Desh bhakt had come to London. I do not know if he still remembers it.

And yet, only a day after the demolition of the Babri masjid, he told me in reply to my repeated plea to him to leave the BJP, “Let the temple come up.” Riding two horses at the same time can be an acrobatic feat. But it cannot be the way of governance. If you want to govern a country, you cannot run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. The gift of the gab that Vajpayee possesses has helped him to span the conflicting situations. He has even evaded straight replies. But he has to lead the nation when its very integrity is in danger.

Like some other people, I used to think that Vajpayee was the right man in the wrong party. At 78, he looks like the right man in the right party.

The writer is a leading columnist based in New Delhi.

Turkey in Europe

It was Valery Giscard d’Estaing, former president of France and now head of the convention on the constitutional future of Europe, who broke the long, embarrassed silence in early November.

Turkey, he said, is “not a European country.” It has “a different culture, a different approach, and a different way of life,” and its admission would mean “the end of the European Union.” What he meant was that Turkey is an overwhelmingly Muslim country, though officially a secular one.

Once Giscard had spoken the unspeakable, other old, white, conservative, Catholic men leapt into the fray. First out was the Pope, who warned that in shaping Europe’s future the continent’s “religious heritage” should not be forgotten. Then Germany’s opposition leader, Edmund Stoiber, declared that “(Europe’s) borders must be based on shared values, culture and history. Turkey’s membership would breach those borders.” And former French foreign minister Hubert Vedrine warned that if the EU did not draw the line at Turkey, “we will end up with a union of 40 countries, including Russia, the Ukraine, Turkey, the Balkan states and north Africa.”

To which one is tempted to reply “yes, and your problem is...?” Such a 40-country union would merely restore a zone of peace, common law and shared citizenship over most of the territories that enjoyed the same benefits as provinces of the Roman empire two thousand years ago. But Europe’s pro-expansion leaders confined themselves to more specific replies.

Turkey “absolutely has its place in Europe,” said French President Jacques Chirac, implicitly rebuking his predecessor. “Turkey is a European country that has every right to join if it meets the conditions,” said a British government spokesperson. Gerhard Schroeder, the German Chancellor, declared that “the real question now is to decide a date, not for Turkey’s accession to the EU, but for the start of entry talks.” But it is a highly contentious issue in Europe, and the Turks want that date to be set next week, at the EU summit in Copenhagen on 12 December.

There is not one hurdle to be cleared at Copenhagen, but three. Extending formal invitations to ten countries to join the EU in 2004 (Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Malta and Cyprus), and two more in 2007 (Romania and Bulgaria), is actually the easiest part. Of the Class of 2004, only Poland is of serious economic import — its 40 million people outnumber the other nine candidates’ populations taken together — and while talks on the rights of Polish farmers will go down to the wire, final success is assured.

The second hurdle is getting a peace deal on Cyprus before it joins. The island has been partitioned between its Greek-speaking majority and its Turkish-speaking minority for a generation. Both mother countries, Greece and Turkey, are now eager for an arrangement that creates a reunited Cyprus of two largely self-governing linguistic communities, more or less along the lines of Belgium, but time to settle the details of the deal is desperately short. And then there is the question of Turkey itself.

Turkey already has 66 million people, and it is growing fast. If it joins, by 2020 it would be the EU’s biggest country, outnumbering even the Germans, so letting it in would have a big impact on the EU’s identity even if the Turks were not Muslims. The original promise that it would eventually become a candidate for membership is forty years old, and it has been an official candidate since 1999, but many Europeans never realized that the promise might one day have to be kept. That day has arrived.

Over the past year, Turkey has carried out drastic legal reforms that remove most of the human rights obstacles to its membership. It abolished the death penalty, legalized Kurdish-language broadcasting and schools, and ended legal curbs on press freedom. And it has now elected a government of ‘Muslim democrats’ who look like they might hold the key to reconciling the traditionally reactionary force of political Islam with modernity and democracy.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, leader of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), puts great importance on getting a date for the start of Turkish entry talks.—Copyright

War on terrorism or plain imperialism?

UN monitors have been in Iraq for more than a week now and the initial reports emanating from Baghdad are encouraging. Both, the team leader Hans Blix and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan have described Iraq’s cooperation as good. Iraq also met the UN Security Council deadline to provide details of its chemical, biological, and nuclear programmes.

This should have cleared the sky a little but some influential ones in the US think otherwise. Richard Perle, Chairman of Defence Policy Board, an advisory panel to Pentagon, told British MPs on November 15 that the US intends to attack Iraq even if UN inspectors fail to find any weapons. According to him, “a clean bill of health from Hans Blix will not prevent the US from attacking Iraq. All he (Blix) can know is the result of his own investigations and that does not prove Saddam has no weapons of mass destruction.”

“Suppose we are able to find someone who has been involved in the development of weapons and says there are stores of nerve agents and you cannot find them because they are well hidden. Do you actually have to take possession of nerve agents to convince?” he added.

Thomas Friedman, a journalist turned establishment guru, writing in The New York Times, urges his readers to ignore UN inspectors’ work and focus on a paragraph in the UNSC resolution 1441 allowing for removal of Iraqi scientists along with their entire families to be interviewed abroad. He obviously is corroborating what Perle said that all that the United States needs is a statement by any Iraqi scientist alleging the existence of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). President Bush was more direct. He said that it was up to Iraq, not the inspectors, to disclose its weapons programmes or it would face a serious response.

So the existence or otherwise of WMDs in Iraq is not the real issue. These exist in many countries round the globe and others have the potential to produce them. The Russian use of a chemical weapon to kill Chechen insurgents and North Korea’s admission of being in possession of nukes has not distracted the US from focusing on Iraq.

Egyptian call for sending UN inspectors to Israel has been drowned in US media’s din and noise about Iraq. The question that receives no mention at all is why Iraq is being singled out for punishment and for it to be treated as the only country to be denied the right to have weapons of its choice for self-defence, given the fact that it has a hostile neighbour (Israel) armed with hundreds of nuclear weapons?

Possession of WMDs was not the first reason given for choosing Iraq as the target after Afghanistan. The real reason is a change of regime to ‘liberate’ Iraqi people from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein just like Afghans were freed from the Taliban stranglehold. It was too altruistic to sell. Why should Americans pay for and risk lives of their young men for a people in a far-off land that have nothing in common with them?

The next move was to scare the people at home with the possibility of a dirty bomb exploding somewhere in their neighbourhood because a bad guy had those with which to harm them. This seems to have worked at home if Republican Party success in mid-term elections is any guide. So what is the real reason for attacking Iraq? For answer we have to go back to the same guru, Tom Friedman.

In another article published in The New York Times three years ago, (long before 9/11), he justified imperialist militarism as a necessary support for America’s corporate wealth. According to him, “ the hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist...the McDonalds cannot flourish without McDonald Douglas, the builder of the F-15 aircraft.” The fist he refers to is the entire US military might. An oil-rich country becomes a logical target for this fist for an establishment dominated by the oil lobby.

Through innuendoes American people are being told that gasoline prices may come down once the oil companies get control of the second largest reservoir of oil in the Middle East. In another age this could have been achieved without much ado as long as one had the military capability but now even all-powerful countries need some moral justification when risking human lives.

In comes Jack Straw, the British foreign secretary, with another one. On December 4, he issued a dossier detailing human rights abuses of the Iraqi regime, directly linking this in his accompanying speech with the question of arms inspections and the possibility of war. The British, of course, have a long experience of imperialist conquests and are masters at finding a pretext for attacking another country.

Beginning in the 15th century, they colonized a large part of the world describing this as their duty as good Christians to bring civilization to barbarians. It was then called the white man’s burden. The same logic seems to be at work now in the case of Iraq: free the Iraqi people of an oppressive regime that routinely violates human rights. That there are more serious human rights violations elsewhere — Palestine, Kashmir, Chechnya, to name only a few — is irrelevant for them. The publication of Jack Straw’s dossier drew criticism for its timing more than for its substance. John Pilzer, writing in the Daily Mirror, commented, “When Bush and Blair refer to Saddam using chemical weapons against Kurds in Halabaja in 1988 they never explain that Britain and America were accomplices.”

Meanwhile preparations for an attack on Iraq are going ahead without interruption. Turkey has been pressured into allowing the use of its bases; another aircraft carrier has sailed for the Gulf and a command and control centre has been established in Qatar.

For the Bush administration it appears there is no alternative to attacking Iraq. The economy is not doing too well, expenditure on the social sector has been cut and many people have lost jobs. Treasury secretary and economic adviser to the president have been made scapegoats and sacked. War would be a better distraction from problems at home.

However, it may not be the last war. Mr. Richard Perle, in an interview with the Guardian, stated that Iraq was the first in a series of countries that the US would target; others include Iran, Syria and North Korea. Iran, of course, has the same qualifications as Iraq for being selected as a target, namely it is oil-rich. Syria and North Korea appear to be red herrings.

A more likely target may well be Saudi Arabia. The process of giving the dog a bad name to hang it has already started. Charitable contributions made by the wife of Saudi ambassador in Washington have been blown out of proportion on merely a suspicion that some of those funds ‘may’ have helped terrorists who attacked the World Trade Centre in New York. Nothing has been proved so far but the American public has been made to believe that Saudis are not as good as they used to be. It may be a mere coincidence but the lady in the eye of the storm happens to be the daughter of former king Faisal who was the only Arab ruler to use oil weapon during Egypt-Israel war and met a tragic end. Then there are assertions that Saudi Arabia is not doing enough in war against terrorism. What that ‘enough’ means is never elaborated or explained.

Saudi minister for interior, Prince Nayef, was quoted as saying in an interview that terrorists networks have links to foreign intelligence agencies, chief among them being Israeli Mossad, that work against Arab and Muslim interests. “We still ask ourselves who benefited the most from September 11 attacks? I think they (the Jews) were the protagonists of such attacks,” he added. It is normal to start with the motive when attempting to solve a crime. In that sense Prince Nayef’s statement is perfectly logical. But the American media for the same purpose i.e. bringing disrepute to Saudi Arabia twisted it. Congressman Eliot Engel and senator Charles Schumer also joined the chorus and criticized the administration for considering Saudis as an ally in war against terrorism.

That the Iraqi people are going to receive the treatment meted out to their brethren in Afghanistan seems inevitable now. Avowed aim of attacks on Afghanistan, elimination of Al Quaeda, has not been achieved if one were to believe director CIA who finds the organization capable of striking anywhere in the world. It is a moot point if Iraqi people will get a better dispensation after the removal of Saddam.

They might well be left at the mercy of multiple power centres dominated by more ruthless petty dictators. The cost in terms of loss of human lives, human suffering, and destruction of infrastructure as well as to the American taxpayer will certainly be high. Any dislocation in oil supplies may send fragile economies into a tailspin and bring misery to millions, particularly in the Third

World.

Like the war on terrorism, the one for the conquest of resources located in countries incapable of self-defence would also be open-ended. The vicious cycle will only be broken if American people see through the game and assert their democratic power or the Third World produces another Gandhi who can convince his people to say no to imperialist goods. That is the only language readily understood by greedy mega corporations, which now dictate political policies in most of the democratic countries.