February 17, 2003	Monday	Zul Hijjah 15, 1423

LONDON: After the dramatic showdown at the United Nations on Friday, and Tony Blair’s speech in Glasgow on Saturday, the extent and cost of the UK government’s commitment to Washington has emerged clearly. Britain is giving unconditional support to American foreign policy in the Middle East, in direct conflict with France and Germany, and many European partners.

It is the most fundamental realignment since the 1940s, with far-reaching implications for the future of Nato and the European Union. But it has emerged without any serious debate in the UK, against the advice of senior diplomats and military advisers, at a time when parliament is in recess.

How can the British be so totally committed to American foreign policy in the Middle East — where they have much longer and deeper experience — when it is so rash and dangerous, and at odds with British interests?

The hawks in Washington, clearly in the ascendant, are becoming clearer about their objectives. They want the invasion of Iraq to be followed by a programme of remaking the whole Middle East, following far-reaching plans with long antecedents and ingredients including a document, A Clean Break, written in 1996 for Benjamin Netanyahu, when he was Prime Minister of Israel.

They envisage replacing Muslim dictatorships with American-style democratic elections, to bring an end to pan-Arab nationalism and provide the opportunity for peaceful relations with Israel and the United States, and more secure access to oilfields.

But it is naive to assume that democratic elections will benefit western interests in the current climate of confrontation with Islam. Angry young Arab voters could well favour radical Islamist candidates, as they have done in Algeria — who would bring to power regimes with much more anti-western policies than their predecessors.

And no British diplomat who has followed the twists and turns of past policies in Washington can feel confident about the success of American adventures in the Middle East. The interventions in both Iraq and Iran have been inconsistent and dangerous, helping to provide weapons and finance terrorist groups which later turned against them.

The record of both the CIA and the State Department in dealing with Saddam Hussein appears still more irresponsible as new documents appear, showing how they gave him massive support in the mid-Eighties to help him win the war against Iran, then allowed him to re-arm before he invaded Kuwait in 1991.

The record of American oil diplomacy in the Middle East is no better, as companies have helped to corrupt autocratic rulers then turned against them, provoking nationalists and encouraging fundamentalists.

International oil executives, are now much less confident of the benefits of war than the hawks in Washington. George Bush and Dick Cheney, both former oilmen, portray the war as providing secure oil supplies.

British oil companies cannot have much confidence that a war against Iraq would safeguard their interests. BP, which pioneered the discovery of oil in Iraq, fears being sidelined by American companies.

The British have their own record of mishandling and misjudging Middle Eastern nations, many of which they helped to create, including Iraq, after the First World War. When Sir Anthony Eden invaded Egypt in the Suez war of 1956, he never seriously considered the aftermath, which aroused Arab nationalists throughout the Middle East and did huge damage to British businesses, particularly the oil companies who were not consulted about a war supposedly in their interests.

Britain learnt many lessons from that huge mistake and tried to work more closely with Arab countries afterwards. Now Washington seems set on a reverse path, back to colonization, military intervention and occupation. For the British to support such a policy is to reject their own experience and to forfeit precious goodwill.

The British still find it hard to believe that Saddam Hussein is closely linked to Al Qaeda. The danger of international terrorism has been clear enough since Sept 11, and was underlined last week by apparent threats to British airports. But after a year of intensive investigation, the link with Saddam Hussein has still not been proven.

Few British diplomats believe that the defeat of Saddam Hussein will weaken terrorists round the world — while many suspect that the war and occupation will help to provoke more terrorism. The British still find it hard to understand how the Americans have switched their prime target from Al Qaeda to Saddam.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.