By Kevin Kumala
Staff Writer
The Iraqi regime under current President Saddam Hussein has long defied the international community’s will for peace and stability. The United Nations has repeatedly issued resolutions condemning and sanctioning it for its stubborn and uncompromising stance on self-containment and disarmament.
The regime has enforced a brutal and tyrannical policy of ethnic cleansing and self-survival. From the massacre of the Kurds in Northern Iraq and the Shia Muslims in Southern Iraq to the arbitrary arrests and killings of any political dissent, Hussein has managed to stay in absolute power for more than two decades.
Throughout his reign, Hussein has dragged his country into two major wars: the Iran-Iraq war of 1980 that concluded eight years later with more than 1 million casualties on both sides; and the Gulf War against the United States and its allies that cost Iraq thousands of lives and a devasated economy due to the economic sanctions placed by the United Nations afterward.
Hussein has not only proven to be a ruthless military dictator against his neighbors in Iran and Kuwait, but also against ethnic minorities in his own country. During the Iran-Iraq conflict, groups of Kurds supported the Iranians against the Iraqi government.
Saddam’s military responded by unleashing a chemical attack on the rebels. Women and children who lived in those areas where the chemicals were used were shown no compassion. An estimated 182,000 Kurds lost their lives and/or disappeared in this organized reign of terror.
In the south, Hussein put down the resistance by destroying century-old marshes of the region. He did so by diverting the water flow from the Tigris and Euphrates River away from the marsh lands of the south and by spraying the drained lagoons with mustard gas in order to make the area uninhabitable.
These marshlands were once filled with lush vegetation and wildlife that sustained the local population. As one British journalist has written, “the man who rebuilt Babylon in his own image was destroying Sumeria.”
Only recently has public debate on Iraq re-emerged in the United States. Several political analysts have commented that it was a political “strategy” by the Republican administration to use the issue of Iraq and the possible threat to America’s national security to gain a majority in the 2002 congressional elections.
This strategy proved to be successful as the Republicans gained a majority in both the Senate and the House of Representatives.
Whatever the motives of this administration, whether it be for oil interests, regional security interests in the Middle East or America’s national security, the regime that is propping up Hussein is an unjust one.
Unjust because it is brutal against its own and to others. Unjust because it has repeatedly defied the global community, and, last but not least, the regime is unjust because it seeks to dominate the Middle East through the accumulation of weapons of mass destruction.
In Europe and the Far East however, the debate on a possible confrontation with Iraq has been more on the opposing side. For the Europeans, a multilateral approach when dealing with conflicts reflects the history of the region. The past two major world wars originated in this area of the world and the aggression of a number of countries dragged the entire region into chaos with the loss of millions of lives.
Most European countries have learned a costly lesson from the past and have instilled into their foreign policy a doctrine of diplomatic engagement rather than one-sided confrontation.
Another reason why China, Russia, France and Germany might be reluctant to see a regime change in Iraq are their interests in the country. Iraq either owes large debts to them or has signed contracts to allow oil exploration and development as soon as U.N. sanctions are lifted.
For now, the United States has taken on a dual-function policy. On the front lines, the Bush administration has taken a multilateral diplomatic approach through the United Nations.
On the sidelines, it has built-up the military in the region in case it should decide to invade. Both nations have agreed to abide by the recent United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441 authorizing the dispatchment of weapon’s inspectors to disarm Iraq. As far as the world can judge, the Iraqi regime has been more or less cooperative in this process even though it is probably due to America’s threat of war.
However, if and when Iraq produces a serious material breach of the U.N. resolution, the Americans and the British will surely use this breach to justify an invasion into Iraq to completely disarm the regime and even oust the leadership of the country.
The Americans will either reconvene the Security Council and press for another U.N. resolution authorizing the use of force, or they will go at it alone and lead a coalition of nations to disarm Iraq.
Personally, I am not one who advocates war even against an evil regime. I do not believe that any sovereign nation should be legally allowed to attack another sovereign nation on the basis that the country in question might pose a clear-and-future national security threat to the other.
In this case, America is accusing the Iraqi government of hiding weapons of mass destruction that might be used by the Iraqi military or organized terrorist networks who might get hold of them in a future attack on American interests.
However, if Saddam Hussein chooses to undermine the international community once again by playing hide-and-seek with his weapons and intent, then war unfortunately will be inevitable and lives will most definitely be lost.
January 23, 2003