by Eric Margolis
Maj. Gen. J.F.C. Fuller, Britain's leading
military thinker of the 20th century, wrote that
the object of war is not victory, but peace. A war
that fails to achieve clear political objectives
is merely an exercise in violence and futility.
In its headlong rush to invade Iraq, the Bush
administration is violating Fuller's simple yet
immensely important strategic dictum. Britain's
Prime Minister Anthony Eden committed the same
grave error in 1956 when he launched an
ill-conceived invasion of Egypt which, like modern
Iraq, had the audacity to defy a great power. The
Suez operation was a military success that turned
into a political fiasco.
The Bush administration is clearly obsessed with
Iraq, but it has no clear plan on what to do with
this Mideast version of ex-Yugoslavia once
America's military might overthrows Saddam
Hussein's regime. Nor is there understanding of
how invasion and occupation will affect the
Fertile Crescent, America's client Arab regimes,
Turkey, indeed, the entire Mideast.
There is also the dearth of reliable political
information on Iraq from human sources that has
long plagued U.S. Mideast policy. Much of the Bush
administration's current view of the region has
been fashioned by neoconservatives, who hold key
policymaking positions in White House, Pentagon,
and vice president's office. Equally significant,
the administration's non-electronic human
intelligence on the Mideast and terrorism relies
heavily on self-serving data supplied by foreign
intelligence services and Iraqi exile groups.
The ideologues and Pentagon hawks driving
administration policy recall the Roman senator
Cato, who ended every oration with, "Carthage must
be destroyed!" Few of these armchair warriors have
even been to Iraq; less have ever served in U.S.
armed forces, yet all are eager to send American
soldiers to fight a potentially bloody war whose
benefits to the United States are doubtful.
Lust for destruction is not policy, no matter how
much Pentagon hawks and neoconservative media
trumpets may yearn to plow salt into the fields of
Iraq. Nor is the piratical proposal that the U.S.
"liberate" Iraq and plunder its great oil reserves
to bring "civilization and democracy" to that
benighted nation.
If Washington were truly concerned about democracy
and human rights in the Arab World, it could long
ago have promoted democracy in the military
dictatorships and feudal sheikdoms over which the
U.S. exercises paramount influence: Morocco,
Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf
emirates. Instead, under the banner of a war on
terrorism, the U.S. has been buttressing autocracy
and despotism, most recently in Central Asia and
Pakistan.
The first question, of course, is why should the
U.S. attack and invade Iraq, a nation that has not
committed any act of war against America? The rest
of the world will rightly see such an act as naked
aggression, a return to British and Soviet-style
imperialism, and a personal vendetta by George
Bush against Saddam Hussein.
According to President Bush, Iraq must be
destroyed because Saddam Hussein might possess
some hidden chemical or biological weapons (WMDs),
or because Iraq might one day develop nuclear
weapons, or might slip WMDs to anti-American
terrorists, or simply because he is "evil." The
Bush administration's insistence on the right to
preemptively intervene anywhere on earth recalls
the old Brezhnev Doctrine of Soviet days.
Why Iraq alone is a danger among the 18 nations
that possess weapons of mass destruction
including India whose new ICBMs will be able to
deliver nuclear weapons to the U.S. remains a
mystery. Why Saddam's ravaged, hermetically
bottled up Iraq would be more of a danger to the
US than 1.5 billion Muslims enraged by America's
perceived persecution of Iraqis, Afghans, and
Palestinians also remains unclear. Terrorists
don't need Iraq to concoct germ weapons, as
Japan's Aum Shinrikyo showed, and Saddam Hussein
is too intelligent to invite nuclear attack by the
United States or Israel by slipping germ weapons
to terrorists. If Saddam had wanted to do so, he
had ample opportunity from 1991-2001.
Equally unclear is why the U.S. refuses to seek
diplomatic accommodation with Iraq rather than
war. Saddam Hussein has repeatedly shown himself a
wily survivor willing to deal with the devil, when
necessary. The United States was a close ally,
financial backer, and provider of arms and
intelligence to Saddam in the 1980s. He is
certainly not eager to face an American invasion
that would bring his own demise, and would
therefore welcome a diplomatic escape from the
dire fate he faces.
Just before the 1991 Gulf War, this writer
discovered a group of British scientific
technicians in Baghdad who had been "seconded" to
Iraq by the British Ministry of Defense and the
Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, to help Baghdad
develop biological weapons. The British
technicians were based at the secret biowarfare
complex at Salman Pak where they were developing
anthrax, botulism and possibly Q-fever for
Saddam's military with the full knowledge and
support of the British and American governments.
Other British scientists were developing poison
gas for Iraq. They showed me documents confirming
that the feeder stocks for Iraq's germ weapons had
been supplied by the United States.
In other words, it was fine for Iraq to shower
poison gas and potentially germs on Muslim
Iranians and Kurdish rebels during the Iran-Iraq
War. But once Iraq invaded Kuwait, a protectorate
inherited by the U.S. from the British Empire, and
once Israel felt threatened by Saddam WMDs, then
it was time to destroy Iraq. But Iraq did not use
its WMD arsenal during Gulf War I, though U.S.
troop concentrations at crowded Saudi ports would
have made ideal targets.
No matter, answer administration critics, Saddam
might have some gas or germ weapons hidden away.
Yes, he might. But as former UN arms inspector
Scott Ritter has observed, all leftover WMDs from
the 1980s have a shelf-life of only 3-5 years and
are no longer lethal. Iraq may have developed a
few toxins since then, but it has no delivery
systems for these complex, unstable, clumsy
weapons. Britain, France, Israel, Syria, Egypt,
Iran, Libya, India and Pakistan, Ukraine, Russia,
Serbia, China, Taiwan and Cuba also have
chemical weapons; some have biological weapons.
Castro's are only 90 miles from Miami.
Then, there is North Korea. Amidst cries for war
against Iraq, it's fascinating to consider
Stalinist North Korea, a nation that, unlike Iraq,
well and truly threatens Americans. The 37,000
U.S. troops in South Korea are within range of
North Korea's huge numbers of heavy guns, rocket
batteries, and Scud missiles that can deliver tons
of poison gas and biowarfare toxins. U.S. bases in
South Korea, Japan, and Okinawa are prime targets
for North Korean WMDs and attacks by its
100,000-man commando force, the world's largest.
North Korea has at least two nuclear devices and
has repeatedly threatened to "burn" Seoul and
"slaughter" American troops in South Korea. The
North continues to work on an ICBM capable of
reaching Japan and the U.S. mainland.
Surely on the scale of threats to Americans,
aggressive, sinister and wholly unpredictable
North Korea should demand more urgent attention
than demolished Iraq? On the contrary, both the
Clinton and Bush Administrations chose to
negotiate with Pyongyang and bribe it to be good
with $ 4.6 billion worth of light water nuclear
reactors, oil, food, and cash. American aid feeds
starving North Koreans while the US denies Iraq
chlorine to purify its contaminated drinking
water, the main cause of death for hundreds of
thousands of Iraqi children.
Why indulge North Korea while scourging Iraq?
First, oil. Iraq's oil reserves are second only to
those of Saudi Arabia. Considering that the Bush
administration has embarked on a long-term
campaign militarily to dominate and exploit the
oil of Central Asia's Caspian Basin, it is not a
stretch of imagination to believe that control of
the more proximate oil of Iraq is also high on the
administration's petro-agenda.
Second, Iraq, unlike North Korea, poses a
potential threat to Israel's regional hegemony and
Mideast nuclear monopoly because of its oil wealth
and at least until 1991 industrial base. For
Administration hawks who view the Mideast mainly
through the lens of Israel's strategic needs,
crushing Iraq is a high priority. A shattered
Iraq, divided into Kurdish, Sunni, and Shia
regions, would permanently terminate any future
challenge to Israel.
Iraq's northern oil fields could then be annexed
by Israel's new strategic ally, Turkey, which has
no oil. Turkey's generals have long eyed Iraq's
oil-rich Mosul and Kirkuk regions, once part of
the Ottoman Empire. Oil would transform Turkey
from a financial cripple into a major political
and military power, and assure its role as
America's regional gendarme.
Overthrowing Saddam Hussein and splintering Iraq
would certainly be beneficial for Israel, but
there are a host of arguments to be made why such
aggression would be inimical to America's
interests. First and foremost, the substantial
loss of American lives, unless there is a surprise
coup against Saddam, in what inevitably would be a
conflict fought out in urban areas where U.S.
firepower and technology would be attenuated.
During the 1973 war, the crack Israeli army was
forced to withdraw from Suez City in the face of
stubborn resistance from dug-in Egyptian troops
and irregulars. Though U.S. forces could quickly
defeat Iraq's regular army in the field, there is
a high risk of prolonged urban guerilla warfare
and great numbers of civilian casualties.
If Saddam does have any active chemical or
biological weapons hidden away, he might well use
them against American troops concentrations in the
Gulf, unlike 1991. A cornered Saddam facing death
might fire a few Scud missiles with chemical
warheads at Israel in a Mideast Gotterdammerung.
Israel warns it will retaliate with nuclear
weapons if Iraq attacks with WMDs.
Virtually the entire world is against an invasion
of Iraq, save Israel and Britain, and Tony Blair's
Labour Party is deeply split over the issue. Waves
of anti-Americanism would intensify across the
Muslim world, jeopardizing American diplomats,
businessmen, and tourists. The costs of an
invasion of Iraq using at least 100,000 troops
would begin at $75 billion and soar from there.
Reserves will have to be mobilized.
This huge cost, born entirely by American
taxpayers, would come just as the Bush
administration has created a yawning deficit that
will inevitably trigger rising inflation. The faux
war in Afghanistan, where some 12,000 US troops
are chasing shadows, is costing $5 billion each
month. The U.S.-installed Karzai regime rules only
Kabul, and that only with the bayonets of western
troops.
But the most important practical reason not to
attack Iraq comes from General Fuller. What will
the US do with this Mideast Yugoslavia once it
conquers Iraq?
Consider Iraq's bloody history: Britain created
Iraq after World War I to acquire its oil, and put
a puppet king, Faisal I, on the throne. Iraqis and
Kurds rebelled in 1920 and were crushed by British
troops and bombers. Iraq's second king, Gazi,
vowed to "liberate" Kuwait and died mysteriously
soon after, murdered, Iraqis say, by British
intelligence.
Faisal II, another British puppet, was overthrown
in a 1958 military coup by Col. Kassem. The Kurds
rebelled again. Kassem massed troops in invade
Kuwait but was stopped by British forces, then
murdered in a military coup led by Col. Aref. Two
years later, Saddam Hussein seized power. The
Kurds rebelled once more, aided by the U.S.,
Israel, and Iran. In 1979, the U.S. and Britain
armed and financed Saddam to invade Iran and
overthrow its Islamic regime. In 1990, Washington
gave Saddam what he took as a green light to
invade Kuwait.
This chronically unstable "Pandora's Box," as
Jordan's King Abdullah calls it, is the nation the
U.S. plans to rule. When Saddam falls, Iraq will
almost certainly splinter. This is the very reason
why Bush pre wisely decided against marching on
Baghdad in 1991. President Bush Sr. and his Arab
allies concluded Iran would annex southern Iraq.
The only leader who could hold the nation together
was the iron-fisted Saddam. Interestingly, one
night in 1942, Hitler observed, "The only person
who knows how to deal with Russians is Stalin.
When I take over Russia, I will put him back in
power."
A gelded, isolated Saddam is far less of a danger
than a geopolitical maelstrom in Iraq that might
force US troops to put down Kurdish rebels seeking
their own state, or battle Shias, Iraq's religious
majority. War in Iraq may spark an anti-western
revolution in Turkey or reignite the Kurdish
uprising there. Will the Arab world explode, as
Egypt warns?
What about Iran? The same rationale advanced by
neoconservatives to invade Iraq also applies to
Iran, a nation of 68 million, and a greater
challenge to Israel than Iraq. Will the U.S. face
a lengthy guerilla war in the cities of Iraq or
the lush valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates,
where the British were defeated by the Turks in
1916. The cost of permanently garrisoning Iraq
will strain America's already overstretched armed
forces and make them less effective in responding
to a genuine threat elsewhere, notably the Korean
Peninsula.
The squabbling Iraqi opposition groups cultivated
by the United States are sneered at even by their
American paymasters, discredited because of their
links to Israel, and most unlikely to form a
stable regime. Whatever Iraqi general the US puts
in power in Baghdad will, like all his
predecessors, battle the rebellious Kurds, yearn
to annex Kuwait, and inevitably seek nuclear
weapons to counter Israel's nuclear arsenal and
Iran's advantage in manpower. Iraq will be Iraq,
no matter who rules. The best way to end the
Mideast's WMD arms race is to impose regional
disarmament. This includes Israel, which continues
to refuse nuclear arms inspection
However brutal and aggressive, Saddam Hussein has
also been Iraq's most effective ruler since 1957.
It was Saddam who transformed Iraq into a modern,
industrialized nation with one of the Arab world's
highest standards of education and income.
Washington could yet rue the day it failed to keep
this Arab Stalin in power.
America may seize and exploit Iraq's oil in the
short term, as neo-imperialists in Washington are
urging, but in the long run, the cost of
protecting oil installations and a puppet regime
in Baghdad will exceed profits gained from pumping
stolen oil. Bush is wrong if he thinks Iraq can be
turned into another docile American protectorate,
like Kuwait or Bahrain.
The Muslim world increasingly views George Bush's
America as set on a crusade against Muslims
everywhere, a view reinforced by U.S. attacks on
Libya, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Somalia, Sudan,
and Afghanistan over past two decades.
There is simply no political benefit for the
United States in invading Iraq.
On the contrary, such an act of brazen aggression
would summon up a host of unforeseen dangers and
unimagined consequences that could destabilize the
Mideast and Turkey, create a world economic
crisis, and, perhaps, cause the aggressive Bush
Administration to commit an act of imperial
overreach that permanently injures America's
geopolitical interests and, let us not forget, its
moral integrity.
[Eric Margolis is a syndicated foreign affairs columnist and broadcaster, and
author of War at the Top of
the World - The Struggle for Afghanistan, Kashmir, and Tibet which was reviewed in
The Economist, May 13, 2000]
Copyright © 2002 Eric Margolis - All Rights
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