Wednesday 5 March 2003

Wolfowitz's America

As the sabre-rattling directed at Iraq reaches fever pitch, Mohamed Hakki wonders what the US administration's plans are for Iraq's beleaguered people

It now seems almost certain that US forces will invade Iraq, despite the fact that the justification remains unclear. All talk to the effect that "the president has not made up his mind" is just that, talk. The decision was already made for him long ago. Much has already been written about the group of advisers formed by Undersecretary of Defence Paul Wolfowitz and their plan, the "Project for the New American Century", which aims at no less than establishing a new world order of uncontested American hegemony. The US, according to this group, must be sure of "deterring any potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role". Thus we have current discussions about the preemptive use of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, "even in conflicts that do not directly engage US interests".

The London Observer tells us that a paper circulated among Wolfowitz's group said that what was needed for the US to move towards assuming this position was "some catastrophic and catalysing event, like a new Pearl Harbor". The document also noted that while the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides an immediate justification for intervention in the region, the need for a substantial American military presence in the Gulf goes beyond the matter of regime change in Baghdad.

Now, in the final hours before the most horrible of human calamities is unleashed -- not against Saddam Hussein, but against the Iraqi people -- Bush's administration is telling us that it is contemplating what to do aprés Saddam. One would have thought someone in the administration would have meticulously thought through questions about what comes next in Iraq before unleashing the most destructive force in history. Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia lamented the other day that "as this nation stands at the brink of battle, every American must be contemplating the horrors of war. Yet, the Senate is for the most part silent -- ominously, dreadfully silent. There is no debate, no discussion, no attempt to lay out for the nation the pros and cons of the war. There is nothing. We stand passively mute, paralysed by our own certainty, seemingly stunned by the sheer turmoil of events."

Finally, at this late stage, during a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, two of the administration's "heavy weights", as they were described by the press, attempted to explain just what the plans are for the Iraqi people. After the destruction of the country's electric power plants, water infrastructure, bridges and factories, and the killing of 500,000 (according to Senator Barbara Boxer's estimate), we will then rebuild Iraq, and liberate it's people.

Full story...

Wolfowitz: The Israeli Zionist Wolf in the Whitehouse