London, 13th October 2002
Bismillaahirrahmaanirrahiim.
Assalamu'alaikum wr wbr.
THE TRUE MOTIVES BEHIND THE IMPENDING WAR ON IRAQ
Hizb ut-Tahrir
London - GREAT BRITAIN.
THE TRUE AND REAL MOTIVES BEHIND THE IMPENDING WAR ON IRAQ
On the anniversary of the start of the U.US. war in Afghanistan, in Cincinnati, Ohio, George Bush delivered a speech attempting to string together a convincing argument to launch a war against Iraq. In unison British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw was also on a tour of the Middle East and Persian Gulf, discussing with Saddam's neighbours the possibilities of an upcoming war.
Despite the numerous attempts that the British and American governments are putting forward, it should be clear that this will be a colonial war based on furthering their strategic, political and economic interests.By reviewing the arguments that are put forward to provide a rationale to attack Iraq their absurdity becomes apparent. This should prompt us to scrutinise the true and real motives behind this impending war. The following are some of the key reasons for going to war with Iraq that have been outlined by Bush and Blair:
1. The first claim made about Iraq is that it is in material breach of numerous UN resolutions. George Bush in his address to the UN General Assembly on 12 September went through a painstaking review of all the resolutions that Saddam had broken. The problem with going down this path is that other countries notably India and Israel have also put the proverbial V sign up to UN resolutions, yet there is no sense that Tel Aviv or New Delhi are being warmed up for an imminent attack. The concept of double standards gives too much credence to Western leaders as it assumes they have some belief in the concept of International law in the first place, they simply don't. Conformity with International law only occurs when it coincides with national interests. The simple fact of five permanent members having a veto in an institution which is designed to represent democracy and the norms of international law would be laughable if it wasn't so serious.
2. The second claim made about Iraq is that it should be attacked because it has weapons of mass destruction (WMD's). Well taking that logic a lot of countries have WMD's including the countries, which want to do the attacking. So obviously this cannot be the real reason. Bush said in his recent speech, "Iraq's weapons of mass destruction are controlled by a murderous tyrant, who has already used chemical weapons to kill thousands of people." Yet Bush's predecessors in the Whitehouse also used nuclear bombs and chemical weapons, in Japan and Vietnam to name a few, needless to say these killed hundreds of thousands of people.
3. The third claim is that Saddam is a monster, a real brutal dictator who terrorises his own people and therefore needs to be removed. The retort to the argument that it was the West who armed and befriended Saddam in the 80's is met with disdain. According to Bill Clinton's view the West has some moral duty therefore to cleanse the swamp it has itself created. There wouldn't be a problem with this argument if the West just came out and said that dealing with nasty and brutal dictators really did depend on one's political interests rather that this farce of pretending in some way that they have empathy and sympathy with the people who live under these dictators. Madeline Albright when asked a few years ago on US television whether the death of 500,000 Iraqi children as a result of UN sanctions was a price worth paying, she replied 'Yes I believe it was a price worth paying'. The real acid test on whether the West conforms to this doctrine of an ethical foreign policy is to look at the West's current allies in the 'War on Terror'. This reveals several unsavoury people like Islam Karimov the butcher of Tashkent who routinely kills and imprisons his political opponents. While Baghdad anticipates the imminent prospects of cruise missiles, F16's and carpet bombing Tashkent expects with bated breath, bumper US aid packages, more IMF loans and further encouragement in its crackdown on Islamic groups.
4. The fourth claim is that Saddam Hussein is a special case in that he has a track record of using his WMD's on his own citizens as well as previous experience of invading his neighbours. However the use of WMD's and invading other countries is not confined to Saddam and the same accusation can be legitimately applied at the US, Britain or Israel . So in need of a convincing argument Britain and America prophesise that Iraq could develop nuclear weapons within months and then pass these over to groups such as Al Qaeda. This latter argument gives rise to the new neo conservative thinking within the Bush White House which states that pre-emption is a perfectly acceptable political and military doctrine especially after 9/11 which they say has changed the international and security landscape.The advocators of this doctrine or as some have described the real 'axis of evil' are Defence Secretary Rumsfeld, Vice President Cheney and Deputy Defence Secretary Wolfowitz. They believe in the absolute superiority of the United States and the fact that multilateral and international Institutions such as the UN are constraints on the US acting in her own national interests. Consequently they believe a pre-emptive attack on Iraq is not only justified but imperative. No wonder that even European diplomats believe that the lunatics have now taken over the asylum. The issue with pre-emption as many have pointed out is that it can only be carried out it seems by the United States or its allies. Under similar circumstances a Syrian and Egyptian attack on Israel would equally be justified. Israel has WMD's, has invaded its neighbours and remains a menace, violates international law and conventions, oppresses its own people and is led by a brutal leader who has been implicated in war crimes. This argument also conveniently ignores the fact that Iraq's past aggressions have not only be done with the West looking on but have been done with the latter's tacit approval. The Iraqi president has no track record of acting alone as even the invasion of Kuwait shows, where the US ambassador's wink and nod were well understood.
WHAT ARE THE REAL REASONS FOR A WAR ON IRAQ THAT THE WEST WANTS TO AVOID TALKING ABOUT?
So what are the real reasons for a war on Iraq that the West wants to avoid talking about. Many have mentioned oil, and this is obviously a key rationale. The Bush Cabinet including Bush himself have extensive personal and political interests in the Oil sector. VP Cheney was CEO of Haliburton who were responsible in actually building the damaged oil fields of Iraq after the UN relaxed some of the sanctions in 1998, yet Cheney now calls Saddam Hussein 'the world's worst leader'. Presumably after the next round of bombing, Haliburton will once again be in pole position to provide their services to a post Saddam Iraq. The oil and gas industry more and less own Washington these days and have pumped about $50m to political candidates since the 2000 election. More than that America views oil not simply just as an economic commodity but a strategic necessity due to the effect oil and its price has on trade and commerce. The US has been seeking numerous ways to diversify its oil supplies away from its reliance on Saudi Arabia and has been wooing other countries such as Nigeria, Angola and Russia in this context. The control of Iraqi oil would therefore not only fill a strategic gap but would act as an alternative to an increasing erratic and volatile Saudi regime. It wasn't without reason that a US official in the Commerce department last week speaking in Warsaw said that a by-product of a new gulf war would be cheaper oil for the world markets.
However, this is simply not only about oil, the last Gulf war was a successful marketing campaign for US defence contractors. If we were talking about a third world country corruption would immediately spring to mind when reviewing the closeness of the relationships between the defence industry and successive US Governments. Mr Rumsfeld's oldest friend is a man called Frank Carlucci, a former defence secretary himself who now heads the Carlyle Group, an investment consortium which has a big interest in the contracting firm United Defence. Carlyle's board includes George Bush Senior and James Baker. One programme alone, the Crusader artillery system, has earned Carlyle more than $2bn in advance contracts. Oil and defence contracts may be the tangible morsels but the neo conservatives who now control the west wing dictate that the US has 'for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security'. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein. This has been a plan for successive US administrations since the second world war and a successful invasion of Iraq with the inevitable restructuring of institutions and personnel are the key enablers to do this.
The West having imposed its puppet in Afghanistan now wants to impose an Iraqi Hamid Karzai. One of the key individuals being mentioned is a man called General Nizar Al-Khazraji, who according to many Human Rights groups;was the field commander who launched the chemical attack on Halabjah in 1988. However this use of the 'world's worst weapons' doesn't stop David Mack a senior official in the US State department arguing that Khazraji 'enjoys a good military reputation' and 'the right ingredients' as a future leader in Iraq. A second man is Brigadier General Najib Al Salihi who played a significant role in Iraq's putting down of an uprising after the end of the last Gulf war, which led to 1.5m people fleeing their home, while Salihi wrote a book about how he effectively crushed the rebellion. Salihi defected in 1995 and now heads the CIA sponsored Iraq Free Officers Movement. The third individual is Ahmad Chalabi who first came to international attention not for his political opposition to Saddam but because of his fleeing to London from Jordan after allegations that he embezzled funds from a bank he used to own, allegations which later led to a trial in his absence in 1992 sentencing him to a 32 year sentence, Chalabi is viewed in Jordan in the same way as Robert Maxwell is remembered in the UK.
Consequently what glorious replacements the West have for the people of Iraq, convicted embezzlers, accused war criminals and CIA stooges. Yet this is the vision that is being sold to all of us by Messrs Bush and Blair. Are British and American soldiers really going to their deaths in the hot deserts of the Gulf for the sake of US hegemony, oil, defence contracts and the establishment of a discredited and corrupt Iraqi Hamid Karzai? They should remember what they got last time, the restoration of a corrupt Emir in Kuwait, the death of many of their colleagues and painfully for many of them a disease nicknamed Gulf war syndrome, something they have yet nearly 12 years on still not received recognition for, never mind any real compensation. Are European citizens really going to accept this new America Roman empire and its new imperialism who will not only cause misery for themselves but for the entire world?
The Islamic ideology provides the only real alternative to the capitalist dominated world we live in today. Islam provides both solutions that address the spiritual and political voids in society. In contrast to the materialistic centric approach of foreign policy, Islam seeks simply to spread its ideas and system so that the injustices of human inspired legislation is removed. The Islamic ideology has spawned a great civilisation, which was implemented and led the world for centuries. It excelled in scientific achievement and advancement while Western Europe decayed during the dark ages. Not without reason that Christians fought alongside Muslims against the crusaders in the 11th and 12th centuries because they believed in the superiority of living under the Islamic State something confirmed by thousands of Jews three centuries later who having been banished after the Spanish Inquisition left for the sanctuary of the Islamic State. This is because the Islamic State applied to the letter of the law the Prophet of Islam's statement
'Whoever harms a dhimmi (non-Muslim citizen) harms me'. Look at the history of Palestine under Islam and compare it to when it was ruled by the Crusaders and now by the Zionists.
The Islamic State, the Khilafah is an obligation on all Muslims to establish, we also seek regime change in the Muslim world but not for materialistic reasons but to bring about the Islamic political system. The establishment of the Islamic State will not be the West's biggest nightmare, it will be a beacon of light for the oppressed peoples of the world including those millions who suffer in silence in the West. What the Islamic State will however not rest in doing is to rid the world of the corrupt system of Capitalism, a system which has no humility, humanity or compassion and whose foreign policy treats the world and its inhabitants as mere cattle fodder.
Allah (swt) says in the Quran,
"Hold fast to the rope of Allah and do not be divided". [TMQ Al-Imran:103]
As Muslims we should hold fast to the rope of the Quran, not to the rope of the British or American Government, or to the rope of the UN, not to the rope of the Arab league, or to the rope of the latest opinion poll or public opinion survey but to the time honoured and eternally proved words of Allah (swt). Muslims in Britain must rise to this challenge and expose this colonialist war, demonstrating through it that the capitalist system continues to be a bankrupt ideology for mankind and that the only viable alternative remains the Islamic political system, the Khilafah.
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Wassalam.
Hizb ut-Tahrir
Britain
9th October 2002
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