FOR A FREE AND DEMOCRATIC IRAQ

By Emma Bonino Reprint | | Print |

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CAIRO, Dec 1 2003 (IPS) - Certain that they had won the war in Iraq almost without fighting, the Americans now seem to be mired in a \’\’peace\’\’ for which they clearly failed to devise a strategy or a plan, writes Emma Bonino, Emma Bonino, member of the Transnational Radical Party and deputy in the European Parliament. In this article Bonino writes asks, Is it really wrong to have gone in to and remain in Iraq? Today, to be \’\’pacifist\’\’ is to pursue the cynical, wait-and-see policy of those who say, \’\’After all, the Americans got what they were looking for.\’\’ Many have raised the spectre of the Vietnam syndrome, but today the greatest risk is not \’\’Vietnam syndrome\’\’ but the \’\’get-out-of-Vietnam syndrome\’\’. We must do everything possible, whatever our past positions might have been, to make sure that the efforts now underway in Iraq are successful. If the current state of affairs is to be corrected, everyone, beginning with the European countries, must put aside the wait-and- see politics and do everything possible to make Arab countries participate in the reconstruction, whose populations, regardless of the rhetoric of the ruling class, are finally beginning to ask themselves the right questions about terrorism, particularly after the attacks in Riyadh, Casablanca, and Istanbul.

Certain that they had won the war in Iraq almost without fighting, the Americans now seem to be mired in a ”peace” for which they clearly failed to devise a strategy or a plan. Should they then be left to work it out alone, as so many candid voices and a few old foxes of European politics would have it? Is it really wrong to have gone in to and remain in Iraq? Let’s start by saying that there is one less dictator in the world. Despite Saddam Hussein’s residual ability to do harm, the Iraqi people are free of him, and the majority of them, according to the polls, support the continued presence in the country of US troops, whom they instinctively trust more than the thugs of Saddam. Today, to be ”pacifist” is to pursue the cynical, wait-and-see policy of those who say, ”After all, the Americans got what they were looking for.” Many have raised the spectre of the Vietnam syndrome, but today the greatest risk is not ”Vietnam syndrome” but the ”get-out-of-Vietnam syndrome”. Part of this has to do with the upcoming US elections and the barely-hidden desire of certain European countries to see Bush defeated. However, the worst scenario would be a replay of the events that followed the Paris Accords of 1973, when the Americans decided to get out, sending the peace movement into paroxysms of joy. The government of the South, minimally representative and discredited in the eyes of even its ally the US, failed to win congressional approval for aid to enforce the agreement and was invaded by North Vietnam just two years later in 1975. That same year Pol Pot took over Cambodia, which had been run until then by a pro-American regime. The result: 20 years of horror and oppression for the region, from which it is still trying to free itself with great difficulty, after the deaths of millions. It’s true that the Americans think their supremacy should be based essentially on military strength. But given the challenges of our day, this is pure illusion, which fuels Washington’s skyrocketing military spending. Then there is the idea that the Iraqi problem could be reduced to a solely military question — another illusion. Indeed, it is unlikely that there is any problem that preventive military action alone could resolve. If the current state of affairs is to be corrected, everyone, beginning with the European countries, must put aside the wait-and- see politics that has characterised them up until now. What we must demand of Europe is to get involved and above all to stay involved. We must do everything possible to make Arab countries participate in the reconstruction, whose populations, regardless of the rhetoric of the ruling class, are finally beginning to ask themselves the right questions about terrorism, particularly after the attacks in Riyadh on May 12, Casablanca, Riyadh again, and Istanbul. In short, we must do everything possible, whatever our past positions might have been, to make sure that the fforts now underway in Iraq are successful. We radicals, for example, took a position that did not prevail; the approach we advocated was not adopted by either Italy, the government, or the opposition, nor was it embraced publicly as an explicit political initiative by the so-called international community. Our position was ”A free and democratic Iraq” — and so it remains. It wasn’t forced exile for Saddam Hussein. The challenge was to create conditions that made it more attractive even for Saddam Hussein to leave the country rather than die beneath the bombs. Our proposal was not something drawn out of thin air; rather it is exactly what happened recently in Liberia, where the will of the international community and the help of the special tribunal for Sierra Leone forced the dictator to pack his bags. It is an approach that can be tried again even today, immediately, recognising that there still exists a state of conflict that can be ended with a formula that would include offering exile for Saddam Hussein. As for democracy, it seems a taboo topic in Europe, not for us, of course, but for ”the others”, our foreign policy, and our trade policy. It seems that only Bush is talking about it, notwithstanding the enormous contradictions of American politics, and US policy regarding the International Criminal Court, multilateral trade talks, and the environment. Bush did well, for example, to state that Islam is perfectly compatible with democracy. We should demonstrate this concretely by encouraging in particular the democratic nuclei throughout the Middle East that are fighting for democracy. The problem is not ”exporting democracy” but making it take root in certain Arab countries. This may be the most complicated step to take, but in reality, at times it is enough to sustain what is there before our eyes but that we don’t want to see. And it would be enough if we all believed ourselves instead of thinking that it is only an American utopianism. It isn’t, and this is the key to ”winning the peace” in Iraq and in the Middle East. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)