[Peace-discuss] Tribune op-ed - Likudniks and the War

[David Green]

This op-ed was printed in the Tribune today. On the
one hand, it raises the issues in a straightforward
way. On the other hand, I don't agree with his
perspective that a war against Iraq is driven more by
Israeli than by U.S. interests. It's important to
understand why Israeli interests have been
subordinated to U.S. interests. While the article is
welcome, it also leaves opponents of war open to
charges of conspiracy theorizing, such as was made by
Bill Keller in Saturday's NY Times. We need to stress
that the war is not a conspiracy of Israeli or Jewish
interests. It is driven by those who see Israeli goals
as subordinate to those of the American Empire.

OK, President Bush, What If . . . ?

By Fred M. Donner. Fred M. Donner is a professor in
the department of Near Eastern Languages and
Literature at the University of Chicago
Published March 10, 2003

The Bush administration paints a rosy scenario for the
upcoming war against Iraq. It is a vision deriving
from Likud-oriented members of the president's
team--particularly Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz and
Douglas Feith. All of them penned, in the early and
mid-1990s, memoranda describing why Saddam Hussein had
to go and how, thereafter, the rest of the Middle East
could be politically re-engineered to make it more
"Israel-friendly." Perle, along with Feith and others,
authored the "Clean Break" memorandum submitted to
Likud's Prime-Minister-elect Benjamin Netanyahu in
1996 (in which the drafters use phrases like "We in
Israel ...", so why is he serving in a high position
in an American administration?). Perle recently
explained to Arab journalists how the toppling of
Saddam Hussein in Iraq will be only the first step in
a long series of regime changes that will purge the
Middle East of all Israel's enemies: the governments
of Syria, Iran, Libya and others.

Missing from the Likudniks' scheme is any
consideration that things might not go as planned. Yet
as everyone knows, where war is involved, events
almost never go as planned. Before the U.S. embarks on
this war, which is mainly in Likud's interest rather
than our own, we owe it to ourselves as Americans to
consider some of the things that might go
wrong--because it is the U.S. that will have to deal
with such things, if they happen. We, after all, are
choosing to start this war.

Let us begin with the attack on Iraq itself. I do not
doubt that U.S. forces can quickly overwhelm Iraq's
regular forces. But suppose that the Pentagon's "Shock
and Awe" campaign causes gargantuan civilian
casualties in Baghdad, and pictures of dead children
and mothers air on the evening news? Might not
revulsion at our premeditated overkill seriously
undermine domestic support for the war, and earn us
universal condemnation abroad?

What if, contrary to the Likudniks' fantasies, Iraqis
do not welcome the U.S. forces as "liberators," but
rather see us mainly as enemy occupiers and the
architects of "Shock and Awe?" As the hated foreigners
whose sanctions over the past 10 years have
impoverished everyone and killed about 500,000 Iraqi
civilians? As the same enemy who, in the 1991 war,
slaughtered 100,000 retreating Iraqi soldiers? This is
a lot of grieving families. Even removing the hated
Hussein will not exonerate us of those crimes in their
eyes.

What if Baghdad becomes not the placid seat of a model
Arab democracy, but a lethal quagmire of sniping and
booby-traps and seat of a Draconian American military
government? What if no unified Iraqi opposition
materializes--none has materialized yet--to take over
post-Hussein Iraq? What if, in response to Kurdish
noises about independence, the Turkish army invades
northern Iraq to quash it? What if Iran, seeing us
pinned down in Iraq, and tiring of it, moves to annex
the oil-rich Shiite provinces of southeastern Iraq
(perhaps by orchestrating popular support for it)?
Will we be willing to dispatch another quarter-million
American soldiers to pacify a fragmented Iraq
spiraling toward civil war? Our record in Bosnia,
Somalia and Afghanistan does not give much cause for
optimism on this score: Our government seems to be
much more enthusiastic about military intervention
than about the peace-keeping that must follow.

What if the Likud government in Israel uses the
distraction of an American war on Iraq to implement
its long-cherished dream of expelling all Palestinians
from the West Bank and Gaza? (This is not unlikely: A
memo circulated last fall by a long list of Israeli
academicians warned that the Ariel Sharon government
was contemplating just this.) Will the U.S. let this
ethnic cleansing of Palestinians happen? What troops
would we use to stop it? Suppose opposition to the war
or to Israeli expansionism in Palestine causes the
fall of Middle Eastern governments generally friendly
to us--Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey--and their
replacement by overtly hostile regimes? Will the U.S.
be willing, and able, to dispatch additional forces to
restore the situation in such places, and with what
claim to legitimacy? Despite Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumfeld's braggadocio, it is easy to see how we
could become overextended militarily. What if China is
tempted to follow Israel's lead, exploiting our
preoccupation with Iraq to retake Taiwan? What if
Pakistan or India--both nuclear powers--is tempted by
our inattention to push its claim in Kashmir?

Of course, none of these things may actually happen.
But any of them could happen if we open this Pandora's
box, and we need to have a clear sense of their
likelihood and how to deal with them if they arise.
Unfortunately, President Bush seems to prefer denial,
for he has offered no hint that he is even aware of
them. He prefers the Likud's rose-colored glasses.


Copyright © 2003, Chicago Tribune 


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