Nothing Has Changed In Iraq: Still Plunged Into
Devastating Wars
28 February 2010
By Khairallah Khairallah
Perhaps the only meaningful statement in the testimony
of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair in front
of a committee investigating the war on Iraq, is the
one that disclosed that the U.S. wanted in 2003 the
elimination of Saddam Hussein's family-Baathist
regime.
All Blair did, to summarize his testimony before the
committee, is become "convinced" of the viewpoint of
the Americans and practically comply with their
desires that see the justifications for war as not
important as long as the aim is set in advance.
There was indeed a justification to get rid of a
regime that plunged Iraq into three devastating wars.
The first with Iran, the second with the international
community after committing the crime of invading
Kuwait and the third with the United States and its
allies, who in 2003 found the right opportunity to
finish off an important Arab state and turn it into a
state with a lost identity.
Saddam's regime did not cause the third war, but did
everything to facilitate it; starting by ignoring the
regional and international realities to the extreme
and its lack of knowledge of the importance of the
balance of power in relations between states. All of
the justifications put forward by Blair to justify war
that are meaningful and are not based on facts or
legitimacy. This is why Clare Short, who was a cabinet
minister in his government at the time, was pushed to
describe him as "a liar" in her statement a few days
about the circumstances of Britain's decision to
participate in the war on Iraq.
It is no longer important what Blair says to the
people of the region. It may be important for the
British alone, especially since some of them are still
looking for the truth and for the reasons for killing
so many soldiers and the loss of billions of pounds
without achieving significant results, other than Tony
Blair's slogans, such as the invasion of Iraq "made
the world safer." Was Saddam Hussein in the last years
a threat to anyone but the Iraqis?
All that took place is that the former British Prime
Minister, who remained in power between 1997 and 2007,
participated in redrawing the map of the Middle East
and changed the balance of power in favour of Iran,
directly, and Israel, indirectly. Perhaps the most
important feature of today's Iraq is that it is a
country with an uncertain future, controlled by
sectarian parties whose first loyalty, to varying
degrees, is to Iran, on one side and the Kurdish
parties, who knew very well how to serve their own
interests, on the other side.
The Kurds seem to limit their concerns to work to
build an independent state in Kurdistan, when
conditions permit. The Kurds are currently moving in a
manner that indicates a great political maturity. They
have benefited and are benefiting from a unified Iraq
to the greatest extent, in the absence of objective
conditions that would allow them to create their own
state which they are building brick by brick.
Today, Iraq is a wide geographical area with huge oil
wealth. But it is also a "square" used as a platform
to destroy the Arab region by launching sectarian
impulses. If not, how can a ruling of the called
"Accountability and Justice" committee prevent some
five hundred people from standing for representatives
election set to be held in the seventh of March?
The committee based its ruling on "de-Baathification"
law, which was approved during the reign of the U.S.
viceroy Paul Bremer in Iraq post-occupation. It is
true that the committee retreated from its decision
and left the election legitimacy of those wishing to
run to be determined at a later stage. But it is also
true that the decision to prevent certain people
belonging to the Baath party to run or casting doubt
on their legitimacy even if they win the elections,
provoke sectarian impulses.
At least this is what is said by many ordinary Iraqis
with a minimum sense of political awareness on the
interpretation of the ruling of "Accountability and
Justice." There are Iraqi politicians who go further
than this when they say that the sectarian parties
want to simply put their hands once and for all on
Iraq, backed by Iran. De-Baathification is not
required as much as is the need to marginalize the
Sunni Arabs, once and for all. This view is also
shared by Shiite Arabs who believe that the root of
sectarian strife should be eliminated, and not Sunni
Arabs.
Perhaps the best answer to Blair and his claim that
the world "has become safer," is a question of five
words: "Has anything changed in Iraq?" Nothing has
changed at all.
In 2010, targeting political parties was done in the
same manner of Ba'ath. The Ba'ath's Revolutionary
Commanding Council in March 1980 passed a law on the
"prohibition" of Dawa party of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
Perhaps the difference is that the there are no mass
executions these days, especially since the U.S.
military is still present in its bases inside Iraq.
The case becomes to retaliate against a vulnerable
person here or there, who has no clan protected like
Mr. Tariq Aziz, whose only fault was to be a Christian
and he responded early to Iran, which tried to
assassinate him in 1980 before the start of the war
between the two countries as a symbol of a particular
regime that allows him to be a Christian and a
minister. That the treatment of Tariq Aziz in prison,
especially after suffering a stroke and was taken to a
US hospital, does not bode well. It indicates a
malicious manner in dealing with a man who did not
have any power at decision-making levels, as a desire
for revenge Saddam's way, no more.
Nothing has changed in Iraq. The only new thing is
Iranian influence is confirmed by the broad treatment
of Tariq Aziz. This transaction is an integral part of
the process of displacement of Iraq's Christians from
their homes and their land and to emphasize that they
no longer have a place in "Democratic" Iraq.
Tony Blair can say what he wants. He will not go to
jail because of what he did in Iraq. Britain is truly
democratic. The only thing certain is that all Arabs
must realize that the region had entered a new stage
and the big question: What will happen when the U.S.
withdrawal later this year, as promised by President
Obama?
Add Comments