The British foreign policy establishment has always seen “their role in the world as being dependent of their alliance with the U.S.,” Rees said.

By Mustafa Abdel-Halim, IOL Staff

CAIRO, May 13 (IslamOnline.net) – With his vociferous criticism and sound opinions, Stop the War Coalition leader John Rees remains as adamant as he was before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, something he made the case against; to no avail.

“I think that very many people in Britain still believe, as they did before, that war against Iraq is illegal and unjustified and that occupation should be ended as fast as possible,” Rees said in an exclusive interview with IslamOnline.net.

“Amazingly, there are now public meetings in every town and city as big other rallies before the war began,” he said, in a tone as vigorous and challenging that the battle is still on and the winner is not yet installed.

Having gambled his political future on the war against Iraq, Rees said British Prime Minister Tony Blair now faces what comes of Pandora’s box.

“His Labor lost 800 seats in local government to political parties or organizations who are opposed to war,” Rees said shortly after Blair’s Aid Secretary Clare Short tendered her resignation, putting the number to three of ministers who resigned protesting his stance in the crisis.

Short was surprised that Blair centralized Britain’s political power into his hands with an increasing obsession for a place in history, Rees was not, given his conviction that the prime minister has already destroyed his legacy.

The British foreign policy establishment has always seen “their role in the world as being dependent of their alliance with the U.S.,” he said.

“They want the oil, they want to redraw the map of the Middle East to fit the interests of corporate America and its military structures,” Rees averred, asserting that what the U.S. and Britain do in the region could not be understood without such a motivation.

More Terror

Asked how far Britons are sympathetic with the Palestinian cause, Rees said that “sympathizers towards the Palestinians surpassed in numbers those siding with Israel,” for the first time according to opinion polls shortly conducted before the U.S.-led war on Iraq.

A British youth has recently blown himself up in a Tel Aviv seafront night club and his alleged accomplice, also British Muslim, was on the run after he failed to set off his explosives.

Rees said the attack came as a result of “barbaric policies of the British government.”

“The British government’s alienation of some people in their own societies to the degree that they are willing to sacrifice for their lives for these headquarters,” he mused, refusing there are 50 other Britons ready to carry out similar attacks against Iraqi targets.

“The attack on Iraq will undoubtedly produce more terrorism. The Iraqis will of course respond with more car bombs and suicide attacks to the occupation,” Rees warned.

He sent his message as clear to the U.S. and British forces; “End occupation. Get out of the Arab country.”

As far as Britain is concerned, the British activist found the only way to put this message into motion is exercising political pressures at local elections.

“Bush and Blair are one of the most unpleasant colonialists since the Victorian era,” Rees said, adding as Washington and London are very close, the anti-war movements in the two countries are no much lesser.

Rees, who doubles as a political researcher, said that demonstrations against the Iraq invasion that drew millions in the two countries would also be directed to spot light on other issues significantly important on the global scene as democracy promotion, imperialism.

“Collapsing”

“Bush and Blair are one of the most unpleasant colonialists since the Victorian era,” Rees said

Nevertheless, Rees argued that the Iraqi crisis could not have been solved peacefully, asserting the change should have come from within by Iraqis themselves.

He highlighted, in this respect, “the opposition of the Iraqi people who demonstrated against the U.S. military presence one day after they celebrated the pulling down of Saddam Statue,” on Wednesday, April 9.

The peace activist downplayed the effect of the media on people as to the Anglo-American occupation of Iraq.

“They may be widely-circulated with a lot of misconceptions, but not widely-believed especially on this issue.”

But Stop the War coalition now faces a ferocious media war, of which prominent anti-war lawmaker George Galloway was the first victim.

Ostensibly based on documents reportedly found in Iraq, allegations were circulated that Galloway was on Saddam’ s payroll, claims Galloway vehemently repudiated.

The British ruling Labor party announced Tuesday, May 6, it had suspended Galloway, a key member of the Stop the war Coalition, from holding office allegedly for urging Arab countries to fight the Anglo-American forces in Iraq.

“But the case against Galloway is already collapsing,” Rees said, citing press reports that the Iraqi who handed out documents incriminating Galloway to the press was caught while giving forgeries to the Daily Mail newspaper.

In an earlier exclusive interview with IslamOnline.net on December 20, Galloway asked the Arab public opinion to stand up before another puppet president or corrupt king is installed in Iraq, cautioning that the wealth of Iraq will be devoured by foreign governments.

Obviously, the group’s goals continue unabated despite these disparaging attacks, with the likes of insistent and durable Rees.

It now holds rallies, meetings and teach-ins to discuss the aftermath of war, the future of “war on terror” and where the anti-war movements is going on.

May 17 is now marking the Free Palestine National Rally, another issue the group takes at its back.

“I expect the Middle East peace process to collapse as other peace processes have done, because (Israeli Prime Minister),” would not accept it, Rees said, adding that the Jewish state would even pull the rag on the U.S-designed roadmap to peace.

“They will use the excuses of suicide bombings along with other reasons not to go through it. And America has never shown any real leverage over Israel,” he stressed.

The roadmap envisions the establishment of a Palestinian state to exists side by side with a secure Israel, but the Jewish state presented 15 reservations to it against a clear-cut Palestinian acceptance of the blueprint.