At the conclusion of the Arab League Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Cairo, September 4, its Secretary General Amr Moussa, warned the Bush administration that if it carried out its threat to invade Iraq, “the gates of Hell” would open in the region.

The Arab League may claim to be the umbrella organization of all 22 of the Arab states, but its voice in world affairs can hardly be heard. It carries no weight in major chancelleries of the world. It is, therefore, highly unlikely that Amr Moussa’s categorical warning will have much of an impact on the war lobby that is working overdrive in Washington under Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld.

Although the Arab League may seem invisible to Washington’s warmongers, open opposition to the Bush administration’s increasingly bellicose rhetoric on Iraq is escalating around the world.

Canada’s prime minister, Jean Chretien, is skeptical of Bush’s intent to violate the sovereignty of a state on mere suspicion that it is making weapons of mass destruction. It questions the wisdom of a belligerent mentality now holding Washington in its thrall.

Western Europe is pouring scorn on the Bush designs of war and its open contempt for the UN mechanism of enforcing peace and peacekeeping. France’s Chirac and Germany’s Schroeder have expressed total opposition to Bush’s unilateralist stand. Schroeder, facing general elections in Germany, has threatened to pull out Germany’s elite chemical analysis unit based in Kuwait in the event of a US military invasion of Iraq.

The only exception to the EU defiance of Bush is Britain’s Tony Blair who is undoubtedly bringing ignominy and disrepute to the august office of a British Prime Minister with his unabashed pandering to Bush and his war machine. But Blair’s obsequiousness is prompting revolt and disgust in the ranks of his own Labour Party. He may soon face a challenge to his leadership if he fails to mend his ways.

While Europe may still be distant from America—and it is spiritually a million miles from the Bush administration that has little concern for the outside world—opposition to the Bush bellicosity is emerging within the Republican hard core itself.

The sharpest denunciation so far has come from none other than the Republican, elder statesman, James Baker. Not only was he Secretary of State to Bush Sr. – thus playing a pivotal role in the Gulf War – but he also served as Bush’s key man in the painstaking tussle for the Presidency between Bush and Al Gore. Baker still enjoys an impeccable reputation for honesty and integrity, and his words cannot be dismissed with disdain, unlike the far right hawks around Bush.

Baker warned, without mincing his words, that the Bush proclivity to “go it alone” would cost the US heavily in both diplomatic and political terms. He insisted that there was no alternative to the need to muster another global alliance, like the one he and Bush Sr. assembled before the Gulf War. Failing that, Baker cautioned the foreign policy novice occupying the Oval Office, “the costs in all areas will be much greater, as will the political risks, both domestic and international, if we end up going it alone or with one or two countries.”

Baker also advised Bush of the ineluctable need to take his case (if there is any) against Iraq and Saddam Hussein to the UN, and seek a mandate for whatever action being contemplated against Iraq. Baker then came up with a convoluted argument that - even if Bush failed to receive a mandate from the UN (as is quite likely) - the US would still come out from the exercise holding the “moral high ground.”

It is, however, highly improbable that the warmongers (Bush having given them a free run of Washington’s power apparatus) will be discouraged or daunted from carrying out their threat of war against Iraq. Those surrounding Bush are veterans of bungling activities in the corporate world. These are the people who have made their careers from the violation of laws. They are unlikely to be deterred by opposition to war within the United States and from outside. The military-industrial complex, which has invested so much in people like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, among others, expects them to fulfill their commitments.

In the event of war, it is the military-industrial complex that will reap the richest harvest. It has already accrued bonuses from the war against the Taliban and al-Qa’eda in Afghanistan. However, expectations from war against Iraq are much greater, and so, one surmises, is the incentive.

The Jewish lobbies, which are in perennial pursuit of tailoring every US policy to suit Israel’s expansionist designs in its neighborhood, are on a par with the military-industrial complex and the powerful oil lobby, pushing the Bush administration into top military gear. They have the media—epitomized by the likes of CNN and Fox News—entirely at their disposal to paint a scenario of war in which Israel, much in contrast to the Gulf War situation, will be lock-in-step with the US against Iraq.

This pro-Israeli media has been boasting about Israel’s highly calibrated military juggernaut, and warning Saddam Hussein not to take on an Israel under Ariel Sharon. Of course, this is without even vaguely hinting at Sharon’s past war crimes or his serial-killer nature.

However, there are still some prominent people of conscience left in the US, who have been trying to tell Americans and people worldwide of the shady and highly dubious dealings of these notorious characters drumming up for war on Iraq.

Dick Cheney’s shenanigans as the Chief Executive of Halliburten have already been chronicled. This company, under his watch, did at least 43 million dollars worth of business with Iraq in defiance of the US-insisted sanctions. But a far more vivid account of Rumsfeld’s dealings, with Saddam Hussein in particular, has recently been unveiled in an off-mainstream segment of the media.

Freelance journalist Jeremy Scahill, who reports for Free Speech Radio News and Democracy Now in the US, came into the public eye in May and June of this year with revelations on Rumsfeld. After visiting Iraq, he reported extensively on the suffering of its people under the baneful US-imposed sanctions, now in their 13th year. Scahill wrote a well-researched article for Znet Magazine recently on Rumsfeld’s Iraqi connections under the caption, “The Saddam in Rumsfeld’s Closet.”

According to Scahill’s findings (from US archives), Ronald Reagan sent Rumsfeld as a special envoy to Saddam Hussein at the peak of the Iran-Iraq war in 1983. Rumsfeld’s visit to Baghdad, December 19-20, 1983, was the highest ranking US visit to Iraq in six years.

Rumsfeld was sent to assure Saddam that the US was in his corner of the war against Iran. Just 12 days after his visit, The Washington Post (January 1, 1984) reported that the US “in a shift in policy, has informed friendly Persian Gulf nations that the defeat of Iraq in the 3-year-old war with Iran would be ‘contrary to U.S. interests’ and has made several moves to prevent that result.” These “moves” included the provision to Iraq of US satellite intelligence data on Iran and a blanket approval of whatever military hardware Iraq needed to wage war against Iran.

Rumsfeld was back in Baghdad three months later in March 1984, for meetings with Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz. The day he met Aziz, March 24, the UPI reported from the UN in New York: “Mustard gas laced with a nerve agent has been used on Iranian soldiers in the 43-month Persian Gulf war between Iran and Iraq, a team of UN experts has concluded…”

Prior to the release of the UN report, the US State Department had issued a statement, March 5: “available evidence indicates that Iraq has used lethal chemical weapons.” But Rumsfeld did not give an inkling of this “available evidence.”

It is inconceivable that Rumsfeld, who had full access to US intelligence reports on the warfront, was oblivious to the Iraqi use of chemical weapons. However, he did not say a word on the subject, although he later told The New York Times: “It struck us as useful to have a relationship [with Saddam], given that we were interested in solving the Mideast problems.”

Two years later, when Rumsfeld was nurturing hopes of running for the 1988 Republican Party Presidential nomination, The Chicago Tribune magazine put a feather in Rumsfeld’s cap for helping to “reopen U.S. relations with Iraq.”

It was only when Iraq invaded Kuwait in August, 1990, that Rumsfeld suddenly realized that Saddam was a “dangerous man.” Eight years later, in 1998, at the height of the stand-off between US and Iraq on the issue of UN arms inspectors, Rumsfeld joined the chorus of several other ‘prominent Americans’ to plead with Clinton in a joint letter to eliminate “the threat posed by Saddam… and provide the leadership necessary to save ourselves and the world from the scourge of Saddam and the weapons of mass destruction that he refuses to relinquish.”

With such unprincipled and morally bankrupt people now occupying the center stage in Bush’s administration, Bush is highly unlikely to be dissuaded from the course he has embarked on, emboldened by the frantic prodding of Cheney, Rumsfeld et al. This is despite an emerging backlash of opposition to his plans in the US Congress.

How the Arab world will cope with the Bush belligerence is a very relevant question, but hardly of much concern to many, including the Arabs themselves, given their endemic political paralysis.

Amr Moussa may have said the absolute truth when he warned of the gates of hell opening in the region around Iraq if war was thrust on that country. But it is certain that the powers-that-be opening these gates will have no concern for the fate of millions of people who will be swept in the deluge, nor, for that matter, for the fate that will befall the rulers in debt to the perpetrator of yet another crime against humanity.

Karamatullah Ghori is a Pakistani political analyst and poet. He is a former ambassador of his country to Kuwait, Iraq and Bosnia.

The articles posted on this page reflect solely the opinions of the authors. Views Archive Advanced Search Views & Analyses