It is no exaggeration to say that the next two to three months could be among the most fateful of any period since the end of World War II. They are months that quite literally could change the world… The consequences of the choices that both George W. Bush and his sworn enemy, Saddam Hussein, must now make are breathtaking to behold. At stake are nothing less than U.S. security in the age of terror, the future of millions of people in Iraq and its neighboring countries, and the fate of the global economy and the financial markets that gauge its health.

- Bill Powell, Fortune magazine¹

USS Kitty Hawk is currently deployed in the Gulf

Despite Iraq’s acceptance of full and unfettered access for UN inspectors and its submission of a detailed, 12,000-page report on its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs, the world continues to follow with anticipation the unfolding drama between Iraq and the United States in the political and diplomatic arenas. In the meantime, the US military buildup in the Middle East continues to intensify, as US warmongering reaches epic proportions. 

The confrontation with Iraq since Desert Storm falls into the analytical category of coercion: the use of threatening force to induce an adversary to behave differently than it otherwise would.² The current political discourse in Washington has focused almost exclusively on the use of military force, with scant attention given to non-military means. 

The latest figures from US Central Command suggest that 60,000 American troops are already stationed in the Gulf region. A total of 12,000 are in Kuwait – twice as many as there were a few weeks ago. In fact, Kuwait has been converted into a virtual US armed camp, with a total of 1,600 square miles – a quarter of the surface area of the country – taken up by American military personnel and equipment.³ Others are stationed in Qatar to take part in computerized war games, codenamed “Internal Look,” that are thought to be a dry run for the actual war on Iraq.⁴ Despite their initial reservations, both Turkey and Saudi Arabia have recently agreed to allow a US-led coalition to use their airspace.⁵ In addition, two US carrier battle groups are in the region (USS Abraham Lincoln and USS George Washington), currently being joined by three others (USS Constellation, USS Kitty Hawk and USS Harry S. Truman).⁶  

America’s strategic posture was stepped up when the White House issued a new, six-page mission statement, entitled “The National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction,” in which the Bush administration threatened nuclear retaliation against the use of any weapon of mass destruction against the US, its forces abroad, or its friends and allies.⁷ And all this is but a foretaste of what will come if a general deployment order comes from Washington.  

The spectacle of the world’s most powerful military force on the move is likely to be a breathtaking operation. The best estimates of American plans suggest that between 100,000 and 250,000 men will have to be brought in by ship or plane, with heavy equipment and weapons to support a proposed invasion and possible occupation of Iraq – a la Japan and Germany after World War II.⁸  

In addition, Washington has reverted to its traditional strategy of coalition building by promising aid packages to reluctant allies and reassuring traditional ones with aid increases. Recently, there have been White House discussions to provide Turkey with an extra $4 billion in economic aid, and Israel, already the largest recipient of US aid, will also be provided with an extra $4 billion in military assistance, and up to $10 billion in loan guarantees for economic programs.⁹ Furthermore, despite earlier reservations on its human rights record, the Algerian government is being promised more military equipment from the United States to enhance its “terror-fighting” capabilities.¹⁰  

As Western capitals continue to host meetings of Iraqi dissidents to find an “Iraqi Karzai,” and as the diplomatic game unfolds and claims and counter-claims are made from both sides, the “real” aims of the proposed war on Iraq are cast aside. With much evidence suggesting that Iraq’s mass destruction capabilities were destroyed during the 1990s, why is the US persisting in its massive military mobilization and casting aside non-military means to solving the crisis? What are its real motives? Why is Iraq being dealt with so seriously and urgently, whereas dealing with North Korea’s recently exposed and (more advanced) missile and nuclear program is being postponed for the moment? Why does the US reject any Iraqi overture of cooperation with the UN? Does the US need all that firepower for use against a country that is already devastated by sanctions and was previously bombed back to the pre-industrial age?  

The concentration of US troops in the vicinity of Iraq and the massive military buildup accompanying it indicate a grand design – a full-scale American effort to redraw the map of the Middle East and change the course of regional and international politics to its favor.  

The Fallacy - Iraq Possesses Weapons of Mass Destruction 

Iraq’s acceptance of UN resolution 1441 and its cooperation with the UN dealt a blow to American diplomacy and the legitimacy of Washington’s war-making efforts. In private, administration officials concede that there is no single piece of intelligence that can undermine the Iraqi declarations.¹¹ Instead, there are only patterns of Iraqi purchases and scattered reports from defectors. 

The US strategy of exaggerating Iraqi threats to justify military action is not a recent phenomenon. Months before the 1991 Gulf War, President Bush inflated Iraq’s nuclear potential to mobilize public support for a war in the Gulf.¹² On November 22, 1990 President George Bush told US troops in Saudi Arabia that Iraq was a lot closer to the production of nuclear weapons than widely thought: “Those who would measure the timetable for Saddam's atomic program in years may be seriously underestimating the reality of that situation and the gravity of the threat.”¹³

Just two hours after US warplanes began attacking Iraq on January 16, 1991, President Bush went on national television to report the goals of the assault: “As I report to you, air attacks are under way against military targets in Iraq. We are determined to knock out Saddam Hussein's nuclear bomb potential.” Reports suggested that Iraq’s nuclear potential was years, rather than months, away from materialization when the 1991 Gulf War broke out, and that “the Iraqi nuclear bomb-making capability was so primitive that the international sanctions put in place after the August 2^nd invasion may have had more substantive effect than the tons of bombs dropped by US and allied planes.”¹⁴  

Moreover, recent records show that the UN mission in Iraq during the 1990s was one of the most effective disarmament efforts ever mounted. US Vice President Dick Cheney recently referred to this effort as “the most intrusive system of arms control in history.”¹⁵  

During the 1990s, UNSCOM carried out 272 separate inspection visits, surveying more than 1,000 potential and actual weapons sites and document centers.¹⁶ The IAEA reported in 1997 that there were no indications of Iraq having achieved its goal of producing a nuclear weapon, stating that Iraq had only produced a few grams of weapons-useable nuclear material before its program was dismantled.¹⁷ The UN Special Commission noted in 1997: “There are no indications that any weapons-useable materials remain in Iraq” and “no evidence in Iraq of prohibited material, equipment or activities.”¹⁸ In the field of chemical and biological weapons production, inspectors had supervised the destruction of multiple production facilities and thousands of tons of chemical and biological agents.¹⁹  

The absence of concrete evidence so far creates a far more difficult diplomatic task for Bush. As he insists that Iraq prove a negative – that it no longer possesses the weapons that inspectors found before 1998 – Bush is under pressure to come up with evidence.²⁰ If he fails to do so soon, the US’s coalition-building efforts will falter, the pressure for action will dissipate, and the credibility of America’s military maneuvering will be lost, not only among its Arab allies, but also among other global powers.²¹ Within the US, the state of global uncertainty, rising oil prices and low business investment will cripple the economy. Obviously, time is in Iraq’s favor. 

The Real Aims:  Israel, Oil & Iraq’s Potential for Regional Leadership 

The proposed war has very little to do with weapons of mass destruction. It is part of an ongoing US effort to redraw the map of the Middle East, with an eye on controlling the flow of oil on more favorable terms, ensuring Israel’s continued military superiority, and destroying the remnants of Iraq’s potential for regional leadership. The plan can be considered as ambitious as the 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement between the British and French empires, which carved up the region at the fall of the Ottoman Empire.²²  

The US’s neo-imperial vision can be witnessed in the writings of key US administration officials and members of conservative think tanks, most of whom took part in the drafting of a 1996 report from an Israeli think tank for then-incoming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. They include Richard Perle, now chair of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board; Douglas Feith, Undersecretary of Defense; and David Wurmser, Special Assistant in the State Department.²³ In 1998, these men, joined by Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz (the two top officials in the Pentagon today), Elliot Abrams (a senior National Security Council Director), John Bolton (Undersecretary of State), and 21 others, called for a “determined program to change the regime in Baghdad.”²⁴  

Toppling the current regime in Baghdad and/or occupying Iraq and installing a pro-US puppet regime would enable the US to acquire a military and political base in the heart of the Middle East, from which it would be able to exercise greater leverage on all neighboring countries.²⁵ In addition, it would be in a position to destroy any remaining threat to Israel: namely the regimes in Iran and Syria.  

Iran’s strategic lifeline would be effectively cut off, given the presence of US troops on all its borders: the Gulf, Iraq and Afghanistan. Israel would also be able to pressure Syria into dismantling Hizbullah and accepting an imposed settlement that could lead to the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon.²⁶ Syria would not be in a position to resist, with Israeli troops in the Golan and American troops in Iraq. In such chaotic circumstances, Israel might seek to end the “Palestinian problem” once and for all, by implementing a long-awaited plan, euphemistically called “transfer” by the Israelis. Theodore Herzl, the ideological father of Israel, wrote in his diary in 1895 that the “only way” to have an ethnically pure Jewish state would be to forcefully “transfer” to Jordan all Arabs living in Palestine.²⁷  

Iraq has the second largest proven oil reserves in the world, an estimated 11% of the global total, with 112 billion barrels²⁸ valued at around $3 trillion in current prices.²⁹ At $30 a barrel, that is $145,000 worth of crude oil for every man, woman, and child in Iraq. Iraqi petroleum geologists believe there is at least twice that much in additional reserves still to be confirmed.³⁰  

Any occupation would certainly include protecting petroleum installations. Control of the country’s vast oil reserves would be a huge strategic prize for the US, driving down oil prices to as low as $10 a barrel and possibly undermining the whole OPEC cartel.³¹ Russia, which has recently expressed an enthusiastic interest in becoming the US’s new oil supplier, would serve as a counterweight to Saudi Arabia.³² In fact, many powerful US lobbies want to undermine Saudi Arabia’s leading role in the world petroleum market and reduce its share of world exports. For this reason, “they are promoting oil developments in West Africa, suggesting to Nigeria that it should leave OPEC, encouraging Russian private oil companies to maximize production, and pinning great hopes on the Caspian.”³³  

From the perspective of political geographers of European state formation, two areas in the Arab world can be seen to closely meet the economic, geographic, demographic, administrative, and cultural requirements of “conquest centers” around which great national states could successfully be constructed.³⁴ One area is Lower Egypt, surrounding the Nile Delta and the Nile River Valley. The other is Mesopotamia (now Iraq), centered around the Tigris and Euphrates River.³⁵  

The 1970s and 1980s were an era that saw the buildup of the Iraqi war machine, the growth of Iraqi political influence, and the gradual concentration of power in the hands of Saddam Hussein. This was coupled with rapid industrialization, oil production, mechanization of agriculture, and the expansion of education (Iraq had the highest literacy rate in the Arab World), health and social services.³⁶  

Over the years, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein managed to assemble an army of microbiologists, chemical engineers and nuclear physicists who had received the best education and training in top US, UK, and Soviet universities.³⁷ After the Iran-Iraq war and in light of this amassing of wealth, power and human capital, Iraq became a serious contender for regional leadership – the kind of leadership that could upset the pro-US status quo existing in the region. The 1991 Gulf War and the debilitating sanctions that followed came to destroy the major elements of an Iraqi renaissance. Only one thing remained untouched: Iraqi nuclear scientists.  

Recently, the Bush administration has stepped up pressure on Hans Blix and the United Nations weapons inspection team to identify key Iraqi weapons scientists and spirit them out of Iraq or kidnap them (in defiance of every tenet of international law), so they can be offered asylum in exchange for disclosing where Saddam Hussein is hiding weapons of mass destruction.³⁸ High-level negotiations on the issue became visible when Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's national security adviser, met with Mr. Blix in New York and stressed the issue of interviewing Iraqi scientists.  

The administration is offering to set up a witness protection program for defecting Iraqi scientists, thus enabling a more aggressive approach.³⁹ In the closing days of Congress, the Senate passed the “Iraqi Scientists Immigration Act of 2002.” This bill authorizes the issuance of up to 500 visas for certain Iraqi scientists, engineers, and technicians who worked on weapons of mass destruction programs.⁴⁰  

Conclusions 

The objectives of the proposed war against Iraq, with its military conquest, open-ended occupation and resource acquisition by force, indicate a return to classical imperialism. The war, should it take place, would usher in an unprecedented era in the relationship between the US and the Middle East – an era where Arabs and Muslims are subjected to unparalleled subordination and marginalization in the global system. In the event of war, all considerations of Arab or Islamic national security would be compromised – yet, strangely enough, Arab regimes are cooperating with, rather than resisting, US plans. Unfortunately, the primary victim of the proposed war would be the average Arab or Muslim citizen, who would face a destructured and demoralized world where his/her position is determined by a foreign intruder. 

The United States has now extended its base in Kuwait to nearly a quarter of that state’s territory. There are new bases in the other Gulf monarchies. Bases in Saudi Arabia, once thought of as being temporary, have become permanent. The Afghanistan intervention has left American bases in that country, and in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. 

The “war against terror” has extended American troop presence to Georgia and the Muslim southern Philippines. Washington is envisioning a long military occupation of Iraq. The frontiers of the Islamic World are under siege. 

History has taught us though that marginalization and subordination are recipes for radicalization. One has only to remember that it was mostly Saudis that carried out the September 11 attacks, in revenge for the contamination of Islamic lands and Holy places by US bases. Yet Washington remorselessly expands its military presence in the Islamic world in order to fight the anti-American “terrorism” that its presence causes.⁴¹ No one in the US government seems to see a contradiction in this.

Kareem M. Kamel is an Egyptian freelance writer based in Cairo, Egypt. He has an MA in International Relations and is specialized in security studies, decision-making, nuclear politics, Middle East politics and the politics of Islam. He is currently assistant to the Political Science Department at the American University in Cairo. 

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1 Bill Powell, “Iraq: We Win, Then What?” Fortune November 25^th, 2002

2 Daniel Byman and Matthew Waxman, Confronting Iraq: US Policy and the Use of Force Since the Gulf War (Washington D.C.: RAND, 2000): 5

3 Andrew Gumbel, “Kuwait Becomes an Armed Camp As the US Prepares to Go Back Into Action,” Independent December 10^th, 2002

4 Rupert Cornwell, “Dry Run For War On Saddam Launched in Desert,” Independent December 9^th, 2002

5 John Hendren, “Turks, Saudis Offer to Assist a War on Iraq,” LA Times December 4^th, 2002 

6 Mark Thompson, “Ready To Move In,” Time December 2^nd, 2002

7 “White House Updates Policy on Deterrence,” LA Times December 10^th, 2002

8 Andrew Gumbel, “Kuwait Becomes an Armed Camp As the US Prepares to Go Back Into Action,” Independent December 10^th, 2002

9 John King, “White House Reviewing Israeli Aid Request,” CNN.com November 27^th, 2002

10 Barry James, “US Enlists Algeria in Terror Battle,” International Herald Tribune December 10^th, 2002 

11 David E. Sanger, “Up to Now, No Smoking Missile On Baghdad,” International Herald Tribune December 10^th, 2002

12 David Albright and Mark Hibbs, “Hyping the Iraqi Bomb,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 47 (March 1991)

13 Ibid.

14 David Albright and Mark Hibbs, “Iraq and the Bomb: Were They Even Close?” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 47 (March 1991)

15 David Cortright, et al. “Winning Without War: Sensible Options For Dealing With Iraq,” Sanctions & Security Project of the John B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies: Policy Brief F5 October 2002: 7

16 Ibid.

17 Ibid.

18 Ibid.

19 Ibid.

20 David E. Sanger, “Up To Now, No Smoking Missile on Baghdad,” International Herald Tribune December 10^th, 2002 

21 Fareed Zakaria, “Why It’s Now or Never With Iraq,” Newsweek December 2^nd, 2002

22 Sandy Tolan, “Beyond Regime Change,” LA Times December 1^st, 2002

23 Ibid.

24 Ibid.

25 Robert Mabro, “Iraq and Oil,” OIES Monthly Comment August 2002

26 “There’s a Catch for Israel if the US Strikes Iraq: Report” Islamonline.net August 30^th, 2002

27 John K. Cooley, “In Mideast War Scenarios, Both Roads Lead to Iraq,” The Christian Science Monitor August 22^nd, 2001

28 Warren Vieth, “Oil is Factor in Iraq War Equation,” LA Times October 16^th, 2002

29 Sandy Tolan, “Beyond Regime Change,” LA Times December 1^st, 2002

30 Ibid.

31 Sandy Tolan, “Beyond Regime Change,” LA Times December 1^st, 2002

32 Ibid.

33 Robert Mabro, “Iraq and Oil,” OIES Monthly Comment August 2002

34 Ian S. Lustick, “The Absence of Middle Eastern Great Powers: Political Backwardness in Historical Perspective,” International Organization 51 (1997): 671.

35 Ibid.

36 Ibid.

37 Mark Clayton, “The Brains Behind Iraq’s Arsenal,” The Christian Science Monitor October 23^rd, 2002

38 Bill Vann and Barry Grey, “White House Demands Weapons Inspectors Abduct Iraqi Scientists,” World Socialist Web Site

39 Patrick E. Tyler, “US is Pressuring Inspectors in Iraq to Aid Defections,” The New York Times December 6^th, 2002: A1.

40 “Iraqi Scientists,” Immigration Policy Center December 9^th, 2002

41 William Pfaff, “Incompatibility of Values: Islam & The West,” International Herald Tribune December 12^th, 2002  

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