The popular rock group Spoon, appropriately Texan, once observed that “A paper tiger can’t tell you where he stands,” and it seems to us that this is exactly the position Mr. Bush and his government find themselves in as we go to press this morning, September 19.
There is an election in November and Mr. Bush’s war on terrorism has been sidetracked by such nuisances as an inability to find Osama Bin Laden and to broker peace in troubled Israel for quite some time. Iraq is, of course, a perennial boost for the Bush family’s approval ratings, and so, despite an unclear objective and no real attempt to link Iraq to last September’s attacks (the reason we are ostensibly “at war” today), we find ourselves once again on the brink of another US war of aggression in the volatile Middle East.
Though it remains unclear what the Bush administration’s position on Iraq actually is, it had previously been clear that Mr. Bush would prefer to circumvent the United Nations altogether, despite the illegality of armed aggression without Security Council authorization. But, after weeks of suggestion that he would not, Mr. Bush took his case to the United Nations on September 12. Consider: Mr. Bush asks Iraq to comply immediately with existing Security Council resolutions. On Friday, September 13, Mr. Bush comments that “I am highly doubtful that [Saddam Hussein] will meet our demands. I hope he does, but I’m highly doubtful.” On Tuesday, under extreme pressure from virtually the entire world, Iraq formally accepts the return of UN weapons inspectors, without condition, as per Security Council Resolution 687, one of the documents to which Mr. Bush five days earlier had demanded Iraq’s adherence. That same day, Mr. Bush rejects outright Iraq’s gesture (one can infer from his comments on September 12 that he was not expecting such a concession) even though this shift represents a potential major breakthrough between Iraq and the United Nations, which, if not adhered to, would indeed present the United States with itscasus belli in the eyes of a candid world community. This begs the question, what exactly does Mr. Bush want? He is alienating Russia and France, key allies on the Security Council, the entire Arab League, which warned that a war with Iraq “would open the gates of hell,” as well as pretty much the rest of the world, save Britain. Mr. Bush’s frivolity is a clear threat to world stability as well as, we argue, national security.
Never mind that Mr. Bush’s father, while he was Vice President, was part of an administration that increased Saddam Hussein’s military aid after he successfully launched a chemical attack on Iran. Never mind that the United States has consistently refused to sign international chemical and biological weapons accords, on the grounds that it will not compromise its sovereignty or security by consenting to international weapons inspectors. Never mind that a majority of the September 11 criminals were from Saudi Arabia, a nation that would necessarily be a key ally in a war against Iraq, despite the fact that it too is a repressive, undemocratic regime that has almost certainly sponsored terrorism against the United States. Never mind that Osama Bin Laden, a man whom Mr. Bush now pretends he never vowed to capture, was trained and armed by the United States not so long ago. While this whole scenario is easy fodder for conspiracy nuts of all ideological persuasions, we do not believe that this government’s consistent un-policy represents a calculated maneuver on Mr. Bush’s (or anyone else’s) part. For all its ambiguous posturing, we honestly believe that no one is now in control of the current administration’s foreign policy, nor is this administration even capable of articulating a coherent, forceful, stabilizing policy—a paper tiger, as it were.
We look at this impending crisis—which has the entire world worked up into what Mr. Bush himself described (after prompting, of course) as a media “frenzy,” despite the curious fact that the relationship between the United States and Iraq is not substantively different since Mr. Bush took office—and openly wonder if Mr. Bush has the wherewithal to successfully execute a military campaign against Iraq whereby long term US interests, whatever those may be, are guaranteed.
We do not want to die in Mr. Bush’s ill-considered war, we do not want to die for oil interests abroad when oil is choking our environment here at home and we certainly do not want to die as a result of a terrorist backlash against US aggression or, worse still, in a war in which the United States finds itself curiously alone against a unified and hostile world.