Clinton leads a new Christian crusade

On a cold winter January weekend in 1991 the senior common room of my college at Cambridge, England, reverberated with joyous cries of triumph. This was no Oxford-Cambridge rugby match being followed on the television by enthusiastic students. Instead, these were the valiant voices of American and European graduate students who had collected to watch the CNN live relay of American sharpshooters bombing, with computerised precision, Iraqi military and civilian encampments. The western media ensured that the identification of Saddam Hussein, the "madman" of the East, with a particularly virulent image of Islam was not missed. Each supposedly lunatic act of Saddam was attributed to his being an upholder of Islam and deriving his idiosyncracies from that religion. The gameplan was clear: centrestage to the political rhetoric against Iraq was the historic fight between Islam and Western Christianity. The violation of UN charters was just political camouflage for the basic issue. The students echoed the craving of the American and European hunting dogs baying for Saddam’s blood.

Six years later, it is the same anti-Saddam and anti-Islam euphoria that underscores the moves of the US and its allies and influences the decisions of the UN. This is best exemplified in the current crisis over the UN inspections in Iraq and the pulling out of all UN inspectors as a response to Iraq’s expulsion of the US inspectors on the UN team. Even though the UN team has since re-entered Iraq, its new terms and conditions continue to create suspense in the region. The perfectly justifiable demands of Iraq for a more objective inspection of its military bases is being projected as the most absurd request of the "congenital liar and cheat" of the East. In effect, the Iraqi appeal for a less top-heavy inspection team stems from the fact that the UNSCOM is only theoretically an impartial body of international experts. In reality, it is heavily dominated by the US and its allies. Iraqis have enough documentary proof that the UNSCOM findings on Iraqi security systems was to achieve purposes like the masterminding of political assassinations in Baghdad. Similarly, the U-2 spy planes — escorts of the UNSCOM — are totally under US control.

Iraq bleeds to death while the US upholds human rights and world security by refusing to lift sanctions against it and subjects it to American inspections in the garb of "objective UN" reviews. At the same time its whimpers of protest in international forums are being manipulated by the western media to give a fresh lease of life to the demonising of Islam. Each Iraqi protest is projected as an Islamic "lunatic’s" bark.

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Significantly, this is of strategic necessity for the US. For the Islamic ogre is the only common enemy that can allow the US to manipulate the UN to its political advantage. Thus, even though the UNSCOM chief pulls out his entire team without the permission of the Security Council, the permanent members show mere discomfort which does not even amount to a token protest. Again, France and Russia are theoretically unhappy with the US stonewalling the Security Council, but they sit back and watch the US beef up its military forces in the Gulf. Finally, these members listen in silence as Clinton, in contravention of all norms of the UN charter, treats this august forum as his personal fiefdom by linking the issue of UN sanctions to his personal vendetta against Saddam Hussain. He is reported to have openly made Saddam’s abdication a pre-condition for the lifting of sanctions.

Let us not lose sight of the fact that central to the US-UN vs Iraq conflict is the historical animosity between the western Christian world and the Islamic diaspora. What is shameful, however, in this modern-day chapter of this antagonism is the harsh reality that more than half of the Islamic world has become a pawn in he hands of the US. Upbeat US brinkmanship is a consequence of the failure of the Islamic world to use its rich resources to build its political and military prowess. There is a heavy price to be paid for each wrong political decision. What we see today is the Islamic diaspora paying this price. But in this political bazaar there are many lessons to be learnt by the rest of the developing world.

The writer is an assistant professor at JNU