In defence of the Iraq offensive

Even today there are Indian analysts and writers who believe that the Americans have a benevolent ‘‘handle’’ on Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. They are delighted at the massive presence of the FBI in Pakistan and the US armed forces in Jacobabad; that US operations against the Jehadis in the frontier province should be expanded using more ground troops.

Understandably Delhi has become much more skilful at fence sitting. On one side of the fence are principles, Westphalian ideas of national identities, and support for Iraq; on the other is the Realist School of international relations which believes that the methods used to discomfit Pakistan are irrelevant. The ‘‘matter of principle’’ Indian argument to decry the US intervention in Iraq actually falls flat on its face, since these principles would have vanished if instead of Iraq, it had been Pakistan that was invaded.

But the amusing thing is the vociferous defence of Iraqi sovereignty by the Indians, when Saddam’s praetorian guard melted away even faster than the ordinary conscript battalions of the regular army. According to a combat Colonel of the Republican Guard, when they saw their Generals swear to Saddam that they would shed ‘‘their’’ blood in his defence, on television, the rank and file became even more determined to desert, with the full understanding of their Commanding Officers. Only professional soldiers will understand how rotten the state structure must have become, with the more senior officers turning out command theatrical performance of loyalty to Saddam. The prize goes to both General Chemical Ali who, in command of the Basra defence, permitted an unopposed entry into the Southern city and to General Comical Ali, the information minister, who threatened death and annihilation to the coalition even as US tanks were rolling up the street behind him.

The destruction caused to the normal Iraqi citizen, and the video coverage of the homeless are something else. This is not the first time that a ruthless dictator, or a bunch of patriarchal fundamentalists have placed their women and children on the frontline. The Taliban did it, the Hizbul Mujahideen do it all the time. Saddam outdid Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot in his ingenuity by distributing his ordnance depots among the primary schools in his country. So when the ambitious young war correspondent goes into battle dreaming of becoming another Robert Capa or a Marilyn Silverstone, his photographs of homeless little girls are automatically meant to scream — ‘‘this is what victory costs’’, and damn the truth-that dictators always put their people on the frontline. This is why a professional, Geneva-Convention hugging officer corps believe that eventually the only people who come out better after a war are the war correspondents.

The sovereignty argument needs reexamination; after Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. Should all nations be left to stew in their own anarchic despotic, genocidal juices? Shouldn’t international relations have some kind of a leveling role in the world? Isn’t it pernicious that Saudi Arabia with a per capita income of $10,000 has lower social indicators than Myanmar, even after the latter country was ruined by the Generals? How can Ireland which grows only potatoes have a higher standard of living than Iraq which sits on the world’s second largest oil reserves, sold at $25 a barrel? And lastly why does half the world, mostly following the protestant religion, but with dreary five-month winters when nothing can be grown, have infinitely more riches than those who live in benevolent climates? The answer is that with the beginning of the middle ages the ‘‘West’’ got most things right while the East, with India and China which once produced 25 and 30 per cent of the World’s GDP got most things wrong. While the West were acquiring Indian mathematics through the Arabs, and printing technology and paper from China, Indian Brahmins were setting up caste restrictions to sea journeys, and verbalising mathematics to prevent the Sudras learning it. The riches of the West and the volume of trade that supports the West’s life style is founded on the rights of the individual, not the spiritual personal realisation of the Hindus, but the equality of law and opportunities, that the ordinary Iraqi surely needs.

Between 1400 and 1700, the glories of the Indian Moghuls, and the Baghdad caliphates had been eclipsed by the West’s energy, command of working capital, real income per capita and the better social indices of the spread of education, literacy and longevity. Why should the East continue to wallow in the feudal carapace that marks absurd feudal dictatorships like Saddam’s?

Maybe it is unjust that the 21st century will be America’s but we cannot fail to see that American power comes not from its ships and aircraft but from the potentially unlimited capacities that their social system unleashes in any person who completes his schooling well. Surely we Indians should know this since so many of them are our people. General Jay Garner may not be a world class statesman and may not set the Euphrates on fire but it is a safe wager that the General can easily do much better than Saddam Hussain for the people of Iraq. It must take extraordinary incompetence and stupidity to keep the Iraqi people poor. There is perhaps a flip side to an American invasion as the Germans and Japanese have discovered. It was the quickest road to economic recovery.