While the world comes to grips with the images of death and destruction in Iraq, ‘Cho’ Ramaswamy, editor of Thuglak and Rajya Sabha member — a self-confessed crusader against the Indian resolution to criticise the US attack — says we should now be joining forces with America in rebuilding Iraq. He spoke to Krithika Ramalingam on how India should follow the principle of ‘‘enlightened self-interest’’. Excerpts from the interview: Why are you opposed to the Indian resolution criticising the US attack on Iraq?India should not be needling US on this issue as in the process, we are tending to glorify Saddam Hussein. I have always held that as far as foreign affairs are concerned, India should follow the principle of enlightened self-interest. France and Russia have vested interests in the continuance of Saddam. Tomorrow, all those countries that are opposed to the US now will start building bridges with the Bush regime. Should India lose out on this? You speak as if war was inevitable?War became inevitable the moment France and Russia started to oppose the US tooth and nail. France perhaps thought this was one way of asserting the importance of the European Union. France has ambitions of gaining de facto leadership of the EU. Russia, which has been sidelined in the international affairs for sometime now, saw an opportunity to gain importance. And everyone thought Bush would not launch an attack without UN sanction and that he was indulging in brinkmanship. It was a miscalculation. Their threat of using the veto came when Bush was making final attempts to get UN sanction, even before the Security Council could meet and decide on any resolution to sanction war. That precipitated the crisis. But we seem to be more interested in the preservation of Saddam’s dictatorship. Are you justifying the American attack on Iraq?I am not justifying the American action. But let us face realities. Are we going to take a considered decision that friendship with America is not important and morality should be the guiding factor. If that is our attitude, then we should not have winked at the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and Hungary or Soviet occupation of Afghanistan for 10 years. What were we doing when the NATO forces were bombing Serbia? If we are concerned with the primacy of the UN, did Parliament condemn Iraq for thwarting UN resolutions for 12 years? If morality were to be the guiding force, one can apply it only if one has been always following it. We lost the moral authority to condemn US action when we decided to ignore all that Saddam has been doing. But wasn’t the genocide that was taking place in Serbia reason enough for intervention?Did Saddam not systematically kill Kurds and Shiites? What did we do then? We are adopting double standards. Parliament has expressed anguish over thousands of Iraqis being killed in the current war. When the Kurdish and Shiite population of Iraq was being killed what happened to our anguish? Now, there are two issues before us. Can a country, whether the US or anyone else, decide that another is a menace to international peace and attack it? No country can have that right. The second issue is can a regime thwart UN resolutions for 12 years and still be protected by the international community? Saddam has not met his deadline on destroying Weapons of Mass Destruction. The UN inspectors have said that there has been no evidence of WMDs and there is no evidence of their destruction either. And the UN commission is finding missiles where they should not be. One wonders what more will come out after the war. How long should UN be extending the time for its inspectors? That should not be happening either. So, we should condemn both. When we did not protest against Saddam, we lost the moral authority to condemn US. This is why I see hypocrisy in our resolution. Is supporting the US on this issue really going to win us American friendship?It is not a question of supporting the US. It is a question of being fair in our approach. When there are two wrongs, condemning only one of them is not fair. We cannot expect the UN to direct Pakistan to stop cross-border terrorism. The world is not inclined to see the problem as we do. But the US itself has made it very clear that Iraq and Pakistan are two different issues.US is only trying to maintain the artificial balance (between India and Pakistan) for some more time. It is time to get their attitude changed and condemning the action in Iraq is not going to give India any advantage. As I see it, there is a strong global reaction against US and we are just blindly following it. There is a strong sentiment that the purpose of the war was to establish control over Iraq’s oil fields. By not condemning the war, are we not capitulating to the idea of US supremacy?I don’t see it as a war fought over the oil fields. And the coming events will prove it. During the last 12 years, Iraqi oil wells have not been producing the amount of oil that they should have. Any way, US has Saudi Arabia, the richest oil country, and many Arab nations are very jealous of their friendship. The US and Britain have already said that the oil wells in Iraq belong only to the Iraqis. On the other side, France is opposed to the war because of its contracts with Saddam. However, when it comes to rebuilding Iraq after the war, Indian opinion says there will be a feast of vultures and many countries could derive benefits from the contracts. But has a decision been taken here that India would not participate in this feast of vultures if we are going to describe rehabilitation work like that? No. We cannot keep away for all time to come. We will go after the reconstruction has taken place, after the so-called vultures leave, and take the leftovers, as scavengers. I believe that India should participate in rebuilding Iraq.
