Modified Sanctions and the Continuing War on Iraq

June 26, 2002

In this issue of the Free Arab Voice (FAV) we look, among other things, at
the political, economic, and media aspects of United Nations Security
Council Resolution 1409 against the backdrop of the sanctions imposed since
1990 and the prospects of a renewed military onslaught on Iraq:

1) (In Arabic) The Modified Sanctions and the Continuing War on Iraq.
العقوبات المعدلة والحرب المستمرة على العراق

2) America against Iraq: Renewed Sanctions as a Weapon in
the US Arsenal, by Muhammad Abu Nasr.  See text of article below.

3) American Refuses to Pay Fine Imposed for Taking Medicine to Iraq

4) (In Arabic) Regional Sensitivities as a Social Illness and a Support
System for Colonialism
الحس الإقليمي كمرض سياسي-اجتماعي وكدعامة لوجود الإحتلال

5) (In Arabic) Notes on the Margin of the Arab Grass-roots Pro-Intifada
Movement: Muhammad Ali as a Rational Political Entity
ملاحظات على هامش الحركة الشعبية العربية المساندة للانتفاضة: محمد علي ككيان
سياسي عقلاني

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America against Iraq: Renewed Sanctions as a Weapon in
the US Arsenal

By Muhammad Abu Nasr

On May 14, 2002 the United Nations Security Council
unanimously approved Resolution 1409 introducing a new
scheme for controlling Iraq's international trade and
revenue. Against a backdrop of rhetoric from the US
Administration that for months has oscillated between
alarms of a seemingly imminent assault on Iraq and
reassuring statements that no such attack had actually
been planned, the UN replaced the earlier oil-for-food
arrangement with one that would supposedly facilitate
the flow of humanitarian goods into Iraq. What is the
American aim behind this move and how does it fit into
the evident US drive towards war against Iraq?

As is known, sanctions were first imposed on Iraq in
August of 1990. At the time the action was presented
in the media as a form of pressure applied to Iraq to
compel that country to withdraw its forces from
Kuwait. The sanctions were retained after Iraqi
forces were out of Kuwait and its Emir restored by
US-led military forces. Since that time, spokesmen
for the United States have repeatedly said that the
sanctions would remain in force until the Iraqi
president, Saddam Hussein, is ousted.

Yet neither the war against Iraq known as the Second
Gulf War of 1990-1991 nor the sanctions regime are
matters of some American vendetta against the person
of the Iraqi president. Both, in fact, are part of a
US effort to prevent the emergence of a significant
regional Arab power - a power in a position to
challenge Zionist hegemony over the region while
rallying around itself the other Arab states which
either lack the military muscle or the economic
wherewithal to concentrate Arab resources for the
struggle against "Israel", and, more broadly, for unity
and development.

Sanctions were the first weapon used against Iraq.
Direct military force was employed somewhat later.
The two in fact complement each other: military force
destroys the Iraqi infrastructure. Sanctions ensure
that the country will not be able to rebuild. Just as
different weapons might be chosen in military combat,
so different versions of sanctions have been employed
at different stages of the war on Iraq.

The first sanctions were embodied in UN Security
Council Resolution 661 of August 6, 1990, and provided
for a total ban on sales of any goods by or to Iraq
and for the freezing of Iraq's foreign assets. The
only exceptions were supplies intended strictly for
medical purposes, and, in humanitarian circumstances,
foodstuffs. Resolution 661 stated the reason for the
sanctions was to secure compliance by Iraq with an
earlier resolution that called on Baghdad to withdraw
its forces from Kuwait immediately and
unconditionally. (The texts of all relevant UN
resolutions can be found on line at:
http://www.un.org/Docs/sc/committees/IraqKuwait/IraqSanctionsCommEng.htm)

In February 1991, after the end of the US aggression,
when Iraqi forces were entirely out of Kuwait, and
when it would be reasonable to assume that sanctions
whose stated purpose was to secure an Iraqi
withdrawal from the Emirate would be lifted, the
United Nations dispatched Under-Secretary General
Martti Ahtisaari to Iraq to assess the situation.
Ahtisaari described the near-apocalyptic results of
the US war on the infrastructure of that country, and
concluded that Iraq has, for some time to come, been
relegated to a pre-industrial age. (As quoted by Jean
Allain in his article Criminal Enforcers in
al-Ahram Weekly, No. 585, May 9-15, 2002)

In response to this dire situation, or rather in spite
of it, the United Nations - as always under US
pressure - passed an up-dated sanctions resolution:
No. 687 of April 3, 1991. This resolution removed
restrictions on financial transactions for the supply
of foodstuffs and other materials and supplies for
essential civilian needs provided that such
transactions were cleared by the Security Council
Committee set up in the original resolution 661 to
oversee the sanctions (commonly known as Committee
661).

In other words, what little foreign trade was allowed
to Iraq was to be subjected to United Nations control.
In the aftermath of the fall of the Soviet Union and
the end of the bipolar world, United Nations control
very nearly was synonymous with United States control,
a situation reinforced by the fact that the permanent
members of the Security Council also have veto power
within Committee 661.

As Allain has noted, Resolution 687 allowed the sale
to Iraq of food, agricultural equipment, and items
related to water purification and sanitation. It did
not, however, even envision measures that could
reverse or even arrest the continued deterioration of
the Iraqi economy, so devastated by the war.

These resolutions point unmistakably to an intent on
the part of the United States to deepen and prolong
the suffering of the Iraqi people who were compelled
to endure the near apocalyptic conditions having
been blasted back into a pre-industrial existence
without pure drinking water, electricity, roads and
bridges, medical supplies, and even food, given the
acute shortage of funds in a devastated economy. The
post-war sanctions regime, by limiting transactions to
basically humanitarian supply, seriously obstructed
the rebuilding of the Iraqi economy, in effect
protracting and exacerbating the wartime destruction,
multiplying Iraqi losses without risking American
military personnel.

Shocking as is this clear effort on the part of the
United States and its western allies to impose
long-term underdevelopment, starvation, and disease
upon a whole country, it only serves to highlight the
extent to which the west was willing to go in order to
assert its control over the economy of a third-world
country, in this case, Iraq whose proven oil reserves
are the second largest in the world, after Saudi
Arabia.

A significant new feature in the post-war sanctions
was the fact that they were justified by a supposed
need to pressure Iraq into eliminating its mass
destruction weapons. For years the American media
have harped on the theme that Iraq's capability to
produce mass destruction weapons constitutes some
sort of a danger in the region.

In fact, the reverse is the case. "Israel" is known to
possess a sizable arsenal of nuclear, biological, and
chemical weapons, which means that the absence of any
corresponding Arab arsenal puts the region in a state
of serious imbalance. Even aside from the direct
threat posed that such weapons might be used in
wartime, the experience of the balance of terror
between the US and Soviet Union in the Cold War
indicates that only when two opposing sides reach a
general state of parity can meaningful discussion of
mutual weapons reduction take place. Only then can a
situation of relative stability and predictability
take shape. If one side is vastly superior to the
other, it has no incentive to reduce its weapons,
leaving the weaker side ever more determined to catch
up with and surpass its heavily armed opponent either
with weapons or with unconventional tactics. Not only
is there no reason that Iraq should be singled out for
disarmament in a world heavily laden with weapons,
keeping Iraq disarmed under the present conditions
where "Israel" and other countries in the region pose
extremely serious threats, undermines any hope for
stability in the area.  This is especially important
from a geo-strategic point of view since a disarmed
Iraq would leave the state of the Arab Gulf exposed
in the face of other regional powers, and thus sends
them pleading for US "protection" at very high costs.

>From the standpoint of US hegemony in the region,
hence, parity between the sides and the independent
healthy growth of Arab economies and societies are
counterproductive. "Israel" must exercise
total military predominance over the Arabs to fulfill
its function in the American new world order
ensuring US control over the oil rich and strategic
Arab region. Keeping Iraq's economy in shambles and its
military relatively unarmed are therefore long-term US
strategies.

As the plight of Iraqis steadily worsened under the
sanctions regime of the first half of the 1990s, it
became increasingly apparent that the country could
not survive on the meager humanitarian supplies that
were being allowed into Iraq. As early as 1991 the
West began proposing arrangements whereby Iraq could
resume oil sales abroad, all of which would be
entirely under the control and supervision of the
United Nations. The proceeds from the sale of Iraqi
oil would go not to Iraq but to the United Nations and
specifically its Committee 661 in which the United
States holds veto power. It would be this committee
that would decide how, where, and when Iraq could
spend the money derived from the sales of Iraqi
resources.

For several years Iraq refused to allow such foreign
control of its natural wealth. But as the suffering
of the people deepened, Baghdad was finally compelled
to try to reach some agreement with the United Nations
along such lines. On April 14, 1995, the UN Security
Council passed Resolution 986 providing for the sale
of Iraqi oil along the lines mentioned above. All
sales of oil and all Iraqi purchases of foreign goods
using the oil revenue were to be approved by the
Committee 661. The goods that Iraq could import were
(and are) still essentially limited to medical
supplies, foodstuffs and other prime humanitarian
necessities. Any item that might have a dual use,
i.e., that could conceivably be used by the military
as well as by civilians, would be banned. This meant
that items as innocuous as pencils, serums, chlorine
for purifying water, personal computers, water pumps,
irrigation pipes, laboratories for schools and
universities, fertilizers for agricultural purposes,
ambulances, and many similar items had their contracts
suspended allegedly because they may have military uses.

At the time Resolution 986 was passed, a limit of two
billion US dollars each six months was put on the sales
that could be handled under this so-called oil-for-food
regime. Thus the country's main natural resource,
all its foreign trade, and much of its internal
development potential were placed in the hands of the
UN, dominated by the United States.

Needless to say, $2 billion was far less than a
population of some 20 million required for a
reasonable existence, to say nothing of their need to
rebuild the devastated infrastructure and economy.
Iraq's gross domestic product in the year before the
war had totaled $40 billion. But not only was the US
and its Western allies maintaining a stranglehold on
Iraq and preventing the country from developing or
even recovering normally, it also was in effect taking
control over the Iraqi economy.

This aspect of the Iraqi situation, i.e., the Western
seizure of control of its resources and economy
receives too little attention. Yet it is still in
place and has been renewed, in fact, in the latest
resolution 1409. The Iraq sanctions regime thus
constitutes one of the most dangerous precedents in
international law, one that potentially threatens the
economic integrity and sovereignty of every country
that falls afoul of the new international order of
globalism.

Iraq was unwilling to relinquish control of its
resources entirely, and it insisted on protracted
negotiations with the United Nations before signing
a Memorandum of Understanding on the oil-for-food
arrangement on May 20, 1995, at the conclusion of the
fiftieth negotiations session with the UN.
(See UN Press Release SC/6223, IK 195 of May 22, 1995, on line at:
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/1996/19960522.sc6223.html)

Although the negotiations did not substantially
change the dominating role exercised by the United
Nations, it did for the first time allow Iraq input
into the regime to which it was to be subjected.
This was no minor achievement, considering that the
official American line has all along been that there
can be no negotiating with Iraq regarding compliance
with the UN resolutions.

Despite the new arrangement, which the United States
endorsed, the first sale of oil by Iraq under the
oil-for-food program did not take place until December
1996, and the first shipment of goods to Iraq only
arrived in that country in March 1997. The first
consignment of medicines arrived in May 1997. (UN data
quoted by Dr. Ibrahim Alloush in al-`Uqubat al-mu`addalah
wa-al-harb al-mustamirrah `alal-`Iraq
[The modified sanctions and the continuing war on
Iraq] on this website
http://www.freearabvoice.org/arabi/maqalat/al3aqubatuLMu3addalatu.htm

It must also be noted that the oil-for-food program
does not allow Iraq access to all the proceeds from
the sales of its petroleum. Thirteen percent of the
income from Iraqi oil is allocated by the UN to the
three northern Iraqi provinces that are under UN
administration. Twenty-five percent of the proceeds
are directed to a UN Compensation Committee in Geneva
that divides up the amount among those claiming losses
due to the brief Iraqi incursion into Kuwait. (Iraq
sought in vain to have an international court
adjudicate the various demands made against it.)
Administrative costs siphon off 2.2 percent, and 0.8
percent are deducted to fund the weapons inspection
teams that were sent into Iraq until the last such
group was pulled out by the United States in December
1997. In all, then, Iraq only has access to 59
percent of the funds yielded by its oil sales, and
those funds can only be spent when the UN Committee
661 gives the go-ahead. (See figures cited in the
International Herald Tribune of 16 May 2002. A
slightly different breakdown that leaves Iraq with
only 58 percent of its oil revenue is supplied by Jean
Allain in his previously cited article in al-Ahram
Weekly No. 585.)

Nor did Committee 661 always accede to Iraqi requests.
According to Iraq some $8 billion worth of contracts
have been put on long-term hold by the Committee, for
the most part due to US objections. The United Nations
figure for the value of held-up contracts is only
$5.3 billion. The discrepancy in the figures is
probably due to several other factors complicating all
arrangements made under the oil-for-food regime. The
UN Committee sets pricing levels for Iraqi oil and
these often result in deals that first were agreed to
being lost when the market price for the resource
fluctuates and leaves the Committee-set price
uncompetitive. In general all the contracts require
between two and six months between their signing and
the time when the UN actually opens the letter of
credit, a delay which in itself serves to discourage
business with the country. (See Dr. Alloush s
above-cited paper).

Jean Allain writes: Of the items which had been
given the green light, less than 50 percent have made
it to Iraq. As Abbas Alnasrawi, a professor of economics
at the University of Vermont, has noted, of the $20.8
billion appropriated to all of Iraq, only $8.4
billion-worth of goods for all sectors of the economy
had arrived in Iraq by the end of July 2000.
( al-Ahram Weekly No. 585)

Despite all the tight restrictions imposed on the
country, Iraq has managed to rebuild some of its oil
industry infrastructure - a vital task if the welfare
of the population is ever to be substantially
improved. As a result, the ceiling for Iraqi exports
has been raised twice, to $6 billion in 1998 and,
later under resolution 1284, no limit was set.
Nevertheless, the Iraqi oil industry was in such a
devastated state after the war, and the pricing schemes
of Iraqi oil by the UN were so arbitrary, that saying
that Iraq can sell all the oil it wants or can produce
is quite misleading.  In reality, Iraq can sell much
less oil than it is theoretically entitled to, and receives
much less for it in terms of goods delivered than the
nominal revenues for the oil sold indicate.

Meanwhile over the years Iraq strengthened and
extended its economic ties with neighboring,
especially Arab countries. Relations with Syria were
considerably normalized and an oil pipeline reopened
on a temporary basis through that country. Duty
free agreements were signed with various Arab
countries including Egypt and Tunisia, cross border
trade has expanded with Saudi Arabia. More and more
countries sought to invoke Article 50 of the UN
Charter which allows countries that suffer from
sanctions imposed on another country to consult the
Security Council with regard to a solution of those
problems. In practice this has allowed several
countries to carry on cross border trade under the
radar of the UN Committee 661.

While this black market has allowed a much wider
selection of goods to flow into the Iraqi consumer
market often at prices suited only to the wealthy
it has done little to facilitate the big-investment
projects that the economy needs for qualitative
development, especially in the energy sector. According
to a briefing paper by Phyllis Bennis written for Voices
in the Wilderness, a humanitarian organization dedicated
to lifting the sanctions in Iraq, the unemployment rate
remains at 70 percent, health care is way below 1989
standards, the water treatment system and the electrical
grid have yet to be entirely repaired.
(The paper can be found on-line at:
http://www.nonviolence.org/vitw/Smart2.html).

Despite this, by the year 2001, the US and its Western
cohorts were growing more and more alarmed at the
deterioration of the sanctions regime and,
simultaneously, at the negative press they were
receiving for their role in starving between one and
two million people to death. The new American
Administration also appeared eager to raise tensions
with Iraq. George Bush, the new US president, was the
son of the first President George Bush who led the war
against Iraq. Bush the younger installed a cabinet
full of faces familiar from the US aggression of
1990-1991. The new Vice President, Dick Cheney, had
been Secretary of Defense at the time of the Second
Gulf War. The new Secretary of State, Colin Powell,
had been Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during
that war. It was an administration that, if anything,
looked set to reopen hostilities with Iraq should an
opportunity arise.

In March 2001 Colin Powell, the new Secretary of State
informed the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee
that there was a need to rescue the sanctions policy
that was, as he put it, falling apart. (Cited by
Sarah Graham-Brown in MERIP Press Information Note 96,
Sanctions Renewed on Iraq by Sarah Graham-Brown,
May 14, 2002. Available on line at:
http://www.nonviolence.org/vitw/Smart1.html) To keep
the sanctions regime in place and to reduce the bad
publicity it was increasingly receiving, the US
Administration undertook in 2001 to get the UN
Security Council to pass a new system of sanctions,
dubbed smart sanctions because they would supposedly
focus on items for military use while opening the door
to fulfilling civilian needs. Less publicized was an
extensive program that would establish international
inspection of border areas in neighboring countries in
an effort to stop trade that was going on outside the
framework of the oil-for-food program. Additional
funds were to be deducted from the receipts from Iraqi
oil to reimburse those border countries for the
establishment and maintenance of international
inspection stations on their territory.

This proposal was opposed by Iraq's neighbors and by
Russia all of whom appear to have been concerned over
the loss of sovereignty to the dominant Western powers
as a result. In the end the US declined to push for
the smart sanctions passage in the UN, when Russia
promised to veto the measure.

Colin Powell's interest in smart sanctions was
interpreted by some observers as an attempt on the
part of a dovish former army general to push
sanctions as a way of undercutting the influence of
other members of the administration who were
interested in military action to topple the Iraqi
government.

After the attacks of 11 September 2001, however, such
distinctions, if they ever really existed, disappeared
and were replaced by an increasingly clear commitment
on the part of the US president to overthrow the Iraqi
government. Sanctions, covert action, and overt
military action were all elements directed to one and
the same end.  Powell was quoted by the British
Financial Times on February 14, 2002, as saying that
the sanctions and the pressure they generate are a
part of the strategy of changing the regime in Iraq.

The latest version of the sanctions regime, that were
imposed under Resolution 1409, must be seen in
precisely that light. Resolution 1409 differed from
the previous year's smart sanctions in that it
dropped the issue of stationing international
inspectors in neighboring countries to monitor Iraq s
cross-border trade. What the new resolution provides
for, instead, is a somewhat streamlined system of
review of products that Iraq seeks to import. A
so-called Goods Review List (GRL) was adopted.
According to the official Iraqi newspaper al-Thawra
it is no less than 300 pages in length (Editorial by
Sami Mahdi on May 19, 2002), and listed items that are
to be regarded as military or dual-use goods. Items
not on the list will not need to be reviewed by
Committee 661, but go instead to UN Secretariat
officials where the United States will not be able to
exercise its veto power. Items on the list will now
need to go through a multi-tiered process of review
and ultimately be passed by Committee 661.

In an editorial in the Iraqi Baath Party paper
al-Thawra Sami Mahdi expressed doubt that the
300-page list would reduce the bureaucracy and red
tape involved in the approval process. He observed,
however:

Let's assume that this resolution really will lead to
facilitating the import of what they call humanitarian
and civilian goods and commodities. Just what are
these goods and commodities? They are food and
medicine, basically, and maybe some civilian
commodities like cars, household appliances and other
things of that sort.

But are states built and do people live off of these
things alone? Are peoples nothing more than mouths
that need to be fed? What about industry, agriculture,
transport, communication, education and their requisites
and the things needed for their development? What about
science and technology? What about the requirements for
the economic, social, scientific, and technical advance
of a state and a people who are living in the 21st century?

The great majority of the requirements and goods
needed by these sectors are considered dual-use
goods and commodities by those who framed this
resolution. This means obstruction of the effort to
build the infrastructure of Iraq, impeding its
economic and social growth, and its scientific and
technical progress, denying it legitimate
opportunities for development and transforming Iraqi
society into nothing but a consumer society that lives
each day to eat and has no aspirations, nor any real
opportunity to grow, develop and progress.
(Editorial: Sami Mahdi, al-Qarar 1409 -- zahiruhu wa-batinuh. "Resolution
1409: its outside appearance and
its content" al-Thawrah Newspaper, May 19, 2002.)

Indeed it does appear that exporters of fairly basic
consumer goods stand to gain by the new arrangement
that will probably simplify the import of such items
to Iraq. The power and influence of such businesses
in Western nations like the United States should not
be underestimated, and the growing cross-border trade
would be an area that many would like to cash in on.
In fact it appears that Russian support for Resolution
1409 (in contrast to its firm opposition to the 2001
proposal for smart sanctions) was won in part by an
American release of $200 million in Russian contracts
with Iraq that occurred in March. (See Sarah
Graham-Brown s MERIP Press Information Note 96,
quoted above). In addition, Russian firms have been eager
and welcome traders in Iraq, a fact that no doubt helped
sweeten Resolution 1409 for the Russians.

While the interests of these companies were certainly
not the prime reason for the US effort to pass 1409,
they helped provide a constituency for a resolution
that preserves the sanctions regime and keeps Iraqi
oil and the core of the Iraqi economy subject to the
UN (and through it the US). It will in fact increase
control over the export of so-called dual use items
while it will reduce friction among Security Council
members over less critical matters. On top of all
this it is likely to improve the image of the United
States in its dealings with Iraq. The briefing paper
on Smart Sanctions by Phyllis Bennis of Voices in the
Wilderness expressed the concern: "I m afraid
we 're going to start hearing a lot from now on that
no one can say that the sanctions are causing the deaths of
children and other civilians in Iraq". As has been
noted above, the import of various consumer goods is
not what is needed to return the shattered Iraqi
economy to health, but in terms of propaganda, 1409 is
likely to complicate the work of sanctions opponents.

Enhancing Western support for the US in its
confrontation with Iraq is of particular significance
at a time when the overthrow of the Iraqi regime has
become US policy, while worldwide support for such an
aim has dwindled. Indeed the steady pressure of
sanctions is especially important since the exact way
to go about changing the regime in Baghdad seems to
be a matter of controversy within the US
Administration. While in his 2002 State of the Union
Address in January Bush seemed to indicate that his
"war on terror" would reach out to strike the "axis of
evil" represented by Iraq, Iran, and North Korea, he
said in May, shortly after Resolution 1409 was passed:
"I have no war plans on my desk, which is the
truth, and . . . we 've got to use all means at our
disposal to deal with Saddam Hussein" (cited in the
Washington Post, May 24, 2002.).

Internationally, of course, full-scale war against
Iraq has been publicly rejected by all the Arab
states, which have also publicly opposed the
continuation of the sanctions regime, though none have
been willing to turn that opposition into an open
confrontation with Washington. Syria, currently a
member of the Security Council and not known as one of
America s closest friends, expressed disagreement with
Resolution 1409, but nevertheless voted for it.
Similarly, Russia has expressed opposition to a US
attack on Iraq, but has also indicated that such an
attack would not seriously affect Moscow's
increasingly warm relationship with Washington.

Within the Administration too, there appears to be
considerable opposition to an invasion of Iraq, and at
the core of the opposition to such an operation are
the military leaders collectively known as the Joint
Chiefs of Staff. According to a report in the
Washington Post "Military Bids to Postpone Iraq
Invasion" by Thomas E. Ricks (May 24, 2002), the Joint
Chiefs have been waging a behind-the-scenes campaign
to get the Bush administration to give second thoughts
to an Iraq policy that makes war all but inevitable.

The Washington Post reported that Army General Tommy
R. Franks had met with Bush in May and informed him
that an invasion of Iraq would require no fewer than
200,000 men - far more than earlier estimates
suggested. The point was also made that transferring
the tactics used in Afghanistan, such as use of
Special Forces units and the reliance on something
similar to the Afghan Northern Alliance, was not
likely to succeed, in particular because there is
nothing comparable to the Northern Alliance in
Afghanistan.

On the other hand, the figure of 200,000 men is less
than half the number of forces assembled for the
Second Gulf War in 1990-1991 and although an
international coalition of the breadth and
inclusiveness of that put together by the first
President Bush is no longer a possibility, mustering
an army of this scale would not be particularly
difficult. Furthermore, the most adamant advocates of
war with Iraq, though civilians, exercise considerable
influence in the Pentagon and on the White House.
Ricks of the Washington Post singled out Paul D.
Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary, and Douglas
J. Feith, the Pentagon's top policy official, as the
leading hawks on Iraq. Both are also, it must be
noted, of Jewish origin. Signals that the more
hawkish elements enjoy considerable influence are not
hard to come by.

A report in the International Herald Tribune of May 16,
2002 outlined plans for a post-Saddam Iraq that would
consist of a loose federation of a Kurdish North, a
Sunni Center, and Shi'i south which would retain a
central government in Baghdad to handle foreign
relations and defense policy. This would open the
door to an eventual partition of Iraq something that
would please "Israel" immensely as the partition of
Arab states has always been a long-standing Zionist
objective (for more on this, please see:
http://www.freearabvoice.org/ZionistConspiracy_DivideTheArabWorld.htm)

According to the International Herald Tribune of
May 16, 2002, the idea of the loose Iraqi federation
was proposed to soothe Turkey which fears that a
totally independent Kurkish state to the south would
stir up separatist demands by the large Kurdish minority
within its own borders.  Is Turkey reassured by the
concept of a federal Iraq?  Some seem to think so,
but really, Turkey knows very well that there is no
telling where the breakup of Iraq would stop once
the ball starts rolling, with potentially grave
consequences for itself.

A federal Iraq is just the beginning, not the end, of
the purported implosion of Iraq and other states in
the vicinity.  But while such fragmentation serves
the objectives of asserting Zionist and imperialist
hegemony in the Arab region, it may also be the
carrot extended to the various factions that might
be seen as making up the basis for an American-led
military coalition against the Saddam Hussein government,
a coalition patterned after the tribal groups that
Washington used to topple the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Thus far the Iraqi opposition has proved a dismal
failure when it comes to mounting any sort of credible
resistance movement to the Baghdad government. This
has not led Washington to reconsider its basic
determination to get rid of the Iraqi regime, but has
led to new variations on that theme. On May 22, 2002,
the London-based Arabic newspaper al-Quds al- Arabi
reported that the US was moving away from support of
the so-called Iraqi National Congress toward backing a
so-called platform of four which would include the
two Kurdish opposition parties, the main Shi'i
opposition party (the Higher Council for Islamic
Revolution based in Iran), and the so-called Iraqi
National Consensus Movement that comprises a large number of
former Iraqi generals and, according to the report,
enjoys the strong support of the American CIA. The
report said that members of the Platform of Four met
with nine Congressmen in London in April and have also
met with officials in the Department of State,
Pentagon, and National Security Council in Washington.
It reported that the State Department is planning to
spend $5 million on the initiative.

One of the motivations behind this approach appears to
be an attempt to avoid the pitfalls encountered in
Afghanistan, and presumably the pitfalls of trying to
copy the Afghan experience in a country to which it
does not correspond.

David Mack, a former American diplomat and deputy
chairman of the Middle East Institute in Washington
who had a role in arranging the new Iraqi initiative,
told the American Boston Globe newspaper: "We
must not make the same mistakes that we made in
Afghanistan, where we sent in the troops before we had
organized the civil affairs side of things. How will
we deal with the problem of refugees?".

One significant difference between the orientation on
the Platform of Four and the policy of financial
support for the Iraqi National Congress appears to be
that the new arrangement provides for direct American
involvement in the various opposition groups that are
being formed with a view to leading a post-Saddam Iraq.

According to the paper, another American official
said that it is expected that the work would begin on
the new US initiative with the formation of five or
six working groups supported by non-governmental
organizations to discuss matters such as health
policies, justice, and educational policies to be
adopted by the post-Saddam government. The number of
working groups could rise to about 12 in the future.
Each working group would bring together 15 to 20 Iraqi
opposition people and western experts.

Whatever the significance of these reports, it is
clear that controlling the Iraqi economy and
preventing development are major priorities for the US
as it explores various approaches to overthrowing the
Iraqi government. It is also clear that the overthrow
of the Iraqi government will not lead to a
democratic, independent, and prosperous Iraq, but to
a state (or more likely several states) at odds with
their neighbors and beholden to the United States for
aid and self defense. Truncated states will also have
fewer resources at their disposal than a united Iraq
and so with or without the continued sanctions regime
the prospects for economic and social development
would be severely limited. Needless to say, American
support would also require that these post-Saddam
regimes establish normal relations with "Israel".

Resolution 1409, with its renewal of the sanctions
regime enables the US to continue its war of attrition
against Iraq while Washington prepares the type of
military aggression that it thinks will overthrow the
Iraqi government. In addition to securing Western
control of a major source of petroleum, ultimately
this course is aimed at eliminating the country most
likely to provide the basis for concerted Arab
opposition to US hegemony in the region.

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