A rchive Date
[ 18-03-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ U.S ]
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[http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/worthington.html
A just cause
A new world order is about to dawn - and it's about time
By PETER WORTHINGTON - Toronto Sun
March 18, 2003
There's never been a "war" quite like this one that's about to start. Usually wars start with one side suddenly attacking the other, hoping to catch the enemy by surprise after a certain amount of ritualistic posturing.
World War II - the last "just" war, according to some nincompoops - started with German panzers blitzkrieging into Poland without warning and ended with the Americans dropping an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, also without warning.
This war against Saddam Hussein, led by the alliance of the U.S., Britain and Australia, with Spain saying "me too!" has been something of a Perils of Pauline drama - on again, off again, a last-chance offer, another last chance, a final last chance until now, with no more last chances, President George W. Bush is poised to say "charge!"
In fact, the only realistic way that war might be averted now would not be Saddam Hussein having a sudden burst of common sense and fleeing into exile, but if those plump, funny-looking guys in khaki uniforms who wear their black berets like chefs' hats with whom Saddam surrounds himself, decided to assassinate the big guy and start over.
Assassination has been sort of a traditional way Iraqis get a change of government, starting with the assassination of young King Faisal in 1958. (I was there in Baghdad, when corpses of the losers were strung up on lampposts.)
Precedents
Faisal's executioner and successor, the megalomaniac Brig. Abdul Karim Kassem, was in turn replaced via assassination, as was Col. Abdul Salam Aref who succeeded him. So it's not beyond possibility that Saddam's cohorts might do to him what he's done to others. But that's in the faint-hope category - a bellicose version of a Hail Mary pass in the dying moments of a football game.
For the next few days, the media will be replete with speculation as to how the war will be fought - know-all pundits and retired generals sounding off, as well as the token weepy anti-warniks who prefer the peace of appeasement to the freedom of fighting back.
There's a feeling of relief that all the UN stuff is now on the back-burner and irrelevant. Finally some action.
No one knows if Saddam will unleash bio-chemical weapons he has insisted he doesn't have, or if the whole Iraqi military will collapse and deflate at the first shot - as Iraqi soldiers on the Kuwaiti border tried to do when British paratroopers held a training exercise 10 days ago.
Bush and Britain's Tony Blair have come under intense criticism for their hawkish resolve - especially Blair, who faces a possible backbench revolt from his own party. (Until now I thought it was only British Tories who turned against their leader, as they did against Mrs. Thatcher on the eve of the Gulf War.)
The right thing
For what it's worth, here's a prediction: When this war is over Tony Blair will be viewed in Churchillian terms, as one who stood against the tide of public opinion at home and acted on principle to do what he thought was the right thing.
Unlike Blair, Bush has the American people solidly behind him. If the war is quick, short and successful, both leaders will be in the catbird seat, and UN influence will be replaced by the U.S. and Britain setting rules of behaviour for future rogue regimes. Russia and China will be invited to join. The world will be safer.
Unfortunately, the UN is composed of member states that indulge in the same human rights abuses Saddam is so fond of, and which the UN, to its eternal shame, rarely objects to. A new Anglo-American world order beckons. About time.
Letters to the editor should be sent to editor@sunpub.com.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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