Dr Nadhmi |
It is a premise that is certain to give pause to U.S. military planners putting the last touches to a battle plan ahead of what many here believe is the turning point – a tougher Anglo-U.S. line at the UN Security Council meeting on March 1.
Dr Wamidh Omar Nadhmi, who teaches at Baghdad University's prestigious Political Science Faculty, and an adviser to the top echelons of the Iraqi government, said in an interview Sunday night in Al Adhamiya that "Iraqi nationalism" and the "injustice of the collective punishment" that was being inflicted by the U.S. on the Iraqi people in the name of sanctions, had proven counter-productive.
A long term U.S. strategy to unseat Iraqi leader Saddam Hussain has centred on a decade of sanctions, that the U.S. hoped would help turn the tide of anger of the people against the Baathist regime.
Instead, the anger against America has been fuelled by the very ploy the U.S. has used to deprive the people of much needed medicines and food.
Nadhmi, who heads a committee that is tasked to import medicines, said nobody "believes the U.S. or the UK administration cared in the least about the plight of the Iraqi people or their democratic or human rights," citing the much touted difficulty in getting medicines into a country once used to the highest standards of medical care.
Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's callous remark that it did not matter what it would cost in human terms if they had to bomb Iraq has not been forgotten, either, he said.
"The target of democracy, of human rights, and the necessity for national reconstruction are very dear to me, to our people. Nobody believes that this is the target of the American campaign," Nadhmi added.
The fault may lie, Nadhmi said, in the conflicting statements put out by the Bush administration.
"Till now, they have not stated clearly what they want of Iraq. Do they want regime change? Do they want to bring democracy to the region? Do they want to destroy weapons of mass destruction?
They say one thing at the Security Council, another to the U.S. Congress, yet another at Nato. With the result that unlike Adlai Stevenson on Cuba, who was able to present a convincing argument at the UN, the Bush administration has lost the confidence of the world," Nadhmi said.
"The conclusion we reach is quite different." This was evident, he said, in the manner in which the two biggest anti-war rallies were held in the two capitals that were most closely allied with the U.S. in its campaign against Iraq – London and Madrid. In addition, the U.S. may have ignored another political axiom in the region.
That the strength of the Baathist regime stems from its strong roots in Iraq. "It is not an incidental party in the Arab world, it captured the imagination of Arabs in the late forties, fifties and even into the early sixties, it was a school of thought, not just a party and it had enormous support," Nadhmi explains.
The first Gulf War he said brought the open support for the regime in the form of a massive input of arms and technology from countries like the U.S., the UK, Germany and Switzerland, as well as through front companies in the third world like Argentina.
"The might of the Iraqi army was greatly strengthened in its war against Iran, but when the war was over in 1988, the West began to see in Iraq a new threat against Iran, against the Gulf states."
Nadhmi believes that Iraq was encouraged to wage war on Kuwait. Baghdad was tricked, it was trapped into invading Kuwait. Iraq had no intentions of staying there, but every face saving condition was thwarted, everything was done to do away with a strong Iraq."
The sanctions that followed, he said, "relatively" weakened the regime, but the impact on the masses has led to more children dying from disease and malnutrition than at any other time, while also leading to a huge exodus from the country.
"How can anyone really believe in the Anglo-U.S. alliance, when qit has inflicted collective punishment on the Iraqi masses on a day to day scale," he asks.
"Is it worth it to get rid of the Iraqi regime to kill so many Iraqis? A lot of Iraqis do not believe that the Anglo-American alliance is pushing for regime change for their benefit. They are bound to come round to the thinking that this is nothing more than a war for Iraq's only resource – oil. Nobody believes their intention is to bring democracy, transparency and modernity."
He said the Iraqis' contempt for the London conference of Iraqi exiles and defectors stems from the same premise. "Apart from the Kurdish parties and perhaps the Shiites, the rest are deeply unpopular for showing their support for an invading army," Nadhmi said.
Nobody respects Ahmed Chalaby, whom the U.S. had indicated could lead a U.S. supported government. He is "wanted for fraud and other financial crimes in a slew of countries, including Jordan, Lebanon and the U.S." Nadhmi believes Crown Prince Hassan of Jordan may have made a huge error in attending the conference.
"His arrival at the meeting could not have been accidental, but to my mind, it was a mistake. Any attempt to foist him on Iraq will not be welcomed. Let's not forget that when Faisal came to Iraq, it was partly British driven, but it was also a deeply popular choice.
The Hashemite kings had always been thought of very highly, both for their protection of the holy sites and for being seen as the direct descendants of the Prophet (PBUH).
Therefore, the move to bring in Faisal was not opposed. It was accepted. It was the British who were opposed. They faced a bloody uprising that lasted three to four months, which forced the British to bring in hundreds of troops from India and elsewhere.
"If this should have happened in Iraq in 1920, in an Iraq which was then not even a nation in the true sense it is today, how much more difficult will it be to impose a regime on us in 2003 when a sense of Iraqi nationalism and Iraqi identity is that much stronger?" he asked.
Nadhmi believes that the fault lines that exist in Iraqi society between the Kurds, the Shias and the Sunnis and others cannot be tapped into by a foreign power, as they fail to see the underlying unity that overrides these separate identities. More importantly, even those who say let us get rid of the sanctions, will change their minds if they see an American ruling the country."
