On horns of dilemma

With the war-mongers in the United States rattling their sabres about a new campaign to dethrone the Iraqi President Saddam Hussain late this fall or next Spring, Ottawa is clearly growing increasingly nervous.

For, the ruling Liberal Party leaders are facing a dilemma of epic proportions. They simply don't know whether to support or oppose such a campaign.

On the face of it, Ottawa is against attacking Iraq. Prime Minister Jean Chretien and his Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham have cautioned Washington time and again, urging restraint. For a long time, both Chretien and Graham were able to get by saying that there has been no proof Baghdad's involvement in September 11. Without producing such evidence, they said the United States should not take Canadian support for granted.

But that is no longer the case. U.S. President George W. Bush and his key aides are not talking anymore about wanting to remove Saddam because he may have had something to do with September 11.

Now what is being conceived in Washington is pre-emptive action because Bush fears the Iraqi President may be close to acquiring the capability to launch a nuclear attack on the Americans or the Israelis. Bush's idea is to hit him first and have him removed from power in order to install a more pliable new leadership in Baghdad which will not be so gung-ho about playing nuclear poker with them.

Wag the dog scenario

Canadians have no dog in this fight and want to have nothing to do with it, if they can help it. They also see the moves against Iraq as an attempt by Bush to settle an old score with Saddam, left over from the days of the 1990 Gulf War launched by the President's father, George Walker Bush.

They also suspect that the U.S.President may be working on a 'Wag the dog' scenario just to divert attention from the spate of corporate scandals that have plagued the American capital, causing not only the stock market to plummet, but also drop in Bush's popularity rating.

Canadians believe the President is desperately looking for ways to reverse this trend for, otherwise there is a good chance that the Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives may very well be decimated in the mid-term elections due in November.

"It is pretty obvious Saddam has become a tempting target for the Bush administration for this reason," an Arab diplomat in Ottawa who spoke on condition that he would not be identified, told Gulf News.

"Taking the war against terrorism to Baghdad seems like the answer to many of Bush's problems. But countries like Canada have good reason to be wary." He said that it was one thing to join the war against Al Qaeda and the Taliban because the evidence against them was overwhelming and the attacks in New York and Washington were of a scope needing military intervention.

But there has been nothing to suggest that Saddam or Iraq was in any way involved in September 11. So it is hard to justify dragging the Middle East into more turmoil. That is the last thing our countries want to see happen in the Middle East.

I cannot see how Bush can persuade any Arab leader to support an attack on Iraq at this time, considering the brutal Israeli suppression of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

The calls for restraint, echoed in Ottawa, reflect similar fears. Both Chretien and Graham have said in their public comments that Washington still very much need the international coalition it put together to have any hope of a successful outcome in the war against terrorism.

They suspect that the coalition would not only collapse, but also that the Middle East would be plunged into greater turmoil, if the United States decided to expand the war to Iraq.

But most analysts here believe Canada's advice, much as it is that of a trusted friend and a close ally of the United States, pales into insignificance in the face of the drumbeat of anti-Iraq rhetoric coming out of the Washington establishment, U.S. lawmakers on both sides of the aisle included.

Wiser heads in the Bush administration probably realise that any expansion of the conflict in the near future would be a major folly, and would leave the United States almost entirely isolated. But they are being increasingly outnumbered and outgunned.

Clearly, the hawks are winning in Washington. They are prevailing because they have managed to manipulate the American public into accepting an expansion of the war into Iraq as inevitable with a regular diet of warnings of more and even deadlier terrorist attacks.

The hawks have also convinced Bush that waiting for a better day to move against Saddam would have catastrophic consequences for his administration – and indeed for the United States – if Al Qaeda or any other terrorist group manage to get their hands on any Iraqi-made weapons of mass destruction.

Americans who now live on the edge perpetually, naturally expect their government to take whatever military measures necessary, including pre-emptive strikes, to protect them.
In this rising war hysteria, Ottawa's pleas carry no weight. The apparent threat of bellicose action is ringing alarm bells around the country. But Canadian leaders seems helpless.

Adding to the government's unease is the growing sense among Canada's business elite that Ottawa may be making a strategic mistake by distancing itself from Washington on this issue. They fear Canadian opposition to the extension of the war into Iraq may be perceived as 'unfriendly' by the Bush administration, and there would be serious repercussions for Canada.

They believe the wiser course for Canada to follow is to use its influence with countries like Russia and France to get Iraq to accept the UN weapons inspectors again. Pressure Baghdad to live up to the deal it agreed to at the end of the Gulf War and renounce weapons of mass destruction.

Good chance

In their view, if Iraq can somehow be got a clean bill of health about its arms capability, there is a good chance that Bush can be persuaded to give up his quest for a regime change in Baghdad. It might also lead to the end of the economic embargo that has been in effect since Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990.

Iraq's hard-pressed 23 million people would then be not only be able to get what they need, Canada would have access to a lucrative new market in Iraq.

"To simply say Canada would have no truck with any U.S. move to launch military strikes against Iraq is bound to antagonise Americans, might even prompt them to retaliate," explains Stanley Lyanavitch, an Ontario businessman running an import-export trade.

"With 87 per cent of our exports destined to the United States, Americans are in a position to bring Canada to its knees anytime they want. If they decide to shut down the Canada-U.S. border for even a week, our economy will go down the tube in no time. There are huge risks involved in living next door to the world's only superpower."

So what to do with Iraq? The deal struck recently between Moscow and Washington allowing Iraq to sell more oil as long as the proceeds are administered by the UN and used to buy humanitarian supplies and repair Iraq 's battered infrastructure has bought countries like Canada a little more time.