The pipe dream of turning the Iraq war into a moral case!

A plethora of reasons was advanced by the American hawks to justify their war in Iraq. As soon as one argument for the invasion and occupation of Iraq collapsed they switched to another. However, over the past few months, almost all the warriors -- Bush, Blair and the belligerents in both the conservative and liberal press have fallen back on the last line of their defence. The argument of 'a moral case for Iraq'. After having exhausted all the lies in stock -- the lies about WMO, Saddam's alleged link with al-Qaeda and about Saddam-controlled Iraq posing an imminent and immediate threat to the US national security -- now there is a moral case for Iraq war.

The ploy of the war-cabal to trap the American people, Bush's main audience of concern in an election year -- is craftily contrived to retain the president's credibility as a saviour and redeemer and his image as a crusader. Indeed, George Bush thrives on the guillibility of the Americans and is desperately at work to keep them lost in the maze of umpteen numbers of lies about the real end-game in Iraq. The neo-con's game to trap the Americans and keep them engrossed in a big charade has hardly lost any of its bite or thrust in last seven months after Bush announced the end of major military combat in Iraq. It has rather acquired greater punch and urgency because of the impending presidential election next year. As far as the occupation of Iraq was concerned the US only hardened its stance in the face of increasing resistance.

Yet a time came when behind the fig-leaf of accelerating an orderly transfer of power to an Iraqi government, Washington was getting ready to cut and run from Iraq. What seemed to take heart out of the Americans was the downing of five helicopters two months ago and the loss of 40 US lives. The first three of them might well have proved a catalyst of sorts, for Paul Bremer was summoned to Washington after the third crash. But in reality, the American position had already become untenable well before then. Also the rapid body counts in Iraq, 416 killed and 6,800 repatriated with wounds and ailments as well as the prospect of 1,30,000 soldiers returning home with horror stories to tell and the need to face the anger of 1,28,000 families to whom it was no more possible to justify the war finally broke Bush's will and neo-cons' nerves.

It was at this crucial juncture that the news of Saddam's capture came. The mood was obviously celebratory both in Pentagon and White House because more of good news came indeed in a gush. A rejuvenated Bush recovered from his exasperation suddenly awakened to a new realisation that he could claim that the economy turned around with 7.4 per cent GDP growth, his tax cut had indeed paid off and the unemployment also was falling. All he had now to further claim that he got rid of a monstrous dictator, was about to bigin the process of democratising Iraq and would soon bring troops back home. Every initiative on Iraq emerging now from the oval office is indeed focussed on mid 2004 with its blowback on Bush's reelection -- albeit election -- for Bush was not elected as such in 2000. But next year, if not anything else, his election now seems guaranteed. Because as claimed by Bush now, there was a moral case for deposing Saddam willy-nilly by violent means, although there was a normal case also for not doing so.

That Saddam is no longer at the helm in Iraq as a result of US invasion could have been a good thing. But it must be weighed against the killings of thousands of Iraqis, the possibility of a civil war in Iraq, the anger the invasion has generated throughout the Muslim world and the creation, as a result, of a more hospitable environment in which terrorism can operate, the reassertion of imperial power and vitiation of international law. These costs certainly outweigh the undoubted benefit of the overthrow of Saddam. But is it worth the cost?

Also the keypoint overlooked by all those who have made the moral case for Iraq war is that the moral case is not necessarily the moral reason. Whatever the arguments for toppling Saddam on humanitarian ground may have been it is not why Bush or Blair went to war. A super-power seldom has moral imperative. What it always has is strategic imperative. It's power is not to sustain the lives of others but to sustain itself. It can make the moral case but that does not mean that it is motivated by morality. When it suits its purpose to append a moral justification to its action it will do so. It acts because it cares about its own interest. The US like all great powers does have a consistent approach to global affairs. But it is not morally consistent.

All empires work according to the rule of practical advantage rather than those of kindness or moral decency. During the cold war the two empires supported whichever indigenous leaders advanced their interests. Those who imagine that the strategic calculus has somehow been overturned in today's power-relations are deceiving themselves.

As regards democracy in Iraq, even its architects, Condoleeza Rice, Paul Bremer & Co who are trying to manufacture one to be imposed on Iraqi people are themselves confused about how to implement the dubious scheme chalked up in Washington. Bush, the master of double-speak promises to handover power to elected Iraqis. But he wants them to be elected by ones handpicked by his viceroy, Paul Bremer and his band of Iraqi acolytes. Hopefully for the Bush team the Iraqi people will be 'free' to accept those puppets as 'their' elected representative.

The American pipedream of short-changing the shia majority has since been exploded. The politically conscious, fiercely nationalist and well disciplined shia lot has the necessary wherewithal to turn the screws on the reneging Americans and capacity to mount a gritty challenge to them and call Bush's bluff through exposing his double-faced plan by removing its sugar coating. In the meantime the resistance in Iraq has only stiffened even after Saddam's capture. The American analysts also admit that Saddam's capture will make no dent in insurgency.

To make things worse for Bush not a single country agreed to shoulder any part of stabilisation in Iraq. The donors' conference was similarly a farce as $ 20 bn out of $33.6 bn committed to Iraq came from the US and nearly the whole of the remainder was offered as loan which Iraq would not be in a position to repay. At the end of the day nothing much has changed in Iraq even with the glad tidings of Saddam's capture and whole lot of positive changes in favour of Bush's possible election victory next year. Neither has there a difference been made by turning Iraq war into a moral case.

Brig ( retd) Hafiz is former DG of BIISS.