Special interests led U.S. into senseless, tragic war

Home News Tribune Online 01/4/07

HASSAN MAHMOUD
Be Counted

The disastrous Iraq war, which was engineered by the unholy trinity of the pro-Israel neo-conservatives, the extremist evangelicals and the oil interests represented by Dick Cheney, was sold to a naive, uninformed president. It turned out to be the biggest political blunder in American history.

This misadventure, which was supposed to be retaliation for the criminal attacks by terrorists of 9/11, has cost the United States the lives of 3,000 soldiers, 63,000 injured and $500 billion in tax dollars. And the meter is still running.

If the United States stays longer, the annual toll could be a thousand deaths, 8,000 injuries and $200 billion, mushrooming to $2 trillion in 10 years. Add to that the destruction of a secular Iraq, the killing of 655,000 of its people, turning 4 million Iraqis into refugees in neighboring countries and the ignition of unprecedented civil war between people who used to intermarry and live together in harmony.

This war, which was aimed at the wrong target — there was no connection between Iraq and 9/11 — has been assailed across the political spectrum. The latest opposition to the war was revealed in an interview in July 2004 with Bob Woodward, in which the late President Ford said: "It was a mistake and it was an error in how they should justify what they were going to do, and we should not go hell-fire damnation around the globe freeing people, unless it is directly related to our own national security. I think Cheney has become much more pugnacious, and he developed a fever about the threat of terrorism and Iraq."

Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., said that the U.S. war effort in Iraq is absurd and may even be criminal. The approval rating over Bush's handling of the war has dropped to 27 percent.

In order to find an escape from the Iraqi trap, the bipartisan Iraq Study Group co-chaired by Republican James Baker and Democrat Lee Hamilton said in its report that "the situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating." They proposed 79 recommendations as a new way forward for the United States in Iraq and the region. Many people expected that the president would adopt these recommendations. Instead, he kept mum until the first objection was voiced by Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, and the chorus of the Israeli-amen corner in the United States followed suit. The objection was to recommendations that proposed talking to Syria and Iran in order to cooperate in ending the violence and the civil war.

In exchange for this cooperation, and in the context of a full and secured peace agreement, the Israelis should return (the occupied) Golan Heights to Syria. The group stated that Iraq can't be addressed effectively in isolation from other major regional issues. One of the key items is the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, which should be addressed according to United Nations Security Council resolutions 242 (forbidding the acquisition of land by force) and 338, and to the principle of land for peace.

Olmert declared that if the United States talked to Syria or Iran, the Israeli-American relationship would be negatively affected (wag the dog). The Bush administration acceded to the Israeli wishes and declared that no such talk would take place. Many Republicans and Democrats are saying that we talked to the Soviet Union when they were declaring their aim was to destroy us. You talk peace with your enemies, not with your friends.

The Israelis and their supporters don't care about our losses in this war. They are prodding us to take military action against Iran as well, which didn't attack us, risking our involvement in another Middle East war, and losses in life and treasure, plus choking oil supply, which could raise the price to $500 a barrel with devastating economic consequences.

Israel has acted brazenly against American interests, which require a stable Middle East. The latest defiance is Israel's construction of a new settlement in the occupied West Bank, which prompted the State Department to issue a timid caution that it was a violation of Israel's obligation under the road map for peace.

Our image in the Middle East and the Muslim world is tarnished because of the Iraq war and our unconditional support for Israel's colonialist policies. People see that hundreds of thousands of Arabs and Muslims are being killed and a combined 9 million Iraqis and Palestinians have been made refugees.

Jimmy Carter, the only president to achieve peace between Egypt and Israel, is being maligned and called anti-Semitic because of his latest book, which implores Israel to stop usurping the Palestinian lands, demolishing homes and humiliating and starving the population within a big-walled prison. Our strategies in the Middle East should be aimed at protecting American interests alone.