In the last six weeks three things have
dominated media coverage of. the
preparations for US war on Iraq, and the 'war on terrorism' in general.
First has been the bombings by Al Qaeda (or its sympathisers) in Bali and Mombasa.
Second has been the political jostling at the UN and elsewhere between the US and China, Russia and France.
And linked to this is the return of the UN weapons inspectors to Iraq, and their failure (at the time of going to press) of anything which looks like weapons of mass destrucThe bombing of an Israeli-owned hotel north of Mombasa, and the deaths of three Israelis and ten Kenyans raised the question - coming soon after the carnage in Bali - is the US losing the war on terrorism?". Some commentators speculated that this might strengthen those in the US who say that the Pentagon is going after the wrong target in concentrating on Iraq - a view which has been voiced by Bill Clinton and other
While this might be true to some extent, it is a completely secondary factor. The war against Saddam is set in stone, and the Democrat leadership in Congress has signed up for it.
Moreover, the Bush team has repeatedly stated that the 'war on terror' is a 'generational (sic) struggle", by which they mean that it is a war which will take a generation .. to win through persistent and repeated interventions against 'terrorist cells' and 'rogue states'.
Islamist bombings will tend to strengthen Bush's hand, providing massive publicity and material evidence for the claim that the crusade against terrorism is a justified one, terrorism is a 'real and present danger, and that this crusade must be pursued to the end. crusade, will make much distinction between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. inspectors has been forced on the US by European states, China and Russia, with Tony Blair playing a key role in insisting on UN cover for Iraq war 2. Underlying this is different conceptions of how the world order should be run in the post-Soviet, sinUS leaders want unilateral dominance, but the Europeans tend towards rule by the "international community, their laughable code term for the strongest capitalist powers acting together through debate and conAt first blush it might seem ludicrous to insist that the US war has to be sanctioned by the UN, since the outcome will be exact• ly the same - war and conquest. But in international political terms, and especially vital. being consulted by the US on major political the biological weapons or the nuclear programme alleged by the US and UK to still exist? If Saddam still has some of this type of weaponry (and even if he does it is insignificant compared with that in the hands of the US and Israel) it may be difficult to find. Saddam has had years to hide Saddam's claim that he has no weapons of mass destruction has been denounced by the US, which claims that this denial is itself a breach of UN resolutions and a possible
• •••• Just waiting for the pretext: Bush rallies the troops how the war is presented domestically in France, Britain and Russia, the UN cover is
Chirac, Blair and Putin cannot be seen to simply sanction a US war, without there ousness. being 'evidence' for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, and without agreement by the 'international community' that such a war is
part of the war on terror. team whizzing round Iraq in silly games at the UN.
But in a sense that doesn't matter. pushed out of postwar Iraq.
A cause for attack. If the inspectors find nothing, the Bush team will merely say the inspectors have been hoodwinked by Saddam, who must be punished for his deviThe politicking at the UN has irritated the American leadership, but not diverted them from their determination to attack Irag and occupy the country. Israel and Russia have used the political breathing space to maximise the claims that their wars- against Chechnya and Palestine - are an integral
Blair has regarded this preparatory period as essential for building a 'case' and international 'consensus'. But the more the Bush leadership sticks to its position, the stronger it gets vis-à-vis Europeans and others playing
Once the war is seen as absolutely inevitable and indeed imminent, the bandwagon effect will be tremendous. Chirac will climb on the bandwagon, to try to ensure French interests are not totally
Cause
ndeed all those on the war bandwagon
hope to get their nose in the postwar
oil and reconstruction trough, includ- alism. British ministers tried to hire Al-Qaeda ... the debts that Saddam has failed to pay.
The one exception here is China, although its utterly cynical political leadership sees perhaps some economic payoff in improving political relations with Washington and certainly relishes the prospect of the United States becoming bogged down in the Middle East for years, an almost certain result of occupying Iraq.
In the long term the Bali and Mombassa bombs may be of more significance than tomfoolery at the UN and the weapons inspection farce. There is plenty of room for political development of the 'war on terrorism', both its precise meaning and scope.
big unknown is whether the United States leadership will take the momentous decision to make this a real 'war of civilisations', going beyond the "democracy versus terror framework of today. If that course is chosen, then the implicit (and at times explic it) enemy will be Islam, with immense political consequences around the world.
Right-wing premier Silvio Berlusconi briefly played with this idea in the aftermath of September Ith, but got his fingers badly burned in the court of Italian public opinion.
All the major European states now have big Islamic populations, and the thought of many thousands of young Muslims being driven into the political arms of Osama Bin Laden, and of permanent strife with this section of the population, fills European governments with dread.
However, war and occupation in Iraq added to the treatment meted out to the Palestinians by US-backed Israel, would together -provide a dramatic impulse to recruitment to the Islamic fundamentalist
It is precisely the international role of the anti-war movement and the Left within it which provides a bulwark to contest imperi-