- COMMITTEE ON THE MIDDLE
EAST
-___________________________________________________________________
A year ago this month the Committee On The Middle East, COME, published a major
statement strongly opposing U.S. policies in the Middle East, especially the bombing and
devastation of Iraq. That statement is reprinted below. Lack of organization and resources
prevented us from doing more. Yet much more needs to be done. To do so we need to be able
to pursue our concerns on a sustained basis, involve more people like yourselves, and
build up a much stronger movement that not only opposes the policies being pursued but
also actively and credibly advocates alternative policies that should be pursued. In order
to be able to do these things we are now going to make COME a membership organization and
begin a program of monthly activities. To do so we need your support and your involvement.
In the days ahead we will be sending you more information and details. At this time please
read this Statement in full -- it remains extremely relevant today -- and please join and
support these efforts.
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D O N O T B O M B I R A Q A Major Statement from the Committee On The Middle East
Sunday, 1 Feb 1998 - The following is a statement from the Committee On The Middle East
(COME) concerning the American threats to bomb Iraq. We urge you to circulate it as much
as possible. The International Advisory Committee of COME, including Middle East experts
and professors throughout the world, is listed at the end of the Statement. Please join
with us and support our efforts at this critical time. To reach COME: Phone: 202 362-5266
Fax: 202 362-6965 Email: COME@MiddleEast.Org Web: http://WWW.MiddleEast.org/come.htm
D O N O T B O M B I R A Q
While the United States clearly has the military power to further devastate and
prostrate Iraq, we strongly believe that the course the U.S. has chosen is not only
grossly unjust, but also exceedingly hypocritical and duplicitous. We further believe that
though the U.S. may be able to pursue its imperial policies without substantialopposition
in the short term, the policies being pursued today, especially the new and massive
military assault being prepared against Iraq, are likely to have tremendously negative
historical ramifications. As Middle East experts and scholars - many with close and
personal ties to this long troubled and misunderstood region - we feel a political, a
moral, and a historical responsibility to speak up in clear opposition at this critical
time. Origins of Today's Imbroglio:
Throughout this century Western countries, primarily the United States and Great
Britain, have continually interfered in and manipulated events in the Middle East. The
origins of the Iraq/Kuwait conflict can be found in the unilateral British decision during
the early years of this century to essentially cut off a piece of Iraqto suit British
Empire desires of that now faded era. Rather than agreeing to Arab self-determination at
the end of World War I and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Western nations conspired
to divide the Arab world into a number of artificial and barely viable entities; to
install Arab "client regimes" throughout the region, to make these regimes
dependent on Western economic and military power for survival; and then to impose an
ongoing series ofeconomic, cultural, and political arrangements seriously detrimental to
the people of the area. This is the historical legacy that we live with today. Throughout
the 1930s and the 1940s the West further manipulated the affairs of the Middle East in
order to control the resources of the region and then to create a Jewish homeland in an
area long considered central to Arab nationalism and Muslim concerns. Playing off one
regime against the other and one geopolitical interestagainst another became a major
preoccupation for Western politicians and their closely associated business interests.
Following World War II:
After World War II, and from these policy origins, the United States became the main
Western power in the region, supplanting the key roles formerly played by Britain and
France. In the 1960s Gamel Abdel Nasser was the target of Western condemnation for his
attempt to reintegrate the Arab world and to pursue independent "non-aligned"
policies. By the 1970s the CIA had established close working relationships with key Arab
client regimes from Morocco and Jordan toSaudi Arabia and Iran - regimes that even then
were among the most repressive and undemocratic in the world - in order to further
American domination and to secure an ever-growing supply of inexpensive oil and the
resultant flow of petrodollars. By the late 1970s the counter-reaction of the Iranian
revolution was met with a Western build-up of the very same Iraqi regime that is so
condemned today in a vain attempt to use Iraq to crush the new Iranian regime. The result
was millions of deaths coming on top of the terrible devastation of Lebanon, itself a
country that had been severed from Greater Syria by Western intrigues, as had been the
area of southern Syria, then known as Palestine. Additionally the Israelis were given the
green light to invade Lebanon, further devastate the Palestinians, and install a puppet
Lebanese government - an attempt which failed leading to an American and Israeli retreat
but ongoing militarism to this day. Meanwhile, throughout all these years Western
manipulation of oil supplies and pricing, coupled with arms sales policies, often
seriously exacerbated tensions between countries in the region leading to the events of
this decade. The Gulf Conflict:
It was precisely such American manipulations and intrigues that led to the Gulf War in
1990. Indeed, we would be remiss if we did not note that there is already much historical
evidence that the U.S. actually maneuvered Iraq into the invasion of Kuwait, repeatedly
suggesting to Iraq that it would become the pivotal military stateof the area in
coordination with the U.S. Whether true or not the U.S. subsequently did everything in its
power to prevent a peaceful resolution of the conflict and for the first time intervened
with massive and overwhelming military force in the region creating today's dangerously
unstable quagmire. The initially stated American goal was only to protect Saudi Arabia.
Then after the unprecedented military build-up the goal became to expel Iraq from Kuwait.
Then the goal evolved to toppling the Iraqi government. And from there the Americans began
to impose various limits on Iraqi sovereignty; took over much of Iraq air space; sent the
CIA to repeatedly attempt to topple the Iraqi government;and placed a near-total embargo
on Iraq that many - including a former Attorney General of the United States - have termed
near-genocidal. The overall result has been the subjugation and impoverishment of Iraq and
the actual death of approximately 5% of the Iraqis as the direct result of American
sanctions, plus the reallocation of oil quotes and petrodollars to American client-states.
With the Clinton Administration, the U.S. began to insist on the "dual
containment" of both Iraq and Iran - both countries which just a few years ago the
U.S. was working very closely with and providing considerable arms to. With few in the
press able to remember from one year to the next, or to connect one historic event with
another, somehow Washington has come to insist on Iraqi disarmament and Iranian
strangulation. Furthermore, these policies are being pursued even while Israel and key
Arab client states are receiving American weapons in ever larger amounts, with Israel's
weapons of mass destruction making her forces 7 to 8 times stronger than all Arab armies
combined. Furthermore still, the U.S. and Israeli strategic alliance has never been
closer, the U.S. has repeatedly helped Israel defy the will of the international community
and the United Nations, and the U.S.continues to champion a disingenuous Israeli
"peace process" which in reality on the ground continues to dispossess the
Palestinians and to corral them onto reservations in their own country!
The Future:
In a future statement we will move on to the crucial subject of what alternative
policies the United States should be pursuing. But at this critical moment we are
compelled to come forward and urgently condemn the policies now being pursued by the
United States and regional ally Israel. We call for an immediate cessation of the economic
embargo against Iraq, an end to U.S.-imposed restrictions on Iraqi sovereignty and
airspace, and most of all immediately suspension of all plans to attack Iraq using the
overwhelming technological and military instruments available to the U.S. If the U.S.
continues to pursue its current policies then we conclude and predict it will not be
unreasonable for many in the world to brand the U.S. itself as a arrogant and imperialist
state, and if that becomes the historical paradigm it will be both understandable and
justifiable if others pursue whatever means are available tothem to oppose American
domination and militarism. Such developments could quite possibly lead to still more
decades of conflict, warfare, and terrorism throughout the region and beyond.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
COMMITTEE ON THE MIDDLE EAST ADVISORY COMMITTEE: Arab Abdel-Hadi - Cairo; Professor
Nahla Abdo - Carleton University (Ottowa); Professor Elmoiz Abunura - University of North
Carolina (Ashville); Professor Jane Adas - Rutgers University (NJ); Oroub Alabed - World
Food Program (Amman); Professor Faris Albermani - University of Queensland (Australia);
Professor Jabbar Alwan, DePaul University (Chicago); Professor Alex Alland, Columbia
University (New York); Professor Abbas Alnasrawi - University of Vermont (Burlington);
Professor Michael Astour - University of Southern Illinois; Virginia Baron - Guilford,
CT.; Professor Mohammed Benayoune - Sultan Qaboos University (Oman); Professor Charles
Black - Emeritus Yale University Law School; Professor Francis O. Boyle, University of
Illinois Law School (Champlain); Mark Bruzonsky - COME Chairperson (Washington); Linda
Brayer - Ex. Dir., Society of St. Ives (Jerusalem); Professor Noam Chomsky - Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (Cambridge); Ramsey Clark - Former U.S. Attorney General (New
York); John Cooley - Author, Cyprus; Professor Mustafah Dhada - School of International
Affairs, Clark Atlanta University; Zuhair Dibaja - Research Fellow, University of
Helsinki; Professor Mohamed El-Hodiri - University of Kansas; Professor Richard Falk -
Princeton University; Professor Ali Ahmed Farghaly - University of Michigan (Ann Arbor);
Professor Ali Fatemi - American University (Paris); Michai Freeman - Berkeley; Professor
S.M. Ghazanfar - University of Idaho (Chair, Economics Dept); Professor Kathrn Green -
California State University (San Bernadino); Nader Hashemi - Ottawa, Canada; Professor
Clement Henry - University of Texas (Austin); Professor Herbert Hill - University of
Wisconsin (Madison); Professor Asaf Hussein - U.K.; Yudit Ilany - Jerusalem; Professor
George Irani - Lebanese American University (Beirut); Tahir Jaffer - Nairobi, Kenya; David
Jones - Editor, New Dawn Magazine, Australia; Professor Elie Katz - Sonoma State
University, CA; Professor George Kent - University of Hawaii; Professor Ted Keller - San
Francisco State University, Emeritus; John F. Kennedy - Attorney at Law, Washington;
Samaneh Khader - Gruadate Student in Theology, University of Helsinki; Professor Ebrahim
Khoda - University of Western Australia; Guida Leicester, San Francisco; Jeremy Levin -
Former CNN Beirut Bureau Chief (Portland); Professor Seymour Melman - Columbia University
(New York); Dr. Avi Melzer - Frankfurt; Professor Alan Meyers - Boston University;
Professor Michael Mills - Vista College (Berkeley, CA); Kamram Mofrad - Idaho; Shahab
Mushtaq - Knox College; Professor Minerva Nasser-Eddine - University of Adelaide
(Australia); Professor Peter Pellett - University of Massachussetts (Amherst); Professor
Max Pepper, M.D. - University of Massachusetts (Amherst); Professor Ruud Peters -
Universiteit van Amsterdam; Professor Glenn Perry - Indiana State University; Professor
Tanya Reinhart - Tel Aviv University; Professor Shalom Raz - Technion (Haifa); Professor
Knut Rognes - Stavanger College (Norway); Professor Masud Salimian - Morgan State
University (Baltimore); Professor Mohamed Salmassi - University of Massachusetts; Qais
Saleh - Graduate Student, International University (Japan); Ali Saidi - J.D. candidate in
international law (Berkeley, CA); Dr. Eyad Sarraj - Gaza, Occupied Palestine; Professor
Herbert Schiller - University of California (San Diego); Peter Shaw-Smith - Journalist,
London; David Shomar - New York; Dr. Manjra Shuaib - CapeTown (South Africa); Professor J.
David Singer - University of Michigan (Ann Arbor); Professor Majid Tehranian - Director
Toda Institute for Global Peace and Policy (University of Hawaii); Dr. Marlyn Tadros -
Deputy Director, Legal Research and Resource Center for Human Rights (Cairo); Ismail
Zayid, M.D. - Dalhousi University (CA).
