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AntiZIONIST
9/6/2002 (11:30) |
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As Bush war talk grows, so does world opposition
September 1, 2002
By ELAINE SCIOLINO
NEW YORK TIMES
PARIS -- As the Bush administration ratchets up its verbal war against Iraq, the rest of the world is talking back -- in statements that contain more skepticism and disapproval than support and that are often determined by domestic politics, economic problems, distrust of the United States and concerns about international law.
Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain has probably come closest in aligning his government with the United States on Iraq, and on Saturday he affirmed earlier statements calling for action against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, telling reporters on a flight to Africa, 'The world cannot stand by and allow Iraq to be in flagrant breach of all the United Nations resolutions on developing chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.'
But while doing nothing about Iraq's breach of the U.N. resolutions is 'not an option,' he said, what to do remains an 'open question.'
Blair hinted that international approval would be necessary for any military action, saying of the American-led strikes in Kosovo and Afghanistan, 'We acted in a calm and sensible and measured way with the broadest international support.'
The Bush administration's war talk terrifies those who want to avoid more bloodshed and instability in the Middle East, annoys those who want to focus on more basic concerns such as ample food and clean water, pleases those who want to see a change of government in Iraq and mystifies those who believe that 11 years of deterrence has worked.
In Australia, the prospect of war against Iraq has enraged wheat farmers, who worry that Saddam may make good on his threat to slash grain imports if the Australian government keeps up its tough talk.
In Israel, the Health Ministry is preparing to vaccinate 15,000 police officers, firefighters, ambulance drivers and disaster relief workers against smallpox, fearing that Iraq could use the deadly virus as a biological weapon.
In Russia, Yuri Shafranik, a former fuel and energy minister turned oil and gas lobbyist, told a newspaper that a war against Iraq would leave Russian investors with only one option: 'When the United State strikes, shoot yourself.'
American war planning has complicated Germany's close election campaign, antagonized Arab allies such as President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt who believe the Palestinian crisis must be solved first and given political cartoonists a flood of fresh material. A cartoon in a recent issue of the satirical French weekly Le Canard Enchaine shows President Bush as a pistol-packing cowboy, articulating a magic formula for prosperity. 'It's simple,' Bush says. 'If the Dow Jones doesn't go up, I'll annihilate Iraq.'
Public opinion polls underscore the range of opinion. A recent survey cited in the Paris weekly Le Journal du Dimanche reported that 76 percent of the French were hostile to the idea of a war, and only 18 percent in favor. By contrast, a poll in the Israeli newspaper Maariv showed that 57 percent of Israelis favored American military action.
In Britain, polls show a war against Iraq would be unpopular, especially among activists in Blair's own left-leaning Labor Party.
In some quarters, the verbal jousting has turned vicious. After Alexander Downer, Australia's foreign minister, branded Saddam 'a menace' last month, Simon Crean, the opposition leader, accused him of 'talking like Rambo.' Downer then blasted Crean for 'talking like Saddam Hussein.'
From the perspective of some countries, Sept. 11 disastrously reordered Washington's priorities, and the prospect of war against the country with the world's second-largest oil reserves is even more disheartening.
Before Sept. 11, Mexico was at the top of the American foreign policy agenda. No more. Many of President Vicente Fox's hopes for a transformed relationship with the United States have been unfulfilled. Mexico is indeed trying to do its part to help the United States secure its southern border and chase money-laundering leads. But it believes it has received little in return, and the Mexican political establishment has cooled toward Bush.
So it is not surprising that Fox has offered no support for an attack on Iraq, moral or political. 'We can't get involved in any way in any war,' he said recently.
In Russia, which has just signed a $40 billion cooperation deal with Iraq, many political pundits predict calamity if war comes, while others see silver linings. Sergei Karaganov, a top Russian political analyst, said in a recent radio interview that an American-led attack on Iraq 'may lead to the disintegration of the international antiterrorist coalition and to instability in the region.'
But the newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta expressed hope in an editorial that a war might benefit Russia. 'Any rise in oil prices due to such an operation will only help the Russian budget,' it read.
In Iran, which was invaded by Iraq in 1980, hard-liners and reformists alike have spoken out against any attack on their neighbor. Iran has had enough of war -- the Iran-Iraq conflict lasted eight years and cost hundreds of thousands of lives.
'We have suffered more than anyone else from the direction of Iraq,' President Mohammad Khatami, a mid-ranking cleric and a reformist, said recently. He added, 'But we believe intervention in other countries and imposition of the wishes on a country by a bully is much more dangerous than even the presence of the so-called misfit governments.'
As for Kuwait, another victim of Saddam's aggression, while it formally opposes an attack against Iraq, it would be delighted if Saddam somehow disappeared from the political landscape. But it does not want to act alone.
'Kuwait will be always working under an Arab and international umbrella and will be always dealing seriously with the current threat against Iraq, which can be avoided if Baghdad adheres to the international resolutions,' Kuwait's information minister, Sheikh Ahmad Fahd al-Sabah, said last month.
Saudi Arabia and Pakistan express a more forthright version of Arab solidarity. 'We have always opposed any attack against an Arab or Muslim country,' said the Saudi foreign minister, Saud al-Faisal, during a recent trip to Iran. 'And that also means Iraq.'
President Gen. Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan warned on Thursday that an American attack on Iraq would 'alienate the Muslim world.'
President Jacques Chirac of France has taken what might be called the internationalist-legalistic approach to war against Saddam, arguing that any use of force must be approved by the U.N. Security Council.
There is a precedent. Before the first Bush administration went to war against Saddam in 1991, Secretary of State James Baker went on a global tour to lobby Security Council members to vote for a resolution authorizing the use of force. Yemen and Cuba voted against it; China abstained.
This time around, while China has sought to be seen as a partner in the campaign against terror, it opposes an attack on Iraq. Last week, Beijing received the Iraqi foreign minister, using the occasion to repeat its objection to military action.
The Chinese have urged Iraq to comply with Security Council resolutions, and did so again last week, but Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan pointedly said 'the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Iraq should also be respected.'
Then there is the save-our-oil approach, which often emerges in Japan. The Yomiuri Shimbun, a newspaper that usually supports American policies, said, 'Helping strikes on Iraq would make oil-producing Arab nations hostile to us and cause an energy problem for Japan.'
That is followed by the make-me-an-offer approach, perhaps best seen in Turkey, which shares a border with Iraq. The fear is that the turmoil resulting from an American invasion could spill over into Turkey's troubled southeast, where the Kurdish separatist struggle has claimed 30,000 lives since 1984. Also, Turkey is in the midst of a political crisis that has led to scheduling early elections in November, a move that could complicate any planning for a military operation against Iraq.
'We have used every opportunity to tell our friends in the U.S. administration we are opposed to military action against Iraq,' Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit said last week.
That said, Turkey may be open to negotiation. It has suggested that it would consider changing its position in exchange for the easing of more than $4 billion owed to the United States for military purchases.
Possibly the most unexpected reason not to go to war against the authoritarian government of Saddam was offered by the authoritarian government of Vietnam. A Foreign Ministry spokesman said recently that Vietnam 'protests any military acts aimed at overthrowing the administration of President Saddam Hussein.'
He explained, 'The administration of Iraq was elected by the Iraqi people.'
UNLESS THE USA IS ABLE TO TABLE THE EVIDENCE OF SADDAMS 'CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER' TO THE FREE WORLD IT WILL BE LEFT UP TO THE IRAQI PEOPLE THEMSELVES TO DISPENSE OF THAT ASSHOLE. WE GOYIM (CATTLE) ARE SICK AND TIRED OFF OUR INDIVIDUAL GOVERNMENTS INTERFERING IN THE INTERNAL AFFAIRS OF LESSER NATIONS. WE REMEMBER VIETNAM AND IT'S DISASTEROUS LEGACY ON THEIR NATION AND OUR NATIONAL PYCHE.SO IT AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN AGAIN JUST BECAUSE THE WHITEHOUSE HAWKS HAVE A BONER FOR IT....
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