However brutal the regime, Britain must not support an invasion of Iraq
29 July 2002
Not even last week's impressively evasive performance from the Prime Minister could conceal the fact that Tony Blair is caught with his feet on either side of a widening strategic divide. We might speculate that he knows a war against Iraq would be wrong. He has, after all, personally appointed a new Archbishop of Canterbury who included a condemnation of the coming war in the manifesto on which he ran for office. On the other hand, he also knows that publicly opposing the President of the United States on such an issue would weaken British influence in the world. So he waits, repeating the phrases "action is not imminent" and "nothing has been decided", for something to turn up.
Complicating factors, of course, muddy the simple choice as to which side of the divide is right. Saddam Hussein is a threat – to the Kurds, to many Iraqis, to his neighbours and to Israel, even if he is hardly a threat to the United States itself. He is in breach of United Nations resolutions designed to stop him developing weapons of mass destruction. The fact that the UN has failed to will the means to enforce its resolutions owes more to the right of veto on the Security Council than to the spirit of the settlement at the end of the Gulf War.
The issue is also confused by the fact that many of the opponents of an invasion of Iraq oppose any military action whatsoever, even of enforcing the no-fly zones intended to protect the persecuted. They are also too inclined to believe Iraqi propaganda which holds the US and its allies responsible for the starvation of many of the Iraqi people, when responsibility for that lies with Baghdad.
That said, however, the case against any attempt at "regime change" by invasion remains overwhelming. As we report today, the Government's own legal advisers say that the status of an invasion under international law is at best doubtful. A clear difference exists between bombing targets, such as known sites for developing chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, or anti-aircraft installations which threaten no-fly zones being enforced, and a ground invasion intended to overthrow President Saddam's rule.
UN authorisation has not been given for the latter, and nor is it likely to be. Mr Blair is used to that – he was advocate-in-chief of the war in Kosovo, which similarly lacked explicit UN authorisation. That conflict assumed legitimacy from a kind of "common law" of international relations which permits limited intervention in the internal affairs of states in order to prevent genocide or other crimes against humanity. But what is essentially being proposed by the hawks within George Bush's administration is the equivalent of marching on Belgrade to depose Slobodan Milosevic.
Precedents are available, such as when Tanzania invaded Uganda to depose Idi Amin in 1979, but they depend on the action being swift and relatively bloodless, and the outcome being clear. Neither applies to Iraq. Even if a credible alternative regime could be installed by US action in Baghdad – and no such candidate is waiting in the wings – the effect on Arab opinion would be disastrous.
Too many Americans believe invading Iraq is justified by 11 September, even as they accept that President Saddam had nothing to do with those attacks. The terrible truth is that the perpetrators of 11 September would want nothing more than a massive show of force by the Christian West against the Muslims of Iraq. For that reason alone, we should say no to war.
http://argument.independent.co.uk/leading_articles/story.jsp?story=319354
