Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 19:40:22 +0100
From: Hugh Rodwell <m-14970-AT-mailbox.swipnet.se>
Subject: M-TH: Iraq -- "Peace in Our Time!"


Me and my mate clarified the terms of our bet today (after a not too
successful attempt to cash in after the Annan deal).

There's a time limit now -- end of June.

And there are no conditions on the whys or wherefores of anyone backing off
or not: if the US/UN drops bombs or missiles on Iraq, I win, if not, my
mate wins.

Now why has the US backed off despite the agreement not being watertight?

It's probably a bunch of causes adding up to a decision to order a
temporary delay.

* They want a fresh run at public opinion. Right now they see opinion
inflamed against them and getting rapidly more so, both at home in the
States and abroad, particularly in the Arab countries. The obvious
enthusiasm that has greeted Annan's deal must be very galling to them.

* They want a fresh run at head-of-state opinion to overcome the resistance
of France, Russia and Arab leaders. Albright said openly she thinks it will
be easier to get support for military action if Iraq fails to comply with
the agreement. She's obviously counting on this and will be planning all
sorts of provocations to make it happen. I think she's wrong, but we'll see.

* They consider it expedient to be seen giving time for the agreement to be
implemented.

* The Lewinsky case is off the boil ...

What are the consequences of this?

* The US is weaker than was thought, and isn't ready to ride roughshod over
powerful home and foreign opposition -- yet.

* The arguments about double standards -- one for Israel, another for Iraq
-- cannot be ignored.

* Knowledge of the genocidal effects of war and sanctions has spread too
widely to be dismissed.

* The double game of keeping Iraq on its knees while keeping Saddam H in
power is becoming very difficult to maintain. Clinton made a Freudian slip
and referred to Iran when he meant Iraq, underlining the imperialist
strategy of divide and rule. This is greatly helped by ignorance and
bigotry, but a lot more people are seeing the role of oil and the total
lack of US concern for "democracy" in the Middle East now. And popular
opinion in the Middle East is hardening more than ever against the US, with
Iran defending Iraq, and even reliable puppets like Mubarak refusing to
support the US openly.

* Imperialist hatred of diplomacy is underscored -- you can just feel the
contempt they are oozing for "signatures on pieces of paper". So whatever
happens will be due to material relations of force, and more people than
ever before will be aware of this. Secret diplomacy is still possible, but
commentators in their competition are edging closer to the real pressures
being applied in negotiations.

* The spread of immediate news coverage everywhere is not just to the
advantage of the imperialists, who got a lot of mileage out of their
control of the media during the Gulf War. They have been forced to supply
live news broadcasts to the ordinary men and women on the aircraft carriers
for instance, and this will not necessarily be a morale booster -- just
imagine the response among enlisted troops to that Columbus exposure of
administration impopularity. Also it's no longer possible to take actions
directly dependent on the suppression of unfavourable news -- there has
been much complaining recently of the new pressures being put on regime
advisers and diplomats now that the public is rapidly and fairly well
informed. Government monopoly on news is much much more limited than it
used to be, and it's not certain that diplomats can provide more useful
commentary and analysis than people on the BBC  or CNN or the Net. The
ability of a worldwide public to follow the progress of Annan's diplomatic
mission to Iraq is a form of indirect constraint on the US administration.

A further interesting aspect is that some military people are starting to
kvetch about the *cost* of keeping troops and equipment on war alert. This
will presumably have a speeding-up effect on the new imperialist timetable
for provoking Iraq into giving it an excuse to get stuck in.

There is one aspect my friend reminded me of that I haven't been
emphasizing enough, and it is the circumstance included in the following
passage of the LIT/CI declaration on Iraq that I posted less than two weeks
ago (seems like ages!):

>These arguments [the Iraqi "danger", the "menace" of Saddam H] are not
>just >absurd because of the obvious detorioration in Iraqi strength (even
>the government >of Israel has had to declare that Saddam is not a threat
>as he no longer possesses >the military might he had in 1991 [Clarin, 5
>Feb 98]), but also because of the >current attitude of Hussein himself.
>
>The attitude of the Iraqi government is very different from the one it had
>in 1991. >Today it is no longer on the offensive calling for a war against
>the Yankees and their >Zionist allies. Today it is not only doing
>everything possible to reach a negotiated >settlement, even accepting such
>humiliating conditions as opening up its >governmental palaces to
>inspection, but it is also declaring quite specifically that it >will not
>attack Israel even in the form of reprisals in the face of an invasion.

To round off: there'll be a brief stalemate or time-out now to let the
euphoria greeting Annan's Peace-in-Our-Time homecoming subside (he really
should have waved a sheet of paper with the agreement on!), and then the
tectonic plates of conflicting material interests will start chafing as
usual and the tensions will pile up till it's time for the earthquake
needed to reduce them again.


June is a long way away. I'll be very surprised if I don't win my bet. But
I'll be very happy if I lose, because the conditions that have to be met
for me to lose all work in our favour.


Cheers,

Hugh




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