Comment
War or peace with Iraq?
www.GlobalAware.org
This will be a war without support at home or agreement
abroad
Robin Cook, Tony Blair's leader of the House of Commons, resigns over
Tony Blair's unswerving course towards war in Iraq at any cost.
Tuesday March 18, 2003
The Guardian
"I have resigned from the cabinet because I believe
that a fundamental principle of Labour's foreign policy has been violated.
If we believe in an international community based on binding rules and
institutions, we cannot simply set them aside when they produce results
that are inconvenient to us."
I cannot defend a war with neither international agreement nor domestic
support. I applaud the determined efforts of the prime minister and foreign
secretary to secure a second resolution. Now that those attempts have
ended in failure, we cannot pretend that getting a second resolution was
of no importance.
In recent days France has been at the receiving end of the most vitriolic
criticism. However, it is not France alone that wants more time for inspections.
Germany is opposed to us. Russia is opposed to us. Indeed at no time have
we signed up even the minimum majority to carry a second resolution. We
delude ourselves about the degree of international hostility to military
action if we imagine that it is all the fault of President Chirac.
The harsh reality is that Britain is being asked to embark on a war without
agreement in any of the international bodies of which we are a leading
member. Not Nato. Not the EU. And now not the security council. To end
up in such diplomatic isolation is a serious reverse. Only a year ago
we and the US were part of a coalition against terrorism which was wider
and more diverse than I would previously have thought possible. History
will be astonished at the diplomatic miscalculations that led so quickly
to the disintegration of that powerful coalition.
Britain is not a superpower. Our interests are best protected, not by
unilateral action, but by multilateral agreement and a world order governed
by rules. Yet tonight the international partnerships most important to
us are weakened. The European Union is divided. The security council is
in stalemate. Those are heavy casualties of war without a single shot
yet being fired.
The threshold for war should always be high. None of us can predict the
death toll of civilians in the forthcoming bombardment of Iraq. But the
US warning of a bombing campaign that will "shock and awe" makes
it likely that casualties will be numbered at the very least in the thousands.
Iraq's military strength is now less than half its size at the time of
the last Gulf war. Ironically, it is only because Iraq's military forces
are so weak that we can even contemplate invasion. And some claim his
forces are so weak, so demoralised and so badly equipped that the war
will be over in days.
We cannot base our military strategy on the basis that Saddam is weak
and at the same time justify pre-emptive action on the claim that he is
a seri ous threat. Iraq probably has no weapons of mass destruction in
the commonly understood sense of that term - namely, a credible device
capable of being delivered against strategic city targets. It probably
does still have biological toxins and battlefield chemical munitions.
But it has had them since the 1980s when the US sold Saddam the anthrax
agents and the then British government built his chemical and munitions
factories.
Why is it now so urgent that we should take military action to disarm
a military capacity that has been there for 20 years and which we helped
to create? And why is it necessary to resort to war this week while Saddam's
ambition to complete his weapons programme is frustrated by the presence
of UN inspectors?
I have heard it said that Iraq has had not months but 12 years in which
to disarm, and our patience is exhausted. Yet it is over 30 years since
resolution 242 called on Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories.
We do not express the same impatience with the persis tent refusal of
Israel to comply. What has come to trouble me most over past weeks is
the suspicion that if the hanging chads in Florida had gone the other
way and Al Gore had been elected, we would not now be about to commit
British troops to action in Iraq.
I believe the prevailing mood of the British public is sound. They do
not doubt that Saddam Hussein is a brutal dictator. But they are not persuaded
he is a clear and present danger to Britain. They want the inspections
to be given a chance. And they are suspicious that they are being pushed
hurriedly into conflict by a US administration with an agenda of its own.
Above all, they are uneasy at Britain taking part in a military adventure
without a broader international coalition and against the hostility of
many of our traditional allies. It has been a favourite theme of commentators
that the House of Commons has lost its central role in British politics.
Nothing could better demonstrate that they are wrong than for parliament
to stop the commitment of British troops to a war that has neither international
authority nor domestic support. by Robin Cook MP.
Robin Cook is a distinguished Labour MP of long
standing and was, until March 17th 2003, leader of the British House of
Commons
READ: Bush at war with the world
| Diplomatic Endgame | Canada
Just Say No!
All by Dr. Leslie Jermyn
If you read or write a good article or comment on a GlobalAware issue,
send it in: info@GlobalAware.org |
