War on Iraq: A deserted victory

In the short term all we are guaranteed is a blood bath. Already the number of Iraqi solders killed in the battle for Baghdad airport is said to number more than 3000. Hundreds of civilians including women and children have been killed by our 'smart bombs', and the US/UK fatalities number around 60, with at least half of those killed either by accident or 'friendly fire'. The final battle for Baghdad, which will have to be won street by street, could increase the death toll ten fold as military planners re-evaluate the now moribund 'shock and awe' tactic that was supposed to bring about mass surrender and capture Iraq in less than two weeks.

The US/UK military planners mis-calculated on two fronts. First, they expected the people of Iraq to rise up against Saddam Hussain, failing to understand that even his worst enemies, at best distrust the US/UK coalition, and at worse despise them, even more than they do Saddam. And who can blame them. At the end of the Gulf war in 1991 George Bush senior urged the Iraqi Shia people to rise up against Saddam with the implicit understanding that they were to be supported by the 'allies'. They weren't. The then General in charge of the Coalition, Colin Powell took his troops back home and left the Shia to be slaughtered. And slaughtered they were. Estimates suggest that more than 50,000 were killed after the uprising. The decision for abandoning the Shia in their moment of need came from White House calculations that concluded a brutal, but secular dictator - Saddam Hussain - was preferable to a democratic, but more religious state regime controlled by the Shia.

The second miscalculation was that Saddam, having already been defeated by the Americans, would once again fight a war on their terms: That being to engage the enemy in open dessert where his troops could be obliterated in the time it takes to open fire. Saddam's only option has been to lure the US/UK troops into an urban warfare that makes battle difficult and dangerous for the coalition even with their superior firepower.

If the immediate scenario isn't bad enough what happens after the guns stop firing and the dead are buried?

America has made clear they will not leave Iraq anytime soon. It has no intention of leaving its 100 billion-dollar war investment to the vagaries of democracy. The US will insist on governance that ensures US companies receive the bulk of the reconstruction contracts, their loyal ally the UK will pick up the crumbs. And perhaps even more importantly that Iraqi oil supplies are run by US companies, primarily for the US market, for at least the next fifty years.

Its true of course that Colin Powel has indicated that the UN must have a role in the post Saddam era, but that role will be no more than humanitarian, for the foreseeable future the governance of Iraq will be direct American imperialism or indirect imperialism via a coalition of Iraqi, bought, and paid for, stooges.

Apart from the immediate human tragedy of this war the global concern is that any notion of enforceable international law is now in tatters. America's hyperpower status has articulated multilateralism as 'our way or the highway'. The UK's 'having your cake and eat it' response has been for a genuine desire for international unity but not at the expense of upsetting its greatest ally the USA.

The new world order is therefore not defined by the United Nations decision making, but rather on whether the US sees a nation as friend or foe, and or whether or not that nation has the capability to effectively defend itself.

Far from securing greater stability around the world, many people see a new world disorder being created as the US wields its sledgehammer diplomacy.

Oppressed people the world over will not look to their governments to take on the military might that is the USA, instead they will seek new and more horrific ways to fight those they see as their oppressors. The Sept 11 twin towers attack and the growing numbers of Palestinian suicide bombers are just a glimpse of what we might expect in the new world disorder. A disorder that brings together unlikely alliances, global networks, the educated alongside the wretched poor, all for a mission destined to wreck havoc in our cocooned world of luxury.

For the millions of people from around the world who protested against the war and now feel even more powerless to affect change, this is not the time to put your heads in the sand. The battle against the bully, the greedy, and the insensitive is constant. We may have to find new legitimate ways to ensure our elected representatives act on the will of the people and not on those of big business or imperialist leaders. Or maybe come election time that often derided tool, the democratic vote, could teach these politicians the perils of ignoring the people.