THE WRONG TARGET
For those who savour poetic justice, the sight of Mr Blair consorting obsequiously with the greatest force of conservatism in the world, Mr George W. Bush, will be among the most pleasing and delicious of recent years. For the sake of preserving the special relationship. so useful as a counterweight to the ever-increasing pretensions of Brussels, Mr Blair is prepared to bomb Baghdad when he's told to by the man who has already most laudably cut taxes and reduced the public funding of abortion.
Thus the British government bombs Iraq because it can't quite make up its mind whether it is European or Atlanticist. The fundamental moral question that Mr Blair asks himself when he puts the innocent citizens of Baghdad at risk of collateral damage — that is to say of death — is 'Will I be more important if I do Washington's or Brussels' bidding?' For the moment, the balance seems to lie with Washington. Of course, he will eventually have to make up his mind definitively: though making up his mind is the one thing he is not very good at. It is difficult to make a final decision when you don't know what, if anything, you believe in.
The raid on Baghdad undoubtedly had a certain military logic to it. The command centre in the city was guiding an increasing number of Iraqi attacks on British and American aircraft in the no-fly zones of the country, which made it likely that before long one or more allied aircraft would be shot down. The command centre therefore constituted a danger to the British and American air forces and was a legitimate target.
But there is more than one way to safeguard the lives of British and American airmen. Unless there is a pressing reason for them to be flying over Iraq, the best way to ensure that none of them is killed is by withdrawing them from the country's air space altogether. What, exactly, is the bombing of Iraq, now chronic though with periodic acute exacerbations, supposed to achieve? It is not necessary to be either a pacifist or a sympathiser with Saddam Hussein to doubt its value. To bomb a country, even one led by a man like Saddam, requires both a moral and a practical justification. It is universally acknowl
edged that Saddam is an evil man and the world would probably (though even this is not quite certain) be better off without him and his odious regime. The world is full of such evil men, however. The bombing, moreover, has not removed him from power in ten years, and he could easily survive a further ten years of it. We may be sure that when Iraq is bombed, it is not Saddam who suffers.
We are entitled to be sceptical of the claim that we are bombing Iraq for humanitarian ends, for three reasons. First, our last humanitarian bombing campaign, in Serbia and Kosovo, all too predictably resulted in not one but two episodes of ethnic cleansing. Second, the British and American gov
ernments lied shamelessly about both motives and results throughout that campaign, and it is unlikely that they have suddenly turned truthful when it comes to bombing elsewhere. Third, there is no evidence that anyone has actually been protected by the bombing.
Perhaps the justification for the campaign is that Iraq is a threat to world peace. Certainly, no one should underestimate Saddam's lust for power and desire to cause trouble. But though he is an evil man, he is not necessarily an irrational one: if there is one thing he understands, it is power and its correlates. For all his braggadocio, he is the leader of a country with the population of New York City and an economic product the size of Cincinnati's; a country that is moreover completely dependent upon others for its military technology. The prowess of his armed forces was well demonstrated during the Gulf War. They were, and are, a threat mainly to unarmed civilians.
His apparent determination to obtain weapons of mass destruction is a further sign of his braggadocio. He is all too aware that any attempt to use them on a serious enemy would result in the swift nuclear extermination of his own country, including himself. Such weapons would therefore be useless to him. All that blusters is not bold.
He could be a regional nuisance, attempting to take over Kuwait again if he thought that he could get away with it. Another full-scale war against him would then be justified. But he knows that Israel could annihilate Iraq, he wouldn't tackle Turkey, the Syrians hate him, and he is unlikely to try his luck against the Iranians again. As far as causing trouble for the West is concerned, he is more likely to foment terrorism than to provoke all-out war.
The Anglo-American bombing of Iraq neither protects the vulnerable inside Iraq, nor makes any part of the world a safer place. But a small chronic war, whose intensity can be turned up or turned down like the flame of a gas cooker, is convenient to politicians who want either to prove their toughness or to distract the attention of the public. Regrettably, it is sometimes necessary to kill civilians, but not for these trivial reasons.
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