May 17, 2002
Iraq's acceptance of UN Security Council 1409, which modifies the sanctions regime that has been in place since the end of the Gulf war, is a signal that U.S. plans to target that country have become much more difficult. "Security Council Resolution 1409 to which Baghdad has agreed, and which imposes smart sanctions on Iraq, is not merely an admission that the siege imposed on the Iraqis for more than a decade was futile", writes Sati'e Noureddine in Friday's Lebanese daily as-Safir. "It is a decisive turning point in the international community's-and especially the U.S.'s-dealing with President Saddam Hussein's regime".
A NEW COURSE: On the surface, the resolution seems like a new step towards lifting the ban imposed on the Iraqi regime. It seems like a realistic admission that there is no alternative to this regime that the U.S. has unsuccessfully tried to topple by various means, including six coup attempts from inside Iraq, in the aftermath of its expulsion from Kuwait.
However, the Security Council's recent review of the oil-for-food agreement which has led to the adoption of smart sanctions, has also led to the beginning of a pathway that runs contrary to all that has been done in the past ten years.This course is based on the policy of opening up to the Iraqi people and opening all borders with it, in the hope that this may speed up the regime's downfall.
This new path does not clash with the organized daily campaign that the U.S. and Britain are now waging against Saddam, stressing a public and frank desire to topple him. In fact, it complements this campaign by suggesting the Iraqi people -which is regaining its "freedom" because of the smart sanctions- is now better able than before to move against the regime.
And when the Iraqi people moves in this direction, it will receive the U.S. support it lacked at the beginning of the 1990s. In fact, it may receive the same sort of support that the Afghanis obtained when the Taliban regime was toppled, despite the big difference between the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan. What is certain however, Noureddine adds, is that the U.S. has been unable to convince anyone in the world-including Britain-of the need or usefulness of an aerial strike against Iraq. It will even be unable to convince itself of the need for risking its armed forces (about half a million soldiers at least) in the adventure of invading Iraq and toppling Saddam.
Resolution 1409 is the first indication that the military danger threatening the Iraqi regime is disappearing, despite all rumours about an imminent U.S. strike. Equally, Noureddine concludes, it is the most important evidence so far that the political danger threatening Saddam has retreated to unprecedented levels.
IRAQI PEOPLE'S INTEREST: "Iraq's acceptance yesterday (Thursday) of UN Security Council Resolution 1409-which requires the extension with limited modifications of the international sanctions against Iraq that have been in place for 12 years-is in the Iraqi people's interest", according to today's UAE daily al-Bayan.
The U.S. and British are still lying in wait for Iraq, on the pretext of its possession of weapons of mass destruction, while turning a blind eye to Israel's arsenal of such weapons. Perhaps what the Iraqi acceptance indicates-even though it may be a reluctant acceptance-is an Iraqi choice to cooperate with the UN, supported by an Arab viewpoint that ultimately seeks to preserve the Arab/Iraqi interest, and foil U.S. schemes aimed at destroying Iraq that are based on false pretexts.
With this step, the paper continues, Iraq will have spared itself and the Arab region a new U.S. blackmail to which the whole region, and not only Iraq, was about to be subjected. By resorting to threats and violence, the U.S. is trying to consolidate its interests in the region, rob Iraq and take over Arab riches. This is the scheme that the U.S. has been trying to prepare the grounds for ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the demise of the bipolar world.
Resolution 1409, which was unanimously adopted by the UN Security Council, calls for reducing the sanctions on Iraq. It allows the Iraqi government to import all civilian-use products with greater facility, while keeping the importation of products that have a military use under continuous observation. By accepting this resolution, Iraq has undermined a major part of the international conspiracy, even though the resolution may not satisfy the Iraqi people's desire that the sanctions be completely and totally lifted. While the U.S. still claims that Iraq refuses to allow inspectors to search for weapons of mass destruction, the paper notes that Baghdad has also agreed to this on condition that an endpoint and particular locations be specified for this search, and that the matter not be one of merely forming committees and issuing "vague" resolutions that the U.S. and Britain can use against Iraq whenever they wish.
This same international community uses ten different criteria, when Israel is crowded with weapons of mass destruction, despite Arab calls and demands regarding the need to subject them to inspection. These demands, however, are thrown to the winds.
In summary, the paper says, these international resolutions are nothing but U.S. policies aimed at the consolidation of the seige imposed on Iraq through the imposition of further restrictions, and thereby freezing the further advancement of an Arab state. The broader aim behind this is to consolidate Arab divisions and differences, in what has come to resemble collective sanctions against all the Arabs. This serves the aims of Israeli/U.S. schemes against the whole Arab nation, the paper concludes. And these, God willing, is something they will be unable to achieve.
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