Transcripts
"More woes for the Iraqis"
by Elisabeth Jeffries, London
As Bush Thumps Saddam, the nation is already on its knee
Already exhausted by the rule of Saddam the tyrant, Iraqis are now about to endure further knocks at the hands of Bush the liberator. It is always the people who suffer. Experts on the Iraq situation laid bare the country’s decline to uninformed Londoners at the Friends UK/ICA conference shortly before Christmas.
“Lawless jungle”
The impoverishment of the Iraqi nation over the last 20 years – since Saddam Hussein has tightened his grasp over the country – is the most convincing argument for the prosecution of a war to extract him and his ruling class. The country is now “a lawless jungle” in the words of Nadje al-Ali of Exeter University.
This impoverishment has manifested itself in a variety of ways: the quality and availability of education is poorer, the crime rate is on the increase, intellectuals have left the country, and the middle classes have weakened.
A new class of nouveau riche war profiteers connected to the dictatorial regime has emerged and expanded, and many of its of members are dependent financially on relatives living abroad. Families and individuals not in this position are living on the poverty line, and the relative stability provided by the former middle class has been undermined. At least one third of the population are dependent on rations.
"Child mortality and prostitution"
Between 4-5000 children are dying every month in Iraq, a fact that has not been widely reported in Western Europe. Due to economic and demographic imbalances, men and women fight over jobs now that a large number of men have emigrated. There are now significantly more women in the population than men and polygamy – which had been rare – has become much more common, along with prostitution.
The decline has been accompanied by increased social conservatism and female repression, a reversal of the relative liberalism which emerged in the 1960s and 1970s. It is partly a consequence of the dictatorial regime, and partly a consequence of sanctions against the country.
"No rivals"
In the midst of this drawn-out crisis, another blow is poised over Iraq – the attack on Saddam. Why now, though? Why has the USA’s aggression taken 12 years to resurface? One of the main reasons has been to re-establish the Republican Party’s trump card on national security, explained Robert Singh.
The intention is to use Iraq as a precedent for other states, in order to create international credibility and a “no rivals” military approach. A simultaneous goal is also achieved by doing this – to discredit the Democrats’ containment policy in the 1990s. The connection between the war and oil resources or a clash of cultures aggravated by events on September 11th 2001 is perhaps lesser than is imagined by many Westerners, speakers suggested.
September 11th provided ammunition for evangelical right wingers in the USA pointing to fundamentalist forces in the Middle East, but revenge is not the acknowledged or direct motivation for the war. However, a kind of tribalism linked to religious forces has emerged in Iraq and it is also connected to a class of warriors there fascinated by Hitler, according to Iraqi writer Faleh Jabar. It does act as an ugly match to the crusading forces in the Bible Belt.
“Drunk on victory”
There is no question that the US will win its war, or it would not even aggress Iraq in the first place. The Iraqi army has not the capacity to resist its mighty fist. According to Paul Hirst of Birkbeck College London, the American strategy is to “cut Iraq into pieces that cannot communicate”, while the only defence the Iraqis can adopt is to create chaos. The options available for political solutions seem to have faded.
For Bush’s political regime is in Hirst’s words “drunk on victory”, while the Pentagon prepares to sober up on tactical planning.
Elisabeth Jeffries
Member of Friends of LeMonde Dipomatique
With thanks to the speakers:
Paul Hirst Birkbeck College (London University) Professor of politics
Alain Gresh, Editor of Le Monde Diplomatique
Charles Tripp, SOAS (London University) reader in politics
Sami Zoubaida Birkbeck College London, reader in sociology
Sarah Graham-Brown, author on Iraq
Loulouwa al Rashid, researcher on Iraq
Faleh A Jabar, Iraqi author
Nadje al-Ali, Exeter University social anthropology lecturer
Robert Singh, Birkbeck College (London University) politics lecturer.
© Friends Of Le Monde Diplomatique
