Volume 3, No. 11, November 2002

Multilateralism of the US came as a threat to the UN to concede to its unilateral demands "or else" it "would go alone" to defend the peace and security of the world. Never have the peace and security of the world been the ‘concern’ of a single power, while the rest of the countries were so complacent to this danger! The US sends the wake up call to others and threatens to override them all, supposedly to save them.

The saviour is so enthusiastic for the rescue mission that it has to resort to coercion and bribe.

While the whole world says that Iraq has complied with the UN resolutions for the last twelve years the US says, "Are the Security Council resolutions to be honoured and enforced, or cast aside without consequence?" That, "Iraq had answered a decade of UN demands with a decade of defiance." When no one believes the US psychoanalysis of the world, Bush is telling them that the "the world faces a test, and the UN, a difficult and defining movement."Infinite number of such super-lies and hyperboles are coming from the other side of the North Atlantic and piercing the ears of everyone over the whole planet.

Bush and Blair, like Hitler and Mussolini, are holding the world to ransom. Saddam’s head and complete domination of the Persian Gulf and its oil is the price. If France, Germany and Russia, and to a lesser extent China, have insisted that the US go through the metal detector of the UN if it wants to ‘legitimately’ carry its plan in the Middle East it only means that they want some sort of say and weight in current international (war) politics. They well know that the US is unwilling to accept, and they are unable to force, a resolution on Iraq that stops the US from its war adventure; that the new resolution must mainly conform to US demands, though in a little diluted form. So, they are trying hard to water down the new resolution put up by the US. Disturbed by the French and Russian opposition Bush and his circle of administrators are threatening the UN and asking it to have some backbone. Bush declared, "If the United Nations Security Council won’t deal with the problem, the United States and some of our friends will."

There was much noise before that. Schroeder declared that under his leadership Germany would not participate in the US war on Iraq. A German minister equated Bush with Hitler, for that she had to lose her seat in the cabinet at the hands of Schroeder, the social democratic chancellor.

Schroeder won the German election on the promise that he opposed US policies on Iraq and was against war. Just after the ballot declared him elected, he rushed to Britain to seek an audience with Bush who had not congratulated him for his anti-American tirade. Whether it was for an ‘I am sorry’ or ‘pardon me,’ is of no significance or consequence. He went tumbling down. His anti-US insinuations were more a poll-time rhetoric and with only a little substance.

Now whether Germany will oppose the US-led war or will just keep on the sidelines if not "fall in line," remains to be seen. Some analysts had declared that the Schroeder insinuations against the US were to some extent an election gimmick. No doubt, though, the German criticisms that came in the form of insinuations reflected the opinion of the German people who oppose war.

It is not that the German leadership wants to kowtow before the US. It just has no power to stop it. It is very much clear not only from the statements of the German leaders but also from their US counterparts.

France has been vociferous in her defence of the old UN resolution on Iraq and has opposed any new one calling for "unrestricted inspection" by the arm inspectors. It wants any armed action against Iraq to be authored by the UN. This is an attempt to hold back the US from any unilateralist approach in international relations. It has stressed that the new resolution should not contain any clause for an automatic US action in case some trouble arises in the arms inspection process. For military action, it says, another round of Security Council meetings should be there to decide on the issue. It vouches for a step-by-step approach to make Iraq abide by the UN mandate.

Here one thing needs to be taken notice of. France has its own imperialist and exploitative interests in various parts of the world, including Iraq. Its insistence for the UN to play an active role is meant to restrict the US in the present state of the world’s balance of forces. As it is impossible to hold back the US militarily, it is taking to diplomatic recourse at the UN. It is in no way "against" attacks on other countries. In the case of the Ivory Coast, it acts unilaterally, as a boss of north and north west Africa.

Its foreign minister has declared, "We do not want to give a carte blanche to military action. We cannot accept a resolution authorizing, as of now, the recourse to force, without coming back to the UN Security Council." It has accepted the "unrestricted" clause put forward by the US in the resolution before the Security Council. The French regime had been somewhat ambiguous before, sometimes talking of a "political solution" and at other times that it rejects the US resolution saying, "we will not support the US in its new war." France only wants to safeguard its own oil interests in the gulf in a Saddam or post-Saddam Iraqi dispensation. Until today, it has opposed the passing of the new US-sponsored UN resolution.

The Russians have talked vehemently that war on Iraq will be "unacceptable." One usually gets the impression that France and Russia may use their veto power to stop the US from launching a war. What they are doing is to make the world believe that they are for peace. By isolating the US internationally, they are gaining their own ground for a re-division of resources of the world. There has been a parallel streak of news running from Russia and France that they want their own interests in the Gulf defended on their own accord and not through the US. Recourse to the UN is part of that strategy. It is no secret that Russia has been disturbed to see the US in its Central Asian backyard and Yeltsin had declared categorically that Russia will not allow anyone to intervene in Central Asia. However, things have moved further. Now the US is very much there and is expanding ties with the Central Asian countries.

How far Russia will go in opposing the US is being much speculated. Russia wants to sell its own Siberian oil to the US, to earn more. (The US too wants to decrease its dependence on Gulf oil. There are reports that the US may even try to dislodge the Saud family’s control over Saudi Arabia in the name of establishing democracy in the kingdom as it seems no longer competent to safeguard the US interests there.) However, it does not want its own interests curtailed in the Gulf. Russia too wants to strike a deal with the US from its own exploitative interests, preferably with Saddam intact and, if no, even if he is overthrown. That is why Russia is doing its best to maintain the status quo in the Gulf.

Moreover, the Putin administration is trying to trade off the US attack on Iraq with an unhindered Russian attack on Georgia in the name of containing "Chechen terrorism." However, it is very unlikely that the US will agree to such a trade-off as the US incursion into Central Asia is not temporary but of a highly strategic nature. Chechen guerrillas, whom Russia accuses are operating from the Georgian hills, are not the main problem for Russia. (Chechen guerrillas are mainly operating from the hills and valleys of Chechnya, which is sufficient for the Chechen rebels to hide themselves and harass the Russian army.) The problem is of the American military presence. Though the Russians want the pro-US Shevardnadze regime of Georgia to go, they are on the defensive and cannot risk confrontation with the US.

Russia wants to renegotiate with the US over Central Asian oil that is to go through Baku-Tiblisi-Ceyhan pipe line as complete control of Central Asia has become out of question for Russia now. Nevertheless, like France, Russia too has no strength to physically prevent the US.

China, has only been talking about the "political solution" to make Saddam’s regime to "strictly follow the UN mandate." It is not actively moving like France and Russia and may accept a fait accompli. "China stands with the oppressed nations and peoples" was buried long ago. At the most, it may consider "abstaining" on the crucial vote as it had done, like a dumb cow, back in 1991. China is engaged in Xin Jiang province and is concerned about its own interests in Central Asia for which it needs help from the US that is emerging as a top player in the region. It is even ready to share in the gulf loot as per the terms of the US. That the US should move through the UN is just a reiteration of a generally accepted stand.

Before the US tabled the new resolution at the Security Council, it sent its envoys to all the capitals of the "opposing" permanent members of the council to "sort things out."

What sort of behind the scene settlement is likely to emerge between the US and its weak but vocal opponents will take some more time. Bush and Putin will be meeting two times in October to decide over the spoils. How much oil has been traded off for human blood between the gangsters will become clear only after the war is over. The remaining ten council members were taken care of (bribed, threatened) separately.

The UN General Assembly session was already a dumb show where countries like India pleaded with the US to take the UN into confidence and at the same time asked Iraq to act "strictly according to UN wishes."

Others have advised Iraq to "save the situation" by complying faithfully (Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and many others).

The US may get through its resolution with minor and insignificant changes that can only postpone the war for, perhaps, a few more months. Actually, it is a US mandate to the US, through a spineless UN. The US can use the "unrestricted" clause at any juncture of time to launch an unannounced invasion of Iraq as it had done in 1998. (The Desert Fox Operation)

Iraqi regime has resented this clause most, and France and Russia wanted to avoid. It gives the US arbitrary power to strike at Iraq by using the pleas/complaints of any number of (spy) arms inspectors.

Inspectors anywhere in Iraq have only to say that Iraqi officials are "not cooperating" and war will be started by the USA. The "Unrestricted" clause will do the devil.

Taken as a whole, none of the veto power-holding dissenting states has ever said, or intended, that they would use their veto power to thwart the US move. The talk of "unacceptable," "no need of new resolution," "we reject the US-British resolution," and "we are for a political solution" will only prove empty talk as far as the stopping of the US war on Iraq is concerned.

Use of the veto power will only show their determination to challenge the US. They act quite "intelligently" in accordance with their own exploitative interests and in the end will only yelp before the US. They are trying to play Machiavellians.

Indeed, with this "struggle" of theirs in the UN, they can now tell others that they have been able to "extract" some concessions (dilutions) from the US. While in fact the US designs will only be callously stamped with the UN legitimacy. A crime of enormous proportions will be given a go-ahead.

Nonetheless, the increased European resentment against the US is not to be written off lightly, as it is for the first time that the US is facing such strong dissenting voices after the end of the "cold war," from its long standing "allies and friends" in the EU. France and Germany have never been so outspoken. Europe has never been so distanced from the US. All this can be seen in a succession of events like Kyoto, the Human Rights, the Missile Defence Program, the International Criminal Court, and many others.

This only points to the growing tensions between the big powers in the new international setting. The UN is beginning to turn into an arena for the big power play once again, after the demise of the Soviet Union.

But how far it goes will be an interesting thing to watch as the losers of the last Great War (Germany, Japan, Italy) have not yet even acquired (or been allowed) the right to defend themselves with modern sophisticated arms of the nuclear age, and so, cannot confront the US. This only enhances/forces their dependence on the US or some other power/s, a thing which can be only offset by a new alignment of [imperialist] forces on a world scale.

The US has unambiguously declared:

[Condoleezza Rice, National Security Advisor to Bush.]

Even though many a state, including the UN Sec. Gen., have asked for the US to act through the UN, and the US is now attempting that, under a feeling of pressure, the main reality of the situation is:

The US is offering an opportunity to the UN to "redeem itself" (as an analyst has put it), or perish as an organisation.

The curt message to the adversaries thus reads:

The UN or no UN, the US word will go; join the ‘coalition’ as "welcome contributors," or you are not required; the US honours friendship, only if it serves US interests and is on US terms; cooperate with us, or the hell with you!

The US cannot all the time go to the UN for each and every pre-emptive war it wants to launch to ‘defend’ democracy and ‘eradicate’ danger to humanity and civilization. It wants it either to comply or become "irrelevant." The "super rogue" is on the prowl.

The only superpower has become super arrogant and a super rogue. Liberalism’s free-market trading is as closed and suffocating as Pinochet’s Chile, and the nations in the United Nations are as freely hounded as people under a dictatorship.

In response to the Iraqi call to the UN to stop the impending aggression on Iraq, the UN is calling on it to open itself for unrestricted inspections. This is yet another worst example in the history of the community of nations, where a regime is asked to open the bedroom of its president, for a check up and to be bugged. This humiliation of a nation is highly condemnable.

The Iraqi leadership did not expect its Russian, German, French, and Chinese "friends" and the UN to ask for such a thing. They want them to stop the US and Britain from invading Iraq. Till now they have tried their diplomatic best to ward off the US. The UN is unable to safeguard the sovereignty of a country. Instead of helping a weak nation when a powerful nation attacks it, the UN is playing into the hands of big powers.

Meanwhile, the day the resolution was tabled by the US and Britain before the Security Council the people of Britain came out on the streets of London in one of the biggest anti-war rallies Britain has ever seen.

There were as many banners and mottos as men and women, saying, "Stop War," "Not In Our Name," "Boycott Murder," and "Don’t Attack Iraq."

This is a slap on the face of the Labour Party and its government that claims that Britain supports the US. For them, Britain does not include its people. It is the majority of the Labour and Tory MPs that are supporting the Bush-Blair war on Iraq. The Labour Party has proved worse than the Tories.

On the same day, tens of thousands of people demonstrated in the US, before the headquarters of the IMF and the World Bank, that are positioned close to the White House, demanding an end to Imperialist Globalisation and Against War on Iraq.

The whole of Europe is ripe for a powerful anti-war movement.

The Middle East is seething with anger.

The people of the world face a situation where there is no option than to resist.

The intellectuals are caught up in a debate about what alternative can there be to an imperialist dominated world.

The only answer, if we really want to put an end to this world of Mass Murderers is:

A World Without Imperialism !

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