President Bush maintains that the current war is about liberating the Iraqi people.
To solemnize this idea, he approved the campaign of bombing now under way, and called it “Operation Iraqi Freedom.”
But there are myriad reasons to question how Iraq will be “liberated” by this war, not least of which is the profound distrust among Iraqis of American intentions.
Why are Iraqis not wholeheartedly welcoming the American invasion of their country?
Because they have good memories. They remember, for example, that in the 1980s the United States’ relationship with Saddam Hussein was cozy and collaborative.
The American government was more concerned with Iraq’s neighbor Iran, which in 1979 had overthrown the pro-American regime of the Shah in a populist Islamic revolution.
Saddam’s decision to challenge the Iranian government in a devastating war was viewed by American power-brokers as a way of containing the possibility of “spillover effect” of the revolution, particularly in the area of the Persian Gulf, where Americans had favorable relationships and vested oil interests.
In the wake of the Iran-Iraq war, the United States, along with Britain, Germany, France and Russia continued to facilitate arms sales and construction in Iraq, principally by providing lines of credit.
As for Saddam’s appalling human rights record, this did not appear to be of much concern to the U.S. government.
When Saddam’s use of chemical weapons on Iranian troops and on Iraqi Kurds in the North of Iraq was made widely known, the Reagan administration actually blocked a Senate resolution that would have imposed sanctions on Iraq.
Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990 – undertaken in part to reduce the debt incurred in the Iran-Iraq war – radically altered the U.S.-Iraqi relationship.
The invasion allowed for the seemingly permanent stationing of American military forces in the Persian Gulf, and set in motion the gears of a debilitating sanctions regime now in its 13th year.
The ostensible logic behind the sanctions was this – they would force Saddam to disarm as per U.N. resolutions.
But a close examination of the sanctions reveals that the bar has always been raised, that even with evidence of Iraqi compliance, the United States pushed harder and harder for regime change.
Indeed, regime change has long been the goal of those close to the current president, notably Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz.
In 1998, while both were working in the private sector they sent a letter to President Bill Clinton urging him to implement a strategy that “should aim, above all, at the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime from power.”
The Bush administration has used Sept. 11 as an opportunity to implement this policy, not because it has proof of a connection between Iraq and the terrorists, but because it created a climate of fear and apprehension that the president is currently exploiting.
Apprehension and the speculation that at some time in the future Saddam might provide weapons of mass destruction to terrorists do not constitute an imminent threat that would provide an adequate justification for war.
Let us be clear. The war is not about disarming and liberating Iraq – it is about establishing American hegemony in the region, gaining control over 250 billion barrels of oil reserves and implementing the designs of neo-conservatives who will benefit from an American occupation and reconstruction of Iraq.
Halliburton Company, formerly run by Vice President Dick Cheney, has already received the contract for oil well firefighting, without any bidding.
If the lessons of history indicate anything in the Middle East, it is that the local populations always challenge illegal occupations.
Iraq will not be an exception.
Sarah Gualtieri, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of history. She specializes in Middle Eastern studies.
