[Reader-list] Seamas Milne on status of war

[Rana Dasgupta]

Published on Thursday, March 27, 2003 by the Guardian/UK

They are Fighting for Their Independence, not Saddam

by Seumas Milne

The Anglo-American war now being fought in the Middle East is without
question the most flagrant act of aggression carried out by a British
government in modern times. The assault on Iraq which began a week ago, in
the teeth of global and national opinion, was launched without even the
flimsiest Iraqi provocation or threat to Britain or the US, in breach of the
UN charter and international law, and in defiance of the majority of states
represented on the UN security council.

It is necessary to descend deep into the mire of the colonial era to find
some sort of precedent or parallel for this piratical onslaught. However
wrong or unnecessary, every previous British war for the past 80 years or
more has been fought in response to some invasion, rebellion, civil war or
emergency. Even in the most crudely rapacious case of Suez, there was at
least a challenge in the form of the nationalization of the canal. Not so
with Iraq, where the regime was actually destroying missiles with which it
might have hoped to defend itself only a couple of days before the start of
the US-led attack.

But there is little reflection of this reality, or of Anglo-American
isolation in the world over the war, in either the bulk of the British media
coverage or the response from most politicians and public figures. Little is
now heard of the original pretext for war, Iraq's much-vaunted weapons of
mass destruction, and regime change - that lodestar of the US hawks which
Tony Blair struggled to dissociate himself from for so long - is now the
uncontested mission of the campaign. Having lost the public debate on the
war, Blair has demanded that a divided nation rally round British troops
carrying out his policy of aggression in the Gulf. And under a barrage of
war propaganda, the soft center of public opinion has dutifully shifted
ground - in the wake of those MPs who put their careers before constituents
and conscience once Blair had failed to secure UN authorization. Many balk
at criticizing the war when British soldiers are in action, but it's hardly
a position that can be defended as moral or principled when the action they
are taking part in arguably constitutes a war crime. And whether public
support holds up under the pressure of events in Iraq - such as yesterday's
civilian carnage in a Baghdad market - remains to be seen.

Events have, of course, signally failed to follow their expected course. The
pre-invasion spin couldn't have been clearer. The Iraqis would not fight, we
were told, but would welcome US and British invaders with open arms. The
bulk of the regular army would capitulate as soon as soon as they saw the
glint on the columns of American armour. The war might even only last six
days, Donald Rumsfeld suggested, in a contemptuous evocation of the Arabs'
humiliation in the Six Day war of 1967. His hard right Republican allies
insisted it would be a "cakewalk". British ministers, as ever, took their
cue from across the Atlantic, while the intelligence agencies and
US-financed Iraqi opposition groups reinforced their arrogant assumptions.

But Rumsfeld's six days have been and gone and resistance to the most
powerful military machine in history continues to be fierce across Iraq - in
and around the very Shi'ite-dominated towns and cities, such as Najaf and
Nasiriyah, that the US and Britain expected to be least willing to fight.
Nor has the Iraqi army yet collapsed or surrendered in large numbers, while
regular units are harrying US and British forces along with loyalist
militias. One senior US commander told the New York Times yesterday, "we did
not put enough credence in their abilities," while another conceded that "we
did not expect them to attack". The International Herald Tribune recorded
dolefully that "the people greeting American troops have been much cooler
than many had hoped".

There was little public preparation for the resistance that is now taking
place. Third World peoples have after all been allocated a largely passive
role in the security arrangements of the new world order - the best they can
hope for is to be "liberated" and be grateful for it. There has been little
understanding that, however much many Iraqis want to see the back of Saddam
Hussein, they also - like any other people - don't want their country
occupied by foreign powers. No doubt Ba'athist militias are playing a
coercive role in stiffening resistance. There are also those who cannot
expect to survive the fall of the dictatorship and therefore have nothing to
lose. But the scale and commitment of the resistance - along with reports of
hundreds of Iraqis struggling to return from Syria and Jordan to fight -
suggests that it is driven far more by national and religious pride. Most of
these people are not fighting for Saddam Hussein, but for the independence
of their homeland.

To fail to recognize this now obvious reality is not only condescending, but
stupid. But then we have been subjected to such a blizzard of disinformation
in recent days - from the reported deaths of Tariq Aziz and Saddam Hussein
to the non-existent chemical weapons plant and Tuesday's uprising in Basra -
that it should come as no surprise to hear everyone from British and US
defense ministers to BBC television presenters refer to Iraqis defending
their own country as "terrorists".

Of course, the US has the military might to break Iraqi conventional
resistance and impose a puppet administration in Baghdad in order to change
the regional balance of power, oversee the privatization of Iraq's oil and
parcel out reconstruction contracts to itself and its friends. But the
course of this war will also have a huge political impact, in Iraq and
throughout the world. This is after all a demonstration war, designed to cow
and discipline both the enemies and allies of the US. The tougher the Iraqi
resistance, the more difficult it will be for the US to impose its will in
the country, and move on to the next target in the never-ending war on
terror. The longer Iraqis are able and choose to resist, the more the
pressure will also build against the war in the rest of the world.

Almost 86 years ago to the day, the British commander Lieutenant General
Stanley Maude issued a proclamation to the people of Baghdad, whose city his
forces had just occupied. "Our armies," he declared, "do not come into your
cities and lands as conquerors, but as liberators." Within three years,
10,000 had died in a national Iraqi uprising against the British rulers, who
gassed and bombed the insurgents. On the eve of last week's invasion
Lieutenant Colonel Tim Collins echoed Maude in a speech to British troops.
"We go to liberate, not to conquer", he told them. All the signs from the
past few days are that a new colonial occupation of Iraq - however it is
dressed up - will face determined guerrilla resistance long after Saddam
Hussein has gone; and that the occupiers will once again be driven out.