Hubris: The Real Reason for the Invasion of Iraq

By

 

Dr. Mahmoud S. Audi

 

On Friday 22 February 2013 Rachel Maddow narrated on her MSNBC show a program titled “Hubris: Selling The Iraq War,” based on a book by David Corn and Michael Isakoff of similar title. The one hour long program demonstrated how the G.W Bush administration scammed us to wage a war on Iraq. But the question remained: why our government wanted to eliminate Saddam. It is not the petroleum (oil)!                               

Iran had been a constitutional monarchy, modeled after the United Kingdom, since 1906. In 1951 its Prime Minister with near unanimous consent of its parliament nationalized the oil industry which was nearly totally owned by British and US companies. Orchestrated by the intelligence agencies of these two countries a coup d’état in 1953 toppled the democratic government of Iran which was headed by Mohammad Mossadegh, the Prime Minister. This action has been the origin of the ill feelings of the Iranians toward the Western including the United States governments. In 1979, after 26 years of poppet monarchy, the Iranians rose in a revolution which removed the shah and established the current Islamic regime.

Iraq had been part of what had been going on in Iran. Both countries had a long standing border dispute. During the period from 1953 to 1979 the intensity of resentment of the Iranians against their shah was increasing. Saddam supported the unrest of the Iranian and those who fled their country to avoid persecution found home in Iraq.  Among them was Ayatollah Khomeini, the Supreme Leader of the revolution.  The shah understandably wanted to suppress the revolution by all means. He made a move to stop the help which Saddam was giving the Iranian uprising. He negotiated a solution to their age old border dispute. The agreement included stopping aide to the Iranians and eliminating any safe harbor in Iraq for the revolutionary leaders. Saddam expelled Ayatollah Khomeini from Iraq. They became enemies. The Supreme Leader of the Iranians became an exile in France.

In 1979 the Iranian revolution became the government of Iran. Many Arabs stood with the Iranian revolution and with the Iranian government, but not the Arab rulers. In particular the ruler of Iraq: Saddam Hussein who was annoyed by the popularity and actions of the Iranian revolution among Arabs including Iraqis. Also there were calls for invading Iraq and other countries. Saddam waged a preemptive war against Iran. The United States and other Western and Arab governments resented the Iranian revolution and so an opportunity for revenge. So they clandestinely supported Saddam by all means necessary to win. The war lasted eight years. It ended in 1988 when the United States mistakenly shot down a civilian Iranian airplane over the Gulf. When the Iranian Supreme Leader ordered the hostilities stop, Saddam declared victory.

During the war the West supplied Saddam with all kinds of traditional and advanced weapons. As a result of this transfer his arsenal of weapons made him ready for another conflict if he chose to have one. He also, as widely believed, had a million well trained and highly experienced soldiers. Riding on this wave, Saddam seemed to assume leadership of the Arab world. So what did he do?

He invited the Arab leaders to a conference in Baghdad. They answered the call including Hosni Mubarak, the then president of Egypt, but the Syrian president, Hafez Al Assad, who with Saddam belong to the same Baath political party. In the conference Saddam, in my opinion, insulted some Arab leaders. One of them was King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, whom I personally respect. He also called for the establishment of a fund to support the Palestinians and the Jordanians.

So, who should had been worried about the schemes of Saddam? It was not Saudi Arabia and it was not Syria.

After the 9/11 terrorist attack on the United States almost all the Arab governments including the Iraqi government condemned the attack and offered to help the United States in any way they could. But in one of the press conferences, in an answer to a question about what he thought about the 9/11 attack, Saddam said: “He who plants the seeds of hatred harvests hatred.”This was played on American Televisions a number of times. What Saddam said is a general advice given by a father to his son. But President Bush was no son to Saddam.

I believe you can now figure out who wanted Saddam demised! Let me help you: Forget the weapons of mass destruction.

Military Drones are not the Solution

By

Dr. Mahmoud S. Audi

In my opinion, Al Mutanabbi is one of the great poets of all times. He wrote epic poems more than thousand years ago. He was born in current day Iraq and as a professional poet he had traveled to many cities including Baghdad, Aleppo, and Cairo. Poetry had been his passion and his key to achieve his political ambitions.

Although Baghdad had been the capital of the Abbasside Caliphate, the Caliphate included prominent city states which had been governed by emirs (governors). Aleppo, currently the largest city in Syria, was one of those city states. It is located in the north west of current day Syria bordering the Byzantine Empire in Asia Minor (Current day Turkey). Despite the difference in size and power of the two political entities they had frequent border skirmishes.

Saif id dawlah (the sword of the state) had been the governor of Aleppo. He had in his divan historians, poets, and other artists and professionals. The poets composed epic poems praising the governor for his generosity at home and his valor at war.

Al Mutanabbi was invited to join the staff of the governor. He accepted the invitation and started creating lengthy poems filled with vivid imagery of the governor and his deeds. Shortly afterwards he became the head poet of the divan, to the chagrin of the older poets.

In a poem describing one of the border skirmishes, he wrote about the bravery of the infantry and the cavalry of the governor. They used skillfully their swords and shields. But the forces of the enemy used shielded horses in addition to the traditional swords and shields. The shielded horse was a new war technology: It was the “military drone” of that time.

The translation of the verse which includes the shielded horse metaphor follows.

“They came to you, pushing their iron, looking like
They advanced toward you on horses without legs”

And to appreciate the musicality of the verse, the English transliteration of the same verse follows.

“Atooka yajorroon al hadeeda ka anna ma
Sa oo be jeyadin ma lahonna kawa immoo”

Drones give military advantage, to those who use them, now as much as shielded horses gave military advantage, to those who had used them.The drones, known as the unmanned aerial vehicles (UNV), have been available in many sizes, capabilities, and missions. They could be used and some have been used in many civilian and military applications. They could be used in crowd management such as in controlling riots and demonstrations; they could be used in border surveillance and security; in protecting critical infrastructure such as oil refineries, power plants, and dams; in protecting major sports and political events; and in numerous military operations. Some of the civilian use may undermine the civil liberties of a democracy.

However, like many technologies which have been developed to expand the borders of human knowledge and advance the contents of his civilization, they have dark sides. For example in the Stone Age man developed a hard stone into a knife to procure and prepare his food, but later he used the new tool to kill his fellow human; also understanding the structure of the atom helped advance the human knowledge, but it also set scientists on the road to develop the atomic bomb to kill people and destroy properties efficiently. The dark side of the drone is its recent use to assassinate people. Our government is leader in this field. It has been using drones to assassinate people in Pakistan among other sovereign countries. They destabilized these countries. In particular Pakistan which had been our major ally in South East Asia during the Cold War is now living in chaos. Unfortunately we might have started a perpetual drone war in that poor country.

Moreover, when a drone fires a missile to kill a suspect, it kills the suspect and whoever is with him or around him. That action creates more enemies than it kills. The drone is not the solution; it is the creator of more lethal problems. We must check the results of using drones to assassinate people. Imitating those who believe ruthless killing of civilians as a strategy is not acceptable. We must reclaim our status as the beacon on top of a hill for the rest of the world to emulate. Our government must think of the consequences of using these machines. We cannot live behind ever increasing walls with ever increasing heights. As the leading democracy in the world we must incessantly demonstrate our values. Our actions must not bring us hate and isolation; it must bring us respect and appreciation.

After all, the shielded horse did not protect the Byzantine Empire against the invasion of the Ottomans.