The Only Way Out

Expectedly Mr. Bush vetoed the war budget through which the US Congress had sought to put some restrictions on him. The purpose of the whole Congress exercise was to pressurize Mr. Bush to pull out of Iraq. By vetoing the Congress-approved war budget Mr. Bush has proved nothing but his rigidity and stubbornness.

There is no point in discussing what will happen next. In American political spirit, now bipartisan parleys and discussions will take place to find out a compromise. Let them do their work the way they like. Let us remain concerned with their foreign policy as it matters to us the most.

With the electoral victory of the Democrats, many people the world over had come to believe that Bush would be compelled to change his Iraq policy. However, soon it became clear that they were underestimating his stubbornness and obstinacy. Mr. Bush refused to budge and argued that pulling out of Iraq without finishing the agenda would send a wrong signal and give the “terrorists” a sense of victory. The underlying implication, interalia, is that there is no resistance movement in Iraq and that the Iraqi freedom fighters are “terrorists”. Instead of getting frustrated with this kind of ridiculous Bush talk the American public should be grateful that their “brave” president did not call them cowards.

Perhaps the world has some mythical opinion about the “American public” also. They are rich and their leaders influence the world out of all proportions, we know. But the argument that they are innocent and are least interested in their foreign policy and, therefore, they can not be held responsible for the bloody and murderous acts of their leaders in foreign lands is no longer acceptable. The American leaders, Bush included, take care of the public opinion before all their adventures or misadventures. The same had happened in the case of Iraq invasion also. The Bush administration first built a case against late Mr. Saddam Hussein in the domestic arena arguing that he had weapons of mass destruction as well as close collaborative links with Al-Qaeda and, therefore, deserved to be eliminated. Some saner elements within and outside the US had tried to convince the American public that Bush’s Iraq policy was wrong and fraught with dangerous consequences but to no avail. The Americans believed their president and overwhelmingly approved of his murderous attack on Iraq. There is not point in saying that they were misled. Today they must face and bear the consequences of the Bush administration’s war on Iraq which they had approved.

The Democrats are equally guilty as they too had approved of Bush’s war on Iraq. They began to oppose Bush’s Iraq policy out of sheer political opportunism. When it became clear that the Iraq war would neither be cheap nor short, they began to criticize Mr. Bush for what they called his misadventure in Iraq. They were quick to realize that the American army would ultimately be caught in the Iraqi quagmire which meant steep rise in American casualties as well as in its war budget. The American public does not like such a scenario. For long they have been fed on the myth that their army is not only invincible but also capable of registering quick victories with few casualties and limited war budgets. The moment it becomes clear that a war is going to be a costly affair, they become wary and start opposing their administration. The Democrats just capitalized on this American mood and gained electorally in the last Congressional elections.

The present Democratic opposition does not mean that they are a peace-loving party. They are opposing Bush’s Iraq policy keeping in mind the forthcoming presidential election. In fact, they are as much war-mongers as are the Republicans. A truer fact is that the American public itself is a great war-monger. But they like a war that does not involve the killing of American soldiers and puts little burden on their national budget. An administration that fails to fulfil their expectations, becomes a villain in their eyes and is ejected out of office. The world, specially the Middle East, has changed in the last three decades. Now no war would be as cheap or short as was the six-day Arab-Israeli conflict of 1967. Countries with sizeable population and national pride such as Iran and Iraq may be defeated militarily but would not tolerate physical occupation of their lands. They would resist and make it very costly for invading armies and countries. Such a realization might have already dawned on the American public as well as their two political parties.

But it would be wrong to conclude that the American public and their two major political parties would learn the right lesson from their costly war in Iraq or from the recent Israeli misadventure in Lebanon. On the contrary, they might change their policies and war tactics. They would undermine the already marginalized United Nations and launch air strikes on flimsy grounds against the countries and outfits they love to hate. Countries like Iran have to be watchful of such new thinking and developments and make their strategic planning and preparations accordingly. This is the only way out for them.

[April, 2007]