PEOPLE AND POLITICS

Obasanjo, Saddam Hussein and the Americans

Mohammed Haruna

By sheer coincidence, at a time I was writing a critique of America’s apparent philosophy of might is right on these pages two weeks ago, (reference Better bad than dead? of August 7), the influential Economist was busy making a case for war against Iraq (The Economist, August 3^rd –9^th). Not only was the newspaper pushing America to, as it were, take out President Saddam Hussein without further delay, it was urging America to do it unilaterally and at whatever cost.

“Its founders”, intoned the paper, “called on America to show a decent respect for the opinion of mankind. And so, by and large, it does. But in the case of the looming war against Iraq, another wise saw needs to be borne in mind. This one can be found pinned in many a corner shop. It advises customers against asking for credit, because a refusal often offends”.

While much of the world, including America’s Western allies like the Germans and the French and even their British lapdogs, have warned President Bush against embarking on Gulf War II without seeking the consent of the United Nations Security Council, as his old man did ten years ago before embarking on Gulf War I, The Economist says Bush should not bother with the U.N. because he is unlikely to get its consent. “If he asks”, says the paper, “he may be refused and a refusal often offends”. Bush, says the paper, should simply ignore the UN because the dangers that Iraq’s Hussein poses to mankind “cannot be overstated”.

What are these dangers? There are, says The Economist, at least three. First, Hussein “is the world’s most dangerous dictator who by the promiscuous use of violence has seized unfettered control of a technologically advanced country with vast oil reserves.” As the world’s “most dangerous dictator”, Hussein has not only seized control of Iraq’s oil, says the paper, he had also gassed his Kurdish minority and destroyed their villages, he had invaded Iran in 1979, he had invaded Kuwait in 1990, and horror of horrors, he had even fired scud missiles at Israel during Gulf War I, in order to provoke a general Arab-Israeli conflagration.

In the face of all this, said the paper, “next time you hear someone ask why, in a world full of bad men, it is Mr. Hussein who is being picked on, please bear all of the above in mind. He may very well be the worst”.

Hussein’s crimes, however, says the paper, is worse than merely being the world’s worst thug. If he were merely that, says the paper, then he might easily be contained. The Iraqi dictator’s “unique danger” is that his country’s advanced technology and potential oil wealth could very soon “give this aggressive, cruel and reckless man an atomic bomb”. An Iraq under Hussein armed with the bomb, could, “at worse”, use it against the United States either directly or through terrorists with so-called global reach, or “at a minimum”, use it to intimidate his neighbours and dominate the Gulf. Needless to say, neither is acceptable to The Economist.

The last, but by no means the least, reason why Bush must take out Hussein, says the paper, is that in the last 11 years the Iraqi dictator has successfully defied the United Nations’ effort to stop him from laying his hands on the bomb. He has done that, says the paper, because the UN sanctions for his defiance, has been full of holes. Consequently the sanctions have merely “slowed rather than stopped his ability eventually to procure (the bomb)”.

The honest choices now, concludes the paper, “are to give up and give in, or to remove Mr. Hussein before he gets the bomb. Painful as it is, our vote is for war.”

At first glance, The Economist’s arguments look unassailable. A closer look reveals that they are no tighter than a sieve. First the argument that Hussein is the world’s worst dictator is not true. The world has seen far worse dictators in Latin America, Asia and Africa than Hussein, dictators like Chile’s General Augustus Pinochet, Philippines Philip Marcos and former Zaire’s Mobutu Sese Seko. All these and other dictators were created and nurtured by America mostly, until they were eventually found no more useful. These dictators, have probably killed off more of their countrymen than Hussein.

In any case, it is hypocritical that the Americans should condemn Hussein as a dictator. Hypocritical in the sense that he too was at one time an American favourite at the time he was doing all the nasty things against his people and against Iran that The Economist and the Americans now blame him for. Only last week, for example, The New York Times carried a story of how the Reagan administration provided Hussein with the chemical weapons with which he gassed Kurds and Iranian troops. Again, unless The Economist’s memory fails it, it will, I am sure, recall that it was the Americans who vetoed a United Nations’ Security Council resolution condemning the Iraqi’s for their use of chemical weapons against the Iranians in the battle field.

As for Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, there has been well-founded suspicions that the Americans pushed him into it in order to find an excuse for establishing more American bases in the Gulf. Then, when Hussein realized his folly and offered to withdraw, the Americans simply ignored his offer. According to Noam Chomsky, a professor of linguistics at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute Technology (MIT) and a long-time political activist, in a January 1990 article titled “Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda”, just before the war, some senior U.S. officials released an Iraqi offer to withdraw totally from Kuwait in return, among other things, for a resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict, especially as it concerned Palestine.

According to Chomsky a Washington Post-ABC opinion poll showed that two-thirds of Americans favoured such an offer. So also did the rest of the world, including the Iraqi democratic opposition. Yet Bush Snr. still went to war simply because the American Establishment had made up its mind to do so.

Obviously not only is Hussein not the world’s worst dictator, he was not even the war-monger he had been portrayed as. Which brings us to the argument that the Iraqi dictator is capable of acquiring the atom bomb. This, as The Economist knows all too well, is blatant propaganda. Does Hussein want the bomb? May be yes, may be no. In any case, who doesn’t, in today’s world dominated by the military-industrial complex?

However, the issue really is not whether Hussein wants the bomb, but whether he is in position to get it. The fact is that he is not. At least not since the Israelis successfully bombed the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak, close to Baghadad, in June 1981, using unmarked American F-16 jet bombers. At the time of the bombing the Iraqi facility was hardly in a position to make any atomic bomb as had been certified by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) after it inspection of the facility six months earlier.

By that time, according to Saymour M. Hersh, an American investigative journalist in his 1991 best-seller, The Samson Option: Israel, America and the Bomb, “Israeli scientists and engineers had been manufacturing nuclear bombs for thirteen years at a remote site known at Dimona, located in barren Negev region South of Jerusalem”.

Even without the Israeli bombing of the Iraqi nuclear facility, which, not surprisingly, was privately endorsed by the Reagan administration, the Iraqis were very unlikely to have eventually acquired the bomb, for the simple reason that America – as the overwhelmingly dominant power in the Middle East, had made up its mind for a long time, that only one country in the region – Israel – should posses this ultimate weapon of mass destruction. The then Soviet Union, as the second most important outside power in the region, was hardly in a position to stop the Americans. Anyone who doubts this should read Hersh’es thoroughly documented book about how the Americans secretly helped the Israelis to become the Middle East sole nuclear power.

Finally, the argument that Hussein must be taken out because he has defied the U.N. sanctions against him for trying to acquire weapons of mass destruction. This, has an ironic twist to it; here’s The Economist saying Iraq should be punished for defying UN sanctions but at the same time urging the Americans to do the same because that would be in the interest of the world. Talk about double standards !

In any case, Hussein’s in your face defiance of the UN can largely be blamed on the organisation itself because it has allowed itself to become America’s poodle. In the Iraqi case, it has been an open secret that many of the UN inspectors have been American spies. The Iraqis, therefore, are justified to reject an open ended inspection of their country.

At this point, the reader may be wondering what President Obasanjo has got to do with all this. Well, quite a lot. The reader will remember that in the wake of “September 11”, Obasanjo, through his minister of foreign affairs, Alhaji Sule Lamido, was at the forefront of those urging Americans to bomb fellow Africans in Sudan, Somalia and Libya, along with Iraq and other countries simply because the Americans claimed harbouring they may be so-called global terrorists. Before “September 11” Obasanjo, had, of course, handed over our military to the Americans, lock, stock and barrel. He had done so against the very opposition of the military itself, all in an effort to please the Americans who, presumably, he believes are the only ones capable of securing his stay in power.

Well, the chickens, it would seem, have recently come home to roast. Early this month, the Americans told the world, in effect, that Nigeria, under their good friend (or is it now erstwhile friend?), is not a country to do business with. It is not clear why the Americans would be unhappy with someone who has done just about everything to please them. But the reasons being offered by the presidency itself are as amusing as they are unconvincing,

According to The Comet (August 13), quoting sources in the presidency, the Americans (and their British sidekicks) have suddenly embarked on a “campaign of calumny” against Obasanjo because (1) he has refused to be used to condemn Zimbabwe for its land reform programme which disfavours white Zimbabweans (2) he has rejected American pressure to quit OPEC and (3) he has rejected America’s concern that Nigeria was getting too close to the East, the Chinese in particular. These reasons are amusing and unconvincing simply because Nigeria’s position on all three are really of marginal consequence for America’s interests.

Therefore, instead of wasting their time fighting a useless propaganda war against the Americans, President Obasanjo’s men should be asking themselves if they had not, in the first place, made a mistake thinking Obasanjo was better off pleasing the Americans than pleasing Nigerians and also thinking that, it is possible in the world of politics to have the Americans, or any one for that matter, as permanent friends.

Clearly, Obasanjo’s induction in the ‘80s into the exclusive club of the world’s statesmen following his record as the first military leader of Africa’s most populous nation to voluntarily hand over power to an elected government, had inflicted him with a delusion of grandeur, a delusion that he truly belongs to the inner caucus of the club, instead of merely being Africa’s token presence in the club. The sad thing is that he seems too far gone in his delusion to retrace his steps.