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Who's Afraid of Iraq?
by Gary Leupp

"Those who favor this attack now will tell you candidly, and privately, that it is probably true that Saddam Hussein is 
no threat to the United States. But they are afraid at some point he might decide if he had a nuclear weapon to use it 
against Israel." 

Gen. Wesley Clark, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, CNN military consultant, in a Guardian interview (Aug. 20)

Now there's a quotation to ponder. President Bush has said on a number of occasions that Saddam Hussein "must not be 
allowed to threaten the U.S. and its friends and allies" (plural) with weapons of mass destruction. This is the 
official, public justification for war on Iraq.

But what does the statement mean, exactly? In February the CIA declared that it had no evidence for any Iraqi terrorist 
attacks on Americans since the Bush I assassination attempt in Kuwait in 1993, and never any on U.S. soil. Saddam's 
missiles can't come close to the U.S. They can reach Moscow, but the Russians aren't concerned; they're signing a $ 40 
billion economic and trade cooperation package with Iraq. Iraq's missiles can reach Sicily, but the Europeans aren't 
concerned; they firmly oppose U.S. war plans. Iraq's neighbors, including U.S. friends Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi 
Arabia, even Kuwait, say they don't feel threatened by Iraq and also oppose a war. Emphatically. Only Israel's Prime 
Minister Sharon is egging Washington on. So, taking our cue from plain-talking soldier Clark (who has taken the trouble 
to write an editorial for the London Times urging a cautious approach to war with Iraq), we can fairly restate Bush's 
declaration cited above as follows: "The U.S. must not allow Saddam Hussein to ever, ever threaten our friend Israel 
with weapons of mass destruction." Israel, that is to say, constitutes a unique category in Bushite geopolitical 
thinking, as the nation that must never, ever have to factor into its defense strategy the existence of WMDs held by 
any hostile nation. The 22 Arab nations, meanwhile, constitute another distinct set: these are nations that must never, 
ever acquire WMDs, especially nukes, because Arabs might use them against Israel. (Whether or not such thinking is 
reasonable and valid, it's best to just state it honestly, lest we abominate our lips with Bush-like incoherence or 
Rumsfeld-like doublespeak. See Proverbs 8:7).

Israel is obviously concerned about Iraq's weapons programs. In June 1981 it bombed and destroyed the Osiraq nuclear 
reactor in Iraq, which the French had taken a lot of trouble to build, saying Iraq was five to ten years away from 
acquiring nuclear weapons. The action was illegal, of course, condemned by the UN and even (mildly) by the U.S. The 
concern of the settler state was not entirely unrealistic; ten years later, during the Gulf War, Iraq lobbed Scuds at 
it. But as everyone knows, Israel is itself an (undeclared) nuclear power, and its nukes similarly cause concern 
throughout the region. (It's interesting to note, though, that while the U.S. cut off aid to both Pakistan and India 
after they joined the nuclear club, Israel didn't even get a slap on the wrist when it went nuclear, ca. 1973). In any 
case, Israel, as it showed by the Osiraq attack, can probably take care of itself, just like Pakistan can take care of 
itself vis-à-vis India, India vis-à-vis China, China vis-à-vis Russia, etc. The chief of staff of the Israeli Defense 
Forces himself, Moshe Ya'alon, recently told Ha'aretz that "In the long term, the threat of Iraq or Hezbollah doesn't 
make me lose sleep." 

For obvious reasons, there is a great deal of hostility towards the Jewish state in the Arab world. Egypt and Jordan 
have recognized Israel, and have trade and diplomatic relations, but then, they are U.S. client states (Egypt receiving 
$ 2 billion a year in U.S. aid), and even in them, in what Colin Powell calls "the Arab street," there is outrage 
towards the treatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories. As the largest, most populous, most "modernized" 
Arab nation in Southwest Asia that is not a U.S. ally or client state, Iraq could, especially in the absence of a 
solution to the Israel-Palestine problem, pose a challenge to Israel even under a leader far kinder and gentler than 
Saddam Hussein. 

One can easily imagine even a "democratically elected" leader in a secular government in Baghdad thinking, "Israel has 
nukes. Russia, to our north, has nukes. So do China, Pakistan, and India. Our unfriendly neighbor Iran has a nuclear 
program. Don't I owe it to my people to acquire them for our defense-indeed, for the defense of the entire Arab 
nation?" "Democratically elected" leaders of India have for years felt that obtaining nukes was a reasonable 
enterprise. Turns out that successive Australian governments have been pursuing a nuclear weapons program, and that 
Argentina has sought one. Is it satanic for technically advanced nations to want to follow in the footsteps of the 
U.S., U.S.S.R., Britain, France and China---or merely normal? 

It seems as though some very powerful people in Washington think the only way to prevent Iraq from eventually following 
the course of these other normal nations, and acquiring nukes that could some day be targeted at Israel (just as Israel 
has nukes targeted at Iraq), is for the U.S. to occupy Iraq and create a new government that will play ball like those 
in Egypt and Jordan. They've been urging an attack on Iraq for years, long before Sept. 11 gave them an opportunity to 
push their agenda (through crude attempts to link Iraq with al-Qaeda-which continue through reports citing unnamed 
government sources, citing classified reports that strain one's credulity). But (as Madeleine Albright has recently 
stated) the issue is not really U.S. security. Nor is it the security of other Arab nations, and surely (from the U.S. 
government's point of view) not that of the biggest victim of Iraqi aggression, Iran (lumped into the "Axis of Evil" 
along with Iraq, and also targeted for "regime change"). Rather, it's the enhancement, to the nth degree, of the 
security of an Israel already armed to the teeth and capable of nuking Iraq or Syria or lots of other places, big-time. 
It's what Scott Ritter has called the "ideological" motivation for an Iraq attack.

I'm not saying that the proponents of the forthcoming Iraq War aren't also thinking about oil, and a range of other 
geopolitical issues. I'm simply observing that defense of "our friends" in official statements really means defense of 
Israel, through the establishment of a kind of "no-fly zone" from the Khyber Pass to the Jordan River, making Israel 
absolutely safe from Muslim neighbors who presently resent its (nuclear) existence. But is it rational and moral to 
send American troops to create that imagined sea of tranquility, establishing client-states which, Egypt-like, trade 
acceptance of the Zionist project for massive infusions of Marshall Plan-type U.S. aid? Is the project feasible, the 
goal just, the method even legal? Is it really likely even to enhance the security of Israeli Jews, Israeli 
Palestinians, and Palestinians in the occupied territories? Personally, I don't think so. I think it's a recipe for 
apocalyptic blowback. You want more terrorists? Follow the recipe. 

"We're all members of the Likud now," a (Democratic) U.S. senator told a visiting Israeli politician in Washington. 
That's very scary. It's scary when a U.S. Congressional delegation visits Ariel Sharon at the height of his invasion of 
the West Bank, officially opposed by the Bush administration, to assure him that he has their full support; or when 
House Republican Leader Dick Armey cheerfully tells Chris Matthews on CNN's Hardball, "I'm content to have Israel grab 
the entire West Bank" and that the Palestinians should just get out of there. When Defense Secretary Rumsfeld opines to 
a Pentagon audience that Israel's "so-called territories" are really legitimate spoils of war, or when a RAND 
researcher at the Pentagon calls Saudi Arabia the "kernel of evil" and advocates the creation of a U.S.-sponsored oil 
state in Eastern Arabia, one has to feel scared. Scared about the rage, not just on the Arab street, but on the global 
street, that the Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz plan for the world is likely to generate towards even decent, honest, peace-loving 
Americans (who are already, in their foreign travels, finding it convenient to impersonate Canadians). The craziness 
may be spinning out of control. 

Steering the hijacked ship of state, energized by an ideology as threatening to world peace as the doctrines of the 
Taliban, are a cabal of men and women who are prepared to provoke the Muslim world (no, the entire world) by actions 
that even senior Republicans like Henry Kissinger, Lawrence Eagleburger and Brent Snowcroft seem to consider unwise. 
What to call the members of this warmongering cabal? If we're talking about "Islamist extremists," how should we label 
these folks? "Judeo-Christianist-Zionist fundamentalist imperialist extremists"? Nah, that's too many "---ists." So I 
propose just "crazies," who unfortunately, by some random (just possibly reversible) fluke of our planetary history, 
have acquired the ability to threaten the whole human race, your friends and mine---Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, 
Buddhists, atheists and everybody else----with weapons of mass destruction.

Gary Leupp is an an associate professor, Department of History, Tufts University and coordinator, Asian Studies Program.

He can be reached at: gleupp () tufts edu