Winston Churchill on Iraq

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: "Howard Butcher, IV" <hbiv () netreach net>
Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2003 09:36:56 -0500
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: Winston Churchill on Iraq

 
Dear Dave,
 
        This is an article I think you might want to share with your IP'rs
if for no other reason to bring some balance to the majority of what you
have been sending out recently.
 
        I also recommend to you an excellent article in last week's New
Yorker magazine on "Two Centuries of European Anti Americanism", which I
can't send along because it isn't available on line.
 
        Best,  Howard
 
 

'My Grandfather Invented Iraq'

By WINSTON S. CHURCHILL

HOUSTON -- As thunderclouds gather over the Middle East, America and Britain
stand once again shoulder to shoulder preparing to draw the sword in defense
of freedom, democracy and human rights. A line has been drawn in the sands
of the Arabian desert. By this week, we will have deployed some 200,000
American troops, together with more than 40,000 British, who will shortly be
committed to battle.

Meanwhile, I have a confession to make: It was my grandfather, Winston
Churchill, who invented Iraq and laid the foundation for much of the modern
Middle East. In 1921, as British colonial secretary, Churchill was
responsible for creating Jordan and Iraq and for placing the Hashemite
rulers, Abdullah and Feisal, on their respective thrones in Amman and
Baghdad. Furthermore, he delineated for the first time the political
boundaries of Biblical Palestine. Eighty years later, it falls to us to
liberate Iraq from the scourge of one of the most ruthless dictators in
history. As we stand poised on the brink of war, my grandfather's experience
has lessons for us.
***
The parallels between Saddam Hussein's repeated flouting of U.N. resolutions
-- 17 over the past 12 years -- calls to mind the impotence of the U.N.
forerunner, the League of Nations. In the 1930s, the victors of the First
World War -- Britain, France and the U.S. -- fecklessly allowed the League
of Nations' resolutions to be flouted. This was done first by the Japanese,
who invaded Manchuria, then by the Italian dictator Mussolini's invasion of
Ethiopia and, most gravely, by Nazi Germany.

Had the Allies held firm and shown the same resolve to uphold the rule of
law among nations that President Bush and Prime Minister Blair are
demonstrating today, there is little doubt that World War II, with all its
horrors, could have been avoided. Indeed it was for that reason that
Churchill called World War II the "Unneccesary War." Tragically, the same
sickness that infected the League of Nations -- a feebleness of spirit, an
unwillingness to face the realities of the world we live in, and a
determination to place corrupt self-interest before the common good -- now
afflicts the governments of France, Germany and Belgium.

I can think of few actions more shameful than the recent vote by these three
nations in the counsels of NATO to deny the Turks -- the only NATO country
to share a common border with Iraq -- the protection they need against the
very real possibility of an Iraqi missile attack. This region, in
particular, was one of the great disappointments of my grandfather's career.
After the creation of Iraq, Iran and Palestine, he wanted to create a fourth
political entity in the region, Kurdistan. Against his better judgment, he
allowed himself to be overruled by the officials of the colonial office, a
tragic decision which, to this day, has deprived the Kurds of a nation of
their own and caused them to be split up under Iran, Iraq and Turkey, each
of which has persecuted them for their aspiration to self-determination --
none more so than Saddam.

My grandfather's resolve and leadership offer a second parallel to today's
situation -- one that confronted the world 55 years ago, when America was on
the point of losing her monopoly of the atomic bomb. As leader of the
opposition in the British parliament, Churchill was gravely alarmed at the
prospect of the Soviet Union acquiring atomic, and eventually nuclear,
weapons of its own. He said at the time, "What will happen when they get the
atomic bomb themselves and have accumulated a large store? No one in his
senses can believe that we have a limitless period of time before us."

As President Bush and Mr. Blair intend today in the case of Iraq, Winston
Churchill in 1948 favored the threat and -- if need be the reality -- of a
pre-emptive strike to safeguard the interests of the Free World. Aware of
the dangers ahead, Churchill believed that the U.S. -- while it still had a
monopoly of atomic power -- should require the Soviet Union to abandon the
development of these weapons, if need be by threatening their use.

The Truman administration chose not to heed his advice. The result was the
Cold War, in the course of which the world -- on more than one occasion --
came perilously close to a nuclear holocaust.

It is no great surprise that the nations which long toiled under the yoke of
communism during the Cold War are our greatest supporters today. Unlike the
French, Germans and Belgians, the East Europeans have not forgotten the debt
of gratitude they owe to the United States, first for liberating them from
the Nazis and, most recently, from Soviet domination. With absurd Gallic
arrogance Mr. Chirac has threatened to block next year's scheduled entry
into the EU of some 10 East European nations as punishment for their support
of the Anglo-American position on Iraq. Beneath the protests of the French
and the Germans, we can discern in the current crisis, the fading of the old
Europe dominated by the Franco-German axis.

Messrs. Chirac and Schroeder, in urging delay, know full well that if the
impending attack is not launched in the next two to three weeks, it cannot,
realistically, take place until the end of the year, granting Saddam an
eight-month reprieve. In whose interest would that be, I wonder? No doubt
they imagine that, by their delaying tactics, they can save Saddam's bacon
and with it their own arms-for-oil contracts. But I have news for these two
shabby peace-mongers who know no shame: By their failure to join in the
coalition of the willing -- indeed, by their deliberate attempts to
frustrate the removal of Saddam -- they will forfeit both their arms
contracts and their Iraqi oil. And it could not happen to nicer people!

Like President Reagan before him, George W. Bush has what my grandfather
would have called "the root of the matter" in him. He is able to discern the
most important issues of the day and to stand firm by his beliefs. Likewise,
Tony Blair. On Iraq and the Anglo-American alliance, the British prime
minister has got it absolutely right: He is pursuing the true national
interest of Great Britain, which is to stand at the side of the Great
Republic, as my grandfather was fond of calling the land of his mother's
birth.
***
The time has come for the world community -- or such of it as has the
courage to act -- to deal with this monster once and for all. Were we to
shirk from this duty, the U.N. would go the way of the League. More gravely,
a marriage of convenience would be consummated between the terrorist forces
of al Qaeda and the arsenal of chemical, biological and nuclear capabilities
which Saddam possesses.

We have business to do and I believe that together, America and Britain, and
those of our allies who share our sense of urgency and strength of
commitment, will soon rid the world of this demented despot, liberate the
Iraqi people from tyranny, and strike a further blow against the ambitions
of fundamentalist terror.

Mr. Churchill, a former British M.P., is the editor of "Never Give In!" a
collection of Winston Churchill's speeches, due in November from Hyperion.
This is adapted from a speech at the Houston Forum.

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