A New Road Map: Tawhid in the 21st century
And your Allah is One Allah. There is no god but He, Most Gracious, Most Merciful (Q2:163).Archive for war
Why Iraq?
(This piece was written before the Iraq War started)
Yesterday evening I had the pleasure of attending a talk by Dr Stephen Younger, Director of the Defense Threat reduction Agency. These are the folks that try to eliminate the threat of WMDs for the rest of us. The MIT Club of Washington DC had arranged this event. Dr Younger was a wonderful speaker- insightful, frank, informed and able to think systemically. Not surprisingly, he was bombarded with questions at the end of his talk, most of them related to Iraq.
The definition of winning this war was spelled out: General Tommy Franks has to ensure that USA will have the ability to go into Iraq, eliminate WMDs and the ability to create them. Franks will create the safe environment that DTRA needs to complete its job. One of the questions asked was why Iraq? Given the fact that there are numerous cruel and evil rulers in the world who commit outrages in their own countries of the same magnitude as Saddam Hussein (the questioner specifically referred to several regimes in Africa), why is it that we have chosen to attack Iraq, rather than the rest? The second part of this same question was why did we support Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war, and why did we change our minds about it now?
The answers, in a nutshell, were startling, if for no other reason than their honesty. To the first question Dr Younger responded while we ought to be helping out those populations too, those other regimes in Africa were “not a threat to Western culture that Iraq is”, and is incidentally not the only country that is considered a threat. In case you did not realize the significance of that statement, let me emphasize the point: Iraq is a threat to “Western Culture”. Apparently there are several other countries that are on notice right now.
A speaker at a previous seminar I attended (Homeland Security Seminar Series, also organized by the MIT Club of DC) had also indicated that there are some countries on the “list”- that speaker had specified there are about six. The answer to the second part of the question was simply that we supported Iraq against Iran because Iraq was the lesser of two evils and that we did not want the Islamic Revolution to spread! Food for thought, eh? Saddam, the intelligent, cruel monster was used to squelch a greater evil: the Islamic Revolution!
These answers of course begged the question that I proceeded to ask: assuming that there is a threat to the Western culture from Iraq and from Iran with its Islamic Revolution and nuclear capabilities, what will we do if a democracy comes in Iraq? This is of course a source of concern because in a democracy the Shiite majority in Iraq will almost certainly have a huge role in the administration, and they have strong leanings with Shiite Iran. What will WE do next?
Dr Younger tried to answer my question without answering my question- he mentioned how Western civilization had grown out of Ancient Sumeria, how it took the US some 100 years to establish a democracy and deal with all or almost all of the minority issues, so we really must give democracy a chance. Fair enough, sort of…
Being a troublemaker, I asked a follow-up question: if it took us 100 years to establish and stabilize a democracy, and maybe optimistically Iraq will do it in 50 years, do WE have the patience to allow administrations that we don’t like to come into power while Iraq’s democracy is evolving? Let me summarize the answer I got: Yes, we should. No, we won’t. I hope we do.
Perhaps it is time that both doves and hawks really thought about the role that humanitarian responsibilities, oil, WMDs and Al-Qaeda actually play in this war? With so much rhetoric it’s sometimes hard to find that kernel of truth.
