Peace through negotiations in Syria? Or chasing the illusion of victory at any cost in lives? Which will the Syrian sides and foreign governments choose? It can’t be both

The Syrian government, the armed rebels and foreign governments involved in Syria are deceiving themselves in believing that what they want is what’s best for everyone, in believing that a complete military victory over the other side is possible, and in believing that such a victory would benefit even their own side.

The US and British governments are as fond of saying that Assad, Russia and Iran are destabilising Syria and the Middle East as Assad and the Russian and Iranian governments are of saying that NATO and its Arab allies arming the rebels is doing the same. They are each deceiving themselves in the commonest ways possible, assuming that what they want and what’s good for everyone else is the same thing; and that what they want themselves and what’s good for them is the same thing too.

This is not an unusual fault, but in this situation its one that’s killing a lot of people who would otherwise still be alive and leaving a lot of families mourning who wouldn’t be otherwise.

In fact a military victory for either side is likely to lead to more atrocities against the losers and civilians known or suspected of supporting them ; and each side stepping up training, arms and money supplies to their proxies may just result in a long bloody civil war in which civilians suffer most and the most extreme groups like Al Qa’ida grow stronger.

(“Stability” here obviously means, as Chomsky points out, not stability at all but “our influence or control there”).

In focusing on overthrowing Assad to weaken the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah alliance NATO governments and the Sunni ruled dictatorships of the Gulf Co-operation Council are handing another country as a base to Al Qa’ida and similar extreme Islamists, just as in Iraq and Libya. This is in no-one’s real interests. Al Qa’ida is a far more dangerous and extremist enemy than Iran (1).

The Assad regime and the rebels are also deceiving themselves, believing that they can achieve peace and justice through civil war, through crushing their enemies totally and without compromise. The factions in Lebanon did the same for 15 bloody years, from 1975 to 1990, before they finally realised that none of them were ever going to win a complete victor over the others and agreed to share power instead. Will the Syrian factions spend 15 years and tens of thousands more lives before they face up to the same reality?

It’s easy also to deceive ourselves into seeing one side or the other in Syria as the villains and the other as all basically decent, and so believe that victory for one or the other will set everything right.

 

Rebel fanatic terrorists Vs sane secular Assad government?

Some say all the rebels are crazy religious fanatics who want to murder everyone who doesn’t share their beliefs, while Assad’s secular government is sane and defending itself against extremist terrorists. There is some truth in that. Al Qa’ida / Al Nusrah are among the rebels and the vast majority of the rebels are Sunni Islamists of varying degrees of sectarianism or non-sectarianism, extremism or moderation. There have been some massacres of Shia and Alawites and ethnic cleansing of Christians on a large scale. Al Qa’ida have even executed a 15 year old boy who for supposed blasphemy in mentioning Mohammed in an argument over the price of coffee he was selling (2).

This is not the whole truth though. Secular governments can be brutal, extremist dictatorships, like Stalin’s, Pol Pot’s, Hitler’s, Saddam’s or Assad’s. Assad’s forces have carried out a campaign of rape, torture and murder against civilians, including children (3) – (7).

Many rebels say they have become Islamists because of their revulsion at these atrocities by the secular government (8).

We only know about the 15 year old executed by Al Qa’ida only because the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an anti-Assad exile group, reported it as a crime. While many other rebels, including much of the FSA, have fought alongside Al Nusrah and Al Qa’ida some of them have fought against both those groups as well as against and Assad (9) – (12).

While many of the conscripts who have defected to the rebels are Sunnis, the vast majority of the Syrian professional military are Alawites, of the same religion as Assad.

Some of the most notorious rebels, like Abu Sakkar, the Sunni rebel leader who had himself filmed eating the lungs of a dead soldier and saying he and his men would kill and eat the hearts and livers of the Alawites, started out as peaceful anti-sectarian protesters, but decided after seeing other unarmed protesters killed around them by government soldiers and women in their family raped by government soldiers, that taking up arms was their only option. Such people are not necessarily monsters (13).

They may be decent people disfigured by atrocities and war. I would never mutilate anyone’s body, but who could say that if they had seen their peaceful protest met with death, rape and torture they might not have decided that fighting to the death was the only option? Who can say that if people they loved were murdered, raped or tortured by their government that they wouldn’t want revenge at all costs? Not me.

There are also claims that polls show the majority of Syrians support Assad. Apart from the virtual impossibility of carrying out a poll during a civil war, the only poll reported by any reliable source, supposedly showing 55% of Syrians supporting Assad, was an online poll of Arab countries in which only 97 of the respondents were Syrian. Even if online polls were reliable (and they’re not) 97 is far too few to judge anything from (14).

 

Brutal murderous Assad dictatorship Vs Rebels forced to fight to defend themselves?

Others say that Assad is a brutal sectarian, murdering, torturing dictator who responded to peaceful protests with bullets and torture, and that only overthrowing him and his regime will bring peace, justice and democracy. Again, this is part of the truth, but not the whole truth.

Assad’s regime, like his father’s, has been a dictatorship based on hereditary rule and the dominance of one religion as much as the Saudi monarchy’s. Peaceful protests were met with sniper fire, jailings, torture and rape.

However many Syrian Alawites, Shia Muslims, Druze and Christians fear sectarian Sunni Muslim rebels far, far more than they fear Assad, with good reason. Assad’s forces attack those who they know or suspect of opposing him, while Sunni religious fanatics among the rebels want to kill or expel anyone who is not a Sunni Muslim, just for not being a Sunni. Large numbers of the refugees fleeing Syria are Christians fleeing the rebels, or people who support neither side and just want to escape the fighting (15) – (19).

The practice of kidnapping and torturing people just to extract money from their families, practiced by militias on both sides of the Iraqi civil war and by the US trained Iraqi Police Commandos today too, has also been adopted by many of the Sunni rebels in Syria including some of the FSA , criminal gangs, and Assad’s Shabiha too (the Shabiha and many of the rebels, like militias in the civil wars of the former Yugoslavia are partly in the war for money and loot and as in Yugoslavia US sanctions plus civil war have made war and kidnapping into businesses) (20) – (22).

Not all Sunnis oppose Assad either. Some of his air force pilots are among the minority of Sunnis in the professional military. Two of the most senior Sunni clerics in Syria spoke out to support Assad and condemn the rebels as not true Muslims. One of them was assassinated by the rebels in a suicide bombing attack on a mosque which also killed many others praying there (23) – (24).

We can speculate on whether these Sunnis support Assad out of fear of him or out of opposition to the fanaticism and extremism of many of the rebels, but it’s as likely to be the latter as the former.

There are also many wealthy Sunni businessmen who have deals with Assad and pay Shahiba militias to attack Sunni rebel areas in order to protect their business interests (25).

While the majority of the pro-Assad Shabiha militias are made up of Alawites, there are some are Sunnis, for instance in Aleppo (26) – (27).

Some Syrian government soldiers and police have tried to stop Shabiha murders of civilians and been killed for trying (28).

Assad’s forces are not the only ones torturing people or murdering civilians. Amnesty and Human Rights Watch have reported on the torture and execution of prisoners of the rebels, civilian and combatant alike. They have also carried out sectarian murders and massacres and many terrorist car bombings.

Assad also scrapped the single party state in Syria last year and held the first multi-party parliamentary elections, though some of the opposition boycotted them (29). This makes his government less undemocratic than the pro-Syrian-rebel Saudi Arabia, where the only elected officials are local councillors and they are only there for show, complaining that they have no power to do anything.

Assad and his supporters also fear that they, their communities, their supporters and their families may be massacred, tortured to death or made refugees by their opponents and Sunni extremists. This is not an irrational fear, many already have been, whether for supporting Assad or just being the wrong religion (30).

Why many Syrians say negotiations are a more realistic solution
than fighting or arming each side

Both sides believe they are protecting their communities against murdering fanatics.

The question both sides have to ask themselves is “How will more civil war protect me and my family and friends and community?”. The answer is that it won’t. Every revenge killing, every act of torture against the other side puts your side’s people at greater risk and makes it more likely the war will go on longer. You may never achieve victory either. It may all turn out be pointless, as it was for 15 years for Lebanon, as it has been for 13 years in Iraq. You may have to accept that sharing power with your enemies and making peace with them is the only way out. So why not do it now before more of the people you love are hurt or dead?

Syrian rebels may say they tried peaceful protest and it was met with bullets. True, but Assad will sooner or later have to face up to the fact that he can’t win outright given the NATO and Arab governments’ arms, training and funding for the rebels along with the Muslim Brotherhood’s. He has already had to concede an end to the one party state and parliamentary elections. In negotiations he will have to concede more.

And if you overthrow Assad by force, what then? Al Nusrah and its allies will keep fighting against their opponents and rivals among the rebels. Many of the rebel fighters take no orders from anyone but themselves. Al Nusrah and its allies might well win such a war.

The Syrian governments’ supporters may say their enemies include fanatics and terrorists who can’t be allowed to win. That’s true. The rebels can’t be entirely defeated either though – and every attempt to crush such movements has failed, only making them stronger, whether in Iraq or Afghanistan – and not all the opposition are violent and not all the armed ones are extremists. Sharing power with the opposition will strengthen those among the opposition who are against civil war and violence ; and reduce the influence of the armed rebels and the most extreme among them, like Al Nusrah. If Al Nusrah try to fight on they will be isolated.

Many Syrians say they don’t care who the government is, so long as the fighting and killing ends and that’s been the case for a long time with much of the opposition to Assad both in Syria and in exile also opposing a civil war to overthrow his government. (31) – (34).

When will those in power listen and learn?

As one Syrian professor stuck in the middle of the fighting in Damascus said recently “Stop the killing! The more killing takes place, the more hatred is sown, and the more difficult it will be to rebuild.”  (35)

Similar warnings have been made in other wars before. After the September 11^th  attacks killed her husband Craig Amundsen, Amber Amundsen said “We cannot solve violence with violence. Revenge is a self-perpetuating cycle. Gandhi said, ‘An eye for an eye only makes the whole world blind.’ ….I ask our nation's leaders not to take the path that leads to more widespread hatreds — that make my husband's death just one more in an unending spiral of killing. I call on our national leaders to find the courage to respond to this incomprehensible tragedy by breaking the cycle of violence.” (36)

Her government did not listen. Twelve years, thousands of NATO troops and tens of thousands of dead Afghan civilians later, they are negotiating with the Taliban. So why not start the negotiations in Syria now instead of losing thousands more lives in another decade of pointless fighting?

After the invasion of Iraq in 2004 Adnan Pachachi of the Iraqi governing council warned the US government and military not to take revenge for the killing of 4 American Blackwater military contractors and the mutilation of their bodies by attacking the entire city of Falluja. “More violence will cause more violence and this will be an endless spiral.” he warned (37).

They did not listen, killing 600 civilians including 300 women and children in revenge, by firing indiscriminately on anyone they saw including civilians, ambulances, medics and the wounded (38) – (39). Six years later the US withdrew from Iraq with over 3,000 US troops and over 100,000 Iraqi civilians dead. It did not end terrorist attacks on the US or its allies. Al Qa’ida has grown strong in Iraq and set up its Syrian branch Al Nusrah.

The professor in Damascus has warned us again. Will enough people listen to him this time?

This may seem idealistic or unrealistic to some, but is a civil war in which there is no justice for anyone, only suffering and death and grieving and atrocities by both sides, and extremists gaining ground every day,  a more realistic solution? The people of Lebanon didn’t think so after 15 years of it – and many of the people of Syria don’t think so 2 years into theirs.

There are already some small scale local ceasefires, like one organised by the head of a Sunni tribe in the city of Talakakh (40). A power sharing agreement could make them solid across the whole country.

So what will everyone involved do, Syrians and foreign governments? Is it victory at any cost in Syrian lives, including thousands of civilians and children? At any cost in strengthening Al Qa’ida? Or will they do what’s really best for Syrians and really best for other countries and persuade the factions they back to negotiate a compromise instead?

(1) = Reuters 14 Nov 2011 ‘Syria urges Arab League to reconsider suspension’,
http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=245466  ; ‘Gabriel Ben-Dor, director of national security studies at the University of Haifa… Ben-Dor said the decision should also be viewed within the context of Arab and Western attempts to contain an emboldened Iran.…“They’re hoping to dismantle the axis of Iran, Syria and Hezbollah... to isolate Iran even more by depriving it of its only major ally in the Middle East.”’

(2) = Al Jazeera 09 Jun 2013 ‘Syrian rebels 'execute teenager' in Aleppo’, http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/06/201369175918244221.html

(3) = Human Rights Watch 15 Jun 2012 ‘Syria: Sexual Assault in Detention - Security Forces Also Attacked Women and Girls in Raids on Homes’,
http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/06/15/syria-sexual-assault-detention

(4) = BBC News 25 Sep 2012 ‘Syria ex-detainees allege ordeals of rape and sex abuse’,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-19718075

(5) = Human Rights Watch 17 May 2013 ‘Syria: Visit Reveals Torture Chambers’,
http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/05/16/syria-visit-reveals-torture-chambers

(6) = Human Rights Watch 10 Apr 2012 ‘In Cold Blood - Summary Executions by Syrian Security Forces and Pro-Government Militias’, http://www.hrw.org/reports/2012/04/09/cold-blood-0

(7) = Human Rights Watch World Report 2013 – Syria ,
http://www.hrw.org/world-report/2013/country-chapters/syria?page=1

(8) = CBC News 07 Dec 2012 ‘Free Syrian Army an uneasy mix of religious extremes’
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012/12/06/f-vp-bedard-syrian-rebels.html (scroll down to sub-heading ‘Abandoning Secularism’)

(9) = See (2) above

(10) = Guardian 30 Jul 2012 ‘Al-Qaida turns tide for rebels in battle for eastern Syria’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/30/al-qaida-rebels-battle-syria

(11) = Independent 15 May 2003 ‘Syrian civil war: The day I met the organ eating cannibal rebel Abu Sakkar's fearsome followers’,
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/syrian-civil-war-the-day-i-met-the-organ-eating-cannibal-rebel-abu-sakkars-fearsome-followers-8617828.html (says Sakkar led his men to kill a more extreme group who had kidnapped a British photographer)

(12) = Time 26 Mar 2013 ‘In Syria, the Rebels Have Begun to Fight Among Themselves’, http://world.time.com/2013/03/26/in-syria-the-rebels-have-begun-to-fight-among-themselves/

(13) = See (11) above

(14) = BBC News 25 Feb 2012 ‘Do 55% of Syrians really want President Assad to stay?’, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17155349

(15) = Independent 18 Feb 2012 'Syrians flee their homes amid fears of ethnic cleansing',http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/syrians-flee-their-homes-amid-fears-of-ethnic-cleansing-7079802.html ; 'Members of Syria's minority Alawite community are fleeing their homes and going into hiding, terrified that avenging rebels will hunt them down as more areas of the country come under the control of fighters trying to topple President Bashar al-Assad. '

(16) = Independent 02 Aug 2012 ‘'What will happen to us?': Loyalists fear rebel attacks’, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/what-will-happen-to-us-loyalists-fear-rebel-attacks-7999495.html

(17) = NYT 19 Jun 2013 ‘The Price of Loyalty in Syria’,
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/23/magazine/the-price-of-loyalty-in-syria.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

(18) = Los Angeles Times 07 Mar 2012 'Syria Christians fear life after Assad', http://articles.latimes.com/2012/mar/07/world/la-fg-syria-christians-20120307

(19) = Independent 02 Nov 2012 ‘The plight of Syria's Christians: 'We left Homs because they were trying to kill us'’, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/the-plight-of-syrias-christians-we-left-homs-because-they-were-trying-to-kill-us-8274710.html

(20) = BBC News ‘Syrians live in fear as kidnappings increase’,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22263331

(21) = Telegraph 07 Sep 2012 ‘Epidemic of kidnappings breaks out in Syria’, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/9528698/Epidemic-of-kidnappings-breaks-out-in-Syria.html

(22) = Syria Deeply 06 Jun 2013 ‘In Syria, Kidnapping Becomes a ‘Big-Money Business’, interview with Peter N. Bouckaert of Human Rights Watch,
http://beta.syriadeeply.org/2013/06/syria-kidnapping-big-money-business/#.UceMX5zK47I

(23) = LA Times 13 Mar 2013 ‘Syria denies mass conscription, says military remains strong’,
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/mar/13/world/la-fg-wn-syria-military-conscription-20130313

(24) = Wall Street Journal 21 Mar 2013 ‘Top Cleric Killed, With Dozens More, at Syrian Mosque’, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324103504578374580724798360.html

(25) = Guardian.co.uk 31 May 2012 ‘Ghosts of Syria: diehard militias who kill in the name of Assad’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/31/ghosts-syria-regime-shabiha-militias

(26) = Time 11 Jun 2012 ‘The Wrath of the Shabiha: The Assad Regime’s Brutal Enforcers’, http://world.time.com/2012/06/11/the-wrath-of-the-shabiha-the-assad-regimes-brutal-enforcers/

(27) = Reuters 03 Feb 2012 ‘Uprising finally hits Syria's "Silk Road" city’, http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/03/us-syria-aleppo-idUSTRE81213720120203

(28) = BBC News 29 May 2012 ‘Syria unrest: Who are the shabiha?’, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-14482968

(29) = BBC News 16 May 2012 ‘Syria election results show support for reforms, says Assad’, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-18084827  3^rd paragraph ‘The election commission said on Tuesday that turnout was 51% for the polls, which the opposition said were a farce.’ 18^th paragraph…The polls were the first held under a new constitution adopted in February, which dropped an article giving the Baath Party unique status as the "leader of the state and society" in Syria. It also allowed new parties to be formed, albeit those not based on religious, tribal, regional, denominational or professional affiliation, nor those based abroad.

(30) = See (16) above

(31) = Independent 20 Jun 2013 ‘‘We don’t care who rules us, we just want to live’: After a year of fighting, most Damascans are simply weary of the battle for Syria’,
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/we-dont-care-who-rules-us-we-just-want-to-live-after-a-year-of-fighting-most-damascans-are-simply-weary-of-the-battle-for-syria-8667561

(32) = guardian.co.uk 20 Aug 2012 ‘Pursued by violence, pawns in Syrian conflict await an endgame’ , http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/20/pawns-syrian-conflict-await-endgame

(33) = Guardian 22 Jun 2012 ‘Syria's opposition has been led astray by violence’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/22/syria-opposition-led-astray-by-violence

(34) = Guardian 18 Dec 2012 ‘Syria: after Assad falls, what then?’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/18/after-assad-falls-what-then

(35) = Independent 20 Jun 2013 ‘Letters: Let’s not fuel the flames in Syria’, http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/letters/letters-lets-not-fuel-the-flames-in-syria-8666958.html

(36) = PBS Now 02 Jan 2002 ‘Amber Amundson's Letters’,
http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_amberletters2.html

(37) = Guardian 08 Apr 2004 ‘Battles rage from North to South’,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/apr/08/iraq.ewenmacaskill1

(38) = Iraq Body Count 26 Oct 2004 ‘No Longer Unknowable: Falluja's April Civilian Toll is 600’, http://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/reference/press-releases/9/

(39) = BBC News 23 Apr 2004 ‘Picture emerges of Falluja siege’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3653223.stm

(40) = Guardian.co.uk 18 Feb 2013 ‘In a small corner of Syria, rebels attempt to reconcile’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/18/syrian-city-truce-sheikh

Why Galloway is right on Afghanistan and the three main parties’ leaders are wrong

The BBC and Channel 4 News seemed to have exactly the same questions for George Galloway after his victory in the Bradford West by election, including whether he would condemn attacks on British troops by Afghan insurgents.

Galloway’s response was that since British troops are occupying Afghanistan they are bound to be targeted by Afghans, just as if foreign forces were occupying Britain, some British people would be attacking them.

This view is backed up by US intelligence analysis which found that over 90% of the people NATO forces are fighting in Afghanistan are neither Taliban nor even religiously motivated, but fighting for control of territory or mining or smuggling routes, or angry at foreign forces occupying their country or valley. (1)

A study by the US Bureau of Economic Research also found that the number of insurgent attacks on NATO forces is directly related to the number of Afghan civilians killed by NATO forces - with many insurgents having joined the insurgents after civilians in their village were killed (2)

So condemning the attacks on British troops makes no difference whatsoever - it's an empty gesture. Bringing them home might actually save some of their lives though.

This BBC and Channel 4 both seem to believe that this view is beyond the pale because it’s a different one from the leaders of the three main UK political parties, but in fact it’s entirely rational and based on the facts as established by even US intelligence and the US government.

A few weeks before that David Cameron was with President Obama claiming that the war in Afghanistan is about preventing another September 11^th and protecting people back in Britain and the US from terrorism (3).

This ignores the fact that the September 11^th attackers trained in Germany and the US, not in Afghanistan – and that at no point in a ten year long war have NATO or the Karzai government’s forces controlled all of the territory of Afghanistan. There will always be areas in the mountains of Pakistan and Afghanistan where terrorist groups could train. So there is no reason to think that the war in Afghanistan could ever reduce the terrorist threat and plenty of reason to think it will increase it by having non-Muslim forces ending up killing Muslims, including civilians, in a predominantly Muslim country.

Since 90% of the people NATO are fighting in Afghanistan aren’t Taliban either, the war can’t be mainly about stopping the Taliban either. The fact that our governments have no problem with continuing to arm and fund dictatorships or military regimes in Yemen, Bahrain, Saudi and Egypt as they kill and torture unarmed protesters shows how much they really care about promoting democracy or human rights.

Since 90% of the people NATO are fighting in Afghanistan aren’t Taliban either, the war can’t be mainly about stopping the Taliban either. The fact that our governments have no problem with continuing to arm and fund dictatorships or military regimes in Yemen, Bahrain, Saudi and Egypt as they kill and torture unarmed protesters shows how much they really care about promoting democracy or human rights.

This does not make all the sacrifices of their lives by British troops in Afghanistan meaningless. They gave up their lives believing they were stopping Afghanistan falling back under the rule of the Taliban – and maybe they did. Certainly far more girls have been able to go to school in Afghanistan in areas controlled by NATO and the Karzai government than could under the Taliban – and there have also been some horrific murders of schoolgirls by the Taliban – but many of our allies in Afghanistan are as brutal or as fundamentalist as the Taliban are – and most of the people our forces are fighting are not Taliban at all.

(1) = Boston Globe 09 Oct 2009 ‘Taliban not main Afghan enemy’, http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2009/10/09/most_insurgents_in_afghanistan_not_religiously_motivated_military_reports_say/

(2) = BBC News 24 Jul 2010 ‘US military curbs 'reduce' Afghan attacks in some areas’, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-10746832

(3) = Independent 15 Mar 2012 ‘David Cameron pays 9/11 tribute at Ground Zero ’, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/david-cameron-pays-911-tribute-at-ground-zero-7573770.html

Blair’s still wrong - wars have increased terrorism and Iran’s government isn't suicidal enough to start a nuclear war - nor was Saddam

Tony Blair’s repetition of claims that the invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan have been necessary to prevent terrorism and effective in reducing the threat from it is not supported by the facts. His claims that war on Iraq was necessary to stop a WMD threat is equally empty, whether or not Iraq had any WMDs, as are his claims that ‘military action’ against Iran to produce ‘regime change’ would reduce extremism and prevent a nuclear threat.

Saddam proved in 1991, when he did have WMD, that he wouldn’t risk nuclear retaliation by using them. American generals and Israeli military historians are among those who say the Iranian government’s past behaviour shows it’s no more likely than Saddam was to invite it’s own nuclear annihilation by starting a nuclear war.

Why the war in Afghanistan is not the way to prevent terrorist attacks

The 9-11 hijackers all trained in Germany and then at flight schools in the US. Many different people and organisations from FBI agents and flight school trainers to a member of the Taliban all the information necessary to prevent the attacks.  This information included who the hijackers were, where in the US they were training, that they were planning to hijack civilian airliners to use as ‘flying bombs’ to crash into buildings and that likely targets were the World Trade Center (already hit by a truck bombing in 1993) and public buildings in New York, the White House, CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia ; and the Pentagon and that by August 2001 an attack was imminent within weeks at most.

Those sources of information included US intelligence briefing documents given to President Bush, a Library of Congress report to the US National Intelligence Council, some CIA agents, several different FBI agents in multiple warnings, a US military intelligence unit and an American flight school trainer, the Egyptian government, German intelligence and even the then Taliban foreign minister who (correctly) feared that if Al Qa’ida carried out it’s attacks it would bring the US military down on the heads of the Taliban.

In almost every case superiors ignored the warnings and ordered those involved to take no further action; in many cases they also instructed those involved not to inform other US government agencies.

Federal authorities knew even in 1998 (i.e even under Clinton) that Al Qaeda recruits were training in US flight schools.

On September 11^th two of those four sets of buildings named as likely targets by these multiple reports– the World Trade Center and the Pentagon - were hit in exactly the predicted way – with hijacked civilian aircraft. FBI agents who had identified some of the flight school trainees as Bin Laden’s people in August 2001 and asked for arrest warrants had their requests refused and their reports were not passed on by their superiors.

So when the Bush administration boasted that there had been no successful attacks since 9-11, their bluster was designed to hide the fact that if they had been at all competent in pooling and acting on the intelligence they had, September 11^th could probably have been prevented. It also ignored the fact that the Iraq war led to two terrorist attacks on it’s allies – the Madrid and London bombings – again showing that these wars made no-one any safer.

At no point in a decade of war in Afghanistan and Pakistan have NATO or the Afghan government controlled the whole territory of either country. So if the aim is to prevent terrorist groups being able to train in either of them it can’t be achieved through military force.

After 9-11, overthrowing the Taliban may have been necessary, but bombing the whole of Afghanistan, killing over 3,000 civilians in the first 6 months alone, was not , never mind systematic torture and killing of prisoners, many of whom were not involved in any violence and had no involvement with Al Qa’ida or the Taliban.

Civilian deaths are increasing year due to both Taliban suicide bombings and targeting of civilians and US air strikes and night raids.

Saddam had shown he wasn’t willing to risk a nuclear counter-strike by using WMDs

Whether Iraq had WMDs or not was always an irrelevant question as after the 1991 Gulf War, in which Saddam had dozens of chemical warheads for his scud missiles but only used conventional warheads, it was clear he was deterred from using WMDs on nuclear armed states or their allies for fear of nuclear retaliation.

This fact was recorded by Professor Joseph Nye (the head of the US Political Science association) and Professor Robert Keohane, in their book ‘After the Storm’, though they claim that why Saddam didn’t use these weapons is a ‘mystery’ (1).

I’d have thought two Professors of political science with a background in international relations might, between them, be able to figure out that governments don’t use WMDs if the response might be their own nuclear annihilation, but it seems not.

As Condoleezza Rice put it in an article written during the 2000 US Presidential election ‘if they ["rogue states"]do acquire WMD, their weapons will be unusable because any attempt to use them will bring national obliteration’ (2).

The one argument that invading Iraq was effective is that it brought Al Qa’ida to focus on killing Americans and Iraqis in Iraq, where they were easier targets than in a now more alert US – and where Al Qa’ida could blend in more easily in appearance and dress. The cost in lives and suffering was so vast though, that improving security and intelligence sharing in the US would surely have been more effective and saved far more lives.

 Invading Afghanistan and Iraq not only failed to address the actual problem, but gave Bin Laden exactly what he wanted. The USSR’s military suffered it’s Vietnam in Afghanistan. Bin Laden’s aim was to do the same to the US as the Mujahedin had to the Soviets. While Bin Laden is now dead, Al Qa’ida could have been defeated far more easily without three full scale wars – in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq – and without the huge numbers of deaths caused.

The US National Security Strategy of 2002 stated that “The events of September 11, 2001…opened vast, new opportunities.” (see page 28)

The Bush administration saw September 11^th as a huge opportunity to achieve the policy aims successive US governments had always had – securing an export pipeline for the oil reserves of former Soviet republics that avoided Iranian and Russian influence or control; and securing US control of Iraq’s oil reserves, which it had lost after the 1991 Gulf War (an aim of  Bush and his political allies well before 9/11), plus those of Iran, which it lost control of with the overthrow of the Shah’s dictatorship in 1979 (3).

The Evidence that Iran’s rulers don’t want national martyrdom through nuclear war either

- directly or by proxy

There will be no  ‘threat’ posed by Iran developing nuclear weapons, if it does so, either, for the same reason – it won’t use them.

In 1988 during the Iran-Iraq war in which the US and most of the rest of the world was arming and funding Saddam against Khomeini’s Islamic government in Iran, a US warship – the USS Vincennes – entered Iranian waters and began exchanging fire with Iranian ships. This was as part of Reagan’s policy of protecting Iraqi oil tankers, while claiming that Iraqi attacks on Iranian oil tankers were “legitimate”. The Vincennes mistakenly shot down an Iranian airliner, leading to the death of hundreds of civilians. Khomeini vowed revenge, but the Iranian government and military interpreted the shooting as a sign that US military forces were joining the war on the Iraqi side. This was an opportunity for national martyrdom if they wanted it. Instead the Ayatollahs and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards persuaded Khomeini to make peace (4) – (8).

This was one of the actions which has persuaded people like former US General John Abizaid (a George W Bush appointee) and Israeli military historian Martin Van Creveld that we can live with a nuclear Iran, which would want nuclear weapons for the same reason our governments have – as a deterrent against attack (9) – (10).

The only use of nuclear weapons by one government on another was at the end of World War Two when the US was the only government to possess any.

There has been no example of a nuclear armed state using nuclear weapons on another nuclear armed state – not even by Pakistan’s military governments, which have had a strong Islamic ideology since General Zia’s dictatorship in the 1980s ; and which has feared Indian military attack on many occasions.

Israel has between dozens and hundreds of nuclear warheads. It’s ally America has thousands.

There are plenty of examples of states getting nuclear weapons as deterrents though.

The US developed and proposed the use of new ‘tactical’ nuclear weapons under the Bush administration, with Iran the favourite target. The Obama administration has not ruled it out. Israel also has plans for nuclear strikes on Iran (ostensibly to “take out” Iran’s nuclear programme) (11) – (13).

Van Creveld wrote in 2004 that  Iran’s government would be crazy not to want a nuclear deterrent given repeated Israeli and US threats of ‘military action’ and the US invasion of both it’s neighbours – Afghanistan and Iraq . He also pointed out that there had been repeated claims that Iran would have developed nuclear weapons in a few months or years for at least 15 years at that point – and all had proven false (14).

Israeli military historian Martin Van Creveld

The US government claimed Iran would have a nuclear weapon within 12 months in August 2010. This is one of an endless series of claims that Iran will have nuclear weapons by a certain date, delivered over decades, none of which has ever come true. So far it seems to be yet another example of calling ‘wolf’ – when the wolf doesn’t exist and would be used to deter an attack rather than carry one out even if it did exist.

It’s not even certain whether Iran will develop nuclear weapons given religious rulings banning their stockpiling and use as un-Islamic and immoral by Iran’s ‘Leader’ Ayatollah Khameini, Khomeini’s successor (15).

The Ahamadinejad “wipe Israel off the map” quote was a wilful mistranslation in which he actually said he hoped "the regime that rules over Jerusalem will be eliminated from the pages of history" and clarified that he meant "Israel will be wiped out soon the way the Soviet Union was" (i.e by its own population overthrowing its government). This can hardly be interpreted as a threat of nuclear war, especially since a similar possibility was raised more recently by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert when he said that if a two state peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians could not be negotiated an Apartheid style struggle ending in a binational state with Jews a minority would probably result (16) – (18).

The phrase Ahmadinejad used has also been used every year on ‘Al Quds’ day by Iranian politicians since the 1979 revolution. Using it is more a tradition and an attempt by politicians to associate themselves with Khomeini (who first said it) as the Islamic regime’s founder than anything else (19).

 That's apart from the fact that Iranian Presidents, unlike American Presidents, are not the Commander in Chief of their country's military in theory or in practice and would never have a finger on the nuclear trigger even if Iran did develop nuclear weapons and even if he did want to use them on Israel (20) – (21).

Iranian missile tests are constantly reported as if they are unprovoked threats. In fact they are usually an attempt to deter threats of attack, as when Iran launched long-range missile tests in 2008 after Israel carried out military exercises with hundreds of aircraft openly saying they were preparations for possible attacks on Iran.

The serious threat of nuclear attack is from the US and Israel against Iran if Iran doesn’t develop nuclear weapons and if American and world public opinion falls for the hype.

No government has ever armed terrorist groups with WMDs or nuclear weapons either because that would be risking committing national suicide by proxy – and even that terrorist groups they can’t control might turn those weapons on them.

The idea that Hezbollah or Hamas, each of which have been elected to government and been willing to form coalitions with other parties, are some ‘end of the world’ cults that would happily bring nuclear destruction down on their own heads and those of their people to destroy Israel is also ridiculous (22) – (23).

The Risks of Action – chaos caused by war makes it easier for terrorists to operate and get WMD materials

The Blairites and the neo-cons argue that we have to make sure though – that, as Cheney put it, if there’s a one per cent chance of something so terrible happening we have to treat it like a 100% certainty. This sounds like it’s a ‘safety first’ policy. In fact it’s the most dangerous and irrational course of action, because going to war carries it’s own risks and they are serious and could result in creating the problems they are meant to prevent – including that in the chaos following ‘regime change’ weapons and even WMDs or nuclear materials could fall into the hands of terrorist groups or people who might sell them to them (as explosives, nuclear materials and chemical weapons components did in Iraq); that they are able to operate far more easily in that chaos; and that they may get converts across the world as a result of civilian deaths and torture of Muslims in the wars involved (24) – (27).

In 2005 Iraq's deputy minister of Industry Sami al Araji reported that “equipment capable of making parts for missiles as well as chemical, biological and nuclear arms was missing from 8 or 10 sites that were the heart of Iraq's dormant program on unconventional weapons”(28)

Some may suggest a proxy war, as in Libya, using a few special forces on the ground along with Iranian rebels and NATO air power. Libya is at great risk of becoming another Somalia already though.

Iran already has armed Kurdish, Arab and extremist Sunni rebel groups along with the Mujahedin E Kalq. Any overthrow of the regime by force would not only cause heavy civilian casualties and risk civil war, but if Iraq is any guide might well involve a new government running it’s own US trained torture and death squads no better than those of the Ayatollahs.

In Libya, where supposedly we had “learned the lessons” of Iraq and “avoided mistakes” made there some weapons stores were not secured any more than they had been in Iraq – and as in Iraq – no-one knows who now has many of these weapons. Reports from UN agencies based on unidentified sources say chemical and nuclear stockpiles have been secured in Libya. Let’s hope so. The previous “confirmation” by the International Criminal Court that Saif Gaddafi was under arrest and on his way to the Hague turned out to be false (29)  - (30).

These are all the dangers that war is supposedly meant to avert – but going to war is far more likely to create them than to prevent them, while the much derided option of “doing nothing” about them carries far less risks in reality.

(1) = Nye , Joseph S. & Smith , Robert K. (1992), ‘After the Storm' , Madison Books , London , 1992 , - pages 211-216

(2) = Rice, Condoleeza (2000) in Foreign Affairs January/February 2000‘ - 'Campaign 2000: Promoting the National Interest' http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20000101faessay5-p50/condoleezza-rice/campaign-2000-promoting-the-national-interest.html - cited in Chomsky, Noam (2003) 'Hegemony or Survival' , Penguin Books , London & NY 2004, pages 34 & 260 citing Mearsheimer, John & Walt, Stephen (2003) in Foreign Policy Jan/Feb 2003

(3) = CNN 10 Jan 2004 ‘O'Neill: Bush planned Iraq invasion before 9/11’, http://articles.cnn.com/2004-01-10/politics/oneill.bush_1_roomful-of-deaf-people-education-of-paul-o-neill-national-security-council-meeting?_s=PM:ALLPOLITICS

(4) = Takeyh, Ray (2006), ‘Hidden Iran - Paradox and Power in the Islamic Republic, Times Books, New York, 2006 - pages 170-174

(5) = Pollack, Kenneth M.(2004), ‘The Persian Puzzle', Random House, New York, 2005 paperback edition - pages 231-233

(6) = Freedman, Lawrence (2008) ‘A Choice of Enemies : America Confronts the Middle East’, Orion, London, 2008, chapter 10, Pages 194-206 of hardback edition

(7) = Newsweek 13 Jul 1992 ‘Sea of Lies : Sea Of Lies : The Inside Story Of How An American Naval Vessel Blundered Into An Attack On Iran Air Flight 655 At The Height Of Tensions During The Iran-Iraq War-And How The Pentagon Tried To Cover Its Tracks After 290 Innocent Civilians Died’, http://www.newsweek.com/id/126358

(8) = NYT 15 Jul 1988 ‘Iran Falls Short in Drive at U.N. To Condemn U.S. in Airbus Case’,

http://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/15/world/iran-falls-short-in-drive-at-un-to-condemn-us-in-airbus-case.html

(9) = Forward – The Jewish Daily – 24 Sep 2007 ‘The World Can Live With a Nuclear Iran ’,http://www.forward.com/articles/11673/

(10) = CNN 18 Sep 2007 ‘Retired general: U.S. can live with a nuclear Iran’,http://articles.cnn.com/2007-09-18/world/france.iran_1_nuclear-weapon-nuclear-program-nuclear-fuel?_s=PM:WORLD

(11) = Independent 02 Oct 2007 ‘US plan for air strikes on Iran 'backed by Brown'’, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-plan-for-air-strikes-on-iran-backed-by-brown-395716.html

(12) = guardian.co.uk 06 Apr 2010 ‘Barack Obama's radical review on nuclear weapons reverses Bush policies’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/06/barack-obama-nuclear-weapons-review

(13) = Sunday Times 07 Jan 2007 ‘Revealed: Israel plans nuclear strike on Iran’, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article1290331.ece

(14) = NYT 21 Aug 2004 ‘Sharon on the warpath : Is Israel planning to attack Iran?’,http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/21/opinion/21iht-edcreveld_ed3_.html

(15) = CNN 10 Aug 2005 ‘Iran breaks seals at nuclear plant’, http://articles.cnn.com/2005-08-10/world/iran.iaea.1350_1_uranium-conversion-natanz-enrichment?_s=PM:WORLD

(16) = Guardian Comment Is Free14 Jun 2006, ‘Lost in Translation’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2006/jun/14/post155

(17) = Iranian Television Broadcasts President Ahmadinezhad's Interview With French TV "Exclusive interview" with Mahmoud Ahmadinezhad by David Pujadas of French TV's TF2 Channel on 22 March 2007 – recorded Vision of the Islamic Republic of Iran Network 1 Sunday, March 25, 2007 (reproduced as second item below article on Professor Juan Cole’s website at http://www.juancole.com/2007/06/ahmadinejad-i-am-not-anti-semitic.html

“(Ahmadinezad) Let me ask you this question: where is the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics now? Was it not wiped off (the map)? How was it wiped off? We have a totally humanitarian solution for Palestine. We have said that all the Palestinians should take part in a free referendum so as to end the 60 year old war. The outcome is clear from now. It is because of the same outcome that America and Britain are refusing to yield.

(David Pujadas) Let us clarify everything. Do you really wish to wipe Israel off the face of the earth? Do you have a plan for this job or are you in fact making such a prediction?

(Ahmadinezhad) Look, I told you the solution. I think the people of Palestine also have the right to determine their own fate. Let them choose for themselves, the Christians, the Jews and the Muslims. That is, all the Palestinians who belong to that land can participate in the referendum. I think the outcome of such a referendum is already clear. We saw what happened in last year's elections (when they voted for HAMAS).”

(18) = Guardian 30 Nov 2007, 'Israel risks apartheid-like struggle if two-state solution fails, says Olmert', http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,2219485,00.html

(19) = Takeyh, Ray (2006), ‘Hidden Iran - Paradox and Power in the Islamic Republic, Times Books, New York, 2006, (hardback edition)

(20)= Hauser Global Law School Program (New York University School of Law) Mar 2006, 'A Guide to the Legal System of the Islamic Republic of Iran' by Omar Sial' , http://www.nyulawglobal.org/globalex/iran.htm

(21) = Time magazine 20 Apr 2006‘Iran President's Bark May Be Worse than His Bite', http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1185293,00.html

(22) =  Harik, Judith Palmer (2005), ‘Hezbollah : The Changing Face of Terrorism, I.B. Tauris, London & New York, 2005 paperback edition

(23) = Hroub, Khaled (2006), ‘Hamas : A Beginner's Guide, Pluto Press, London, 2006 paperback edition

(24) = Times 28 Oct 2004 ‘350 tonnes of high explosive looted in Iraq’,http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article498870.ece

(25) = AP 31 Oct 2004 ‘2nd Site With U.N.-Sealed Arms Was Looted, Inspectors Report’,http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/31/international/middleeast/31chemical.html

(26) = Washington Post 11 May 2003 ‘Iraq nuclear sites reportedly looted’,http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2003-05-11/news/0305110454_1_nuclear-bomb-looted-iraq

(27) = AP Worldstream 31 Oct 2004 ‘Iraq Looted Chemical Site’, http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-101900373.html

(28) = NYT 13 Mar 2005 'Looting at Weapons Plants Was Systematic, Iraqi Says', http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/13/international/middleeast/13loot.html

(29) = guardian.co.uk  02 Sep 2011 ‘Libya warned smugglers are looting Gaddafi's guns - West fears heatseeking surface-to-air missiles will fall into terrorists' hands’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/02/west-warns-smugglers-looting-libya-arms

(30) = AP foreign 07 Sep 2011 ‘UN watchdog says Libyan chemical weapons secure’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/9834687