As it happens, the Franco-German plan for Iraq (see last dispatch) — tentatively to be presented to the Security Council at the end of this week, just after the next Blix report — already seems to be gaining steam. The Russians have evidently indicated their potential support and (a definite sign of its power to threaten American plans) Colin Powell blitzed it today, as this administration plans to blitz Iraq more or less tomorrow.
Imagine, in the tussle for public support, if the Americans actually had to veto this plan in the Security Council. That would be unilateralism with an ugly edge to it and, given the American public’s desire for a UN sanctioned war, something of a disaster.
In the meantime, I offer up two articles from today’s British Observer which give a sense of what sophisticated journalism might teach us about the world out there. Jason Burke in a striking piece indicates the deeper levels at which the Colin Powell speech at the UN was wrong, or rather the ways in which this administration misunderstands the enemy it actually faces. At the same time, Burke and two other reporters offer a run-down on the latest American plans for a postwar Iraq and a vivid description of how this administration dreams of creating what will be, at the end of various stages of occupation, essentially a puppet regime. (Note, once again, that Iraq’s liberators, bringing democracy to the Middle East, are completely uninterested in elections. As they imagine it, democracy, as in Florida, is to be a creature of their will to triumph, not the will of the people. History tends to teach a different lesson. Tom
Powell doesn’t know who he is up against
Jason Burke warns that the US focus on al-Qaeda ignores the many hues of Islamic militants – and underplays the danger of men such as al-Zarqawi
By Jason Burke
February 9, 2003
The ObserverFor three days we drove across Afghanistan. Overhead American planes laced the wintry sky with vapour trails. Around us the ‘Jihad International’ was falling apart. In Jalalabad we watched fighters from the Pakistani Harkat ul Mujahideen group captured. In Gardez we saw Taliban soldiers rounded up. The bombers above us were on their way to pound the northern cities where militants from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan were holding out against American and Afghan soldiers.
To understand who they were, and what they were doing in Afghanistan, is to understand why US Secretary of State Colin Powell’s rhetoric last week was rooted in a fundamental misconception of the nature of modern Islamic terrorism. Powell linked Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, an experienced and committed Jordanian militant, with both Osama bin Laden and Baghdad.
To read more Burke click here
For three days we drove across Afghanistan. Overhead American planes laced the wintry sky with vapour trails. Around us the ‘Jihad International’ was falling apart. In Jalalabad we watched fighters from the Pakistani Harkat ul Mujahideen group captured. In Gardez we saw Taliban soldiers rounded up. The bombers above us were on their way to pound the northern cities where militants from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan were holding out against American and Afghan soldiers.
To understand who they were, and what they were doing in Afghanistan, is to understand why US Secretary of State Colin Powell’s rhetoric last week was rooted in a fundamental misconception of the nature of modern Islamic terrorism. Powell linked Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, an experienced and committed Jordanian militant, with both Osama bin Laden and Baghdad.
To read more Burke click here
The Iraq Bush will build
By Jason Burke, Gaby Hinsliff and Ed Vulliamy in New York
February 9, 2003
The ObserverIn the early evening the citizens of the southern Iraqi city of Basra like to walk along the banks of the Shatt al-Arab waterway. Tall palms sway in the breeze that comes off the muddy brown water. Children run between the statues of war heroes. This is one of the fabled cities of the Middle East.
But only a few hundred yards from the waterside, the real face of Basra the Beautiful, as the fading postcards on display in the lobby of the city’s only hotel call it, is revealed. In the back streets, mangy dogs forage in piles of rotting rubbish, effluent courses down gutters hacked in the muddy streets, and families of 20 are crammed into three-room houses. In these homes, away from prying ears, two questions are being asked: What happens in the war? And what happens afterwards?