By Mustafa Kamel El-Sayed * The absurdity of the Iraqi situation is renewed endlessly. The Iraqi government and the US administration, the latter backed by the British government, teeter on the brink of yet another military confrontation. At the last moment, the Iraqi government accepts precisely what it had originally said it would tolerate no longer -- continued cooperation with UNSCOM. Again, it seems clear that this crisis is not the last. Yet another creeping feeling of déjà vu will be upon us in the near future. It is an absurd situation indeed. For one thing, there is no doubt that UNSCOM has outlived its effectiveness in inspecting Iraq's capability to produce weapons of mass destruction. After the destruction of so many missiles, the dismantling of military-industrial sites, the installation of television cameras at all "suspicious" locations, and the visits to innumerable presidential sites, what else can UNSCOM do? What has not been unearthed by its energetic teams? If the US is the final judge of when their work is complete, regardless of findings to the contrary by competent Western scientific laboratories, then UNSCOM's mission will end only when people like Sandy Berger, William Cohen and Madeleine Albright decide to inform Washington that the US's national interests will be served by the declaration that UNSCOM has ensured the full disarmament of Iraq. Until they come to this conclusion -- not likely in the near future, given the escalation of their demands to include the overthrow of the Iraqi regime -- we should expect UNSCOM to continue to exaggerate its interpretation of Security Council resolutions, asking for documents on past activities in the production of all sorts of weapons, requesting the names of foreign companies that provided Iraq with equipment, demanding the names of all Iraqi and foreign personnel engaged in the production of such weapons... When it obtains everything it has asked for, it will formulate new demands -- for example, scanning the brains of Iraqi children to make sure they hide no knowledge whatsoever that could lead to the development of weapons of mass destruction. Textbooks taught in Iraqi schools can easily be perceived s representing a serious threat, and therefore should either be banned or purged of any scientific theories. Nor does the absurdity stop there. The US administration is worried about the danger Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction poses to Iraq's neighbours. None of these neighbours, however, not even Israel, has specifically asked the US to intervene on their behalf to ensure Iraq's compliance with UN resolutions. In every crisis, the US secretary of defence tours the region to tell its heads of state that Iraq is their enemy, and that they should cooperate with the US in bringing it back "into the fold". In fact, it is the US administration and its reckless policies in the Gulf that are seen increasingly as the major cause of instability. The absurdity is even greater when one considers what every school child knows: to wit, that the major threat to peace in the Middle East and in the Gulf is the country that possesses weapons of mass destruction in abundant variety -- nuclear, chemical and biological. That country is not Iraq, but the US's best friend in these parts. Who else? Israel. The US administration not only ignores this fact, but is the principal accomplice in Israel's development of such weapons. The mysterious El Al crash over Amsterdam in 1992 is the final, incontrovertible piece of evidence that the US has known all along about Israel's biological weapons programme. Double standards, however, dictate that what is right for Israel is wrong for the Arabs, the Muslims, the Indians and the North Koreans. In fact, weapons of mass destruction are bad for everybody. If anyone seriously intends to eradicate them, this should be part of a comprehensive regional security plan. The UN Security Council should be committed to enforcing compliance with this security regime among all countries in the area, including Israel, Iran, Iraq and Turkey, among others. Simply, absolute security for one country means no security for its neighbours. Security should be accessible to all the peoples of the region, or it will be enjoyed by none at all. The final irony of these recurrent crises between the Iraqi government and the US administration is each party's refusal to understand the other. One side describes the Iraqi people's intolerable suffering, brought about by sanctions, and the other sees only the danger of weapons of mass destruction. It is time to reconsider the sanctions, as a matter of fact, and to dissociate them from the work of teams inspecting and monitoring the production and stockpiling of such weapons throughout the region. The continuation of sanctions in a country which has already lost its capacity to ever threaten its neighbours again is absurd, and reflects only the blind arrogance of absolute power. Iraq's aircraft and tanks cannot even cross certain lines in the immediate vicinity of Baghdad. When will this senseless situation end? The US and the UK are now insisting that the Iraqi regime must be overthrown before sanctions can be lifted. They are likely to find many excuses for the inspection and the sanctions to continue. Saddam Hussein's regime may not be very popular, but the Iraqi opposition groups abroad are extremely divided and have little following inside those territories still controlled by the Iraqi government in the centre and the south of the country. A new regime that comes to power in Baghdad with US and UK support will always bear the stigma of having been brought to power by a foreign coup. One may also wonder at the US's determination to get rid of Saddam Hussein. Were US troops incapable of marching on Baghdad after their victory in the Gulf War? Why did they not do so at the time? Why does the US administration want Saddam out now, when previous attempts were so half-hearted? Is Saddam Hussein in power in Baghdad not more useful for the US? There, he could provide a vivid illustration of the potential threat to its Gulf allies' security. If a less radical regime was in power, would it offer the US a convenient pretext for its military presence in the Gulf? Would it provide the incentive for the US's Gulf allies to continue arming themselves with American weapons? Thus, with no end to either the sanctions or Saddam Hussein's regime in sight, the recurrent use of military force to settle future disputes between Iraq and a heavily US-dominated UNSCOM is certain. It is difficult to see, however, what this recurrent use of force can accomplish, since Iraq has acquiesced to almost all UNSCOM's significant demands. The most recent dispute concerns the delivery of certain documents. Still, Richard Butler has a fertile imagination, and is likely to find ever more extravagant demands to provoke another confrontation between a government that would like to maintain some dignity in the eyes of its people and the world community, on one hand, and a US administration which loves the use of force, and uses force to satisfy certain segments of the conservative right in the US, on the other. This unequal, "relatively safe" use of force against a dismembered, war-torn country enhances the image of a president who faces the growing threat of impeachment and who is accused of indecisiveness by his critics at home. This situation, unprecedented in the history of the international community, will prevail in the foreseeable future unless honest intellectuals everywhere, starting with the Arabs, begin a worldwide campaign to persuade their governments that, after seven years of very harsh punishment, the Iraqi people cannot suffer any more. If any suspicion remains that Iraq's military potential constitutes a threat to any country, the inspection and monitoring of its military capabilities should continue, but its people should be allowed to resume normal economic ties and communications with other countries. If some countries choose not to exchange ambassadors with the Iraqi government or receive its representatives, this is their sovereign right, but this sovereign right must not interfere with the Iraqi people's most fundamental right to a livelihood, as stipulated in the international Charter of Human Rights. The oil-for-food arrangement has not been implemented in a way that enables the Iraqi people to survive. This year, as we celebrate 50 years of human rights, humanity should not allow the Iraqi people to be denied the right to life. *The writer is professor of political science at Cairo University.
