So, what will happen now? I do enjoy a mystery, but this hardly qualifies: why do so many have a hard time understand that the President of the United States was absolutely sober and deadly serious when he told the world that should the United Nations fail to fulfill its obligations the US and her allies would go on without it?

Many appear confused by the ongoing efforts in the UN Security Council. Steven Den Beste is bitterly disappointed and suspects a political disaster might be in the offing. My own view is that nothing has changed in any substantive way. There were large protests, but any person who believed that the world, and Europe in particular, was going to greet a resurgent and assertive America with unbridled joy has not been paying attention for the last few decades. Unless the US and her allies are ready to launch their attack tomorrow there is simply no reason not to work through the UN today. Perhaps Iraq will actually be foolish enough to hand the UNSC the firm excuse it needs to bend to American demands. Perhaps the French will decide they are not quite ready to surrender the power a relevant United Nations provides. My point is, there is simply nothing to lose- if the US fails to carry the day with UN and attacks Iraq regardless, the equation remains the same- victory and revelation of the horror that constitutes the daily operations of Saddam’s government will carry the moral argument and the United Nations goes the way of the League of Nations.

There will be war with Iraq, likely within just a pair of weeks. This is an immense gamble on the part of the US and the United Kingdom; however, it is a relatively intelligent wager. Any person who taking account of Iraq prior to September 11th knows that Saddam Hussein has been biding his time, waiting for the United Nations to grow weary of the sanctions and finally offer a simple way for Iraq to escape with but a gesture. If anything Iraq’s leader is likely as angry at the World Trade Center attackers as the US is- they refocused American attention upon the world’s despots and troublemakers before Iraq was able to slip free.

It is quite likely that the war will be brief and casualties light, which would be a boon of sorts for the United States and her allies; however, even in the event of a difficult war, perhaps with the deployment of chemical weapons by Iraq, it will likely still end well for the west. Should Iraq deploy such weapons in the face of sure defeat it can do nothing but give additional moral weight to those who argued that the war was necessary and unavoidable. Those determined to hate the United States could not hate her more, and could not hate her less even if she were to elect to turn her back on Iraq and return home. Given that equation, what real alternative is there?

I have repeatedly referred to the current events in terms of a struggle between the liberal modernist and the reactionary fundamentalist spheres of the world and I still hold to that view. If by some unforeseen eventuality the crisis of the moment were to be defused it would simply shift the focus of the battle. The west needs to reduce the Islamist Fanatic menace regardless of the outcome with Iraq. Furthermore there are reactionaries within the west itself that must be dealt with, both of religious bent and those who cling desperately to the shattered lie of Marxism- the forces in play are more numerous and ingrained than most people are willing to see. The world faces a new paradigm shift and the choice of paths is remarkably clear: a world of freedom, optimism and progress; or a world caught in a slowly tightening spiral of despair, withdrawal and decline.

I know my choice.

Posted on February 25th, 2003 by Zsallia
Filed under: Politics