Is it Really a War Against Only Saddam?

The US government of President Bush is determined to launch an all-out military attack on Iraq any time soon, ostensibly to disarm the regime of Saddam Hussein of weapons of mass destruction. The Americans accuse Saddam of having developed links with Al Qa’eda and say they have to preempt the possibility of Saddam’s dangerous weapons of mass destruction falling in the future into the hands of terrorist groups such as Al Qa’eda.

After September 11, the American government couldn’t possibly be blamed for being excessively worried about the security of its citizens and trying to do something about it at both the domestic and international levels. That is why the new US policy, of combating international terrorism, following the Sept 11 attacks, initially received the sympathy and support of the international community. In fact even signs of indifference shown by any government to the US-led global campaign against terrorism, let alone toleration of terrorist presence on one’s soil, became a sort of a stigma that was bound to draw reprisals from the US. As the Americans knocked the Taliban and their Al Qa’eda allies out of power in Afghanistan and succeeded in dismantling many terrorist cells and terrorist linked financial organizations world-wide, the world appeared to be much less vulnerable to terrorist threats than was the case before September 11. Unfortunately, the US administration has since changed both the direction and scope of the global war on terrorism. We have seen high-ranking American government officials as well as Scholars describing Islamic teachings at children Koranic schools as hotbeds for terrorist upbringing.

In the meantime, the US government has allowed Israel not only to continue using the latest American made weapons for maintaining the occupation of Palestinian land, but also for the annexation of East Jerusalem, including one of the three holiest Islamic sites on earth - Al-Haram Al Sharif and the Al Aqsa Mosque. According to most people in the Muslim world, the campaign against terror, has turned into a overzealous struggle against Islam as a religion, culture and way of life. And now the US is on the brink of attacking Iraq before even the UN inspectors finish their job, and without a convincing evidence of Iraqi links to Al Qa’eda being produced yet. The people of Iraq and the rest of Muslim world would fare better without Saddam. But the expected US invasion of Iraq can only be seen, at least by the world’s over one billion Muslims, as the beginning of a crusade for the total subjugation of all Islamic Nations.

The anti US sentiment so widely spread among Muslims has been rooted historically in American blind support for Israel as well as American protection of dictatorial regimes in Islamic countries. Instead of trying to wage war against Muslim countries one after another, the US should have addressed the root causes of its problem with people of the Islamic faith. And when the war against Iraq begins to unfold before our eyes, it will not be only President Bush who will rejoice triumphantly but Usama Bin Laden as well.

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