By Nader Sadeghi, MD, Campaign Iran
(CASMII)
The US foreign policy in the Middle East in the last quarter century has resulted in
untold suffering for the people of the region. These policies in one hand are
extremely short sighted for the US strategic interests. On the other
hand they have resulted in massive destruction of countries in the region such
as Afghanistan and
Iraq. Today few would argue against
the established fact that the creation of Jihadist fundamentalist fighters in
Afghanistan during the Soviet
occupation was largely formulated and supported by the United States
and its allies in the region. The result over 25 years later is a failed state
and Afghanistan today is not faring any
better than it did before the latest US and coalition invasion of that country.
Yet the scope of US plan for
the submission, to its misguided will, of the Middle East and lack of tolerance
for any independent state in the Middle East is
so entrenched in its foreign policy that destruction of one country and failure
in one must soon follow with another failed policy. It seems that the Unites
States can only see the Middle East region and
the Moslem world at large through the spectacles that the late Edward Said
called “Orientalism”. This is the same spectacle that was invented by “Oxidant”
since centuries and became the core of colonialist expansion to the Middle East
and the rest of the “Orient” through 18th and 19th
century, latest intellectual champions of this movements having been Bernard
Lewis, Samuel Huntington, Paul Wolfowitz, and score of others with US
neoconservatives at their political front, bringing new cycle of violence and
neocolonial wars to the Middle East.
The old colonial strategy of divide
and conquer has never lost its appeal to the practitioners. Support for Iraqi
government of Saddam Hussain during his invasion of Iran in 1980’s to the point
of arming him with chemical weapons and turning a blind eye to his use of
chemical weapons against civilians in Iran (1)
as well as in Iraq’s Halabja (2) shows clearly the lack of empathy for
human life in this “orientalist” view of the Middle East by the US and its
western allies. All this is then sold to the mass population of the west in the
name of “war on terror”, expansion of “democracy” and other words to conceal the
real intent.
The massive campaign of dehumanizing
the Middle East and its people in order to facilitate the support for
neocolonialist wars in the region is yet another chapter in this “Orientalist”
vision of the Middle East. This dehumanizing
campaign is the metamorphosis and another face of “subspeciation” strategy
borrowed from the social Darwinists of the 19th century (and this has
nothing to do with Darwin and his biological work) and used by racists who drove
the policy of segregation in the US until recently ( the effects of which is
still persistent in US society today), the apartheid policy of South Africa
until they could sustain it no more, and the regime in Israel whose “apartheid
policies” are “worse than South Africa”
in the words of Jimmy Carter in his recent book titled “Palestine:
Peace Not Apartheid”.
Lets look at
Iraq to see a small glimpse of human
tragedy the country has suffered since 1991 with first invasion of that country
by US and subsequent sanctions for 12 years followed by another massive attack
in 2003 which still continues. A look at the infant and child mortality rates in
Iraq, as reported by UNICEF (3) in the last 40 years
is very telling of the story. (Figure 1)
Compared to Iran and Turkey, Iraq had the lowest child mortality
rate until 1990. The reduction in child mortality in Iran and Iraq despite the 8 year Iran Iraq war
is impressive. However following the sanctions against Iraq instituted
in 1991 there was almost a 2.5 fold increase in child mortality that has
sustained since then. (4) The
infant mortality follows the similar outcome. (Figure 2)
How many children and infants in
Iraq are perished as a
consequence of sanctions and ongoing wars seem inconsequential to the
US foreign policy makers. The massive human fall out of the 2003
invasion of Iraq by US and
its allies has already put over 650000 Iraqis to death according to the study by
the Bloomberg School of Public Health at John Hopkins
University (5). This casualty
on human life has resulted directly from the violence as well as indirectly as a
result of massive destruction of the infrastructure in Iraq. This is
only the beginning of the story and Iraq has yet decades to pay. The
deterioration of public health with escalation of all communicable diseases,
tuberculosis, diarrhea, measles, rubella, polio, maternal death, and reduced
life expectancy among many other core health indicators in Iraq are just
one dimension of the tragedy. Collapse of the infrastructure of the economy,
education, universities, and basic human needs will make ever harder for Iraqi
people to have any quality of life for years to come. Americans have also paid a
heavy price for these ongoing conflicts both in material and human life. Yet,
neoconservatives who have hold of the power in US administration turn a blind eye and deaf ears
to the need of its own population, 40 million of which lack any form of health
access, while $500 billion has already been spent in the destruction of
Iraq.
The Irony is that neoconservatives
are determined to expand a failed war to Iran. Every
effort for diplomacy is promptly blocked by the neoconservative agenda of the
US administration, including
the recent Iraq Study Group report calling for engaging Iran diplomatically to help stabilize
Iraq. (6) There are many more concrete steps that
US has actively taken to pave the way for military confrontation with
Iran. The threat of nuclear attack on Iran by
both US and Israel in an attempt to prepare the public mind for such eventual
nuclear holocaust on Iranians, accusing Iran of possession of WMD’s, repeated
accusation of Iran’s intention to develop nuclear weapons despite IAEA reports
showing no evidence of military diversion of Iranian nuclear activity,
allocation of funds for “regime change” in Iran, covert incursions to Iranian soil,
movement of US warships to the Persian Gulf, calling for additional 22000 troops
in Iraq, and attacking on Iranian consulate within Iraqi Kurdistan and taking
Iranians working there as hostage despite forceful objections of the regional
Kurdish authorities are all signs that US is determined to expand the war in the
region.
The catastrophic consequences of a
military attack on Iran and
wide spread destruction of human life will devastate Iran and the entire region as well as causing
unpredictable economic fall out not only for the Middle
East, but through the rest of the world. This madness must be
stopped. The world must stand up against the war mongers and for peace. A
peaceful multilateral engagement of the Middle East and unconditional
negotiations with Iran and
allowing the region to speak for itself and letting go of the “orientalist”
spectacles in viewing the Middle East is the
only way for US to achieve peace and security in the region. The problem of the
Middle East is not a sectarian divide. Rallying the Arab Sunni governments by
trying to sell them a fabricated “Shia threat” posed by Iran will not
work. The people on the ground across the Muslim world do not buy such
propaganda anymore. It is also time for the decent citizens in the
US and across the western hemisphere
to stand up against the escalation of US imposed doctrinal pre-emptive wars. The
next war must be stopped before it starts.
1. http://www.scwvs.org/en/about.asp?t=Introduction&sl=1&mc=2
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halabja_poison_gas_attack
3. UNICEF Child Data, http://www.childinfo.org/cmr/revis/db2.htm
4. Ascherio, A. C., R. Cote, et al.,
(1992). "Effect of the Gulf War on infant and child mortality in
Iraq." N Engl J Med 327(13): 931-6
5. The human cost of war in
Iraq, A mortality study,
2002-2006, Bloomberg School of public health, John Hopkins University, http://web.mit.edu/cis/human-cost-war-101106.pdf
6. Iraq Study Group Report http://www.usip.org/isg/iraq_study_group_report/report/1206/index.html
