From: Blunderov (squooker@mweb.co.za)
Date: Thu May 20 2004 - 06:20:50 MDT
[Blunderov] An appraisal of the current situation in Iraq
Best Regards
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=522568
Power and vainglory
<excerpt>
Iraq isn't another Vietnam - it's much worse. The images of abused prisoners
demonstrate not just American depravity, says the philosopher John Gray, but
the folly of waging war as a moral crusade...
...If he decides to cut and run, Bush may yet survive the débâcle in Iraq.
No such prospect beckons for Tony Blair. It was his brand of messianic
liberalism that dragged Britain into the war. For the Prime Minister, going
to war in Iraq offered an intoxicating feeling of rectitude combined with
the reassuring sense of being on the side of the big battalions. But
American invincibility was a neo-conservative myth, and the notion that
Blair can survive the hideous fiasco that is unfolding in Iraq is as
delusional as the thinking that led to the war in the first place. It cannot
be long before he is irresistibly prompted to seek new avenues for his
messianic ambitions.
In the US, American withdrawal will be represented as a reward for a job
well done. The rest of the world will recognise it as a humiliating defeat,
and it is here that the analogy of Vietnam is inadequate. The Iraq war has
been lost far more quickly than that in South-east Asia, and the impact on
the world is potentially much greater. Whereas Vietnam had little economic
significance, Iraq is pivotal in the world economy. No dominoes fell with
the fall of Saigon, but some pretty weighty ones could be shaken as the
American tanks rumble out of Baghdad.
The full implications of such a blow to American power cannot be foreseen.
One consequence is clear enough, however. The world has seen the last of
liberal imperialism. It died on the killing fields of Iraq. It is no
consolation to the people of that country, but at least their sufferings
have demonstrated the cruel folly of waging war in order to fight a liberal
crusade.
John Gray is Professor of European Thought at the LSE. His book 'Al Qaeda
and What it Means to be Modern' is published in paperback by Faber & Faber
</excerpt
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