The Iraq war and Africa

This war was unlike any in modern times. When the last bullet has been fired and the last corpse buried, we will inherit a world that might look the same but which is in reality totally different from what it was before the war began. We have to prepare ourselves to negotiate the alien landscape of the new world as ordered by the United States of America.

What are the landmarks of this strange new world? How has our world altered? First: Never before has there been a more unpopular war in the history of the world. Never before have more people, in more countries and across a greater social spectrum, demonstrated so vocally and visibly against it.

Second: Never before has such an adventure, with so many possible consequences, ever been undertaken on such flimsy grounds. Reasons for going to war seemed to change by the day. Third: Never before, since the creation of the United Nations, have any Western powers so flagrantly disregarded so many international laws. Never before, in the history of Britain, has a government turned such a deaf ear to its own public and political opinion as has Tony Blair.

Fourth: Never before has the tide of anti-- US sentiment swept so strongly over so much of the world's surface.

Fifth: Never before has the dogma of `might is right' delivered such a crushing blow to the institutions of international legality.

Sixth: Never before have we been able to follow a war so closely and from such different perspectives as this one; yet, never before has the truth been mangled so viciously in front of so many.

Seventh: Never before has the world lost so much confidence in so many pillars of the global structure.

'FREEDOM' US STYLE

The war in Afghanistan was a dress rehearsal on the demonstration of the impact of `overwhelming force' on a small, impoverished and defenceless country. The War on Iraq was the real thing: the unleashing of the forces of `shock and awe' on one of the world's most ancient and proud people. A people already brought to their knees by the brutal dictatorship of Saddam Hussein and 12 years of punitive sanctions.

This was a naked demonstration of might by the world's only super-power. That it was conducted without UN legality and in the teeth of world opinion was another demonstration - a slap in the face of the world.

The crushing of Iraq was played out in full view of the world - 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The images and reports for Western audiences, collected by a new breed of 'embedded' journalists, were heavily sanitised. They were shielded from seeing `distressing' footage of the human suffering: the families wiped out, the homes flattened, the overcrowded hospitals, the desperate search for food and water, the sheer, uncomprehending terror of trying to live constantly under the heaviest bombardment in human history. But the effects of the US bombardment of Iraq could not be hidden, despite all the efforts of BBC and CNN because Al jazeera was also there to bear witness.

This was 'freedom' US style. The Iraqis were being liberated from a vile regime that had been imposed on them by the West in the first place. Their own attempts at liberation at the end of the First Gulf War had been quashed because the West had betrayed them and left them to the tender mercies of Saddam. These were the same liberators who, when asked about the 500,000 premature deaths of children due to sanctions had said, in Margaret Allbright's chilling words, "the price is worth it".

PECULIAR AIMS OF THE WAR

We are now told the aim of the war was to bring democracy to Iraq first and then to the rest of the world. All of America's wars (apart from the Civil War) were fought on other people's soils. All the wars were to `make the world safe for democracy: Yet all American policies towards the developing world, particularly in the Middle East and to some extent Africa, have been to deny democracy to the people. The Taliban, Saddam Hussein, The Shah of Iran, Suharto, Mobutu Sese Seko, the Apartheid Regime in South Africa, the South American dictators and a host of other villains were created, supported and kept in power by the US against the wishes of their people.

We are now told that this was a mistake and that this time the US means what it says.

Why should we believe this? Has the US changed? It was making the world safe for democracy by dropping napalm on terrified Vietnamese children; it is now making the world safe for democracy by dropping thousand-pound bombs on babies with pacifiers in their mouths.

We are told that this war is not about Iraq's vast oil reserves - 10 times the size of total US reserves. Then why does George Bush want to keep the UN at arms length? Why is it necessary to install a military Governor-General? What has happened to Tony Blair's promise that Iraq's oil would be protected by a UN Trust? Why this unseemly rush for reconstruction contracts? Why this talk of the spoils of war?

If the US went to war in order to bring about democracy, are we going to see the Gulf states being bombed as the people are force-fed democracy? If the cause was the existence of weapons of mass destruction, is the US planning to attack North Korea, Pakistan, India and Israel? If Iraq was attacked because of the violation of UN resolutions, will we witness the carpet bombing of Israel which holds the world record in the number of UN resolutions broken?

We know that none of this will happen. Instead, the hawks are already talking about attacking Iran (an oil producing democracy) and Syria - the most powerful Arab state militarily now that Iraq has gone.

What the right-wing Bush administration is promising is a century of perpetual war the complete and utter domination of the world - `You are with us or against us:

AFRICA WATCHING IN ALARM

Africa has been watching the horror of Iraq unfolding with growing alarm. "The prospect facing the people of Iraq should serve as sufficient warning that in future we too might have others descend on us, guns in hand, to force-feed us (democracy)," says South African President Thabo Mbeki. Nelson Mandela has already called this war 'a crime against humanity:

For Africa, this war has been a disaster. Aside from the economic fallout there are genuine fears that Africa will once again be the target of terrorism. Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, the US's staunchest ally in the region, has already said that the war will spawn a hundred Osama Bin Ladens.

The worst impact will be psychological. With the dignity of the UN now in tatters, with international law torn and thrown away and with the supremacy of might being so openly flaunted, we have been dragged back to the law of the jungle.

The lessons will not have been lost on the ragged, desperate and deeply humiliated millions in the developing world. They too will look for fire to fight fire. September 11 has already shown us that the most advanced technology in the world is no match for a determined group of people armed with nothing more than a burning desire for revenge and humble box-cutters. The world will be anything but a safer place. The more the US and its interests abroad are attacked, the more it will lash out, creating even more enemies.

The legacy of the war will be deep mistrust all around. Anybody with ambition and a dozen or so guns will feel free to attack and invade others in `pre-emptive strikes: Once you no longer have to prove a moral and defensive justification for the use of force, what is to stop those who are armed from forcing their will on others?

North Korea echoes a growing conviction among the smaller nations of the world that only the possession of weapons of mass destruction can stop the US attacking you. Is it reasonable to believe that Iran, Syria and Libya, already named as possibly on the `next to be hit' list will not attempt to obtain nuclear weapons and delivery systems? How else can they guarantee their safety?

The war has not only virtually destroyed the authority of the UN, it has split Europe and Nato. France, Germany and Russia are slowly but surely forming an axis of their own and there is already talk of a `collective defence system' to act as counterweight to rampant US power. The threat of all-out nuclear war, which had receded into the dim horizon only a couple of decades ago, has now again become very real.

WHAT AFRICA CAN DO

This is the new world order. The US bestrides it like a colossus. It does not need the UN, it does not need anybody and it does not care what anyone else says. It is a law unto itself.

Over the next weeks and months, we shall see the 'reconstruction' of Iraq under US military sovereignty. The new leadership has already been chosen and, as in Afghanistan, there will be elections to 'legitimise' the new leadership. US troops will remain in Iraq to 'protect' the new regime and thereby add to the number of US troops already present in the Gulf. This pacification of the Gulf by force is the beginning of the US Empire.

The seething masses in the Muslim world and elsewhere, enraged by decades of humiliation, impotence and grief will hurl their puny acts of defiance against the juggernaut. They will be labelled 'terrorists' and be broken by their own client leaders. But as the anti-war demonstrations show, this time the movement is world-wide, sweeping from the western shores of Europe to the eastern limits of Asia. When so many people move so strongly against something, history begins to tremble.

THE SILVER LINING

These are very dangerous times and Africa must walk with great care. What can Africa do? What should Africa do apart from shouting against the wind? Is there any silver lining in the dark clouds? Perhaps. The first is to accept the fact that for the foreseeable future, the US rules. At least, and for the first time, the rest of the world, including Europe, is as impotent to change anything global as Africa has always been. Politically and militarily, Europe is as helpless as Africa.

The only avenue open is economic. Here perhaps the new world order can hold out a real hope for Africa. To play its new role, the US will require vast resources and stability in the regions where those resources are located. It has now come to the conclusion that stability is best achieved not by indirect rule via dictators but through at least a semblance of democracy and open, capitalist markets. This might be a good thing. Africa can now close the chapter on the rule of dictators and Presidents for Life.

Pan-African organisations like the African Union, which have been little more than talking shops, can now assume a more robust attitude and lay down rules of conduct for their member states. The old principal of non-interference in nation states was bombed out of existence in Iraq. The AU should interfere where interference against corrupt, tyrannical or unjust states is required. This will require a major re-thinking of objectives but that thinking is already well advanced in organisations like Nepad. Now may be the time to apply cast-iron laws on the relationship between the rulers and the ruled.

It is more clear than ever before that African nations must hang together or be hanged separately. Economic and strategic interests must be addressed collectively. For example, work must begin on setting up pan-African food and oil stockpiles. Effective mechanisms to vastly increase intra-- African trade must take priority over narrow national concerns. The reliance on old colonial ties must be loosened in this fast changing world. Africa has little choice but to turn itself into a cohesive block as the world fractures into competing regional blocks.

The begger-my-neighbour attitude which has led to so many pointless conflicts and petty national rivalries should be recognised for what it is: the destructive rump of the divide and rule policies adopted by the 'old' empires. Africa has to move on or be stomped on.

This will require a new mind-set and new blood at the top. Most of the current crop of leaders, steeped in traditions of myopic self-interest, have outlived their usefulness. There is no room for leaders who do not have a global perspective. If these cannot be grown at home, they can be imported from the diaspora.

The lessons of Iraq are clear to all who have eyes to see. Understanding the message could be the difference between survival and death.