US & South Asia - Articles

Dawn commented on its editorial (“The US grand design for Middle East�, 22 March 2003), “In a larger context, America would not be unhappy to see - in the wake of Iraq's possible dismemberment - a popular "Islamist" backlash against "moderate" pro-US regimes. This would make clients only more dependent on America. More important, Israel will never fail to exploit the war and the post-war turmoil and convulsions to advance its own expansionist goals. It would attempt "a final solution" of the Palestinian question. In specific terms, this would mean "transferring" the Palestinian people from the West Bank and Gaza to neighbouring Arab lands and then annexing these territories to fulfill its ambitions of a Greater Israel.�

Amanat Ali Chaudhury wrote (“War with a heavy cost,� Dawn, 22 March 2003) “The war against Iraq signals the victory of unilateralism over multilateralism… Thus suspicions of Third World countries regarding the UN serving as a tool to advance the interests of the US and its allies have been confirmed. The UN becomes relevant when there is no hindrance to the pursuit of the agendas of the powerful countries and it is rendered irrelevant when their designs are called in question…the doctrine of pre-emptive strike and unilateral action for regime change would stand legitimized. Militarily and economically powerful countries like India and Israel would feel no qualms about invoking them to achieve policy goals in their own regions…Thus, there is a fair possibility that given the records of human rights violations in Kashmir and Palestine, New Delhi and Tel Aviv would definitely like to step up their brutal suppression of the innocent people by taking a leaf out of the American book. They can further damage the cause of peace in South Asia and the Middle East by launching pre-emtive attacks on regions, which they regard to be hotbeds of 'cross-border' terrorism. Seen from these angles, interests of long-term peace have been seriously jeopardized�

According to Kuldip Nayar (America’s mad rush for war, Dawn, 22 March 2003) “One does not have to go back to the example of the League of Nations, which collapsed after Japan's aggression. The UN can go the same way. In the full gaze of publicity, America positioned troops long before the UN inspectors gave even their preliminary report on the possession of weapons of mass destruction by Saddam Hussein.� The News, in its editorial (‘A festive time?’ 22 March 2003) also expressed the same concern. It said, “The United Nations, so rudely brushed aside by the United States, is reduced to pleading for an opportunity to repair the war damage and dress the war wounds...Quite obviously, the elaborate system of international peace and security, so painstakingly built around the United Nations to avoid the horrors of the 20th century wars, faces its moment of truth. Its burial under the rubble of Iraq would rob the weaker states of whatever little protection they had against the ambitions of the mighty.�

According to Imtiaz Alam, (‘Of shock and awe’ The News, 24 March 2003) “the first casualty is the American democratic values and the biggest is a law-governed world order.� Tariq Rahman was of the opinion that (‘the fall out of the Iraq war’. The News, 26 March 2003) “The real blow to the idea of international law is the war on Iraq…Because of this clear violation of international law Iraq will become a watershed in world affairs. The era of open American hegemony seems to have begun.� According to him, the other casualty “is the loss of sensitivity one picks up from the media. The way the media depicts the war makes it appear as a 'war game'. The images used are 'clean' images in the sense that one sees buildings going up in flames but no apparent casualties. The only human beings one hears about as human casualties -- that is people who feel pain and bleed and whose families cry over them -- are American and British. The 'other' is dehumanised and this leads to a kind of callousness�

In trying to answer what after Iraq, Iffat Idris Malik “(‘US’s arrogance of power’, Dawn, 26 March 2003) opines that “the manner in which America has conducted itself in recent months and weeks raises serious questions - and serious threats - for all nations. Concepts of justice and law…have been thrown out of the window. They have been displaced by the old principle of 'might is right'…This arrogance of power that the US has shown in its conduct over Iraq could be used to strike other so-called threats: Iran, Syria, North Korea... This - not terrorism or WMD - is the real challenge before the international community: how to curb an out-of-control United States?�

What would happen to the US after the War? Roedad Khan believes (‘This is not America’s finest hour’, Dawn, 27 March 2003) “For the first time, the United States can neither withdraw from the world nor dominate it. There can be only two outcomes of this global confrontation. Either America dominates all the others and creates an empire or fails to achieve that goal. In the latter case, America will be kept in check by an alliance of forces opposed to any kind of hegemony representing a balance of power factor. In the former case, the United Nations will become irrelevant and wither because empires have no interest in operating within an international system; they aspire to be the international system themselves.�