Betrayal on All Sides

With the apparent American victory over Iraq, John Bradley of the Arab News writes, the "message has been clearly sent: No country, certainly no country in the Middle East, can ever withstand even a half-baked military campaign against it led by the United States. America now rules the world, either directly or by proxy; and there is nothing anyone can do about it."

Nothing, that is, but wait for history to take its course, for Fortune’s wheel to turn as it inexorably does, crushing underneath those who once danced on top of it. But not in our lifetime. Yes, there will be more terrorism, and Osama Bin Laden — or at least his infamous voice — was heard once more yesterday, calling for suicide attacks and thus giving more easy justification, as he did on Sept. 11, to America’s imperial ambition. Thanks, Osama, you’ve done us all about as much good as George W. Bush. Both are two sides of the same coin.

So what of the immediate future? Some things can surely now be taken for granted. The hastily concocted “road map” for Middle East peace will be implemented, creating a still-born Palestinian state completely dependent politically and economically on Israel. A democracy of sorts will come to Iraq, and sooner or later to much of the Middle East — just enough to give the people a sense of freedom while allowing America to justify at home a continued “partnership” with the rulers of the region. As in the 1990s, when those on the Left suddenly found themselves disenfranchised after the Berlin Wall came down and Stalinism was replaced in Eastern Europe with that cruder system of exploitation, undiluted capitalism, so now those on the side of basic justice and human rights know that the international, independent judges have been bought off, and there is no longer any recourse to moral argument.

Morality, in a word, has been thrown out the window. The only hope now is that the US will somehow be kept in check by those ordinary Americans who, like the vast majority of the world’s people, feel betrayed and abused by what the Bush “regime” has done — all the more so for being carried out under their very noses.

It is worth noting that while liberation is being shouted by the victors, much of the Arab world has reacted with despair to the fall of Baghdad.