The Law Applies to All, or only Some?

BEIRUT -- One thought went through my mind Monday when I watched television reports on President George W. Bush's bizarre little foray into Iraq at the same time that British troops were leaving the city of Basra. As both countries start making moves to eventually withdraw from Iraq, I -- and many others -- ask whether powerful countries like the United States and United Kingdom will ever be held accountable for their militarism around the world.

The UK and US are like runners in a relay race, handing off the imperial baton to each other in a violent rampage through history. Iraq is the most dramatic and destructive example of what happens when Western powers send their armies on missions around the world based purely on their own sense of empire or emotional needs. The British government is a complicit accomplice more than an equal partner in crime, because its main job has been to provide the illusion that a great international coalition of world powers is fighting selflessly for freedom and democracy in Iraq.

Yet the same question remains to be answered, when the world finds time for it: Should these governments be held accountable for the consequences of their behavior, just as they held Saddam Hussein and other bad guys accountable? Or do Western powers like the US and UK enjoy an impunity that allows them to sow death and destruction around the world? Are they effectively above the law for their deeds in Iraq, at a time when they say they wish to promote the rule of law in Iraq? Does the law apply to all, or only to the weak?

On the specifics of the American mission in Iraq, the American Pretzelmakers Association should give George W. Bush its Man of the Year Award for his continuing ability to twist reality into interlocking circles. His remarks in Iraq Monday, like his recent speeches in the United States, focused heavily on the importance of defeating Al-Qaeda in Iraq so that it does not attack the US again. He told the troops: "You are denying al-Qaeda a safe haven from which to plot and plan and carry out attacks against the United States of America."

Most of the world turns its head away in slight embarrassment for George W. Bush when he speaks like this, because of the profound intellectual dishonesty and imperial arrogance he reflects. The world knows that Al-Qaeda was able to enter Iraq and use it as a training ground only after the United States invaded and removed the Baathist regime. The problem of Al-Qaeda's threat is a real one and must be addressed vigorously, yet the Anglo-American approach in Iraq is aggravating, not reducing, the problem of Al-Qaeda and its many local affiliates in many countries.

So we have four problems at once for which the guilty must be held accountable at some point:

First, Anglo-American armies move around the world doing what they wish, disregarding the many destructive local consequences of their deeds, including refugee flows, political radicalization, destabilization of moderates, promotion of militias and warlords, massive waste of money, and setting back prospects for genuine, home-grown democratization.

Second, the unchecked use of Western militarism that ignores the legitimate global consensus represented by the United Nations system generates broad disdain for international legitimacy among local actors who are at the receiving end of Anglo-American guns. This in turn accelerates two parallel responses: mainstream peaceful political activism that challenges and resists the West, and more militant and violent actions by small groups of Salafist Jihadists, who are motivated by both the call of Al-Qaeda and the policies of British and American leaders.

Third, British and American leaders add insult to injury by continuously inventing new rationales for their war-making in Iraq. They expect the world simply to forget what they originally sold us as reasons for invading (Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and defiance of UN resolutions) and instead expect us to rally to the war against Al-Qaeda in Iraq. Yet, Bush and Blair gave Al-Qaeda their entrance tickets to Iraq, so the latest Anglo-American battle cry turns out to be as insulting as it is ineffective.

Fourth, this sort of Anglo-American militarism, adventurism, and arrogant imperialism slowly shakes the foundations of the global system that tries to achieve stability and security through some sort of balance of power that is based on legitimacy and accountability. When the big powers act with impunity -- entering, destroying and leaving distant countries at will -- smaller powers and ordinary people understand that we are playing without rules. When nobody is accountable, nobody has an incentive to behave rationally or peacefully.

If the Americans and British can enter, shatter, and leave Iraq as they seem to be doing -- in a haze of intellectual skullduggery and a profound moral vacuum -- the world may suffer much worse disorder and violence for years to come.

Rami G. Khouri is an internationally syndicated columnist, the director of the Issam Fares Institute at the American University of Beirut, editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star, and co-laureate of the 2006 Pax Christi International Peace Award.

Copyright ©2007 Rami G. Khouri / Agence Global