Nov 17, 2003 4 min read

Dead or alive, the former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein remains useful to US President George W. Bush as a good excuse for continuing the occupation of Iraq by the US-led coalition forces. With his fate still unknown six months after the war, the former Iraqi president has proven to be the United States’ largest excuse for military operations against Iraq. … Claiming that Saddam is still alive, US President George W. Bush accused him on Monday of trying to making trouble for the US-led coalition forces in Iraq – being behind a series of bomb attacks against a wide range of targets in Iraq. Bush vowed that the United States would not run from its “vital” mission in the country but only hunt and get him. Bush’s words are nothing but an excuse aimed at exculpating himself from responsibilities for the mounting casualties of US soldiers in Iraq and continuously keeping a US military presence in the country. … Bush once said the US-led war in Iraq was to emancipate the Iraqi people from the rule of a despot and give them a democratic and stable Iraq. But half-a-year after the “liberation,” an ideal society promised by the United States is still out of sight of the Iraqi people. Bush’s words were only aimed at continuing to provide reasons for retaining the US military occupation of Iraq.

On Turkey’s retracted offer to dispatch troops to Iraq:

The U.S. has been pressing Turkey and other allies to come to its aid in Iraq, and for a while the Turkish government appeared ready to send its troops in order to stabilize Iraq. Now Turkey understands more than anybody else that its military presence in Iraq would usher in another level of armed conflict instead of defusing the already raging fighting between the coalition forces and several opposition militias operating on Iraqi soil. The reticence of Ankara on intervening militarily in Iraq must have disappointed Washington, which was hoping Turkish cooperation would encourage other countries to contribute to the desperate efforts by the coalition forces to end the fighting altogether. With other U.S. allies contributing only marginally to the effort, the U.S. is faced with only one option, and that is to continue the battle in Iraq for many months if not years. Yet the U.S. presidential elections are on the horizon, and no doubt President George W. Bush would want to bring the situation in Iraq to a successful resolution so as not to lose his bid for re-election.

With more than half of the American voters now opposed to the current Bush policy in Iraq, the incumbent president may just have to deliver a miracle in the next few weeks.

On Saudi explosion:

That the car bomb attack in Riyadh, which left at least 17 dead and scores injured, took place during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, underlines the fact that nothing is sacred to terrorists. …

Although the royal family seems to be the target of the terrorists, the unpalatable truth is that Saudi Arabia is where al-Qaida was born, and the puritanical and militant doctrines of the official Wahhabi sect is the source of al-Qaida ideology. What sets the Islamists against the Saudi royalty is the latter’s ‘unholy alliance’ with the United States, and by extension with U.S. favorite Israel. The terrorist network inside and outside Saudi Arabia feeds on the widespread Arab anger against the U.S. because of its pro-Jewish policies, its invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and its perceived prejudice against Islam. Regardless of whether the blast is connected to al-Qaida, it has served notice that no war against terror is going to extinguish terrorism, unless the roots of injustice are exterminated. … Fighting terrorism requires policies and strategies which douse the fires of hatred rather than those which serve only to inflame them to the extent that militants are prepared to commit acts of murderous sacrilege during the fasting month. The House of Saud must be prepared to undertake the necessary reforms, including democratization, or woe betide it.

On EU membership:

The benefits of EU membership, we keep being told, are obvious; yet no one seems especially keen to spell them out. A recent attempt by the House of Lords to establish a cost-benefit study was dismissed by the government on grounds that the advantages, while unquestionable, were also unquantifiable. Peers of all parties were taken aback, and now want a committee of inquiry to examine the whole question. … Why are Euro-enthusiasts so reluctant to allow a formal Treasury investigation? The obvious answer is that they fear its conclusions. … We cannot negotiate robustly, about the constitution or any other EU matter, unless we have a bottom line.