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September 7, 2001/Elul 19, 5761, Vol. 53, No.48
Bombings and self-interest
BARRY COHEN
Editor
With President George W. Bush's foreign policy, there is a clear disparity between his action toward Saddam Hussein and Iraq and his inaction toward the Israeli-Palestinian "situation." The reason? To keep Hussein from entering the fray and protect American oil interests.
During the past two weeks, British-American air forces have attacked military air defense targets in southern Iraq four times. In 2001, they have attacked targets in the southern no-fly zone 23 times and in the northern no-fly zone 10 times.
Bush may speak of sophisticated Iraqi air defenses and quote Pentagon reports, which claim Iraq has "provoked" American-British fighters 390 times this year in the south, as compared to 221 times in 2000, and 78 times in the north, as opposed to 145 in 2000.
But let's not drown in numbers here. The bottom line is that Iraqi installations continue to be destroyed, and yet, the situation between the Palestinians and the Israelis continues to deteriorate. Other than pulling out of the Durban conference in South Africa, Bush is doing little beyond using rhetoric to ease the conflict.
Now obviously, President Bush inherited this Iraqi mess from President Clinton, who inherited it from Bush Senior.
George Bush set up the northern and southern no-fly zones supposedly to protect, respectively, the Kurds and the Kuwaitis. But I seriously doubt our current president is authorizing bombing runs based on his compassion for either group.
Let's first look at what Saddam Hussein has been doing, in addition to "provoking" allied fighters.
Earlier this year, he directed troop, tank and artillery movements near the borders of Syria, Turkey and Jordan. The Jerusalem Post reported these exercises to be a "symbolic" show of support for the Palestinians.
However, as reported in Time magazine Aug. 27, Hussein is engaged in other actions that are far from symbolic. Through Arab banks in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, he is giving families $10,000 for every Palestinian killed in the latest intifada. In addition, he is funding a new terrorist group, the Ba'athist Arab Liberation Front, now active in Jenin and Nablus, to compete with Hezbollah, which is funded by Iraq's arch-enemy, Iran.
I believe Bush is bombing Iraq to send a clear message to Saddam Hussein: stay out of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
In the equation Bush uses to calculate when to increase our nation's presence in the Middle East, a contained conflict in Israel is acceptable. But the hint of the "situation" extending beyond the West Bank and Gaza Strip is unacceptable.
Why? Stability in the region - i.e. "oil interests."
When gas is not relatively cheap, and when we can't keep cool or warm, we point our finger at someone, and invariably, that someone is sitting in the Oval Office.
Bush already knows about the polls showing we are suspect of his ties to oil companies. He may claim to bomb Iraqi targets to enforce the no-fly zones - to protect the Kurds to the north and the Kuwaitis to the south - but we shouldn't be fooled by the smoke screen.
He is directing these bombing runs to protect his place in the White House.
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