Wed, 22 Jan 2003
Background reading for the upcoming unpleasantness
It looks increasingly likely that Gulf War 3.0 is due to kick off in
the next month, whatever the state of public opinion in the west. I've
mostly tried to stay off the topic, because I don't think I've got
anything constructive to offer. (As I said the other week, what John
LeCarre wrote in The Times goes for me, too; I'm just trying to
hang onto the fact that the noises coming out the White House are not
a guide to the opinion of all Americans about the war -- or anything
else, for that matter.)
However, here's
something useful; a discussion, in historical context, of the
different movements within Islam and an analysis of where the militants
come from -- including the origins of the movement started by
ibn Abdul Wahhab, spiritual father of the Wahhabites (to whom both
the Saudi monarchy and Osama bin Laden are adherents).
Meanwhile, this is a brief
run-down of Ba'athism, the ideology underlying Saddam Hussein al-Takriti's
regime. It's by no means as comprehensive as the rather frightening
discussion in Samir el-Khalil's
The Republic of Fear,
but the salient points are there; it's a secular, modernizing, national
socialist regime, at the opposite end of the middle eastern political
spectrum from bin Laden's mystic ascetism.
And here is a quick
time-line of Iraqi history in the 20th century.
After reading these items, and bearing in mind the absence of evidence
unearthed by the UN inspection process, it seems clear that the
current war is concerned with enforcing the Carter Doctrine, rather
than dealing with the roots of terrorism. But we knew that already,
didn't we?
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