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Bush Should Stop Eyeing Gulf Oil and Look to His Allies

The lessons coming out of Afghanistan show that magnanimity is not part of the U.S. Administration's armoury

Wednesday, September 25, 2002
By Greg Barns
The Sydney Morning Herald



Greg Barns is a former senior adviser to the Howard Government, and now an Australian Democrat.

Hey! This one even comes with a cartoon!
Eventually they might be able to afford a real camera...
Image Credit: The Sydney Morning Herald.

This Administration lacks the magnanimity of the Roosevelt and Truman administrations - the architects of the Marshall Plan that reconstructed post-World War II Europe.

In the world of George Bush it's all so simple when it comes to Iraq: you invade the place, take out the bad guys, install one of your own, and then close the door and move on to the next target of your rage. Oh, and while you are busy installing a new leadership team in Baghdad, provide it with false hope that it will receive regular buckets of money from you to rebuild the nation.

And in the world of the prominent commentator and bestselling author The New York Times' Thomas Friedman, Iraq is worth invading if it brings about "regime change and democratisation". He argues that the yardstick of U.S. success in Iraq will be if it results in those in the Middle East he calls "undeterrables" being "deterred" -- those who relish acts like those that took place on September 11.

Both views are flawed.

At the same time that the Bush Administration was continuing with its build-up to an invasion of Iraq, Bush vetoed a $US5.1 billion ($9.4 billion) aid bill from Congress that included $US174 million for Afghanistan. This is despite the desperate need for funds to reconstruct this war-ravaged country that is in the grip of a drought and to which 1.5 million refugees have returned.
(More: SMH.com.au News Source)
2002 © The Sydney Morning Herald.

Shortsightedness (of course):

A war on Iraq, and in places like it, will only make sense when the US, as the leader of the developed world, works with its allies to genuinely reform its own outlook and ends its hypocrisy and cant. On current indications, that's a long way off.

Interestingly enough -- “Oh, and while we are busy installing a new leadership team in Baghdad, provide it with whatever hope that it will receive regular buckets of money from us to rebuild the nation, it would be nice if ROW backed its own promises to beleaguered Afghanistan, instead of moaning on, and on, and on about imagined futures in Iraqi oil...”

Dan