Exode (des Kurdes d'Irak) - Institut kurde de Paris

Descent from
moral crusade to
Greek tragedy
THE
NDEPENDENT
ONSUNDAY
7 April 1991
If the US wants to lead the world, it can't turn away from
Saddam's genocide, argues John Lichfield in Washington
I
NÂUGUST, President George period of mingled self-righteousness
Bush, the alleged wimp, leaned on and self-douht.
'his golf cart in Maine and explained The President ~ like the Kurds
why the US must send troops to de- and the Shias'.~ i,s.avictimofhisown
,fend Saudi Arabia. Last week, President
Bush, the Great Liberator at
inflated rhetoriè. He 'has' been,
praised for.his perfoimimce up't6thê
, bay, leaned on his golf cart in Florida end of the Gulf conflict. But Mr
and explained why the US would do Bush's conscience was" rarely
nothing to prevent the massacre of strained, In ousting Saddam from
thousands of Kurds and Iraqi Shia Kuwait, moral principle and US and
o Muslims. Western self interest were aligned.
In hard political tenns, the Presi- In the last three weeks, events in' ,
dent's golf-course logic may have the region have returned to their
o 'been correct on both occasions. But'
Mr Bush has rarely presented US'
more nonnal state of unrewarding
moral confusion. Faced with a choice,
, Gulf policy in tenns of hard politics ,between "confronting evil" and
•in the last eight months. With an in- propping up the regional status quo, '
: tensity which seemed genuine to the •President Bush's Messianic fervour
point of being scary, Mr Bush has ,abruptly deflated. Students of the
,presented US actions as a kindof Bush psychology suggest this is anmoral
crusade. other example of the President's
, In January, Mr Bush said in his ability to compartmentalise his moral
] ,State of the Union address that US values: the barriers can as easily be
soldiers were in the Gulf to under" erected within different aspects of
\Ç take "the hard work of freedom". Gulf policy, as between foreign and
l.. America, he said, represented "thedomestic policy. Michael Mandelunivèrsàraspirafions
öf mankind". baum, of the School of Advanced In-
The US was "the beacon of freedomternational Studies, said: "We are
in a searching world", "a community back to the old Bush of Tiananmen
of conscience" prepared to "selfless- Square .. ;of putting expediency bl:~
•lyconfront evil for the sake of good". fore principle .. '.of what amourits to "
, On Wednesday, at a tasteless tele- ,moral callousness." '
vision victory spectacular, the Presi- In:,strict geo-politiçal' tenns; 'Mr
dent spoke once again of America'sBush's reluctance to aid the dismem-
"special decency, courage, compas-berment of Iraq may be sound, But
sion and devotion to principle". ,\-\lhyshould the "beacon of freedqm"
Mr Bush is said to have become light ur Kuwail. and not Kurdistan?
c , sna~p~ and irritable in rec~nt da~ .. 'Whyshould the murder of Shias not.
~e ISIncensed by the swelhn~ cnt!-be as offensive to the "universal aspi-,
clsm at home and abroad of hiSdecI- rations of mankind" as the murder of
, sion to ab.andon the Iraqi rebels to Kuwaitis? The administration has
the genocidal ,:,,;rathof the m~n ~~
once branded worse than Hitler.
made no attempt
'questions.'
to address sué~
, '.
People who have watched ~r Bush ," Immediate' ',US,. PQst~war''policy
1
"
closely.over the years sar t.hls petu- was to stay largely out of the Iraqi
lanc~ IS more c.haractenstlc ?f thefighting, but meddle by shooting'
Presl?ent than hiSaffab,le~ubhc ,Per-, down planes, and possibly helicopsonahty.
It generally COInCidesWitha ters, in tbe unfocused hop.e of top"
piing Saddam. A meeting of' the,
Bush inner cabinet on 26 March, be--
fore the main onslaughtagainst the
Kurds, reconsidered ,this policy. Ir
was not only reaffrrmed but hard-:
,ened by a decision to allow~Iraqihelicopter
gunships to fly' against tht:
'rebels. This decision has been pre-'
sented, publicly, as a simple acceptance
that Washington has no right
to intervene in the internal :affairsof
another nation. Privately, US officials
have advanced colder, geo-political
arguments for preventing the
Balkan.isation o( Iraq (the Turks
would detest a Kurdish statelet on
'the boïder of their own restless:
Kurdish territorv; tlie Iranians would
'soon control a Shia southern Iraq).,
, Diplomatic and administration'
sources say these factors were part of
the, eq:.:ation in the OvalOffice buf
not. important factors. The overriding.
US consideration was the argument
advanced by the Saudi
'We are back to the
, old Bush ... of
eXpediency before
principle ... of
moral callousness'
ḡov.ernment. Officials say that Riyadhmade
it clear that it wished to
see a Sunni-controlled, unsplintered
Iraq, even at the expense of Saddam'
remaining in power.
'
: Middle East experts in Washing-
:ton believe that Riyadh fears not so
much the-religious and political consequences
of a succesful Shia Islamic
uprising as the purely political impli- '
cation,s of any kind of democratic or
ooputistIslamic movement which
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