At last! Kofi Annan finally got up the gumption to say it: the invasion of Iraq was illegal and contravened the UN Charter. The anti-war camp has been saying as much all along. So now that its concerns have been declared legitimate, and by none other than the UN's head honcho, what happens next?
Will the US, Britain and Australia along with the "Coalition of the Coerced and the Cowering" be rapped over the knuckles, censured, fined, suspended from the UN, or be subjected to sanctions?
Okay, so I'm joking. In reality, there is only one international law that counts: Those who produce the biggest and deadliest bombs are a law unto themselves.
Although Annan can surely count on a cool reception the next time he brushes shoulders with the Bush cabal, had he blurted out the truth prior to March 2003 it would have been veritably icy. With his longevity in the job, no doubt, uppermost, the Secretary-General abandoned or rather postponed his duty to "say it like it is".
If Annan had stamped the war illegal from the get-go, it conceivably may never have happened. It's true that the US was threatening to go it alone, but it is unlikely the British Prime Minister would have been able to bring his Cabinet on board. Without Britain's "Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval", Bush might have found the invasion a much harder sell.
This week the Iraq Survey Group, appointed by the Coalition to rummage around the country, reported there are no stockpiles of WMD and were none at the time Bush and his British buddy were regaling us with lurid warnings, 45-minute claims and dodgy dossiers.
Yet the US president still insists the invasion was necessary to disarm Saddam even though the world and its wife now know Saddam wasn't armed in the first place. Bush's argument goes: Saddam Hussain violated UN Security Council resolutions and, therefore, his forcible ousting was an appropriate response.
Frightening precedent
This sets a frightening precedent as analysed with clarity on the Eurolegal.org website, thus: "If the US can unilaterally claim the right to invade Iraq due to that country's violation of UN Security Council resolutions, other Security Council members could logically also claim the right to invade other member states that are in violation...
"For example, Russia could claim the right to invade Israel, France could claim the right to invade Turkey, and Great Britain could claim the right to invade Morocco, simply because those targeted governments are also violating UN Security Council Resolutions.
The US insistence on the right to attack unilaterally could seriously undermine the principle of collective security and the authority of the UN, and in doing so would open the door to international anarchy."
So not only was the invasion illegal and that's official it was launched on a false pretext. And that's official too.
Furthermore, US Secretary of State Colin Powell recently confirmed that Saddam had no connection with Osama bin Laden, which more than 45 per cent of the American public amazingly believes after the erroneous linkage was repeatedly forged by the president's men.
I can see the pro-war readers now shaking their heads and muttering: Ah, but Saddam was a dictator, a heartless tyrant, whose evil deeds are evident from the uncovered mass graves, rape rooms and torture chambers.
Thanks primarily to Britain and America the Iraqis are on the road to freedom and democracy goes the delusional fodder put out by the Bush/Blair speechwriters. But are they?
That Utopian destination is a long way off if one believes the British General Sir Mike Jackson, who recently confirmed coalition soldiers in Iraq are now fighting a counter-insurgency war a worrying premise with which Tony Blair, sharing a podium with the Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi on Sunday, appeared to concur.
Just last week over 300 Iraqis, including a large number of civilians, lost their lives at the hands of Iraqi insurgents, members of foreign extremist groups and the US military, while $3 billion, slated for reconstruction, was shifted to security requirements.
Bush's famous "Mission Accomplished" rings ever more hollow as the months pass. He refuses to acknowledge the bloodshed and chaos, preferring to paint Iraq with a rosy glow during these pre-election weeks.
Bush's public optimism is in spite of a leaked National Intelligence Estimate, commissioned by former CIA Director George Tenet, which predicts three possible scenarios: tenuous stability, political fragmentation, or civil war.
Another outwardly eternal optimist is Tony Blair, who, eat your heart out President Putin, is truly the world's top Teflon premier.
As he guided the beaming Allawi around Number Ten, he looked like the cat who'd got the cream, never mind that The Daily Telegraph had published details of leaked pre-war memos from members of Blair's closest circle warning that Bush and Co., had neglected to plan for the day after, and, in one case, suggesting that Bush's motivation for Saddam's ouster was the desire to complete a job left unfinished by his father.
Sense of dj vu
While most of the world's leaders brush aside the implications of Kofi Annan's words - as few, if any, are prepared to wag their fingers at the superpower - they are, no doubt, experiencing a weird sense of dj vu.
Now it is Iran, which is developing nuclear weapons, according to the US and Israel, which want that country's nuclear file in the hands of the Security Council.
Head of the IAEA Mohammad El Baradei insists there is no smoking gun, but is telling Iran to submit to spot checks and desist with enrichment as a confidence-building gesture.
Countries do have the legal right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes. America's traditional allies are, on this occasion, hesitant.
All except Israel, that is. The normally dovish Israeli politician Shimon Perez warns that those who seek the Security Council path are "taking the stairs" while the Iranians are using "the escalator".
Perez may or may not be right. But now that the Iranian government has witnessed the devastation wrought in its neighbourhood courtesy of the US and its friends, while nuclear North Korea remains unscathed, it stands to reason Iran might seek a deterrent.
If that is so, then Bush and Blair, and all those who remain in subservient silence over the Iraq fiasco, have only themselves to blame.
Linda S. Heard is a specialist writer on Middle East affairs. She can be contacted at lheard@gulfnews.com
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