UN Special Envoy Lakhdar Brahimi joined the ranks of Hamas, Hezbollah and
Al-Qaeda by echoing the well known radical Islamist positions of Osama bin
Laden, Yasser Arafat, Sheikh Yassin and Rantisi. UN Envoy also reinforced that
a world body that is dominated by undemocratic states can neither advance the
cause of peace nor can be entrusted with the job of establishing a democratic
basis in Iraq. In fact, Barahimi's anti-American statement underlined that the
United Nations with its present composition can never be expected to share the
burden of the free societies.
Brahimi told France's Inter radio that Israeli
policies toward Palestinians and Washington's support for them hindered his
search for a caretaker Iraqi regime that would take power on June 30 when the
U.S.-led occupation ends." He said, "The problems are linked, there
is no doubt about it." Brahimi said his job was complicated by Iraqi
perceptions of "Israel's completely violent and repressive security
policy and determination to occupy more and more Palestinian territory."
The United Nations Envoy reminded the world of Islamists who hide their hatred
for the open societies and anti-Semitism by blaming U.S. and Israeli policies.
In a March 1997, CNN interview, Osama bin Laden said,
"We declared jihad against the US government, because the US government
is unjust, criminal and tyrannical. It has committed acts that are extremely
unjust, hideous and criminal whether directly or through its support of the
Israeli occupation."
And Barahimi endorsed Osama's views when he said, on
French radio that "the great poison in the region is this Israeli policy
of domination and the suffering imposed on the Palestinians," as well as
the "equally unjust support of the United States for this policy."
He ignored the fact that by supporting Osama bin Laden's anti-U.S. views, he
was also encouraging those who want to wage a jihad against all the infidels.
Osama says, "For this (US support for Israel) and other acts of
aggression and injustice, we have declared jihad against the US, because in
our religion it is our duty to make jihad so that God's word is the one
exalted to the heights and so that we drive the Americans away from all Muslim
countries."
The Middle East observers familiar with Mr. Barahimi's
views doubt if any government formed on his recommendations will be able to
reflect the true ethos of free societies. Barahimi who believes that the U.S.
policies in the Middle East are responsible for the chaos in Iraq, he will
naturally pick up those Iraqis to run the administration who agrees with him
who is definitely going to be anti-Americans.
The UN Envoy has made it obvious that he like other
anti-Americans wants the United States to fail in its quest to establish an
outpost of democratic traditions and pluralist values in the middle of barren
and scorching desert of intolerance and religious fundamentalism.
Anti-US forces having failed in their campaign to
discourage the free world from liberating Iraqis are now trying to frustrate
the coalition efforts to establish democracy in Iraq by helping the
resistance. They know that longer the resistance continues, more and more
Iraqis will become wary of the coalition presence and join them. The
perception that the U.S. is ready to give up and leave, will help the radical
Islamists in recruiting more and more Muslims in their cause.
The enemies of freedoms are experienced. They have been
resisting the open societies for many years and have learned a great deal by
fighting as the Soviet proxies (Third world Champions and the exponents of
Non-Aligned movement). They are not just Islamists. Arab Nationalists,
Socialist activists, Left and liberal Civil libertarians have all joined hands
in Iraq.
The anti-Americans are using their cold war tactics all
over again. Throughout the cold war era, they were able to create a fashion of
being anti-American. "Yankee Go back," was the slogan of the day.
Mao's sayings, Che Guevara's struggle, Castro's revolution, Non-Aligned
movement and Gemal Abdul Nasser's defiance against the U.S. were examples to
be followed. And the Kremlin was there to back them all. The liquidation of
the Soviet Empire was a great set back for these elements. They had almost
given it up.
But Saudi Arabia's Petro-dollars, Wahhabi yearning to
re-establish Khilafah, Palestanization of all that is Muslim and the
perception that it was the power of Jihad that defeated the Soviet Empire
rejuvenated the cold war fervor. Everyone irrespective of their disparate
beliefs, ideologies and long term objectives joined hands in completing their
mission of defeating the U.S. Iraq is their final theater. And radical Islam
is the sole beneficiary of this inferiority complex.
The United Nations has become a tool in the hands of
anti-Americans. And Mr. Brahimi, according to many is not a neutral
individual. He has displayed, time and again, an open tilt towards
Palestanized and radical Islamist passions. His bigotry prevents him from
seeing the real causes of instability in the Arab societies.
He believes that the root cause of the problems
afflicting the Muslim and Arab states is not the absence of tolerance,
democracy, pluralism, freedom and human rights but the United States of
America's desire to bring equality and social justice to the door-steps of
these oppressed peoples. His Arab anti-Semitism has rendered him incapable of
recognizing the only democratic and free society in the Middle East - Israel.
In short, he is a person who represents the racist sociology of Islamist
fundamentalists.
Lakhdar Brahimi wants the world to believe that the
coalition authorities and the U.S. are responsible for the chaos in Iraq. He
criticizes U.S. methods of fighting the terrorists. He does not want the
coalition forces to enforce order by arresting insurgents. He does not make a
distinction between peacetime conditions and war-time emergencies. He calls
the arrests of people, responsible for the deaths of coalition troops, a
brutality.
He, like, Al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah and Baathists, says
that Iraqis are fighting Americans because they were tired of the American
arrests of people without charges, holding them without trials, torturing and
brutalizing people who were under arrest, and often killing those they
arrested. In his view, U.S. had no valid reason for going after Al Sadr and
the attacks on Fallujah are criminal acts. He wants America to withdraw as
soon as possible.
It is people like Mr. Barahimi who are responsible for
the Muslim radicalism. Instead of educating the masses about the real reasons
for their backwardness, voices like him always hide behind cold war era
rhetoric. Saudi kings, Husni Mubaraks, Musharrafs and their ilk, all blame the
U.S. policies for turning the Muslim peoples against the Washington. Mr.
Barahimi, instead of becoming a mouth piece of radical Islam, should be
condemning such rulers. It is their corruption not the U.S. policies which is
responsible for the sorry conditions of the Muslim peoples. But he cannot do
that because his job depends on their votes.
If the United Nations would have been straight and
honest; there would not have been one single dictator at the helm of affairs
anywhere. But the world has witnessed how the international body worked to
prolong the reign of a tyrant like Saddam Hussein. United Nations "is
revealed to have kept Saddam's regime in money through years in which it might
have collapsed under the pressure of U.S.-led sanctions.
For there is no remaining doubt that the UN's
"oil-for-food" program became Saddam's principal source of hard
cash, and that far from being used to feed and medically treat the country's
suffering children and innocents, billions and billions were systematically
diverted to building more palaces, acquiring new weapons, and to lining the
pockets of a rogues' gallery of self-interested Russians, Frenchmen, Arab and
leftist journalists, probable terrorist front-men, and the UN's own staff and
connections."
United Nation's corruption and perennial
anti-Americanism has prevented it from solving many of the problems it was
created to solve. The Middle East, Kashmir, Afghanistan, Rawanda, Bosnia and
now Iraq are the best examples of this corruption. I have said it before that
UN's failure to prevent undemocratic and totalitarian states from becoming its
members has made the UN the most anti-democratic organization in the world. It
has now been transformed into an entity where the envoys of the totalitarian
states, being in majority, use democracy to defeat democracy.
Such a body could not have found a better and more
accomplished envoy for itself than Lakhdar Brahimi. According to David Warren,
"As the envoy of the Arab League in October 1989, he (Mr. Brahimi) conned
the Lebanese Christian prime minister, Michael Aoun, into accepting the
"temporary" Syrian occupation of his country.
Mr. Brahimi was the author of the Taif Agreement, which
then permanently legitimated this occupation of Lebanon; by a Syrian Ba'athist
regime which remains among the most murderously evil that exists. As UN envoy
to Afghanistan in 1997-99, Mr. Brahimi allowed his "peace brokering"
between Taliban and Northern Alliance to be used as a front for the Taliban
and Al Qaeda to launch a successful surprise military thrust into Northern
Alliance territory.
Middle East observers point out that Lakhdar Brahimi's
statements and comments as a UN Envoy to Iraq have in most part been directed
at undermining the U.S. credibility and bolstering the position of the
insurgents. He deliberately tried to sow the seeds of distrust in the minds of
the Iraqis by suggesting that the US-appointed interim Governing Council is
not known for its honesty, integrity and competence and therefore it should be
removed.
Brahimi's criticism of the US led coalition on a number
of specific human rights issues, in view of many Middle East experts, is aimed
at appeasing the insurgents. His allegation that the Iraqis are detained
without charge or trial is a very crude attempt to discredit coalition
efforts. He ignores the fact that only those Iraqis are detained who are
suspected of crimes which in many cases have resulted in the deaths of our
brave troops. Playing to the anti-American gallery, Barahimi insists that they
should either be charged or released.
He also wants the Saddam supporters and Baathists to be
given jobs and to be reintroduced in administration in positions of power and
authority. Such a plan is only going to benefit the Saddam loyalists. It is an
open secret that the Saddam loyalists are desperately trying to infiltrate the
post Saddam administration being set up by U.S. led coalition authorities.
Once inside, it will become easier to sabotage. Barahimi's insistence on re-Baathification,
to many, appears to be an attempt to facilitate this phenomenon.
He said, " It is difficult to understand that
thousands upon thousands of teachers, university professors, medical doctors
and hospital staff, engineers and other professionals, who are sorely needed
in the country, have been dismissed within the de-Baathification process and
far too many of those cases have yet to be reviewed."
Such a talk of re-Baathification is dangerous. Any
suggestion that old regime people can come back to run the Iraqi lives is
enough to scare the pro-democracy people from helping the coalition. Brahimi's
assessments fail to accommodate this reality that the only reason many
pro-democracy Iraqis have not come forward to help the coalition authorities
is the impression that sooner or later Baathists will succeed in acquiring the
positions of power and then they will punish all those who collaborated with
the coalition. Independent analysts are convinced that any move or talk of re-Baathification
will doom the prospects of democracy in Iraq for ever.
Similarly, Barahimi's criticism of the US military show
of strength against Fallujah and Shiite rebels in the south and insistence
that negotiation was the only way forward cannot be helpful in solving the
problem. The UN Envoy needs to be told that negotiations with the Baathists,
Al-Qaeda sympathizers and Shia radicals will only empower the insurgents who
are waiting to see a sign of weakness in the coalition resolve.
It is true that the U.S. needs the assistance of the
United Nations in Iraq to establish a secure, stable and democratic
environment in the region. But can a UN that does not believe in democratic
values and has shown open hostility toward US's policies be that United
Nations?
(The writer is editor-in-chief of Pakistan Today and
Muslim World Today, California-based weekly newspapers, president of Council
for Democracy and Tolerance and adjunct fellow of Hudson Institute.)
