Foreign Correspondent Inside Track On World News By International Syndicated Columnist & Broadcaster Eric Margolis ,,ggddY"""Ybbgg,, ,agd888b,_ "Y8, ___`""Ybga, ,gdP""88888888baa,.""8b "888g, ,dP" ]888888888P' "Y `888Yb, ,dP" ,88888888P" db, "8P""Yb, ,8" ,888888888b, d8888a "8, ,8' d88888888888,88P"' a, `8, ,8' 88888888888888PP" "" `8, d' I88888888888P" `b 8 `8"88P""Y8P' 8 8 Y 8[ _ " 8 8 "Y8d8b "Y a 8 8 `""8d, __ 8 Y, `"8bd888b, ,P `8, ,d8888888baaa ,8' `8, 888888888888' ,8' `8a "8888888888I a8' `Yba `Y8888888P' adP' "Yba `888888P' adY" `"Yba, d8888P" ,adP"' `"Y8baa, ,d888P,ad8P"' ``""YYba8888P""'' CAMPAIGNING BY CRUISE MISSILE by Eric Margolis 10 Sept 1996 TOKYO - Bill Clinton's latest blasting of Iraq gave him the expected bump in the polls. Few Americans cared that it cost $300 million in missiles, and the lives of five Iraqi civilians. But abroad, last week's US attack on Iraq was viewed with dismay and anger - even here, in ever so polite Japan. The real target of Clinton's attack was, of course, Bob Dole, not Saddam. By blasting Iraq, draft evader Clinton looked commander-in-chief-like and neatly pre-empted war hero Dole, who was about to deliver a rousing speech to veterans on national defense. Dole was skunked, and forced to back Clinton's raid - instead of criticizing it for the cheap, brutal election stunt that it was. Saddam and Iraq have been so demonized and vilified that no intelligent debate is possible on this question. The only good Iraqi, is a bombed Iraqi. The State Department announced `the US is sending a political message to Saddam,' by launching waves of cruise missiles against Iraq. Iraq, by moving troops a few miles into autonomous zones set up for Kurdish rebels at the end of the Gulf War by the US and Britain, was `threatening US vital interests. ' . Let's see. Terrorist Ramzi Youssef was just convicted in New York last week in New York for planning attacks on airliners. Youssef said the attacks were designed to `send a political message to the US' to stop supporting Israel. So, it's diplomacy when Uncle Sam sends explosive messages, but terrorism when those on the receiving end of such missile missives RSVP. Don't get me wrong. I have no love for Saddam: his secret police threatened to hang me for spying on my last visit to Baghdad. But Iraq, a sovereign nation, is being treated like a rebellious 19-century British imperial colony. . Iraqi troops were invited into the Kurdish zone by Kurdish Faction A, which was battling Kurdish faction B - after Faction B invited Iranian troops to enter northern Iraq. Is an Iranian incursion into northern Iraq not a `vital interest' of Baghdad? Washington claimed its latest bombing of Iraq was to get Saddam to stop being nasty to Iraqi Kurds. But half of them sought Saddam's aid. And what about Turkish Kurdish Faction C, that is being bombed by US ally Turkey? The US had no legal right to attack Iraq- even under the flimsy UN Security Council rules imposed during the Gulf War by Washington and London. The latest attack was pure, gunboat politics. . Far more important, this column has been steadily warning for the past five years that George Bush's poorly conceived strategy in the Gulf War would eventually produce an earthquake in the Kurdish ethnic regions of Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey. The avoidable Gulf War, and Bush's empty exhortations to the Kurds to revolt, planted the seeds of today's growing crisis.The US and Britain then compounded he mess by partitioning Iraq. Last week, Iraqi, Iranian and Turkish troops all moved into the US-created Kurdish autonomous zone of northern Iraq, an explosive power vacuum that is drawing the three hostile neighbors into military confrontation. Civil war is raging between the two main Kurdish factions, with the marxist PKK about to join in. Turkey, which has suffered enormously from the Gulf War, now threatens to permanently annex part of northern Iraq - which just happens to have oil. The befuddled Americans can't tell one battling Kurdish faction from another. Saddam is trying to exploit this chaos - and why not? Any Iraqi ruler would try to reassemble his sundered nation. Even if the CIA or Mossad do manage to assassinate Saddam, another equally nasty Iraqi soldier will without doubt take up his work. Blundering by the Bush and Clinton Administrations has turned the irksome, but formerly manageable Kurdish problem, into a major international crisis. copyright eric margolis 1996 ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** --------------------------------------------------------------- To receive Foreign Correspondent via email send a note to Majordomo@lglobal.com with the message in the body: subscribe foreignc To get off the list, send to the same address but write: unsubscribe foreignc Back Issues can be obtained from: ftp.lglobal.com/pub/foreignc For Syndication Information please contact: Email: emargolis@lglobal.com FAX: (416) 960-4803 Smail: Eric Margolis c/o Editorial Department The Toronto Sun 333 King St. East Toronto Ontario Canada M5A 3X5 ---------------------------------------------------------------