India's National Magazine
From the publishers of THE HINDU

Vol. 16 :: No. 02 :: Jan. 16 - 29, 1999

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WORLD AFFAIRS

Long-distance murder

MANI SHANKAR AIYAR

IF Clinton had restrained himself from touching Lewinsky's breasts, half a dozen Pakistanis, scores of Afghans and hundreds of Iraqis would today have been alive. For the lady judge trying the Paula Jones case had specified the parts of the anatomy the touching of which constitute the judicial definition of "sexual intercourse". Unsurprisingly, she had included the upper portion of a woman's torso in her careful listing. Clinton, sharp lawyer that he is, argued that he was not guilty of sexual intercourse with Lewinsky because whatever she may have done to him, he had kept his hands off all those bits and pieces of her specified in the Paula Jones case.

Unfortunately for him, Lewinsky is not a sharp lawyer. While, therefore, she was reiterating that whatever happened it was she who was doing it to him and not he to her, thus technically validating Clinton's claim of innocence, prosecutor Ken Starr disarmingly asked Monica whether Clinton had fondled her above her waist. Lewinsky replied in the affirmative. That dished Clinton. It rendered him liable for perjury, which, as the Chairman of the House Judicial Committee has helpfully reminded his members, means "lying under oath".

Clinton is not only a sharp lawyer but also a sharp politico. He calculated that whatever legal hair-splitting in the U.S. Congress might do to his presidency, the American people believe statesmanship involves inflicting the maximum damage to perceived enemies at no cost to oneself. Reagan had shown that murdering Qadhafi's infant daughter by bombing her in her bed met with no public disapproval; the American voter understood that it was all a petty misunderstanding over Qadhafi himself having taken to his desert tent at the time without informing the CIA.

BRAD MARKEL/GAMMA
U.S. President Bill Clinton. U.S. law prohibits the assassination of a foreign head of state or government, but since acts of war are permissible, the President gets on with long-distance massacre, even at the cost of innocent lives.

Getting American GIs killed is, however, wholly another matter. Clinton learned that lesson when a mere eight bodies returning in their beanbags from the killing fields of Somalia so outraged U.S. public opinion that he was compelled to call off the operation. The bottomline is that bashing the other guy sends ratings soaring skywards, provided always the target does not have it in him to retaliate. Two such soft targets are now available to America: Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. Clinton picked on the first to stall the framing of charges in the House of Representatives; and on the second to stall the vote that leads to impeachment by the Senate. The cynicism is breathtaking; only a little else breathtaking than the patent inability of the Americans to know when they are being taken for a ride. Clinton's approval rating now stands at three out of every four God-fearing Americans.

The avowed objective of both distance operations has been an individual. U.S. law forbids the killing of anyone by a U.S. citizen. Murdering bin Laden is, therefore, not a legal act. U.S. law also prohibits the assassination of a foreign head of state or government. Targetting Saddam is, therefore, also not within the four corners of the law. Acts of war are, however, perfectly permissible. So, the President of the United States gets on with long-distance massacre, even if that means, oops sorry, rubbing out a few innocents. After all, what better way of ridding the dead of their dictators than killing the victim when the perpetrator is hard to find?

If, in fact, the noble American objective is to help the hapless Iraqis liberate themselves of their yoke, the first question that arises is why George Bush did not push on to Baghdad when he was wrapping up the Mother of All Battles? I happened to be the note-taker at Rajiv Gandhi's meeting in Teheran with Rafsanjani the morning after Rajiv asked, "After Saddam, who?" And Rafsanjani replied, "After Saddam, Saddam." He went on to explain the American need of Saddam. The rebellious Kurds are scattered over northern Iraq, eastern Turkey, parts of Syria and a sliver of Iran. For decades, they have been fighting for independence. If they get it, said Rafsanjani, NATO's presence in Turkey, on the soft underbelly of the Soviet Union, would be undermined. Saddam could be counted on to clobber the Kurds; that, said Rafsanjani, is reason enough for the Americans to keep Saddam alive. In the event, Bush went; Saddam remained. Eight years after Operation Desert Storm, one can only applaud Rafsanjani's startling perspicacity.

The Americans have no dislike of dictators. The 1973 rise in oil prices suddenly made Saddam the leader of a country that had not seen such riches since Haroon al-Rashid. The Americans, who had stormed out of Iraq in 1972 in protest against Saddam nationalising the oil companies, returned in 1975 in order not to lose out on the millions their Western competitors were making. Not even Saddam's insolence in converting the U.S. Embassy into the Iraqi Foreign Office deterred them; they took that loss in their stride even as they had the conversion of the first U.S. Embassy on Sa'adoun Street (appropriately called, in recognition of its architectural style, the White House) into Baghdad's most notorious torture chamber.

From 1973 to 1978, the U.S. made much money out of Saddam but did not much care for him. That changed with the gathering revolution against the Shah which eventually brought Ayatollah Khomeini to the helm. As the overthrow of the Shah became unstoppable, Saddam rolled out the red carpet for one of the Shah's more flighty sisters, Princess Ashrafi. It seemed an unusual gesture from the Arab world's most infamous anti-monarchist until it dawned on one that Saddam was, in reality, readying himself for the second Battle of Qadessiya. That needs a word of explanation.

Saddam was the first to appreciate that the rise of a Shia theocratic state along his eastern frontier with Iran would have an irresistible appeal to the Shia hordes along the Euphrates in the western half of Iraq. Between them, they had the potential to squeeze the Sunni rulers of the Tigris in a pincer movement from right and left and, thus, undo the results of the seventh century Battle of Qadessiya which drew the historic border between Shia Iran and Sunni-dominated Iraq. Saddam's welcome to Princess Ashrafi was the signal the Americans were waiting for in their search for an ally to undo the Iranian revolution.

Khomeini won in 1979, there followed the siege of the U.S. Embassy in Teheran and the imprisonment therein of American diplomatic hostages for 444 days; meanwhile, there occurred the humiliating fiasco of Jimmy Carter's futile bid to free them, leaving the American armed forces looking like the Keystone Cops. By 1981, the U.S. need for ground forces to take on Khomeini had become acute. Saddam provided this. His invasion of Iran drew plaudits from the entire Western world. No one thought to censure him in the Security Council for violating the sovereignty of a neighbour.

Which is why Saddam thought nothing of informing April Gillespie, the U.S. Ambassador to Baghdad, of his intention of recapturing the 18th wilaya, or province, of Iraq. Gillespie too shrugged her shoulders. No one from Washington remonstrated with Saddam that the 18th wilaya was now the sovereign state of Kuwait. Saddam went ahead on August 2, 1990. He brought the world upon his head. He is still wondering why it is OK to invade Khomeini's Iran but not the Emir's Kuwait.

In capturing Kuwait, Saddam made himself the perfect punching bag for the Americans. For, with Gorbachev not having the stomach to fight 'em, and the Russians longing to convert Moscow into Minneapolis, the Americans were losing their Public Perfidy No. 1. Saddam the Butcher made the ideal comic-strip stand-in as Enemy of the People. That is another reason he has survived. He comes in handy when extramural activities lead to unexpected complications.

Meanwhile, Iraqi children starve in times of peace and die in times of war. Clinton should not be impeached for infidelity. He should be tried for murder.