Each passing day increases the prospects of a war by the United States against Iraq, even if the case for it appears very weak and the support from even US allies, less than enthusiastic. It is true that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was the aggressor who initiated the eight-year long war during 1980-88 against Iran in violation of a bilateral agreement.

The US had supplied crucial operational intelligence to it during that war, including from its high technology systems like the electronic assets deployed in the region. US allies, especially France and the UK, had also transferred large quantities of state-of-the-art weapons to Iraq. All this was done so that it could defeat Khomeini’s Iran.

When Iraq used chemical weapons against Iran and even its own people in 1988, in violation of well-established norms, the world remained silent. It is also true that Saddam’s Iraq violated international norms by invading and annexing Kuwait in 1990.

Similarly, it is a fact that in the perception of most, Saddam Hussein’s regime is harsh if not repressive of human rights. It remains a threat, especially since it has been less than co-operative in admitting UN inspectors.

But does all that add up to a reasonable case for launching a war? The charge that Iraq has been harbouring terrorists linked to the Al Qaeda is not sustainable by reasonable evidence. Abu Nidal lived in Baghdad, but is believed to have committed suicide recently and his Palestinian group is defunct.

Thorough investigations by the FBI, CIA and the Czech intelligence, after reports of links between the hijackers of September 11, did not lead to any meaningful evidence. None of the hijackers, or their immediate associates, was Iraqi. There is no information of any funds for the terrorists being traced back to Iraq.

In fact, Osama bin Laden was quoted as having referred to Saddam Hussein as an infidel. The US State Department’s annual study, ‘Patterns of Global Terrorism’, did not list any serious act of international terrorism by Iraq.

The second major reason often cited is that Iraq is developing weapons of mass destruction. Between 1991 and 1998 (when the UN Special Commission inspectors were withdrawn before their job was completed, prior to the heavy four-day US bombing of Iraq), large quantities of chemical weapons, ballistic missiles and modified missile warheads capable of carrying chemical or biological weapons had been destroyed.

Most of the IAEA reports indicate that Iraq no longer has a nuclear programme. The development of biological weapons is not easy to locate; and concerns of such weapons, especially anthrax, being made would remain.

The third argument, of Iraq being a major threat to its neighbours and international peace and security, is hardly tenable after the substantive degradation of Iraqi military assets resulting from the 1990-91 war and the absence of any modernisation for over a decade. Repeated air strikes by the US have also further degraded the military capability.

As long as an arms embargo continues in place, as it inevitably would, Iraqi military power would keep getting emasculated with each passing day. The neighbours, in fact, have shown great reluctance, if not actual opposition, to any idea of a war against Iraq at this stage.

On the other hand, the war against terrorism appears to have reached a plateau since March. The overwhelming proportion of the Al Qaeda leadership have neither been captured nor killed. Most of the Taliban leaders are free and alive, and many of their former ministers, who should have been tried by the International Criminal Court, are living in Peshawar.

Taliban crimes are no less heinous than that of S. Milosovic. The war against terrorism is really a war of ideas; and we must ensure that we don’t lose it because of loss of this focus. Possibly, due to the stagnation of the physical war against terrorism, a war against Iraq under the counter-terrorism has acquired new popularity in the US. Public support has been high although some senior leaders like Dr Henry Kissinger and Brent Scowcroft have publicly raised concerns. The case for this war, as made out in public, is weak at its best.

Only a year ago, US Secretary of State Colin Powell was arguing that ‘smart sanctions’ could contain the emerging threat of an aggressive Iraq, and the US national security adviser, Condoleeza Rice, was advocating ‘a sanctions regime that actually works’.

Existing UN Security Council resolutions require that any use of force against Iraq would require its prior authority to make it legal. Unfortunately, the US war juggernaut has been on the move for some time now and its own momentum could push the country into a war. A war which, in present circumstances, would not have a legal sanction, would be a logistical nightmare, militarily costly and politically imprudent.

A great deal of reliance is being laid on taking out Saddam Hussein in a surgical operation. But even in case of a miracle military victory, the nature of a successor regime and its policies would remain a matter of speculation for years to come.

Predictably, US allies are perturbed about this trend which has apparently drawn its strength from the earlier declared Bush Doctrine of pre-emptive use of force. Coming as it does after increasing concerns of US unilateralism in the use of its massive military power and the ‘threat’ to Islam generated by the war against terrorism, a war at this stage against another Muslim country without an iron-clad visible justification (like that in 1991), would tend to deepen anti-American and anti-West sentiments among the Muslims, in particular, and the developing world at large, with far reaching consequences.

This is one of the major reasons why even the Muslim countries, otherwise hardly on good terms with Iraq, are against the war. Such a war would detract from an already stagnating international war against terrorism. This would specifically go against India’s own interests and those of the civilised world.