International Politics and Bin Laden Chapter

Former Al-Qaida Chief Osama Bin Laden chapter in the international politics had come to an end in May 2011. Bin Laden is now dead. He is now part of history. Many painful stories and incidents of deaths are involved with this history. He had given a new interpretation of the religion of Islam. His interpretation was controversial and it cannot be said Muslims across the world had accepted the version. But it is fact that he produced hundreds of "jihadists" in the Muslim world. These jihadists were ready to embrace "martyrdom" in the name of Islam. Bin Laden wanted to revert to the ancient course of Islam. The "Wahabi" doctrine has this ancient course. Some people prefer identifying the course as the 'Salafi' ideology. The Saudi Royal family is the follower of this ideology.
One Saudi Islamic pundit, Mohammad Bin Abad Al Wahab, is the exponent of this ideology. He was born in 1703. Once the founder of Saudi Royal family, Ibne Saud, was attracted by this philosophy. The family is still following the ideology. It is being told that Saudi Arabia is promoting this doctrine. The Wahabi doctrine gives highest importance to jihad. The followers of Wahabi ideology do not believe in worshipping pir (spiritual leader), mazar (grave), holding milad (a kind of meeting to glorify the Prophet Mohammad), visiting grave, shirk and bidat. Bin Laden used to believe that Islam could be established in the world through jihad.
Significance of Islam
Islam is a religion of peace. Islam has spread to various countries of the world. But in nowhere it expanded through terrorism. The people, who come to our region of the world thousands of years back for preaching Islam, did not resorted to terror activities. They had preached the messages of peace and choose to stay here because of love for the land.
However, for preaching which Islam Bin Laden had stepped into the field? He had inspired hundreds of youths to take part in "jihadist" activities. Bin Laden was an owner of billion of dollars. He spent the money for terror activities. He had developed a big network in the Arab world from Iraq to Algeria. Al-Qaida has a strong base in Yemen. Bin Laden had given birth to the organization named -- Al-Qaida. Allegation has been raised that Al-Qaida was involved with the destruction of World Trade Center on 11 September 2001. Since then the name of Bin Laden has spread to everywhere in the world. He became the "No 1 terrorist of the world." The United States had been on the hunt of Bin Laden since 11 September. After long 10 years he was detected in the Abbottabad City of Pakistan.
Bin Laden has undoubtedly committed crimes. He could be hanged in trials. It would have been normal, if he was tried. But the United States has given rise to many questions by killing Bin Laden. A dead Bin Laden has emerged a more risky man for the United States. Rather the killing of Bin Laden will enhance his popularity. But the question that has assumed prominence to me is that whether this role of the United States would create a big threat to the developing world? The Muslim world is gripped with agitation. One type of hegemony has been created in the name of globalization. In this regard some Islamic pundits (for example Sayyid Qutb of Egypt) think Islam is the solution.
Palestinian Problem
A leader like Bin Laden gives the call for jihad when the Palestinian problem is not solved year after year. The Israeli commandoes kill the Palestinian leaders. And no trails are being held for the killings. It is true that this so called jihad did not get massive support in the Muslim world. But at the same time it is natural that some sorts of agitations and hatred are simmering in the Muslim world as the innocent people are being killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The United States had conducted aggression against Afghanistan on the plea that the Taliban gave shelter to Bin Laden. The US forces have been in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2011. US President Barack Obama also won Nobel Prize for peace. But his hands are tainted with blood. He had a given a promise that the US soldiers will be withdrawn from Afghanistan by 2011. Now the deadline has been extended to 2014. But security experts believe the United States has a big interest in Afghanistan. They will have stay in this country. The Central Asia is abundant with huge energy resources, gas and oil. The US companies have huge investment here. The United States does not want other powers (particularly China and Russia) have a share of these resources.
The energy resources of Central Asia will be controlled from Afghanistan. For this reason this "Islamic militancy" has been born to Tajikistan or Uzbekistan. This militancy is also a threat to the security of the Central Asia. The Asiaism of NATO will centre round this region. As a result, there is a remote possibility of withdrawing force from Afghanistan. In case of Iraq it was told that the country had Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs). It had been further told the WMD was posing threat to the security of the region. Under this pretext the United States captured Iraq in 2003. We all know the next stories. The WMD was not found in Iraq. But Saddam Hussein was hanged. Iraq was destroyed. Some US companies are reconstructing Iraq by selling the oil resources of that country. The United States is now searching the path of military intervention in Libya in the name of humanitarian intervention. The oil of Libya is the target of the United States. Libya is the gateway to North Africa. The control of Libya will mean controlling the North African countries having huge resource. The United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) was established with this target.
Terrorism in the name of Islam is acceptable. This is not Islam also. But it equally not acceptable to attack any independent country or violating its sovereignty in the name of suppressing terrorism. This role of the US is the violation of the Clause 4 ( 1) and 4( 4) of the UN Charter that deal with "sovereignty" and "territorial integrity." The United States has involved itself with terror activities in the name of curbing terrorism. The concept of "preemptive strike" that US President Bush had used and Obama now using will not at all help America to galvanize its image. History says the United States is committing such incidents time and again.
Violation of International Law
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague in 1986 ruled that the United States violated the international law by using force illegally in Nicaragua and providing help to Contra guerrillas (fighting the leftist government of that country at that time). The United States did not accept the verdict of the international court. But the UN secretary general in a resolution adopted by 94-2 votes had urged the United States to accept the verdict international court. The United States and Israel voted against the resolution.
In the death of Bin Laden a new chapter has been ushered in. It is to be observed what impact this 'death' creates in the Muslim world. But the Obama administration has more responsibility at this moment to enhance the US image in the Muslim world. President Obama's Cairo address had created a prospect in this regard. But a little progress has so far been achieved. Smaller Islamic militant groups like Al-Qaida have been born to a quite good number of Islamic countries. These groups have much influence in the countries like Algeria, Mauritania, Libya, Yemen, Sudan, and Somalia. The Islamic militants in Somalia directly or indirectly control the state power. The organization named Al Sadarb has introduced Shari'ah in the area controlled by them.
Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and Salafist Group of Preaching and Combat had called for suicide bombing and worldwide jihad. The AQIM is active in the entire Maghreb region. The responsibility of the Obama administration at this moment is taking initiatives for bringing these militant groups in the mainstream of the society.
Moreover, it is very urgent to start "dialogue" with the militants in Afghanistan.
Existence of Mullah Omar
After Bin Laden, Mullah Omar is the target of the United States. The existence of Mullah Omar could not be found anywhere in Afghanistan in the long last 10 years of hectic searching. The solution to the Afghan problem will not be possible without initiating dialog with the Taliban. However, the Taliban movement and Al-Qaida are not the same. There are differences between the two.
Al-Qaida had given a call for jihad across the world, but the Taliban wanted to establish Islamic rule only in Afghanistan. It is very urgent for President Obama to withdraw soldiers from Afghanistan. The responsibility of the US President has further increased. The problem could not be solved by engraving the body of Bin Laden in the Arabian Sea from the US warship-Karl Vinson, patrolling in that sea. Obama himself will have to take the initiatives to earn confidence of the Muslim world. The death of Bin Laden has given birth to this possibility. President Obama has ensured his victory in the 2012 US President election by killing Bin Laden. Nobody has doubt about this. But various complexities have been created in the Muslim world, Pakistan-US relations and India-Pakistan relations. The complexities will increase regional tension. These will also create tension in the world politics. And the same will be the main obstacle in the way of establishing peace in the world.

Withdrawal of Last US Troops From Iraq

The last US soldiers have rolled out of Iraq across the border to neighboring Kuwait, whooping, fist bumping and hugging each other in a burst of joy and relief. Their exit marked the end of a bitterly divisive war that raged for nearly nine years and left Iraq shattered, with troubling questions lingering over whether the Arab nation will remain a steadfast US ally. The mission cost nearly 4,500 American and well more than 100,000 Iraqi lives and $800 billion from the US Treasury. The question of whether it was worth it all is yet unanswered.
Captain Mark Askew, a 28-year-old from Tampa, Florida who was among the last soldiers to leave, said the answer to that question will depend on what type of country and government Iraq ends up with years from now, whether they are democratic, respect human rights and are considered a US ally.
Whither Stubborn Sectarian Clashes
US officials acknowledged the cost in blood and dollars was high, but tried to paint a picture of victory for both the troops and the Iraqi people now freed of a dictator and on a path to democracy.
But gnawing questions remain: Will Iraqis be able to forge their new government amid the still stubborn sectarian clashes. And will Iraq be able to defend itself and remain independent in a region fraught with turmoil and still steeped in insurgent threats.
Many Iraqis, however, are nervous and uncertain about the future. Their relief at the end of Saddam Hussein, who was hanged on the last day of 2006, was tempered by a long and vicious war that was launched to find nonexistent weapons of mass destruction and nearly plunged the nation into full-scale sectarian civil war.
Some criticized the Americans for leaving behind a destroyed country with thousands of widows and orphans, a people deeply divided along sectarian lines and without rebuilding the devastated infrastructure.
Some Iraqis celebrated the exit of what they called American occupiers, neither invited nor welcome in a proud country. Others said that while grateful for US help ousting Saddam, the war went on too long. A majority of Americans would agree, according to opinion polls.
The low-key exit stood in sharp contrast to the high octane start of the war, which began before dawn on March 20, 2003, with an air strike in southern Baghdad where Saddam was believed to be hiding. US and allied ground forces then stormed across the featureless Kuwaiti desert, accompanied by reporters, photographers and television crews embedded with the troops.
Saddam’s Secret Nuclear Weapon Program
The task assigned to them in 2003 has been accomplished. The United States under President George W. Bush entered the Iraqi war theatre after it had made substantial gains in Afghanistan where it had toppled the Taliban regime in the wake of 9/11. He found an excellent opportunity to use the anti-terrorism plank to achieve Washington’s larger objective of ensuring energy security. Unverified intelligence reports about Iraqi ruler Saddam’s “secret” nuclear weapon program were enough for President Bush to go ahead with his new plan. He also found out that Saddam had close connections with Al-Qaida mastermind Osama Bin Ladin.
The United States also did not bother about seeking the UN Security Council’s sanction for attacking Iraq. Even when it was conclusively proved that Iraq had no Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) and that Saddam had no link with Al-Qaida — both being ideologically poles apart — Iraq was bombarded and Saddam dethroned. Later, he was captured and executed. Iraq was liberated from the clutches of the tyrant. What could have been done by the people of Iraq during the Arab Spring now was finished by the US with the use of its military might. But can this be justified legally, morally, ethically or otherwise? The debate is still on.
Iran-Iraq Shia Bloc
Ousting and killing Saddam, a secular despot, may have gladdened US Arab allies, who are despotic but quasi-theocratic. Ironically, it also pleased Shia Iran as the United States leaves behind a Shia-run Iraq. A consolidated Iran-Iraq Shia bloc will be to the liking of neither America’s Arab allies nor the United States itself. In short, the times ahead in West Asia are likely to be threatened with prospects of heightened tension. Such a state of affairs may not always fall short of actual fighting, not least when the US continues to play the ouster game in West Asia in the name of promoting democracy.
Undoubtedly, the Iraq war was unpopular from day one within the United States. It had been launched on clearly false premises. US President Barack Obama wanted to end the campaign he had inherited. He gave himself the deadline of December 31 this year, and has stuck to it. But it is lost on no one — not in Iraq, not in the United States — that the United States may have wanted to extend its stay in a reduced way for strategic reasons, but could not.

War on Terror: End of Post-9/11 Era

When the artist Art Spiegelman told his story of 9/11 in a graphic novel, he called it In the Shadow of No Towers. It was an arresting thought, the gloom cast not by the twin peaks of the World Trade Centre but by their absence. We have been living in that shadow for the last 10 years -- but it's time we escaped it. We need to declare the end of the post-9/11 era.
Of course that will be impossible for those directly affected. No one expects -- and no one would ask -- those still grieving for a wife or son, a husband or sister, to put the September 11 attacks behind them just because an anniversary with a round number is looming. What deepens their tragedy is that it continues. The television documentaries, newspaper testimonies and eloquent reminiscences that have been flowing for days leave no doubt that for those directly affected, 9/11 will never let them go.
Artists and writers too will resist closing the book on September 11 any time soon. Happenings on that scale take many decades, not just one, to process. As Salman Rushdie puts it: "I think these great events have to rot down. Maybe another generation has to look at it."
Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
If grief and art will necessarily stay fixated, the realm of politics needs to move on. Osama Bin Laden is dead; George W. Bush and Tony Blair are long gone from office. The two 9/11 wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan, are not over, but both now have a timetable for troops to come home. The phrase of the age -- "the war on terror" -- has been retired.
As far as Al-Qaida is concerned, it has been decapitated: as well as Osama Bin Laden, the network's new number two and chief operational planner was killed last month, and the man branded its "foreign minister" revealed to be in Pakistani custody on Monday. Most analysts say Al-Qaida is weakened, its capacity to act reduced.
Post-9/11 Landscape
Of course no wants to tempt fate with complacency. For that reason one aspect of the post-9/11 landscape will and should remain in place: vigilance. Police and intelligence agencies charged with protecting the public cannot revert to September 10 pretending that 9/11 -- or, for that matter, Bali, Madrid and London -- did not happen. The threat has changed, but it has not disappeared.
Other aspects of the post-9/11 order persist too. Guantanamo Bay remains open, one of the early disappointments of the Barack Obama presidency. The US "homeland security" apparatus created a decade ago is now well dug in. Given the tenacity of such bureaucracies -- plenty of cold war American military structures linger to this day -- few would bet on this newer one allowing itself to be mothballed.
Overarching and Paramount Threat
Moreover, it is the mind-set that has to go. In those dazed days after the attacks, a new foreign policy doctrine was hastily assembled. It said that the world faced a single, overarching and paramount threat in the form of violent jihadism. Every other battle had to be subordinated to, or subsumed into, that one. And the call went beyond foreign policy. Culture, too, was to be enlisted in a clash of civilizations between Islamism and the west that would rank alongside the great 20th century struggles against communism and fascism. Christopher Hitchens confessed he felt "exhilaration" as he saw the towers fall. At last there would be war against "dull and vicious theocratic fascism. I am prepared for this war to go on for a very long time. I will never become tired of waging it, because it is a fight over essentials. And because it is so interesting."
Such talk has been a constant of the 9/11 decade but its time has passed. For one thing, it's predicated on a mistake. The right way to regard the 2001 attacks was as a heinous and wicked crime -- not a declaration of war. As Eliza Manningham-Buller, the former head of MI5, argued in her first Reith lecture calling it a war "legitimizes the terrorists as warriors & quote. It is exactly what Al-Qaida wanted -- feeding their fantasies of grandeur -- and we gave it to them.
Second, post-9/11 thinking has led to grave and lethal misjudgments. The greatest of these is agglomeration, lumping disparate and complex threats under one easy heading. The most notorious example will always be Iraq, casting that as part of the war on terror even though there was nothing to connect Saddam Hussein to Osama Bin Laden.
But it worked in subtler ways too. The director of Chatham House, Robin Niblett -- who was in Washington when flight 77 struck the Pentagon -- recalls how, during the cold war, regimes in Africa, Asia or Latin America won western backing as they fought off local, domestically motivated rebels simply by casting their opponents as part of "the global Communist foe". In the past decade, the west fell for the same trick all over again. Hosni Mubarak gained a new lease on office by insisting he was holding back the Muslim Brotherhood, which he portrayed as the Egyptian branch of the global jihad. This week has brought fresh evidence that Colonel Gaddafi was playing the same game, persuading British intelligence to become complicit in his torture of dissidents, partly by painting the Libyan opposition in Al-Qaida colors. "The danger of the 9/11 mindset is that you try to compress all kinds of challenges into a single threat," says Niblett.
Making the war against jihadism paramount has had other consequences too, still being felt. On post-9/11 logic, the shredding of civil liberties -- condemned by Manningham-Buller as handing "victory to the terrorists" -- was almost inevitable, for surely such freedoms had to take second place to the supreme threat. More serious has been the unleashing of a rampant Islamophobia -- intense in Europe, recently lethal in Norway and rising in the US. That too is all but inevitable once Islamism is deemed the greatest peril faced by the human race.
Famously Tony Blair declared after 9/11 that the "kaleidoscope has been shaken. The pieces are in flux". But the kaleidoscope has been shaken again -- most dramatically by this year's Arab revolutions. Whatever landscape was created once the dust of the World Trade Centre had settled in 2001 has been remade in 2011. Change has come to Egypt, Tunisia and Libya -- and Osama Bin Laden had nothing to do with it.
Again, this is not to say the dangers have receded. Would-be terrorists have seen the earth-shaking impact a spectacular attack can have -- especially if it prompts a massive reaction that fuels the terrorists' cause, as the Iraq invasion did for Al-Qaida. If one of the Arab revolutions fails, an Al-Qaida offshoot could find purchase in that country. But vigilance is not the same as a careless, undiscriminating monomania.
Even those who were not there say the memory is so vivid, it feels like yesterday. But it was not yesterday. It was 10 years ago. We should mark the 9/11 anniversary with respect and care for those who died. But then we ought to close this sorry and bloody chapter -- and bury the mentality it created.

War on Terror Destroying US Credibility on Human Rights

Ten years later, there is still an aura surrounding the attack on the World Trade Center (WTC). People remember where they were when they heard about it.
The United States immediately refused an offer of assistance from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the defense alliance whose Article 5 states that an attack on one member is an attack on all of them. NATO has not been the same since. The United States later used its airpower to bomb the Taliban and Al-Qaida's regular forces to bits. That was also a resolute act that was carried out without any significant presence on the ground in Afghanistan, and which did not provoke any particularly strong protest.
Eliminating Terrorism Menace
The decisive action in the period immediately after 11 September was an act of speech, that of defining the situation as war. And then there was a war, against Iraq. The justification that the United States gave for going to war was not correct; there was no tie between Al-Qaida and Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein as the United States had alleged, and people knew that. When this became known to the public in the country that is the US main ally, the United Kingdom, it cost social democrat Tony Blair his job as prime minister. US public opinion hardly reacted at all.
But there was some protest. One of the critics, interestingly enough, was a razor sharp analyst named John Mearsheimer. "If you are the strongest guy in the street, why stand on the rooftop and shout it out," he asked. If US military power is absolutely superior to that of other states, why throw away a huge amount of resources, which could advantageously be deployed elsewhere, on something that cannot possible be of vital national interest?
Now, in 2011, when the war in Iraq alone has cost the United States more than the war in Vietnam, and it seems quite unclear what the benefits have actually been, there are many more people asking the same question. But when it was essential to question the war, Mearsheimer and a few other skeptics stood completely alone. In Europe, a majority of us asked whether Al-Qaida was what the Germans call duellfähig, worth a duel, with the world's strongest state by far. Would not a police operation have been a reaction that was considerably more in proportion to the situation, and considerably better suited to get results?
Deterioration in Quality of Life
That question remains valid. Others have been added to it. The main question now being asked is how to get out at the least possible cost. The costs have already been far too high. The whole tone of US politics, and to some extent that of European politics as well, has become increasingly edgy and security-oriented. This is a deterioration in quality of life that affects us all.
The US warfare has been costly, not only in human lives and in financial terms, but also politically. The United States has managed to preserve the decisively important alliance with Saudi Arabia, and officially at least, working relations with Pakistan have been maintained, but over the last ten years, the United States has become even less popular among wide sectors of the population in the Middle East. For Americans, there is now even more reason to ask the question: "Why do they hate us?" than there was in 2001.
When the United States chose to define relations with radical Islam as war, this led to extended effects in all of Christendom, and in the entire Islamic world, the Ummah. Before 9/11, we in Norway talked about "immigrants." Now we talk about "Muslims." One precondition for the events of 22 July was the steadily growing tension between these imaginary quantities in the decade before. Here we have two examples of a general tendency that cannot be explained by 9/11, but which cannot be considered in isolation from 9/11 either.
US Ties With Central Players
With regard to the United States' place in the world in general, 9/11 seems chiefly to have strengthened and accelerated already existing tendencies. The US shift away from Europe toward the rest of the world has been obvious. The United States is, therefore, not overly concerned about NATO being weakened. Tensions between the United States and the other central players on the world stage, particularly China and India, have become bigger. These two states were dissatisfied with their ranking and influence before 9/11, and after ten years of growth, they are even more dissatisfied.
The border between India and Pakistan has consolidated its position as one of the places where a war in Asia could break out; it is probably the most likely place. No one now talks triumphantly about the United States being the strongest empire in world history, as many Americans did before 9/11. Nevertheless, the United States is still the strongest state by far in military terms and will remain so for some years to come.
The candidate for the most important repercussion of 9/11 is related to the polarization in relations with Muslims and in relations with China and India, but it is more general in character. After the United States' behavior at Guantanamo and in Abu Ghraib, it is more difficult for Washington to speak from a human-rights perspective.
Western Hegemony
After the unsuccessful campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, it is more difficult to credibly claim that US political and economic systems can be forcibly exported. Taken together with China's and India's steadily strengthening positions, this means that the West's ascendancy in global politics has been considerably weakened.
In the future, the "war on terror" may be seen as an important stage in the windup of Western hegemony. 9/11 was a terrible tragedy. The "war on terror" was a failed reaction to it.

Attack on Libya: West To Repeat Mistakes

The allied forces headed by France, the United Kingdom and the United States launched air attacks against the military base of the Libyan Government a few days ago. More than a hundred of missiles were fired over the course of several attacks. From early March until today, the US government has been hesitant over the matter whether or not it should launch military attacks against Libya.

Apparently, US President Barack Obama has taken into consideration how the Islamic world will view the United States if the country starts the third battleground now while the two wars the United States has involved in Iraq and Afghanistan have yet to come to an end. Will all the previous efforts Obama has taken since he assumed the presidency to restore the relations with the Islamic world go in vain?

Unwanted Troubles
The world may not remember. The day the allied forces fiercely fired missiles against Libya was also the 8th anniversary of the attacks of the US-UK allied forces against Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein's regime. Eight years have passed since the battle in Iraq subsided. But the pains and wounds that war has brought to the people of the United States and the United Kingdom have not gone away completely as time goes by.

If we look at the statistics, the United States and the United Kingdom had mobilized nearly 1 million troops and spent $420 billion on the war. Close to 4,000 troops of the allied forces killed in the war while the death toll of the Iraqi Government troops is 14,000. On top of that, more than 200,000 Iraqi civilians were killed or wounded in the war. From the perspective of the social cost, the two countries had not only gone to war in Middle East afar, a "civil war" was also in full swing back home. The upsurge in the anti-war campaign posed the most severe crisis to the United States and the United Kingdom since the Second World War. The opposition between the people and the government became increasingly intense.

Change of Security Order
From the perspective of the national strength, the vain involvement in a war in a foreign country that lasted for years has seriously jeopardized the national strength and international reputation of the two countries. The "Kingdom of Dollar" has turned into a "sick giant." From the perspective of international relations, the allegation that "Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction" was proven a lie. It has become a total test to the capability of the United States as the "defender of the world of freedom" and the "world police." The country's defense pledges to its allies became dubious. The change of the security order in Middle East has affected the strategic situation of the entire world.

At best, the decision of George W. Bush and Tony Blair to get involved in the Iraq War was a natural reaction to a "domino effect". The United States and the United Kingdom were worried that Saddam would control the strategic interest of the oil resources in Middle East once his power expanded. The decision-makers in White House proposed that Saddam was a strategic design of Russia and China in their plan to expand their Great Middle East Oil Strategy, the ultimate goal of which was to control Middle East. The United States and the United Kingdom strongly believed that they would definitely put down the internal strife in Iraq and win the war within a short period given the most modernized weapons and equipments of the allied forces. Ironically, the two countries had never devised a feasible Iraq War blueprint with a set of unambiguous goals.

Series of Mistakes
Militarily, their strategic arrangement was inappropriate, their tactics were bad, the efficacy of their high technology military equipments was limited and they landed in a passive position in so many aspects. The Iraq War was a non-traditional war - there was no frontier and their enemies were not readily visible. Politically, the United States and the United Kingdom had restricted themselves. First, they failed to end a war by waging another war; second, they did not want to overly offense other Middle Eastern countries. The two countries could not get out of the dilemma of peace or war; instead they became more and more entangled. They overthrew Saddam Hussein but failed to establish an Iraqi government that has the support of the Iraqi people. Both US- and UK-backed Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki are not leaders with top qualities; instead they are fraught with corruption. They have no way to clean up the mess.

The Iraq strategy of the US and British Governments designed under the mentality of anti-terrorism was founded on ignorance, arrogance and a series of mistakes. They misjudged the intentions of Russia and China and the relations between the Shiite and Sunni sects; they underestimated the determination of the Shiite to commit in an armed confrontation and the combat capability of Al-Qaeda.

The United States and the United Kingdom knew nothing about the history, politics, society and culture of Middle East and did not have any expert on the issues of Iraq. They made a hasty "upholding justice" move in a completely strange country as the world police. Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, who had served in the Bush administration as high-level officials, have broken the silence one after another by openly admitting that the US involvement in the Iraq War was a "big mistake." Because of the mistake and muddled thinking of the decision-making system, the United States experienced a defeat after the Vietnam War. The Iraq War and the collective lie of the Bush administration have totally changed the political and spiritual conditions of the United States.

Man-Made Calamities
The US people should be able to learn their lessons from the bitter experience of the Iraq War. They should draw wisdom from the history and avoid making the same mistakes. Unexpectedly, while the flames of war in Iraq have yet to cease, the United States and the United Kingdom once again plunge into another vortex of unmeasurable depth. Apparently, the Americans and British have not gained better knowledge and understanding about themselves from the painful outcome of the Iraq War. They have not learned that the powers of their countries are actually limited and not invincible. In other words, the United States and the United Kingdom have not learned their lessons from their defeat in the Iraq War!

To be fair, in the tragedy of war, the defeated party of course gains no fame, but the winner has to pay a heavy moral price, too. The second decade of the new century has just begun, the new world order is not established yet. Genocide, terrorism, various forms of natural disasters and man-made calamities are found all over the world. Obviously the human race is still not able to get out of the plight of conflicts and disasters. As we enter into the 8th anniversary of the Iraq War, it is time for all human beings to reflect on how to get rid of war and save themselves out of disasters.

Iran-Pakistan Conflict Intensifies

The most likely country that has the intention to stage a war against Iran is not Pakistan but the United States or Israel or any other Western nation. Pakistan will not be on the top-ten list of countries likely to use force on Iran. As such, if a war breaks out between Iran and Pakistan, a third country will quickly enter the fray.

Possibility of US Involvement
If Iran-Pakistan conflict intensifies, the possibility of US involvement in this round of Iranian-Pakistan conflict is high. After all, the intention to overturn the rule of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the Iranian leader has long been on the US agenda. Although US President Barack Obama and former US President George W. Bush's foreign policy are different, but their desire to get rid of Ahamadinejad is the same.
In addition to this, the involvement of the United States in Iran-Pakistan affairs can also give the United States good opportunity to probe into level of the Iranian nuclear weapon development situation. This is also part and parcel of the unfinished US foreign policy objective in that part of the world.
Moreover, staging war with another nation is not the strength of Pakistan also. In the past 60 years, Pakistan did engage war with India but its war achievement had nothing good to comment about.

Border Warfare
Although Pakistan did make great effort to make nuclear weapons, its nuclear weapons are clearly targeted at India, not at Iran. As such, Pakistan probably knows that it is unwise for it to reveal its military and nuclear strength to Iran if a border war breaks out with Iran. In this regard, if for some reason the United States wants to intervene with its border warfare with Iran, the Pakistani Government will be happy to allow the United States to offer military assistance and to let the United States do the job for Pakistan to ward off military advances from Iran if tension between Iran and Pakistan intensifies.
Although it is but hearsay of the United States to accuse Iran of having or developing nuclear weapons, but if the United States really wants to get involved in the possible Iran-Pakistan battlefield, the United States will also assume that Iran is a country with nuclear weapon facilities already. The United States will probably want to treat Iran as it had handled the former Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq before. In tackling Iran, the United States will probably want to take control of air power by sending its military aircrafts to bombard the virtual nuclear weapon facilities in Iran to destroy all the possible nuclear weapon development sites (or imaginary nuclear weapon sites) in Iran first before moving its ground troops from the Pakistan-Iran border.

Nationalism Sentiment
But if the United States begins to get involved in the Iran-Pakistan warfare, the United States might stir up nationalism sentiment in Iran. Then Ahmadinezad will become a national hero and such scenario will allow Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to use the blood and flesh of the Iranians to resist the US invasion. Yet the United States must bear in mind that Iran's Revolutionary Guard force is much stronger than Saddam's National Guard force.
Of course, one cannot rule out the possibility that the Iranian leader Ahmadinejad might also take pre-emptive measure to tackle the United States also. For example, Iran can, through the Afghanistan and Iraq alliance guerrillas, carry out suicide bombing on US troops on one side and on the other side, Iran might make use of the Hezbollah force in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine to prevent any advancement of Israeli army in order to diverge the attention of US forces if the border war between Iran and Pakistan break out. When this happens it will become a clash between the West and the Islamic world.
Without any doubt, if the United States really wants to get involved in Iranian-Pakistani conflict, the military strength is clearly on the US side. But Ahmadinejad is not Saddam Hussein. This is also a reality.