Hillel sponsors

The event's title may have been humorous, but the subject matter addressed by Professor Malik Mufti in Wednesday nights's "Caught Between Iraq and a Hard Place" discussion was anything but.

Sponsored by Tufts Hillel and held in the Hillel Center's small chapel room, "Between Iraq and a Hard Place" provided students with the opportunity to consider Mufti's point of view regarding the Iraqi conflict and raise concerns about the future.

"Over winter break, the situation with Iraq really came to a head, but a lot of people, like myself, didn't know what was going on," senior Hillel president Erika Robbins said. Robbins planned the program with the goal of "[providing] people with information so they could form their own opinions."

Before opening the floor up to the approximately sixty students in attendance, Mufti presented them with an overview of the U.S. motives in targeting Iraq. Mufti also detailed the potential pitfalls of U.S. military intervention, repeatedly emphasizing the unpredictable nature of war.

"It's obvious on an intuitive level that Sept. 11 had something to do with our going to war, although links are tenuous at best," Mufti said. He added that what prevented the Bush administration from acting sooner was most likely "the enormity of the enterprise -- not just the war, but the aftermath. It's such a difficult project."

The real problem the Bush administration has with Saddam Hussein, Mufti said, is not necessarily his harboring of terrorists or weapons of mass destruction. Rather, the administration is concerned with the geopolitics of the region.

"Saddam Hussein represents a certain type of government -- he's a militaristic ultranationalist," Mufti said, describing Hussein's attempt to invade Kuwait as representative of what he plans to accomplish on a larger scale throughout the entire Middle East.

If Saddam achieves his goal of Middle Eastern domination, Mufti said, "the regional balance would shift in a way inimical to U.S. interests." The Bush rationale in attempting to overthrow Saddam rests, then, on the tenet that "by overthrowing Hussein, we can change the political culture of the region in such a way that we can create a space for more liberal regimes to emerge."

According to Mufti, the administration hopes that bringing a credible, stable, pro-American regime to power in Iraq will result in several things: the creation of a pro-American alliance consisting of Iraq, Turkey, Jordan, and Israel, the exertion of pressure on problematic regimes in countries such as Syria, and the building of momentum towards an Arab-Israeli peace.

"Here is where things diverge," Mufti said. Iraq being Israel's greatest threat, Israel's government could react to the occupation of Iraq in two ways. The first would involve taking advantage of Iraq's weakened state and refusing to compromise; the second, using their advantageous position to bring about an Arab-Israeli settlement. Should Israel pursue the first option, the U.S.'s Middle Eastern agenda would be greatly threatened.

Though Mufti described himself as "for the war because [he]'s against the sanctions" Bush Sr. imposed on the Iraqi people following the Gulf War, he readily admitted that a war with Iraq contains numerous potential pitfalls. "The closer things get [to war]," Mufti said, "the more worried I get."

Mufti feels that an attack on Iraq is necessary to thwart Saddam because "[he buys] the argument that Saddam will not just stop at having weapons if he is left alone."

"Some Iraqis are accusing the U.S. of betraying them _ already, the Americans are running into trouble," Mufti said, adding that installing a "decent" regime "could turn into a really ugly occupation that would undermine the reason for the whole thing."

The tension between Kurds and Turks in northern Iraq poses another problem: "The country could just implode," Mufti said.

According to Mufti, the key question is whether the U.S. "can really change the political culture of a region. Can we change the whole direction of the Arab-Muslim stance?"

Mufti offered no clear-cut answers to that query, instead fielding an array of questions from an audience composed of both anti and pro-war students as well as University Rabbi Jeffrey Summit.

Asked how the Bush administration's conduct will affect the U.S.'s relationship to its European allies, Mufti replied, "the tone of the administration has been unfortunate and childish. Obviously, the transatlantic alliance is being really badly hurt by all of this."

Mufti also recognized the possibility that attacking Iraq could push Saddam to employ biological or chemical weapons against the U.S.

"I think that's a very real fear," Mufti said. He also agreed that the war could provide bin Laden with a great opportunity to capitalize on anti-American sentiment: "I think bin Laden is very much welcoming this war."

Mufti also warned against letting Iraq's weapon situation become analogous to that of North Korea: "Look at North Korea now, getting away with amazing things in the face of the U.S. Why? Because they have nuclear weapons."

"We all have to start weighing, in good conscience, the good effects and the bad effects of going to war," Mufti said, adding that he hopes "this is one of those times when the goals of imperialism and idealism coincide."