Is the US serious?

When I listen to the American news these days, I feel as though I am watching Iraqi television filled with propaganda. I react the same way as the 23 million Iraqis, reach for the remote and turn it off. Some of the things I hear sound to be completely ridiculous. Is the US serious about what it is saying? Is it really going to defy the wishes of other nation-states in the world and attack Iraq? What does it actually want to do?

Is it just me, or have others begun to notice this ridiculousness as well? Let me use one example: Has anyone heard about the US plan for attack? It is called operation "Shock and Awe," and was conceived at the National Defense University in Washington (www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/01/24/eveningnews/main537928.shtml). This plan calls for 300 and 400 cruise missiles to fall on Iraq each day for two consecutive days. These first few days are going to be called "Air Strikes day." It would be more than twice the number of missiles launched during the entire 40 days of the 1991 Gulf War.

Pentagon official strategist told CBS news that "there will not be a safe place in Baghdad. The sheer size of this has never been seen before, never been contemplated before." According to military strategist Harlan Ullman, the planned attack will be "rather like the nuclear weapons at Hiroshima." Air Strikes Day will "take the city down," wipe out the water and power supplies in Baghdad, and leave the Iraqis "physically, emotionally, and psychologically exhausted." Is that not chilling? Are they talking for real?

I want a voice of reason! I want someone to say something constructive to bring about an end to this Iraq nightmare. These days all I hear sounds like it is coming out of a poorly acted action film. I want an end to this, not a part two or three that is to reveal itself five or ten years later. Enough with the slogans, enough with the extreme language and enough of this game!

Can we all escape the rhetoric before we do something stupid? This is not about being for or against the war. It is much more complicated than that.

Right now, we are facing two dangers, US warmongering and Iraq's totalitarian system. Warmongering comes largely from the new conservatism that imposes a clash-of-civilizations formula on world politics. The tragic events of 9/11 provided an ideal backdrop to Donald Rumsfeld's "leaning forward" argument for aggression. Second, we have Iraq's totalitarian system that has been a menace to its own people, the region, and the world at large. Leaving these monsters in their place is an invitation to future catastrophe.

Dozens of nations have chemical and biological weapons. None has deployed them, except Saddam's regime, first against the Iranian forces, later against Iraqi civilians. Governments should be held responsible for such crimes, right? Yet ironically, the United States let Saddam get away with no punishment for the actual deployment of chemical and biological weapons back in 1988, but it is now, for a plethora of hidden motives and reasons, adamant about confronting him for a possible deployment of such weapons in the future. This is the logic of preemption. Yet there is no law, domestic or international, that permits a prosecutor to go after an ex-convict for a future, would-be offense.

Warmongering is shortsighted. An invasion of Iraq may well prove too costly or degenerate into chaos. The demise of the totalitarian regime, however welcome, will involve and unleash latent, uncontrollable institutional and social forces that many of us cannot even begin to imagine. A civil war may begin nobody knows where and end up in nobody knows what. A palace coup might be convenient for the US Administration, but it would be another tragedy for the Iraqi people. The US now is involved in a military crusade, with diplomacy as a reluctant sideshow. And it is not geared to the interests or participation of the Iraqi people -- which by the way, is the only way the Iraqi story will ever have a happy ending.

US warmongering has the danger of causing extreme instability in the Middle East and temporarily masking an ugly array of problems in Iraq. What the world should think about is splitting the ruling group in Iraq, i.e. the Baath and Saddam's clan. I offer this solution only because an intervention is going to happen no matter what, whether or not the US alone is justified is doing so. But at least this suggestion/solution would embolden the people to take matters into their hands. A painfully slow process of regime disintegration has already been going on inside Iraq, and this political pressure would hasten the process along. An invasion, on the other hand, would wrench matters out of Iraqi hands and would risk untold consequences.

There is a line of thinking that calls for this semi-reasonable logical solution. According to this group, Saddam and his top aides should be indicted for war crimes and then offered a safe passage out of Iraq in exchange for a transfer of power. Then, the rest of the clan would be told that it would not be threatened as long as it hands over power slowly to some sort of interim civilian government. Lastly, in lieu of an invasion, Iraq should be offered a mini-Marshall plan while the transition is happening inside the country. All this would cause a re-inception of the rule of law which is a vital necessity for Iraq. It is also a precondition for any viable, emerging democracy. Such an eventuality will be the best safety net for regional peace and stability.

This would lead to a long-term solution, sparing thousands of innocent Iraqi lives and solve the problem of the weapons of mass destruction and the regime that controls them. It would also bring about the change needed inside of Iraq. I wonder though, will the US slow down and think this way or will it continue going down this blind path filled with rhetoric and propaganda?

Rana Abdul-Aziz is a senior majoring in International Relations and Middle Eastern Studies.