It would appear that the gravest danger that the United States now faces is not from the terrorism of Osama Bin-Laden or Saddam Husseins Iraq, but from the extremist policies of a group of right wing and fanatically anti-Muslim senior officials and advisers in the Bush administration. Effectively they have hijacked US foreign policy and sidetracked the State Departments traditional diplomatic methods. The anti-Islamic crusade launched in the aftermath of the eminently avoidable tragedy of 9-11 threatens to cast Western relations with the Arab world back 800 years and compounded with the growing taint of corruption at the highest levels and gross financial mismanagement is quickly making even the morally corrupt and politically bankrupt regime of Bill Clinton look like a peon of virtue and a period of intellectual brilliance

The United States public and with few honourable exceptions, the News Media are being bamboozled by a barrage of half-truths, blatant propaganda and deliberate disinformation and led down a path towards endless conflict, with the huge future commitment of manpower, money and energy that will be needed to keep the lid on a fast boiling Middle Eastern situation in particular. The United States armed forces despite their laudable efforts and undoubted loyalty both to President and country, are quietly expressing their deep concerns at present US policies and are in private strongly opposed to becoming the worlds policeman. It is a job they are simply not trained or equipped to do, and perhaps even more importantly feel that they should not even be asked to carry out. The CIA and NSA despite considerable efforts on their behalf have once again proved the distinct limitations of the intelligence community no matter how well they are funded. A chronic lack of experienced field officers, inside information from 'moles' and the appalling and potentially fatal absence of any real knowledge of their enemies is serious enough, but the inability to produce fast and accurate analysis of available intelligence has hamstrung the best efforts of the US counter-terrorist campaign and seriously derailed the development of a profoundly sensible and workable foreign policy.

Iraq is not a direct threat to the United States itself nor probably any of its interests in the Middle East, with the possible exception of Israel. Saddam Hussein could not have attacked concentrations of US Forces, Israel or neighbouring Arab states with his limited conventional armed forces and moreover Saddam is well aware that the use of his small chemical, biological or perhaps even nuclear capability would have immediately brought an overwhelming and disproportionate US and probably Israeli nuclear response. To put it bluntly the Iraqi regime has too many problems just keeping hold of power in Baghdad to be a danger to anyone outside its own borders and it is quite ludicrous to suggest that Iraq, after some eleven years of crippling international sanctions could pose a 'Clear and Present Danger' to the worlds greatest and only superpower.

The planned US military campaign against Iraq has instead all the hallmarks of a Government seeking to distract public attention from its failure so far to defeat international terrorism, the corrosive Israeli influence on US foreign policy and a growing financial crisis at home. Combined with an all too apparent desire to finally finish the business of the 1991 Gulf War, it hardly makes for an honourable reason to go to war with a foreign nation that has not and will not, except as a despairing final act, attack the United States. The willingness of the present incumbent of The Whitehouse to risk alienating a billion or more Muslims for the sake of ridding the Middle East of one of the United States former allies or to maintain the special relationship with Israel which is a two-edged sword at best, is quite staggering.

It is high time that political guile and the traditional diplomatic methods of divide and rule be applied to US policy in the Middle East. Secretly offer Saddam Husseins closest colleagues a cast iron guarantee that they will be left in power in return for a change in Iraqi policy and behaviour and they will almost certainly get rid of Saddam Hussein promptly and willingly. This is particularly true if that is the main price to pay for avoiding a destructive war, the conquest of their country and most importantly the loss of their highly privileged way of life. Should President Bush continue to drag the United States into an unnecessary conflict, then Britain and Europe may reluctantly have to stand aside and allow the United States to conduct its war unilaterally and to take the fruits victory or of course, the consequences of failure.

Richard M. Bennett