Déjà vu in the Middle East

It is with a profound feeling of déjà vu with which many of us are looking at Israel’s war on Iran and the possible participation of the United States, depending on which side of the bed the US President, Donald Trump wakes up on in the morning.

In February 2003, I was one of the speakers at what was the largest ever demonstration in Britain. Over 1.3 million people had gathered in London’s Hyde Park to protest Britain’s involvement in a war against Iraq. Saddam Hussein had previously been a Western ally, but now, in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks on the United States (which had nothing to do with Iraq) he stood accused of having weapons of mass destruction. I had been shown a leaked British Government dossier that claimed that Iraqi missiles were minutes away from reaching British bases in Cyprus, a claim that was later proven to be completely manufactured.  I had also just come back from a second trip to Iraq and had interviewed the Head of the UN Weapons Inspectorate, Hans Blix, who was clear that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. Before he could publish his report setting this out, the United States and her allies had started bombing Baghdad.

Fast forward to today, and across the war-ravaged Middle East. Iraq has never recovered, the Taliban are back in control in Afghanistan, Libya and to a lesser extent Syria are in ferment. Yemen is devastated by war, as is Lebanon. And Israel has just attacked Iran in the full knowledge – according to US Intelligence – that Iran does not have nuclear weapons. The country in the region that does have nuclear weapons, as well as chemical and biological weapons is of course Israel. In 1973, Prime Minister Golda Meir even threatened to use them during the Yom Kippur war. Israel is of course never challenged by most of the media on its nuclear program. 

So, these attacks on Iran have been launched on a country that is also signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty on the basis that it might get nuclear weapons in the future. Personally, I would think that this is now a racing certainty. For having a nuclear weapon provides a good reason why the US and its allies have not decided to take on North Korea for instance. What has also become quickly apparent is that Netanyahu, who has spent his whole political life preparing for this moment, also imagines that Israel is going to achieve ‘regime change’ in Iran. For the first time in living memory, we have had both an American President and senior Israeli politicians talking about assassinating another Head of State as part of a regime de-capitation strategy.

Strangely absent from all of this is the United Nations Security Council. In the run up to the Iraq War the United States went to great effort to gain Security Council backing for its attack on Iraq. This time around, few even seem to be considering the legality of attacking Iran. ‘Self-defense’, which is being offered by the West as a fig leaf to Israel, doesn’t really extend to ‘one day might have nuclear weapons, so we will attack first’. But this is the brave new World in which we now find ourselves. Israel has been allowed to re-write the rules of war, whose targets can include Heads of State, medics, journalists and civilians. And when a German Chancellor can say, as he did; ‘Israel is doing the dirty work for us’, it is now possible to see the depths to which we have sunk.

*Mark Seddon is a former Speechwriter to UN Secretary-General Ban ki moon & former Adviser to the Office of the President of the UN General Assembly