Sao Lao

The second episode of Ray Rai Louk Sao Pa, posted at Laomusic.la.

In addition to reading Kagan’s book, we were randomly assigned a book to read. For my assignment, I had to read Allies: The U.S., Britain, and Europe in the Aftermath of the Iraq War by William Shawcross. Since we don’t read just for fun, our task was to make a presentation of the assigned reading (summary and suggestions for further research). I was happy to be given this book because it provided me with more understanding of the current situation in Iraq.

Allies: The U.S., Britain, and Europe in the Aftermath of the Iraq War by William Shawcross starts out by depicting the Arab world through the Arab Development report created by the United Nations Development Programme in 2002. The report delivers a grim outlook on the Arab world from a social, economical and political perspective.

The combined gross domestic product of all Arab countries combined in 1999 was less than that of Spain. Productivity is declining, wages are down and with the current trend it will take the average Arab 140 years to double his income. Unemployment is high and many Arabs live in poverty, about one fifth is living on less than $2 per day. The report also concluded that out of the seven regions of the world, the Arab region had the least freedoms of all.

The report attributed much of these problems to the lack of good governance of Arab countries. One of the most prominent countries with such problematic governance was, of course, Iraq. Ruled by one of the most ruthless dictators the world ever has witnessed and rising through the Baath Party apparatus, Saddam Hussein became president of Iraq in 1979.

After a long and bloody war with Iran, Hussein attempted to annex ate its smaller neighbor Kuwait which was the direct cause for retaliation of the US-led Coalition in 1991: Operation Desert Storm. Desert Storm was won swiftly but Saddam’s military rule was ultimately not overthrown, not through external forces and neither did an internal revolt of Kurds and Shiite cause this regime to topple.

After the cease-fire, the UN Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM) was created to inspect Saddam’s Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) of which he proved little hesitations to actually implement them on his enemies within Iraq and Iran. However, these inspections led to a persistent prevarication, obfuscation and harassment of UNSCOM personnel. After 1998, the UN inspectors were not allowed to return to Iraq for four years which was unacceptable to the world community. Inspections could no longer deal with the long-term threat posed by Saddam’s regime that apparently was determined to defy the world.

The Clinton Administration had decided to leave Saddam “in his box”, a policy of containment, and continued to pressure the regime through economic sanctions which turned out to be ineffective in the long run. Saddam resistance defied the world, weakened the United Nations and the international rules of law. The UN’s inability to force permanent compliance by Iraq through disarmament and monitoring measures led to the case of regime removal. The end of Saddam’s regime also demarcated a significant change in the transatlantic relationship within the coalition of the West.

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