What if? [Archives:2003/628/Viewpoint]

Editor
As the attacks of the US-led war on Iraq continue, I find myself asking a number of questions on this major historic event.

– What if US plans fail to persuade Iraqi military commanders to rebel and overthrow the regime and reach a standstill in this regard?
– What if the US war causes the death of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis while the international community watches the bloodshed?
– What if the killing of those civilians causes pressure against the US and UK to stop the war, as demanded by all world nations?
– What if the plans don't go as expected and US and UK troops are surrounded and killed in bitter fights in the middle of Iraq?
– What if the US feels that it will lose the war so it uses its 21,00- ton, mini-nuclear bomb or even full nuclear weapons?
– What if anti-US sentiments over the war result in the spread of terrorism all over the US and in pro-war countries?
– What if Pakistanis decide not to cooperate with the US any more in its fight against al-Qaeda, if the war continues for long?
– What if the US wins the war, and people start questioning the legitimacy of the US occupation days, months, or years later?
– What if the world starts prosecuting G. W. Bush and Tony Blaire one day for launching a war against a country and changing its regime without international legitimacy?
– What if the Arab people wake up from their trance and defy their leaders and the result is chaos in the region?
– What if the second target, after finishing off Iraq, is revealed as perhaps one of the elements of the so called “axis of evil” Iran or North Korea?
– What if the UN continues to be irrelevant and strong countries continue to do what they want without any consequences or giving a damn about it?
– What if we then go back to the rule of the jungle where the strong dominate the weak?
– What if the US makes our world unlivable? Will Americans wish they never supported their president's moves to take part in this war?

These are all “what ifs,” but they definitely should make you stop and think for a moment, and ask where the world is heading, or more specifically, where the superpower of the world is taking us.
——
[archive-e:628-v:13-y:2003-d:2003-03-24-p:view]