by Rami J. Khouri (Jinn Magazine, June 17, 1996)

Amman, Jordan. Why have the United States and the United Kingdom consistently been the most violent actors against Iraq -- both in the 1991-92 Gulf War and in today's Kurdish standoff? Saddam Hussein does not explain it all, given that the U.S.-U.K. leaderships over the decades have changed but their policies towards Iraq have not. The explanation lies elsewhere.

The U.S. and the U.K. are the main actors in a vast, intricate and chilling historical drama: passing the imperial torch in the Middle East. Forget their own fatuous excuses -- protecting the Kurds, safeguarding neighbors, implementing U.N. resolutions. Only one grand design could legitimate the political and military frenzy Iraq provokes in both countries – the determination to maintain the Middle East and its resources under imperial control, first that of the U.K. and now that of the U.S.

Under the U.K., imperial control took the form of physical occupation of territory along with direct political management. The 20th century U.S. model is different. It takes the form of indirect commercial and cultural domination, achieved through the use of surrogates -- wealthy local elites, brittle political regimes, a Barnum-and-Bailey-like assortment of Oriental flunkies, groupies, cheer-leaders, errand boys, voyeurs and hangers-on.

The grave crime of which Iraq and Saddam Hussein are accused is imperial insubordination. Every other terrible act they have allegedly committed has been done or is still being done by many other countries in the world -- with no significant response from the U.S. or the U.K. But insubordination by Iraq invites severe retaliation.

The aim is: to punish the people, government and president of the sovereign Iraqi nation so severely that no other Third World country for the coming hundred years would ever consider the same sort of disobedience.

Iraq, the cradle of civilization, is being transformed into a wasteland where some grandmothers and children face the choice of dying or surviving as prostitutes -- all because Iraq dared to defy the imperial rules. This conflict is not about creating a New World Order or ensuring the rule of law; it is about reinventing an old imperial order of hegemony, exploitation, and tourism to exotic lands that was manufactured by the British and is being perpetuated by the Americans.

Viewing the current Middle Eastern situation in these terms, the behavior of Iraq becomes as clear and logical as that of the two imperial powers. It's neither imbecility nor cruelty that drives the U.S. and U.K. to act as they do; it is the nature of the imperial imperative. And conversely Iraq's behavior is anti-imperial rebellion and insurrection, pure and simple.

When Iraq needles and provokes the U.S.-U.K. imperial rules, it is not being stupid; it is rebelling in a well established anti-imperial tradition that is both programmed into the genes of our species and deeply burned into the chronicles of human civilization. Americans might remember their rebel ancestors who threw tea bags into Boston Harbor and then launched their own anti-imperial rebellion.

Saddam Hussein is no Arab hero. He is a violent man who runs a police state and attacks his neighbors. But Saddam Hussein the person is not the issue. The issue is imperial rule and the submission it demands from Middle Eastern states.

Six years after Iraq invaded Kuwait and the U.S.-U.K. military reaction got underway, the rules of the game are now more clear. Both sides are violent but neither is crazy. Both are behaving according to fixed human rules and psycho-political criteria: the desire to dominate and rule, and the counter-desire to be free and sovereign.

All over the world people are snickering, trying to figure out how to cash in on the commercial windfalls from the crisis. Most people in Arab countries are watching it with a combination of anger and amusement, quietly cheering for Iraq. Yet they know that Iraq and its president are destined to suffer and probably get clobbered again soon. And they fear that the violent retributive rules of the new American Imperium, like the old British one, apply to them too.