[lbo-talk] Prof Azm on the war

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Tue Apr 8 12:45:46 PDT 2003


Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> Financial Times - April 8, 2003
>
> WAR IN IRAQ AFTER THE CONFLICT: Washington victory will be Pyrrhic,
> Syrian professor argues
> By Kim Ghattas
>
> The US will win the war in Iraq but in terms of its consequences for
> the Arab world it may have already lost the peace, argues Sadeq el
> Azm, a well-known Syrian intellectual.
[clip]
> But with the conflict in its third week and with television pictures
> of civilian casualties being beamed into homes across the Arab world,
> the momentum for potential democratic change in the region has been
> lost as the negative aspects have been seized upon by Arab regimes.
>
> "It's already too late, in a political sense, the US has lost the
> war. The war in Iraq will actually hinder reforms in the Arab world,"
> says Mr Azm.

Mr. Azm is thinking too abstractly. There have to be multiple analyses of "who won" in terms of varied real or hypothetical goals. From the viewpoint of the U.S. (state), what Mr. Azm is saying here is that the U.S. has already achieved all its major war aims.

Carrol



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