America finds another excuse to go to war in Middle East

This is precarious as it could embroil the United States in another, wider conflict in the Middle East. It also lends weight to criticism that the war against terrorism over the past 13 years has been a flop and, worse, that it has just stirred up more terrorism.

You may recall that after the attacks against the World Trade Centre on 9/11, president George W Bush declared war against the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda, headed by Osama Bin Laden, accused of masterminding the simultaneous attacks against New York and Washington DC. The fear factor worked. The American public as well as its politicians reached a near-consensus on the need for a war against terrorism. “You’re either with us or against us,” Bush said famously at the time. Thus began the costliest war in the history of the US, which has spent $7 trillion fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. The lavish military spending has eaten deep into the national budget, creating a massive US deficit and debt that can never be repaid. Bush began by launching the war against Afghanistan, presumably hoping to locate bin Laden in one of the caves in the mountains in the east of the country. (Was he also trying to pre-empt Russia’s return by setting up a military base in Afghanistan?) 

Less than two years later bin Laden came out to accept responsibility for 9/11. But doubt over the authenticity of video clips of bin Laden always lingered. Bush then ordered the attack on Iraq that brought down Saddam Hussein. Iraq was accused of having weapons of mass destruction, but an investigation after the war found little evidence for that claim. Since then, Iraq has descended into anarchy and violence. The war against Iraq had nothing to do with al-Qaeda. The same can be said of US action in Libya, where Obama fulfilled his mission to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi. Again, it had nothing to do with al-Qaeda. 

It was not until 2011 that Obama launched a special-forces mission that tracked down bin Laden to a hideout in Pakistan and killed him. The ghost of al-Qaeda was finally laid to rest. Meanwhile, Syria and Iran had come under threat of a US invasion. These two countries also had nothing to do with al-Qaeda. During the 13 years of war and conflict in the Middle East, al-Qaeda has hardly emerged in the backdrop to the theatre of war, despite being the stated “cause” of the US campaign in the Middle East.

 It is clear that the war in the Middle East is actually about resources, including oil, and a geopolitical move to fend off the emerging powers of Russia and China, which have been threatening to end the petrodollar status quo. Al-Qaeda became a good excuse to launch the war. Retired General Wesley Clark claimed that the neo-cons within the US establishment had planned to launch wars against Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Sudan, Somalia and Iran even before 9/11 took place.

Now Obama is about to restart the cycle of war. The 13-year conflict in the Middle East post-9/11 has achieved neither peace nor stability in the region. On the contrary it has heightened fears of a wider war. Now, ISIS – the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria – has taken the place of al-Qaeda. Believed to have been armed and trained by the US, ISIS began as a rebel group fighting against the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria. Now out of control, it poses a threat to the interests of the US and the Western world, and Obama is under pressure to destroy the group. The green light for air strikes against ISIS in Syria means that the US is set to launch an indirect war against Syria, over which it wanted to gain control in the first place. Air strikes have limited effectiveness in dealing with militants like ISIS. Eventually, the US might be forced to send ground troops into Syria and Iraq again, restarting a full-scale war. If that happens, we’ll see war spill over into the heart of the Middle East.