Iran and Iraq are ‘Persian Gulf’ countries and were created as supporters of Great Britain. They were divided from Mesopotamia that was on of the parts of Turkish Empire. The three groups of which Iraq itself consists of is Sunni Muslims in centre, Kurds in the north, and shia’ts in south. None of this community was given proper rights in Iraq. The disputes, which were national and tribal and the conflict with international powers over oil, have a great part in Iraq history. After the discoveries of oil and petroleum in Iraq, Great Britain and the U.S. took great interest in Iraq. The U.S., on the other hand, succeeded in forcing Britain to have a divided share in the Iraqi oil; Iraq got its freedom in 1931. This was a shock for the U.S. and made them really vulnerable to Soviet influence; the Baghdad pact tries to make Iraq a NATO-like pro-western alliance. Finally, in 1979 Saddam Hussein became prime minister of Iraq and began consolidating a dictatorship. In the Saddam Hussein regime, many things happened, including the attack on Kuwait, which made the U.S. and other countries against Iraq and Saddam Hussein.
On September 11, 2001, an attack was made on the World Trade Center in the U.S. the U.S.A. started blaming Iraq that it has some relations with al-Qaeda and make it a cause to declare war against terror in Iraq on May 01, 2003, president bush declared war on Iraq. The attack made by the U.S. to Iraq caused serious damages, including the coalition of the Baghdad museum and Mosul University were trash by the looters. By June, the attacks were severe almost daily with heavy weapons, the oil refineries were crippled in Iraq, and the casualties were increasing rapidly.
“The intelligence collected by this and extra government agencies left no doubt that the Iraq government continues to retain and masked some of the most dangerous weapons ever made.” (George W. Bush, n.p.)
Besides this historical perspective of the Iraq war, the conflict has not only the negative impacts on Iraqi’s but also divided the Americans into different groups. Among these groups, few thought that U.S. is invading illegally, breaking international laws, while others just keep in mind the concept represented by the U.S., i.e., the war against terror. Almost four years have passed since the U.S. occupation in Iraq; some four million of Iraq’s people don’t have sufficient money to buy food, 70% percent of them lack clean water, and 80% percent of them are short on proper sanitation. According to the report from the international relief agency and alliance of Iraqi-run aid organizations summon the Non-Governmental Organization Coordination Committee Network in Iraq (NCCI).
The main reason for the U.S. attack on Iraq was to gain control over Iraq’s oil fields, to set up military bases there to dominate the middle-east and all other oil dependant countries, and to remove the threat to Israel by Iraq obviously there must be some other reasons as well to this conflict. The second major reason might be that Iraq started getting euros against its oil, and this would make the euro the most powerful currency, which will lead the dollar behind, and it will be a great loss to the U. S economy. There are certain laws and rules for every action done in this world. There are also international laws, which every nation has to follow even in the situation of declaring war against any country. But, when the U.S. invaded Iraq, it left behind all the international laws and broke them brutally. There is a number of war crimes that happened during this four years period. A few of the war crimes done are as follows:
- Destruction of Fallujah:
The destruction of Fallujah in November 2004 was a war crime, which was not justified by the military properly. Fallujah, which was, know as the city of mosques, is now known as the city of ruins.
- The firebombing of Hamburg, Dresden, and Tokyo:
The firebombing of Hamburg, Dresden, and Tokyo, which produced a firestorm and killed around 200,000 people were war crimes since they were, wanted crimes of the cities. Wars are always designed to have destruction to get some personal interest or to occupy the lands or territories. It always benefits the manufacturers of war, the superpowers, and the builders who get the projects to reconstruct a certain area. While we explain the hottest issue of the current era, the Iraq war is very prominently the personal interest of the U.S., which a larger group of people believes. The war is just a means of the oil-refinery occupation, the insecurity of the economic changes, which were held in Iraq, or the elimination of the threat to Israel from Iraq, which U.S. doesn’t like at all.
The bottom line of this matter is that no war is anyway accepted or favored by anyone even if it has some genuine reason behind it should have follow the international rules and do not break it by the super powers as well. The U.S. being the super-power abides all nations to certain rules and regulations but itself show harshness in the matter of destruction certain monuments, museums, and valued lives there. The need of the hour is that the war should be stopped and very fair and straightforward discussions should be made. If no discussions can be made directly then at least at this time all Muslims nations should be joined and stand against this war and should support the Iraq’s not only by their power but also by their assets and by providing the basic needs, the first aids to the people there who are in a miserable position and needs the help of their Muslims brothers and sisters.
Works Cited
- The Iraq Crisis and War. Web.
- OneWorld U.S. Home / In Depth / Latest Coverage / Iraq.
- International Crisis Group – Iraq.
- President Says Saddam Hussein Must Leave Iraq Within 48 Hours. George W. Bush, Address to the Nation, The Cross Hall, 2003. Web.