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A PROMINENT friend of mine, free of any ideological or political hang-ups, experienced in analysing world affairs and writing about them, was aghast at the ongoing vituperative US-bashing. The US was often stupid, he told me, in putting a halo round earthy realpolitik and thereby confused and enraged friends and foes alike. In respect of Iraq, the US could have plausibly put the case in a nutshell like this: The whole world, including the Arab countries, saw Saddam Hussein as a vicious tyrant and mass killer who trampled upon the rights to life and liberty of his people. He could as easily be, if he already was not, a rallying point for terrorists of the Al Qaeda variety which was within an ace of wiping out the US leadership on 9/11. He only fuelled these suspicions by infuriatingly stonewalling the Security Council for over 12 years on the issue of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The question was no longer whether he had them or not, but whether he could ever be trusted not to give safe haven to terrorists plotting against the "infidels". For these reasons, and for the good of humankind as a whole, he needed to be removed by force, if he would not quit by himself.

Instead of plain speaking, the US began propounding lofty doctrines such as upholding the sanctity of the Security Council resolutions by "disarming" Iraq and "pre-emptive strikes" against regimes which were epicentres of terrorism. This was because revealing its real, and politically incorrect, intentions would have created a much bigger outcry round the globe. They were not about oil, furtherance of US business interests, the presence of WMD, or the restoration of democracy and human rights except insofar as they served the main objective. Which was none other than to serve notice on similar dictatorial or oligarchic Islamic regimes in and around the Gulf region that they must pronto exterminate the terrorists in hiding and in the making, or face the same fate as that of Iraq. While all Muslims might not be terrorists, all terrorists indulging in the most savage crimes so far, directed especially at the US, were Muslims, and therefore, the onus was ineluctably on the Islamic countries to demonstrate their readiness, in the words of Mr George W. Bush, to "smoke them out" and capture them "dead or alive".

That, in short, was the loud and clear message. To drive home its point, the US could not have chosen a better eyrie than Iraq. The US was only doing a dirty job which needed to be done but which no other country had the will, the daring or the might to undertake. While primarily aimed at safeguarding the US security interests, it also was of immense benefit to the rest of the world, as it put an end to an evil blighting all prospects of an orderly transition to a civilised world order. The world knew it and still hypocritically kept lambasting the US just because as a democracy, it could put up with a lot of nonsense.

Would you agree?

B. S. Raghavan

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