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The World is at War
Highlights
Few days back one of my colleague wondered when the next world war would happen. I quipped, “Can’t you see the world at war”.
Few days back one of my colleague wondered when the next world war would happen. I quipped, “Can’t you see the world at war”.
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With dazed looks he asked for a clarification.“Yes, the world is at war ever since Iraq had invaded Kuwait in ’90”.
Except for the invasion of Kuwait, that day might have remained another routine boring day. The repercussions of the invasion in the form of the Gulf war, titled “Operation Desert Storm”, by US of A had changed the world slowly.
Oil had become the new gold that decides the cause and course of war. Saddam Hussain, trying to repay loans taken to fight Iran was hit hard by Kuwait’s slant drilling.
As Kuwait was the only OPEC country that had a good downstream refineries, they are not dependent on the prices of Crude Oil that was the crux for other OPEC countries, including Iraq. Like any leader of a self-respecting country, Saddam was in a way provoked and forced to attack Kuwait.
Yes, it was the worst thing that he could do given his intelligence of estimating the power of enemy’s power.
Americans, who control the refineries of Kuwait and do have substantial military presence in the next country Saudi, would never allow Iraq to control Kuwait.
In retrospect, had America paused and analysed, they might have seen a better ally in Saddam than in the Kuwait leadership, but the intelligence of Senior Bush was never considered to be his strength and he had to rely on the guidance.
There were two versions of the war. One was the reason why Saddam had invaded Kuwait, despite having valid complaints that were not being addressed in a genuine way by the Kuwait leadership that was almost living on largesse of American oil companies.
For sure, they know that US cannot afford to leave them at the mercy of Saddam.
Moreover, when they confessed that there was slant drilling of oil from Iraq’s side (approximately two and half billion barrels), one can safely assume that it was not the Arab brains that were at work, but some brilliant, capitalist brains.
Once Saddam was in Kuwait, US was forced to act against him,thereby establishing bad blood between two nations that had more influence in the Persian Gulf.
After successful execution of ‘Operation Desert Storm’, US might have recovered financial losses and earned more in the form of protection money from Kuwait and Saudi, but irrevocable damage was done to the locale.
And this damage, coupled with the strategy of US in Afghanistan against already weakened Russia (Soviet disintegrated in ’91) had sown seeds to the disturbance that had spread entire world in the next decade and became a global epidemic.
After defeating Saddam US had turned its attention to Afghan to fill the gap created by Russia that was grappling various internal problems. It is pertinent to remember Rambo III, the movie that was dedicated to the mujahedeen fighters of Afghanistan.
They were created and nurtured by CIA to counter the erstwhile Soviet Union in Afghanistan during cold war days.
In fact, they created a terrorist version of Frankenstein, in the form of Osama Bin Laden. Bush Sr had apologised to his son for supporting OBL in eighties. Mujahedeen had evolved into Taliban and the future was on the wall when the photographs of Najibullah’s lifeless body hanging.
With no one to fight with, Taliban soon turned its attention to all that was not conforming to Islam, spoiling the image of the religion. They evolved on the infrastructure provided by the US of A and that was left behind by the Soviet into a deadly militia.
On the other hand, isolated within the Arabic world, Saddam had again showed the world what he is capable of.
With the support of Russia and other anti-American nations, he rebuilt the decimated Iraq, from shambles, within five years.
In fact, it was an accepted fact that Iraq was the only progressive state in the middle-east, with the exception of Israel.
However, panicked America wanted revenge on all probable threats and under the guise of non-existing weapons of mass destruction, he was hounded and killed like a rat.
And that was the beginning of the end of Arabian Days, driven by oil economy.
Now, after another decade, we had seen several mindless uprisings in the Gulf.
The original businessman of Gulf, Qaddafi, who taught Arabs how to earn dollars in exchange for oil was again hunted and killed by his own people.
Now, almost half of the middle-east is warzone. And nobody knows who is fighting whom.
Under the guise of democratic obsession, the armament industry had slowly expanded their business horizon and the latest result was spilling into Europe in the form of refugees.
For the first time, the western world has a problem on its hands. Unlike earlier situations, in the current conflict, none of the Arab countries invited the refugees, neither the refugees ventured into their brother countries.
Both are apprehensive of the other, for the simple reason both are similar.
The problem of western world had come to the fore, forcing them to drop the mask of humanitarian countries, when faced with the prospect of large scale migrations – especially from Islamic countries, which they discreetly abhor.
Though to counter the might of America, Putin had taken lead in striking ISIS, it is clear with whom he is siding.
Despite local effects on the rule of Assad, Russia, which is home for a large Muslim population will now be vulnerable to the attacks from its own populace that may not like their country behave like America.
Exhibition of Power is temporary, but after effects are not so pretty, as US had learnt the lesson in the hard way.
With all these happenings, how can one deny that the world war is not in progress?
Even the body count exceeds that of the WW-II, by millions. Only difference was WW-II was divergent, it spread from the centre to other countries.
Current world war is convergent, closing in on to the centre.
We may need to wait for two to three years more, before someone declares the war formally.
By:Kannan
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