The Hindu : Iraq for Iraqis

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Sep 12, 2002

Opinion

Opinion - Letters to the Editor

Iraq for Iraqis

Sir, — This is with reference to the news analysis "India and the U.S. war on Iraq" by C. Raja Mohan (Sept. 9). While it is clear that democratic governments can best protect international peace and order, it has been demonstrated time and again that democracy never works unless there is popular support for democratisation within the country. The people of Iraq have to choose democracy and peaceful international policies by a ground swell of public opinion and not by foreign imposition.

It is a canard being spread by the United States and the United Kingdom that the present Government in Iraq is suppressing such a movement and that there is strong support for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. All Western efforts, in the past, to promote democracy within a country have only produced new forms of dictatorship. It would be a foreign policy blunder for India to support any military action against Baghdad except for insisting that any international effort should be confined to the elimination of weapons of mass destruction that may be in Iraq's arsenal.

Krishnamurthy A.,
Chennai

Sir, — There is an inherent contradiction in the news analysis "India and the U.S. war on Iraq" by C. Raja Mohan. If "pushing the (Gulf) region towards political modernisation" is the raison d'etre of the impending American military attack against Iraq, why should the Arab regimes of the region privately endorse the U.S. aggression, as Mr. Raja Mohan argues, since these regimes ought to be savvy enough to realise their own vulnerability vis-a-vis the forces of democratisation and human rights? Expediency demands that India ought to build on its track record of the recent past of not irritating Washington. Mr. Raja Mohan has a point in saying that the Bush administration will not allow itself to be halted in its path by the weight of international opinion.

M.K. Bhadrakumar,
Delhi

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