The horrors in Pandora’s box

Before the invasion of Iraq most of Europe’s public opinion “knew” that going to war was a bad move and that it would lead to more violence and hate; more problems and no solutions. That was the reason why millions of demonstrators took to the streets of Europe’s cities and protested against the oncoming conflict. Unfortunately, it didn’t make any difference, for two reasons: public opinion in the US had been worked up into a different mood and, secondly, the people with power, both in Europe and the States, disagreed with public opinion.

Bush, Blair, Berlusconi and Aznar (this one sacked and good ridings too) forged an alliance against public opinion and, since they had the power to do it, they pushed for war. The consequences were predictable. In those days the expression “opening Pandora’s box” was a perfect synthesis of the things to come.

Pandora’s box was opened and we haven’t seen half of the horrors that will come out of it. What we have seen so far is that Iraq is in a chaotic state, that there seems to be no end for the war and that the dead tool just keeps mounting up. The consequences for this are also predictable: hate towards the US has increased and will increase; the probability of more terror attacks, possibly of the nuclear kind, is higher than it was before the war.

Meanwhile, western capability to deal with real threats, namely Iran, is lower because the necessary strength is already deployed in Iraq. That’s the reason why that bizarre president of Iran keeps saying that “Israel should be wiped out of the map”. However daft his proclamations might appear, underneath lies the important and threatening fact that Iran’s nuclear program is being revived.

This begs the issue: when shall western leaders realise that a major shift in middle-east policy is necessary if we are to build a suitable peace? What kind of lunacy is going on at Number 10 and at the Whitehouse? Surely by now even Blair and Bush should have realised the failure of their policies. Politicians like them give the West a bad name. Back to Enlightenment will humbly chip in to see them thrown out of Office.