The Iraq War legacy---why is it so blurred!

The article was previously published in http://thebackbencher.co.uk/ on 3 March, 2013.

So it is ten years after the invasion of Iraq by the coalition forces. The speculation that the decision to go to the war was a disastrous mistake which ultimately eroded public trust in the politicians and gave rise to sentiments that intervention can only lead to protectionism and safeguarding of self-interest still reigns down heavily against the judgment that Saddam Hussain was a brutal dictator involved in the genocide of Kurdish people and severely suppressed freedom of speech among his own people.

Any argument in favour of replacing the regime to uplift the economic conditions of the country which by the year 2003 had a weak and deteriorating economic structure, despite being ranked seventh in the list of oil producing nations, is proven weak by the anti-war protestors and the peace activists who rally around the argument that economic sanctions were enough to remove Saddam Hussein.

Leaving aside the statistics, various available data analysis and the reports on the build-up of the decision that war was inevitable there can be little validation to the fact that there is no accountability of the objectives and methods employed by the single entity of power to establish the rule of law which infringes human rights. Dictatorship thrives on absolute power and an individual who wants total control over social and economic organizations will rely on a highly developed ideology to justify doing so. And if Islamization is supported as the rule of law it is the women who suffer the most.

Whether it is the right to drive a car without the need of a chaperone or the ultimate necessity to give protection to the victim of rape and not demand witnesses to prove that the crime had been committed, if the basic argument rests against the need to change these practices because the principles of a faith interpret it differently than it cannot lead to an equal status of women in society. Strict interpretation of Quran in many parts of the world has become an exception to morally validate the case that women should apply a social code which was established in the advent of Islam. With no laws in place to allow freedom of speech and open debate very little can be achieved to make women feel secure and safe. A dictator will choose any law that gives him immunity from leaving power and time and again in the Muslim world the ideals of sharia law have been upheld by totalitarian regimes.

Let us not be deluded by the belief that an organized system of governance brings prosperity where voices which seek change are suppressed and made to remain silence. Iraq has seen its share of tragedy, much need to be done to keep it stable and away from the chaos of a civil war but then for the first time people have the right to vote in general elections. Every war has its ugly consequences but then can we justify the emergence of dictators! The cries to silence the support for the intervention in Iraq blur the objectives----lamenting the reasons for the overthrow of dictatorship is intellectual laziness which hinders taking responsibility for change.