The Hindu : U.S. made Iraq a hotbed of terrorism: Russia

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jan 22, 2004

International

International

U.S. made Iraq a hotbed of terrorism: Russia

By Vladimir Radyuhin

MOSCOW, JAN. 21. In its most damning indictment of the U.S war in Iraq yet, Russia accused the U.S. of putting Iraq on the brink of disintegration and turning it into a hotbed of terrorism and instability that may fuse with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"The realities of the post-war situation in Iraq are the destruction of national statehood and the resulting legal vacuum, along with the rampage of violence and crime," said the Russian Foreign Minister, Igor Ivanov, in a comprehensive analysis of the consequences of the U.S.-led war to topple the regime of Saddam Hussein. "All this provides breeding ground for extremism and terrorism and moreover threatens Iraq with a break-up along ethnic and confessional lines. Iraq has become a pulling ground for terrorist groups from across the Middle East (West Asia)."

Mr. Ivanov quoted Mahatma Gandhi's words that if violence yielded any good, it was short-lived, whereas the harm it did would stay for long. "There are reasons to fear that Iraq's internal crisis may merge with other hotbeds of instability in the region, above all the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," Mr. Ivanov writes in the 3,000-word article "The Iraqi Crisis and the Struggle for New World Order" published in the 2003 Diplomatic Year Book brought out by the Foreign Ministry's Diplomatic Academy.

Moscow continues to stick to its view that "no legal grounds existed for the use of force against Iraq" and that "Iraq presented no direct threat to the security of either the United States or any other nation".

The Russian Foreign Minister called for political settlement in Iraq modelled after Afghanistan, with the United Nations playing a central role.

"Russia is in favour of the U.N. Security Council issuing a mandate that would clearly define tasks for the international forces and the time frame for their stay in Iraq," Mr. Ivanov said.

Russia sees the situation in Iraq as proof of its position that a unipolar world order is untenable. "The Iraqi crisis shows futility of attempts to deal single-handed even with regional problems of a relatively limited scope, let alone the tasks of global security," Mr. Ivanov said.

The security situation in the world has sharply deteriorated after the U.S. assumed the role of global policeman in the post-Cold War scenario.

"One can hardly name another period in contemporary history that saw so many unresolved regional problems in the world effectively threatening international security as we witness today," Mr. Ivanov said.

Rejecting Washington's maxim "who is not with us, is against us," Mr. Ivanov argued in favour of building a multipolar world.

"One of the imperatives in the era of globalisation is respect for `unity through diversity'," he said in another reference to India. He reiterated the call for a reform of the U.N. Security Council that gained added urgency due to the Iraqi crisis.

"The Security Council should become more representative, but necessarily retain its effectiveness and capacity to act quickly and promptly." Russia supports India's bid for permanent membership of the U.N. Security Council.

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