Focus 580; Iraq: From Sanctions to Occupation and Resistance

Well I'm told that now we have with us on the telephone our scheduled guest for this five hour focus 580 Tariq Ali let me tell you a little bit about him he is perhaps one of Britain's best known thinkers on the left side of the political spectrum in fact just recently he was named by a British publication one of the top 100 public intellectuals in Britain. He is a writer a journalist also a filmmaker. He was born in Pakistan in Lahore in 1943. I guess that time actually it wasn't Pakistan yet. He was educated at Oxford where he became involved in student politics particularly with the movement against the war in Vietnam. After that he owned his own independent television production company which produced programs for Channel 4 in the U.K. That's was during the 19 80s. He's a regular broadcaster on BBC Radio also contributes art. Goals in journalism to magazines and newspapers including The Guardian and The London Review of Books. He is editorial director of London publishers a versa and is on the board of The New Left

Review where he is also an editor in EDITION. He has written a number of novels He's the author of a series of historical novels about Islam. Those books are shadows of the pomegranate tree. The book of Saladin and the stone woman and also has written nonfiction including the Book One thousand sixty eight marching in the streets which is a social history of the 1960s a new book of essays titled The clash of Fundamentalisms was published in 2002. He is visiting the campus of the University of Illinois and will be giving a couple of talks that are open to anybody who's interested in attending today. Well that is today the 19th will be talking part of a panel on the subject the future of radical politics and that will be this afternoon at four at the humanities lecture hall at the IPR h building. That's on you know for West Pennsylvania Illinois program for research in the humanities I believe that's what that stands for. Also he'll be giving a talk in the Miller com series that will

be on Thursday four o'clock in the afternoon talking about Iraq and those of course are always open to the public anybody who is welcome to attend. Anybody is interested and certainly should feel. Welcome questions on the program to our welcome 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 that's for champagne Urbana where we are. We do also have a toll free line and that is good anywhere that you can hear us. Eight hundred to 2 2 9 4 5 5 so at any point here folks are interested in participating. They should pick up the telephone and call us. Mr. ALI Hello. Hi. Well thanks very much for talking with us. Very good to be with you. We certainly appreciated you giving some of your time. There's so many things that I would be interested in going into but I guess perhaps it's the question is motivated by the fact that I know that you have written these novels that have as part of their theme the the Clash provided that's the appropriate word between Islam and Christianity and that people as they talk about what's happened

here in the last couple of years with what has come to be called the war on terror the American response is still characterized as being that same sort of thing the clash of civilizations. Maybe what you have called in your book The Clash of fundamentalisms. And so maybe we can start there with what do you make of all of that and do you think in fact that people are really seeing this in it as as it is. Well I think that's a big deal. Difference but the parts of which I write about in my fiction I mean the the my fiction project is essentially a set of five novels of which three have been published before type finished and should be published next year showing the clashes which took place on the border lands between Western Kristen them and Islamic civilization. Those battles a very different time because Islam was then that its Be it

was recognised. At the height of European Mediterranean civilisation and it dominated that part of the world. Today we are in a very different situation and that's why I characterize it not so much as a clash between Christian and Islam make civilizations but really it's a clash between an imperial fundamentalism which is embodied in this particular administration which you have at the moment in the United States and various religious. The fundamentalist groups in these make world. But it's a very on the even clash in my opinion because on the one side you have the world's largest power with advanced military technology which no one can match will defeat or even come close to competing with and on the other side you have at the maximum three or four thousand guys who are essentially a pinprick So for

me the war against terror as it's described is not a serious business at all it's not like the Cold War when the enemies of the United States helped to thieve the enemies of the United States of the Soviet Union China that communist block. There is no way in which these guys can be evil compared to that so I think it's been largely an ideological construct designed basically to both view the needs of the United States government. At the present moment and the American empire that is essentially what's going on because I mean if you look at it seriously the real threat economic threat not military the economic challenge to the United States is not going to come from a handful of Islamic fundamentalists but is really comes from countries like China Japan that possible unified Korean peninsula and maybe even the European Union these are the economic rivals because the whole world is

now capitalist. So these are the people who might threaten U.S. economic strength. And again many in in fact are doing so. So the the so-called war against terrorism is really a substitute. Let me go right to the issue of Iraq and what it is the United. States says that it is doing but the administration has made the case that they believe that it's in the interest of people in the region its injury in the interest of the world to promote Dok democracy in that that region which is what the United States says it's thinks that it's doing and that its idea is that what has happened is that a despotic regime has been replaced with that. Now admittedly a time of great uncertainty but that the end goal is the is to have a a free and democratic Iraq and the idea there is that then once there is a beachhead established for democracy that it would

spread out from there and I know that you've been very critical of that of that idea and that you don't really believe that that that that what the United States have done really is going to lead in that direction. Let's talk about that. Well in my latest book Bush in Babylon the recall demise sation of Iraq which is just out in a paperback edition and updated. I try and explain what the United States is really up to in that creature. It's got very little to do with democracy. It's got a great deal to do with stablish in the US. Again many in large parts of the world in this in particular in order to reach concrete with the second largest reserves of cheap oil just lying underneath the ground. I mean the motion that the reason for the intervention has anything to do with democracy I find totally grotesque I mean the United States and prior to it the British never showed any interest in

having democracy in order to reach God increase because they preferred to deal with oligarchies they prefer to deal with dictators who can keep control of that country and keep the oil flowing. I mean why will this democracy not. Considered suitable for Saudi Arabia which has been an ally of the United States since the Second World War or Egypt which has been an ally of the United States since the late 70s. Why this sudden love of democracy. Just to put this precise moment wide with the mob. Think about democracy. When Saddam Hussein was a close family of the West in fact if you study the situation closely it's when said arm the sand was closely allied to the west very close to the United States that he committed some of his worst crimes against his own people. Subsequently these declined in over the last five years. Very little happened on that front. But this is why no one in the Arab world takes the United States seriously First they said he had to be taken out because he had weapons of

mass destruction. This was an lie. But even if it hadn't been a lie lots of people in that world said well the only country which may be all know has weapons of mass destruction is Israel. You don't do anything about that. And yet you attack an Arab state but that in any case was not true. The truth then they said both Bush and Rumsfeld said that he had links to 9/11 and al Qaeda that no one else anywhere in the world believed this for a minute because Saddam Hussein was the effect of the nationalist leader hated the religious group. The net crashed them so no one else believed this. But in the United States when Bush and his administration said to a large majority of the American population believed it now that figure is down 37 percent. So they gave these two key reasons for invading Iraq. Democracy was mentioned at all in the early days and to try and convince the skeptical public to go to war. Then they went to war. We now know there were

no weapons of mass destruction no links with al Qaeda so now they're saying oh well we've got to be it's good anyway because we're going to give them democracy while democracy is never given to a people. People fight for it themselves and gain it and get it. And a democracy which is imposed from the top very rarely works. Do you think that there is any possibility then that. Nobody expects this to happen immediately. That in the long run. There will be democracy. It will be true democracy. It will organize from the bottom and that it's at some point as some people say whether it's 10 years 20 years 50 years from now we would look back on it and said that well mistakes were made. The the end result is is positive and it's what some people thought would happen or could happen. Well no I don't think so actually I think you could have democracy in Iraq very rapidly you don't need to wait that long. But what would happen is you would very rapidly get the

government which would demand two things. I mean typically any elected government in Iraq Iraqi control of Iraqi oil and the withdrawal of all foreign troops and no military bases in Iraq so what will be united states do with a democracy which want to fact when the Iranians tried that democracy in the 50s the CIA and the British organized to topple the democratic regimes the record of the West in bringing democracy to the east is not a good one. Is there any can you find any respect in which you would say that that Iraq is better off now now that Saddam Hussein is gone. No I really don't believe that it is. I mean if you look at. The concrete in total chaos. The figures of civilians killed vary the lowest figure you get is 11 and a half thousand Iraqi civilians dead the highest figure you get from and GEOS and human rights organizations is 36000 civilians killed. There is a total breakdown in collapse of law and order all

over the country. You have the torture in a book or a prison which is completely intact and alienated not just the population of Iraq but large parts of the world. So to claim that Iraq is better off under a foreign military occupation is not believed by the population and you know you do vox pops. There no one sort of particularly misses Saddam ascend but no one will tell you that the situation is better. We will see if we could wind the clock back to the point just after September 11th and look at the things that the United States has done since. What what would do you think it would have been a more productive strategy that might have accomplished something along the lines of dealing with the terrorist threat and did in the same time doing less damage to the image of the

United States in there in the Muslim world. Well I think you know the question which was posed often 9/11 is who these guys were and to try and cut off the flow of recruits to them. We know who these guys were. They were all allies of the United States for many years during the Cold War before with them they knew them well. Many of them were trained in the deserts of Arizona where they simulated boy in Afghanistan and they were fought along fight the United States in Afghanistan against the Russians. That's who these guys were. Subsequently after the Gulf War in 1990 these guys turned on the United States because they didn't like the presence of U.S. Marines in the Middle East and told that these were there to stay. That's what I'm against. But leaving that aside what was to be done in my opinion two key issues needed to be raised after 9/11. One was the sanctions against Iraq which had led to the death of nearly two million people mainly

children deprived of medicines deprived of infrastructural necessities. These are UN figures provided by UNESCO's. Now the sanctions against Iraq should have been stopped. Iraq should have been allowed to recover and a strong population can get rid of its own leaders I mean the United States waited 30 years to get for the Indonesians to get rid of Soeharto who was a much much worse dictator than Saddam ever was I mean he has the deaths of millions on his hands but because he was pro-West he was left alone. So the lifting of sanctions in Iraq was essential and the second thing that was crucial was to put massive pressure on Israel to pull out of the lands that had occupied after the 67 War and give the Palestinians a breathing space and their own. Country that I think would have had a very positive impact on the world of Islam and would have led to the stop off of recruits to

these organizations. What the United States did was to invade Afghanistan where Osama had its base but the bulk of the kids who carried out the hijackings and the attacks on 20000 the Pentagon came from Saudi Arabia. These were not Afghan peasants who carried these attacks out they were middle class alienated kids from Saudi Arabia. So invading Afghanistan didn't solve that particular problem it made the Americans feel good that you know you done it though it failed to capture Osama or most of his gang at the time. The guys who were arrested were arrested by careful police work on part of a Pakistani police force which is how they could have been Got any way of the aim. But secondly invading Iraq and tell saying that Ariel Sharon was a valued ally in the war against terror. What did that lead to that led to more terrorism. I mean Al Qaeda didn't exist in Iraq prior to the Iraq war they are there now because of the U.S. presence. So they have done everything wrong. From my point of

view and from the point of view of most the people who live in that and I think the it is going to get much much worse before it begins to get better. We're about midway through this part of focus 580 let me again introduce our guest for anybody who might have tuned in. Rick Leahy is internationally known as political commentator. He's also a novelist playwright. He's based in London. He's editor of The New Left Review. He's the author of more than a dozen books on world history and politics as well as five novels. He's here visiting the campus of the University of Illinois will be giving a talk about Iraq on Thursday afternoon 4:00 o'clock on the UVA campus and just perhaps I should mention too that if you have seen some of the flyers around the campus the location for the lecture is not correct it's not what it says on the flyer it's going to be at the level faculty center on the third floor. That's in Urbana. Same time though Thursday afternoon four o'clock and this is an event in the Miller com series and anyone who was interested in attending should feel welcome it's open to the public and free.

We have a couple of callers here to bring into the conversation we also welcome your comments questions. You want to pose a question of the guest you want to agree you want to disagree any of that's fine. Just ask people to be brief so that we can keep the program moving but Anybody's welcome. 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. And our first caller is in Charleston and line for us. Your words on the invincibility of the U.S. war machine and there had to many around the world which means there are no competent competitors. Militarily. Well I'm about to suggest that myself being a Marxist that the the dialectical process has now removed itself from Bush was he into a new generation of that element

in their first stage which means that they will have no compunction about using atomic weapons when and wherever they think at the right time they will be most effective to diminish the world population by some billions and then to try to restore the damage after the population has been eliminated that that is a sin. The pieces of that. Will arrive with this on will be with a new power group who are fewer people by that time and I think that the left has got to recognize what is about to happen and that's what we understand as terrorism. That those people who wanted to conceive or perceive this that will never use a dirty bomb or any sort of atomic weapons because the outcome will be that of Bush or Kerry will take

the atomic weapons to the Middle East despite the oil and all the damage that will do. They will have eradicated part of the international community. That they are now sparring with and that that might be an I don't want to be long winded but nevertheless that appears to me to be the future. Because when you place and instability upon a power group just as the Greeks and Romans and throughout history. I don't see much that is in standing in the way to stop the present push towards the total power of the US an influential around the world backed up by its military and all running off and listen thank you sir. Well Mr Ali what do you think. Well I don't agree with that actually. I don't think that the US administration at the present time or its success is going to use nuclear weapons in the Middle East or anywhere else. I think the

creation on which they did in the interim. It was horrific immoral and a total disaster and even though the combat action is defended the aim of that action was to show future rivals like Russia that they have the weaponry the Japanese were the unfortunate sacrificial RAM in this case but you know I mean the walked the questioner fails to understand is that despite certain grotesque features by and large the American ruling elite prefers to rule in directly. I mean it's got people who work for it it is preferred not to occupy countries but to have local oligarchs who have their back militarily and economically. I mean why should they wipe out the Middle East. Both are coming there's no basic reason to do it. Most of the elites there are collaborating with them and wiping out the middle east would also mean

wiping out Israel which I can't imagine any US hadn't Thracian being prepared to do so. It's this is I'm afraid I don't wish to be rude but this is fantasy politics and you know you enter the realm of science fiction rather than political theory. Because obviously any if the American elite felt threatened it would react very strongly. But I don't think nuclear war either in the Middle East oil its way as a serious option. I really don't. Well so what it completely fails to take into account arguments like that is that the American population is passive. Now you know this is not the case you did have a big movement here even against the Iraq war there is still anger. The country is very polarized politically. Kerry may not be the best candidate for the anti-war movement in fact decent but nonetheless there's no doubt the country is pretty both in the right state and this is

an interesting thing because there has been a revival of engagement in politics many many young people who come to him me in different parts of the concrete ask very deep and searching questions. So I'm not that pessimistic. All right let's go. Indiana for another color line 1 0 0 0 0. I'd like for you to say a few words about Iran and Syria in relationship to what we're doing in Iraq now and what that makes for both or for you know the immediate future say out of three to five years when I think that one thing which you can regard as virtually fluted is a military intervention in Syria or Iran. I do not think the United States has the capacity or the SST military strength. I mean on the ground not in the air to take Syria or Iran and even if the politicians decided to go on a crazy adventure in that direction. I think you have very sober generals in the Pentagon who would resist us.

Some of them did even before Iraq objecting saying that this was a multi an intelligence operation and its aims were unclear. And the notion that with the mess in Iraq with the Iraqi resistance attacking the U.S. and other occupying forces and corporations every single day the United States is going to repeat that process in Syria and Iran would be out of the food issue it would very rapidly reach overstretch proportions. And what they would have to. Introduce a croft in the United States because people would not volunteer to join an army when they were pretty sure that good joining that army would lead to death very rapidly so they wouldn't do it so they would have to introduce the draft which would raise all sorts of questions within the American population as to the moral political justification for these wars. Now what is possible in what has been discussed is whether

they might use sharp surgical strikes to bomb the Iranian nuclear reactor. I think keep them that's a risky operation they might try and do it but it will create havoc in the region. Go to him call here on cell phone this will be line number 2 0 0 0 0 0 Only in America could somebody come over here uninvited and give their opinion of a minority in a squeaky wheel and get away with it and then turn around and then your ass getting money so I can listen to a program like this. Well this is a good quality in the United States that it's not a dictatorship that it listens to different views from people. It doesn't stop people coming and you should feel proud of that even though you disagree with me. I I disagree with you and I think you do but you should feel proud of a country which doesn't yet totally dissent there are many parts of the world where this

contact them and as well really when any of maybe one of these days I can write a little look you know put me on this. Well maybe they're on the John Kerry show and then I'll be able to. Yeah but you're only able to about my squeaky wheel when you can spout whatever you want your squeaky wheel or any other sort of wheel but what you must understand surely is that your opinions from Hikind are represented every single day on Fox TV most of the print media. The bulk of the television networks so you shouldn't grudge radio shows occasionally voicing dissent. Do you think maybe that maybe it's the wrong thing to ask this question but do you think that that the kind of view of the United States and foreign policy that you have laid out what it is is the most widely held view in the Middle East in the region that we're talking about if you look at what what. Non

Americans think what we have done there do you. Do you think that you're fairly representing the way people feel. I think I'm being very moderate. Actually if you really went to that region and did vox pops on the streets to get very sharp views much more. Buna sharper than anything I've stated today. But I mean you know a few days ago I was at MacAllister College in Minnesota debating this young professor of history from Harvard University Neil Ferguson who of course doesn't agree with me at all but he agrees on the basic premises he says that the United States is an empire and he criticized that the United States for not invading more countries and occupying more countries. So the basic premise of what the United States is up to is now bear the challenge by the from the right or the left. So it's this is something which is relatively relatively new but to to to come back to a question. Obviously if you went to the Arab world you would find large numbers of

people representing ABC News not the elites who have been put in there and are backed by the United States to shake them the little shake them some of the kings of Saudi Arabia and the princes and the president of Egypt. But if you talk to ordinary people journalists newspaper editors people on the streets you get a very hard reaction. Continue the next caller is in Monticello this is line 3. Hello hi yes life very well. Caller Mr. James there mind how but we'll try Belgium this is over by dandelion for Hello good morning. I don't want to go along with the critical thought from this previous caller but what I'd like to ask you is in the in northern in the two graphical terms of the Mediterranean Sea the south and the east it would stretch a little bit when we talk about Iraq and Iran but the South from the east to the Mediterranean are not democratic for the north and the

west of the Mediterranean aren't democratic. Some large groups of people move from this. In the east towards the north and west to get towards democracy and they hear back from their relatives who may be going in an area why don't they push harder for democracy than South Europeans don't seem to want to push for democracy in that part of the world. I don't totally understand what's our responsibility to push forward. Well I mean I don't think this is true that people in these regions don't want democracy whenever they've tried to get democracy they've been crushed often they've been crushed by regimes and elites backed by the United States of America and now increasingly you hear support of the administration saying well but you know democracy can be paradoxical in these regions. Why because they might elect governments hostile to the interests of the United States. So you can't have your cake and eat it if Egypt was given the chance. Egypt is a country

totally dependent now on billions of dollars from the United States each year to keep its leaders in tow. If Egypt was meant to be a democracy what the United States be happy with the elected government I doubt it very much. So I really challenge the view that the Arab people do not like democracy their leaders because most of them would be voted out if democracy arrived in that region and I think both in Iraq and Syria you could have very interesting results if you had elections as in Iran. I understand that but I'm wondering as the Americans seem to want to bring in all these portions of the world that they don't really want to. How are people concerned. I think this is a problem you know the the fact is the following. All these countries you're talking about and which we know are amongst the richest oil producers in the world but oil they produce is of great value. It's not even that the United States needs all that oil but they want control of it because that

oil is absolutely central for their economic rivals in the Far East. And so that is what gives these countries their edge. If there was no oil in these regions not on would be interested in them at all. It's the oil that gets them the increase and it's much much better from the point of view of the United States imperial leadership to have regimes in these countries which are pliable and often the better the regimes which are most pliable and pliant are not are not elected regimes. If I might divert digress describing the parties in these countries are producing more and more or are preparing the price of oil continues to grow. Problem in the Arab Spring is that the demand in China is growing. You know China's demand for oil is now I mean gargantuan. It's the most dynamic capitalist economy in the world and it needs it needs massive amounts of oil and that helps to explain why the price has

gone up of course the other reason which explains the rise in oil prices is the fact the Iraqi oil by its own functioning as the resistance is blowing up the oil pipelines and saying if we can't have it you won't either. So Iraqi oil which will sanction but which was sold underneath the counter through various third parties and even reached the United States is no longer available. So the United States is forced to buy a great deal of oil from another regime it doesn't like the Chavez regime in Venezuela. But you're right the price of oil is high and this will I think continue till the Iraqi oil wells can start flowing again. Thank you very much. Back to Aruba. In Line 1. Hello. You know this commentary on the opinion of the United States. In the Middle East if you read Ferguson as you debated him Friedman and Wolfowitz It seems that the people of the Middle East must have

been reading their writings because they were all praising the virtues of the Empire. In fact Friedman back when was that note to when he published that article in The Atlantic was praising the British Empire of the 19th century and early 20th century the Roman empire if you can believe it of the second century. These people apparently read American press better than the American people who were you talking about reading the American press in the Middle East and they seem to know what's going on. Oh sure yeah. They say they do it not so much because they read it. Friedman or Ferguson or Wolfowitz. But because they experience it very directly themselves. But these guys who are now singing the praises of the British Empire and saying that's the model the United States should follow have a very twisted and distorted view

of what the British Empire was. And I often point out that when the British left India after nearly 200 years of rule 90 percent of the population still lived in the countryside 85 percent of the population was totally elite create diseases claimed the lives of most of my you know I think the figure is six out of 10 children born die because of malnutrition large scale famines. Many He deliberately created because the grain was transferred elsewhere in the Empire led to the loss of massive lives. So the fact that this is not understood stale or is ignored is deeply shocking. The British Empire is not something which which should be made and nor should one forget. That is like the United States. The British were centrally involved in slavery. I mean the slave trade

helped to strengthen. British capital and merchant capital in particular. So the notion that these any of these things could be repeated today is grotesque and the fact that serious people I mean people who are taken seriously in this country are spouting these views is a sign of the times that you know obviously people want to listen to this stuff. There's one other point. While certain British industrialists and merchants made a great deal of money out of the Empire. The British nation never did it was a losing proposition the entire existence. Absolutely. It's you know like poor whites in the south. The working class in Britain for a long long time was pretty attached to empire because they thought they got some benefits and I think they got a tiny bit but very tiny. I mean the conditions of the English working classes and the Scottish working classes throughout the 19th and the

20th century were a total disaster. It was until the relief once being universally factual till the end of the Second World War that real reforms were pushed through and there was a redistribution of wealth which benefit the poor. But this had nothing to do with them. Well I'm greatly enjoying your talk and have been and admirer of you for some time. Keep up the good work. Thank you very place for the call let's go to champagne. The next caller is line two. Hello. I'd like to agree with the previous caller that the station no longer represents anybody but the rich. The university people who run it. You hear quite a bit. One show after the next on the station about how the administration is not just wrong but evil and how they have malicious intent. And again and again. I mean even the programming that they produced themselves is anti-administration. And the argument I heard from the man who is just recently gotten the

job is the guy who's running the station is that you can find balance on other stations. What irks me is that the other stations don't take public money. If if the public money is used for partisan jabs at our at our administration then that's a misuse of the public money. And I really enjoy most of the programming on the station. But the stuff that they do especially the stuff they produce themselves is very obviously partisan and very obviously biased. And I don't think that it's the job of publicly funded institutions to balance commercial radio. The thing that a publicly funded institution such as oil should be doing is providing a fair and balanced look as opposed to being so partisan. And I think this guest is one more example of how biased this station is. Now hang up now.

Well if you look at most publicly funded broadcasting services in the world and I would urge you to school to look beyond the United States on this one you will find the BBC which has been under heavy pressure from the government recently but nonetheless on BBC radio you will find sometimes very sharp critique of the Blair administration on French Public Radio. You have whole programs which discuss the politics and culture of the French Republic and are often much much in their criticism of the government than anything in the United States. The same applies to Germany and in fact one of the aims of publicly funded television and radio broadcasting networks is that they show and show or provide listeners with voices from a minority

which is rarely heard. That is one of the functions I mean even under the government in Britain this is an extreme conservative governments not dissimilar to the Bush administration here. This government made available and passed a law in parliament producing a new television channel in Britain called Channel 4 and the parliamentary remit was that the aim of this channel was exclusively to show the views of the minority political minorities cultural minorities racial minorities which it did very very successfully for 15 years before it was partially privatized and it is only the public broadcasting channels which can actually balance the stuff which you hear on the commercial networks because that's where money counts. That's where the money is useful. I mean you know you spend a lot of time attacking this radio station. I'm shocked whenever I come to the United States to see FOX TV and how bad how on balance and how biased it

is. But that never seems to bother people too much. It's the small space provided to dissenting views from the other side which creates panic in the units not worth it really because it's good for you and it's good for the head and the moral political health of this country. If you have the same sort of bland voices you hear every single day everywhere else it wouldn't be very good. Well Scott at least one more caller Chicago this will be line number three. Hello I just want to say that it's really sad because one thing that I alone will never have to do and that's print an apology to its listeners that the New York Times that saying that it ignores the other other alternative views and I think that we should be proud of that. And I'm going to try to squeeze in my country. QUESTION What's going to happen with Great Britain now that there's the demand that the U.S. needs more troops. It seems to me that the anti-war movement is increasing in Britain I know there was at least 20000 protesting this last weekend

and now they've kidnapped another British citizen. So do you think that the pressure is going to increase on Tony Blair if he tries to meet the demands the U.S. demands. Well I'm going to put the British Army is already in Iraq and it will be difficult for the vent from the remaining ones there and there's no way in which Britain could introduce the draft to conscription because people wouldn't buy 56 percent. The British population now wants troops out of Iraq. So if Blair totally continues to defy public opinion in this way he will be removed from power. I mean it's not easy to do that because there's no alternative. People will will reduce or wipe out his majority and many will vote for the Liberal Democrats but I think that it's going to be difficult and it's going to be even difficult for Britain to remove troops from the five open cities like Basra and send them to book to shore up the American presence there because casualties are much much higher in both then and struck and once

British troops begin to come home and Bhakti back saying at the moment I think about 100 or 150 pretty soldiers have lost their lives that this figure goes up they will be a big big reaction to it and Blair is perfectly well aware of that and so is his party. Thank you and thank you for your calmness and this a great deal of the pack and I've enjoyed this conversation a great deal. Thank you very well thank you for the call. I think there were about the point we're going to have. Mission and my apologies we have a couple of callers we can take but we're just rather at the end of the time I do however want to mention though for people who are in and around Champaign-Urbana that if you are interested in hearing more from our guest Tariq Ali he will be giving a talk about Iraq from sanctions to occupation and resistance that's a title sponsored by a number of units on the campus as part of the miller come series. Four o'clock on Thursday afternoon at the eleventh faculty center on the third floor there. That's in our band. And then also he'll be taking part in a panel discussion of the future of radical politics this is today at 4 o'clock in the afternoon in the humanities lecture hall of

the IPR h building on West Pennsylvania. And you also might look for some of his other writing. He's editor of The New Left Review. He has written more than a dozen books on world history and politics and also five novels. Mr. Elie thank you very much. Thank you very talking with us we appreciate it.