iraq - un bomb - 16 dead..., page-18

Aug. 20, 2003
Baghdad and Jerusalem


Why was the United Nations headquarters in Iraq, of all places, bombed yesterday?

Well, why did a suicide bomber blow himself up inside a crowded Jerusalem bus last night?

That the first question is a mystery to many while the second is seen to be too obvious to ask illustrates both how the war against terrorism is misunderstood and how it must be fought.

The UN is not supposed to have enemies.

Who could be against its humanitarian mission, or as its slain representative, Sergio Vieira de Mello, expressed its goal, "to make sure that the interests of the Iraqi people come first?"

Actually, one can come up with plenty of reasons why Ba'athist remnants or the terrorist internationale that has gathered in Iraq would target the UN the years of UN sanctions against Iraq, the tentative acceptance by the UN of Iraq's new Governing Council, or the possibility of UN forces assisting the US in stabilizing Iraq.

But all this speculation misses the point, just as it does when the United States or Israel is attacked. The objective of the terrorists is to make us think what we have done wrong, to wonder what we have done to provoke such a heinous crime.

And the answer is always the same. It is not what we, the US, or the UN has done wrong, but who we are and what we have done right.

There are two simple lessons from the suicide bombings yesterday in Baghdad and Jerusalem: No one is safe and there is no turning back. Suicide terrorism is the plague of this century. It cannot be escaped, denied, or appeased.

It must be defeated.

So far, the terrorists have successfully played divide and conquer. They have first succeeded in convincing the world that terrorism against Israel, while condemnable, is somehow understandable, and that it can be addressed by delivering on supposed "root causes," such as the call for a Palestinian state. They have also lulled the world into thinking that only those who stand up to them, such as the US and Israel, will be attacked, while those who are willing to resist the war against terrorism will be spared.

Terrorism will be beaten when these twin myths are dispelled. So long as the terrorists see that the world is afraid to take Israel's side against them, why should they stop? And so long as key European democracies, such as France, will not back concerted action against terrorism-supporting countries in the UN Security Council, why should countries like Iran and Syria change their stripes? We know that Iran, Syria, or both actively support Hizbullah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Fatah, all of which are charter members in the global fraternity of suicide bombers. Without knowing yet who is responsible, we can be sure that the same two countries were either directly behind or not so quietly cheering for the terrorists who slaughtered some of the UN's finest international civil servants in Baghdad.

All it takes is three, perhaps four countries the US, Britain, France, and Germany to agree for the war against terrorism to finally become effectively universal and serious. When France joined the US and Britain to impose stiff sanctions against Libya in the Security Council (because the Libyans had downed both an American and a French airliner), Libya was forced to sharply change its behavior, cough up its agents, admit responsibility, and pay $2.7 billion in damages. Because there is no similar consensus regarding Iran and Syria, those two countries continue to literally get away with murder.

Now is a time for unity and determination. The UN must prove that it cannot be bowed or beaten. The diplomats who died were indeed on the side of the Iraqi people, and their desire for freedom. The UN must now redouble its support for a successful transition to democracy and independence in Iraq.

In addition, however, the world must understand that it cannot allow suicide terrorism to succeed anywhere if it is to be beaten everywhere. The Security Council, as it should have, leapt to condemn the Baghdad bombing as a "terrorist criminal attack." If that body had leapt to condemn and take concerted action against every such attack against Israel, those attacks would have ended long ago. Terrorism can and will be beaten, but only when the terrorists and the countries that back them face a united front of free nations determined to give them no quarter.