DUBAI, United Arab Emirates—Having positioned enough U.S. troops and equipment all around this Persian Gulf neighbourhood, George W. Bush can launch a war on Iraq any time, with or without United Nations’ approval. But he has already lost the political war.
That came through loud and clear in my journey through Europe, the Middle East and Asia in the last three weeks. It should become evident to North Americans in the days ahead.
On Tuesday, Bush will deliver his State of the Union address and be applauded on Capitol Hill and in the obeisant American and copycat neo-con Canadian media. But around the world, his words likely will bring public derision, so eroded is American credibility. A similar fate awaits the promised American “evidence” against Iraq.
On Wednesday, when the Security Council meets, France, assisted by Germany, will lead Russia, China and others in resisting American calls for a U.N. mandate for war. For the first time in its history, the council may be confronted with an anti-American resolution.
There already is a global rebellion against America, separate and apart from the recent terrorist attacks on U.S. civilians and soldiers in Yemen, Pakistan and Kuwait.
Most Muslims are characterizing American designs on Iraq as racist. Others are calling it a colonial endeavour — the return of the Ugly American.
From Europe through Africa and Asia to the Far East, public opinion is solidly ranged against America. The dissidents include the Pope, the archbishop of Canterbury and Nelson Mandela.
**This anti-war movement may be more potent than the one against the Vietnam War. It is worldwide and it has gelled before the war has even begun. **
The president’s poll numbers are dropping. Public skepticism is rising, as is a chorus of influential voices, including those of Senator Ted Kennedy (“This is the wrong war at the wrong time”), Jimmy Carter, Gulf War veterans, stalwart Republicans, Hollywood celebrities and unions.
Chief inspector Hans Blix, a seasoned Swedish diplomat seeped in U.N. culture, wasn’t going to blink under American bullying.
When Americans and Britons charged that their intelligence showed Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, Blix said: “Show me.”
**When Bush called the discovery of a dozen empty Iraqi warheads “troubling and serious,” Blix said: “It’s no big deal.” (Anyone who covered Saddam’s 1980-'90 war on Iran would have seen dozens of such spent Iraqi shells all along the border.) **
America has been clutching at other straws, such as looking for an Iraqi scientist or two to supply a plausible excuse for U.S. action — in return for immigration to America or, in one reported case, a bribe of free medical care for an ailing wife.
American commentators duly obliged with essays on the benefits of bringing democracy to Iraq. But people across the Atlantic just laughed.
Bush’s conciliatory approach to North Korea raised cries of double standards. “Why is the U.S. dealing with them differently?” asked Al Sharq newspaper in Qatar, one of the more pro-American emirates and, in fact, a key staging area for an American attack on Iraq
Reports out of London speak of Whitehall being inundated with cables from British missions abroad warning of widespread fury. European diplomats I spoke to talk of “long-lasting enmity in the Arab, Asian and African world against the Western model,” in the words of one.
And over at the staid Davos conference in Switzerland, Malaysian Prime Minister Mohammed Mahatir told the corporate and political elite of the world Thursday: “People want revenge. You kill our people, we will kill you.”
World Rebels Against America
The American greed machine shows its true colours the aim of iraq is economic and strategic nothing to do with WMDs if it was the case North Korea just exposed the americans by pulling there pants down 
by saying we have got WMDs but no oil clearly exposing the US governemnts real agenda in iraq!