Ireland should clearly and unapologetically support the US, the UK and their allies in the war being waged against the barbaric regime of Saddam Hussein, writes Alan Shatter
Both the Government and Fine Gael were right to support UN economic sanctions on Iraq. However, they are wrong about the war.
We should unapologetically support the US, the UK and their allies in the war being waged in Iraq.
The tyrannical, barbaric regime of Saddam Hussein is responsible for the death and exile of tens of thousands of Iraqi citizens; has opposed every attempt at a Middle East peace settlement and sabotaged possibilities of peace by financially rewarding suicide bombings; has used chemical and biological weapons on its own citizens; has used torture and execution as an instrument of state policy, and has for over 12 years failed to comply with UN requirements that Iraq disarm and verifiably destroy its weapons of mass destruction.
While the Government and Fine Gael supported economic sanctions, the Labour Party and the Green Party did not.
They have not only been vocal in their opposition to this war but have also, while proclaiming support for the primacy of the UN, been critical of the UN-imposed economic sanctions.
These sanctions were imposed as a consequence of Saddam's failure to comply with the obligations imposed on him to accountably disarm and his failure to honour the terms of a ceasefire he himself signed to end the previous Gulf War.
To oppose both the continuation of sanctions and the current allied action is to favour freeing Saddam to develop, use and to distribute to any terrorist organisation chosen by him whatever biological, chemical or other weapons he determines.
The Government did the right thing in resisting pressure to close Shannon to US military planes. Having done so, it should have the courage to go a step further and to clearly say that we side with the democracies in this war and oppose tyranny. To proclaim our neutrality as some high principle of value for reasons of domestic political expediency is nothing short of nauseating.
The Taoiseach's recent Dáil performance in which he appeared confused as to whether we are included within the "coalition of the willing" by the US administration was disingenuous.
Could it be, like the shifting sands in the Iraqi desert, when the Taoiseach and Government ministers visit Washington, they express support for the action taken by George Bush while at home they genuflect at neutrality?
Our much-proclaimed neutrality, if taken to its logical conclusion, means that not only will we do nothing to help the allies but that we favour neither side.
If truly neutral, we do not care about the outcome of this war. Based on what we know about Saddam's murderous regime, this is a position of political and moral bankruptcy.
The Taoiseach, in this paper on Saturday, referred to our attachment to the UN. Enda Kenny TD, two days earlier, wrote of Fine Gael always supporting action mandated by the UN but always opposing pre-emptive action in the absence of a UN resolution. Put simply, if the UN is paralysed by division, no matter how grave the threat posed, this State should do nothing and stay mute.
The sad reality is that, time and again, the UN has proved itself incapable of ensuring international order and security.
In Srebrenica, it betrayed those it was mandated to protect. It was left to others to resolve the problems of the Balkans, Kosovo and Macedonia. To my knowledge, Fine Gael did not oppose but was supportive of the actions taken to resolve these conflicts.
Enda Kenny is right about one thing. Terrorism and dictatorship must be challenged and eliminated. However, where vested political and economic interests of states or domestic political priorities of governments paralyse the capacity of the international community through the UN, should nothing be done? When two of the democracies with which we have close political, economic and familial relations take action, there is no principle worth supporting which requires us to refuse the use of our airport facilities for their military personnel.
The reality is, of course, despite the Taoiseach's dissembling, our permitting the continued use of Shannon by the US military is tacit support for the allied side in this war.
It is as disingenuous for the Taoiseach to deny this to be so as it is for Enda Kenny to deny that proposing withdrawal of the use of Shannon is tantamount to expressing support for Saddam Hussein.
Over the last 10 years, political debate and analysis have been replaced by mindless media sound bites and tabloid politics. Political positions taken are only occasionally subjected to detailed analysis.
In this State, we now have a Labour Party opposed to action to bring about the fall of a tyrannical regime with an appalling record of human rights violations; a Green Party willing to tolerate the continuation of a regime which has not only developed but which has used biological and chemical weapons and which could in the future facilitate their use by terrorist groups; and, to cap it all, a Sinn Féin party opposed to the use of force by everyone except its own private army.
Our principled commitment to human rights and democratic values should compel us to support a victory by the allies.
To date, neither the Government nor any Opposition party in the Dáil or any member of Dáil Éireann has had the courage to explicitly say this.
John Gormley, stuck in a high moral cloud of virtual reality, in this paper on Wednesday caustically recalled the occasion when Eamon de Valera expressed sympathy on the death of Hitler to the German embassy to maintain a public perception of our being a neutral State during the second World War. He failed to tell us whether the Green Party's version of neutrality demands that a similar expression of sympathy be conveyed to the Iraqi embassy should Saddam Hussein be deposed or killed.
I fear that when this conflict ends, our various political leaders will be tripping over each other in the rush to the embassy gates to publicly reaffirm their neutral credentials.
• Alan Shatter is a former TD, a former Fine Gael spokesman on Defence and a former member of the Joint Oireachtas Foreign Affairs Committee