For
thousands of years water has been the strength of
Mesopotamia. The land of the Twin Rivers was the
cradle of civilisation and the home of powerful
empires. The result was aggression on weak neighbours,
alternately being the prey of other predators.
History
has demonstrated that peace in the region will only
prevail if Iraq is brought under control. For four
hundred years relative peace existed in the region
under the Ottoman Empire from 1516 to 1917.
Nowadays,
the strength of Iraq is the vast oil reserves; its
weakness is that water rises in Turkey, which increasingly
needs the water of the Tigris and Euphrates for
its own domestic use. Why should Iraq obtain its
water free of charge but sell its oil at exorbitant
prices?
The
campaign to disarm Iraq must aim at establishing
a new order for the whole region. In other words,
we should try to reinvent the Ottoman Empire, which
was broken up after the First World War, and the
area was given wholesale to the Arabs excluding
the many other nationalities.
I
suggest that the first step in that direction would
be to organise a Middle East water and oil 'authority'
which would ensure that all the countries of the
region -Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan
and Arabia as well as the Gulf states share equally
in the wealth of the region. Such an authority could
later be expanded to include defence, foreign affairs,
travel, trade, etc. A federal centre could be created
at Mari on the Euphrates where Abraham once lived.
What better name can be given to that centre than
Abraham, revered by Arabs and Jews and most other
people of the area as the father of the Middle East?
As
the franchise holder of Coca-Cola in Iraq since
1949, and hopefully after liberation, if ever Iraq
would be short of water then I would say, with apologies
to Marie Antoinette; let them drink Coca-Cola!
