Iraq

The world is a great harlotland and the Indians jolly well have to play the role of strumpets. Should they behave to the contrary, they will be guilty not only of unfriendliness to the hyperpower but of unfaithfulness to the tenets of neoclassical economics.

'Regime change' lies at the intersection of two major trends under UN auspices. The first is the progressive universalisation of the human rights norm carried out through a large number of legal conventions and promoted, however imperfectly, through a substantial legal machinery. The second is the central and irreplaceable role of the Security Council as the core of the international law enforcement system. Except in cases of selfdefence, only the Security Council can decide whether or not it is lawful to go to war. The US victory in Iraq has come at the price of re-legitimising wars of choice as an instrument of unilateral state policy and will usher in more determined efforts by many countries to acquire weapons of mass destruction, since nothing else is capable of deterring external attack.

In Iraq alongside the military campaign, a media tussle emerged between some of the western channels and their Arab counterparts. Differing representations of the war in this semiotic battle not merely gave scope to varied interpretations, but also provoked controversy.

One way of expressing solidarity with the tens of thousands of Iraqis who have suffered in this war is to reject offers of collaboration and support in research in the social sciences and humanities from governments that do not know the meaning of accountability.