Amoz Oz: America has no inkling of the death and destruction it will unleash

America will make a mistake if it goes to war to conquer Iraq: extremist Islam can be stopped only by moderate Islam, and extremist Arab nationalism can be curbed only by moderate Arab nationalism. Saddam Hussein's despicable regime should be toppled from within, by Iraqi forces – and America, Europe, and moderate Arab states must all come to their aid.

An American war against Iraq, even if it ends in victory, is liable to add fuel to the conflagration of the sense of affront, humiliation, hatred and desire for vengeance in extensive parts of the world. It threatens to arouse a wave of fanaticism with the power to undermine moderate regimes in the Middle East and beyond. Even before its outbreak, this war is already undermining struts of global equilibrium and perilously splitting the camp of democratic states.

The collapse of the edifice of international legitimacy, of the United Nations and its institutions and of the alliance among democratic states will, ultimately, benefit none other than the violent and fanatical forces menacing the peace of the world. Moreover, no one – not even America's intelligence agencies – can predict what will spring from lifting the lid on Iraq. No one can foresee the severity of the killing and destruction, the danger of the doomsday weapons or the validity of the fear that in battered and crumbling Iraq, and in other places as well, five or 10 Bin Ladens will emerge to take Saddam's place.

These days, a wave of anti-American sentiment is rising across the world – and with it a wave of emotionalist hostility towards Israel: All those who see America as the embodiment of the Great Satan tend also to see Israel as the Little Satan, Rosemary's baby. Many decent, enlightened, people oppose this war, even though they supported the war against Iraq after Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990. But these days, the dogmatic and sentimental European left does not hesitate to link arms with the reactionary and racist right in the campaign of anti-American vilification, some of it drawn directly from the scrap heap of the Communists and the Nazis – all kinds of blighted slogans about the "octopus tentacles of Wall Street" and "the sinister Jewish-Zionist-capitalist conspiracy to take over the world". My objection to the war on Iraq is severely tested each time I hear these loathsome voices.

The war campaign does not emanate from oil lust, or colonialist appetite, but from some simplistic rectitude that aspires to uproot evil by force. But the evil of Saddam's regime, like the evil of Bin Laden, is deeply and extensively rooted in the vast expanses of poverty, despair and humiliation. Perhaps it is even more deeply rooted in the terrible, raging envy that America has aroused for many years – not only in the Third World, but also in broad boulevards of European society.

It behoves one who is envied by all not to attempt to uproot that envy and hatred from the envious hearts by using only a big stick: after the Second World War, the Marshall Plan benefited America and world peace more than its old and new weapons put together. The big stick is necessary, but to deter or repulse aggression, not to "impose good". And even when the big stick is brandished to repulse or defeat aggression as it occurs, it is crucial that it is brandished by the international community – or by a broad consensus of nations at least. Otherwise, it is liable to redouble the hatred, despair and lust for vengeance that it set out to defeat.

© 2003. Amos Oz is the author of 'The Same Sea'. Translated by Ruhama Shattan