A little less than a week after President George Bush presented his view on the future of Iraq, Prince of Morocco Moulay Hicham gave his own address concerning U.S. policy in the Middle East last night in Corwin Pavilion.

Hicham, who is third in line for the Moroccan crown, focused his talk on the United States’ position in Iraq, U.S. support for Israel and his own views on Islamic militancy. During his lecture, “The Arc of Crisis After Iraq: Confusion and Turmoil from the Mediterranean to the Subcontinent,” he told the packed venue that the key to justice and civil order in the world is integration among different nationalities and a global understanding of different ideas and cultures.

Hicham began his discussion on Iraq by arguing against Bush’s positive stance on the conflict – as expressed in last week’s State of the Union address. He later discussed his view that the ongoing war was already a huge loss for America.

“The U.S. has suffered a grave political and military defeat in Iraq,” Hicham said. “Three thousand dead is a military disaster.”

He emphasized the popular notion that most Americans are under the impression that the Iraq conflict will continue indefinitely, further adding to the already high number of casualties.

“The unruliness of the U.S. is the idea that this can go on forever,” Hicham said. “How many additional casualties is Saddam worth?”

Hicham called for leadership and action, not continued occupation, as a means for fixing the problems in Iraq. He said the United States’ use of strong military force against the Iraqis would only bring about more harm.

“[We] need leadership to understand the linkages; occupation brings no benefit,” Hicham said. “Repairing damages already done will require abandoning unilateral military force. The underlying ‘arc of crisis’ is complacency.”

Hicham also compared the conflict between Israel and Palestine to the United States’ war with Iraq. He said the current relationship between Israel and the U.S. has caused much civil war within the Muslim community in Lebanon and the West Bank.

“Destruction is not victory.” Hicham said. “The West Bank is a crisis. … It is a miniature version of Iraq. Disintegration and civil war is unfolding.”

Moving his lecture to the topic of Iran, Hicham brought up the possibility of the U.S. using nuclear arms against the country to thwart possible attack against the U.S.

“There is a possibility of an attack on Iran using nuclear weapons to achieve a level of destruction to reset the balance of fear,” Hicham said.

He said despite whatever attempts the U.S. might use to try to resolve the international tension through means of violence, nuclear weapons would never destroy Iran in the long run. This is because the problems between the two nations are more of a reflection of either countries’ political weaknesses – rather than which country has access to “fancier weapons,” Hicham said.

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