Iraq, no cakewalk, by George Hishmeh aljazeerah.info

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Iraq — no cakewalk

By George S. Hishmeh, JT, 3/28/03

WASHINGTON — It has not been a cakewalk in the first days of the American-led invasion of Iraq and by all indications, it promises to get uglier.

There is no doubt that ultimately Iraq will be occupied by the American and British forces, but the victory may not be as rosy as promised. There are no signs yet that the Iraqis are “waiting for liberation”, as US Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz predicted. Getting rid of Saddam Hussein or the Iraqi leader's regime may be the easiest task, but the repercussions may be far reaching, if not devastating, in the Middle East and elsewhere.

The American and British governments — and their laughable “coalition of the willing” — in deciding to go it alone in their unsanctioned war on Iraq have unwittingly dealt a serious blow to the United Nations and the expanded Atlantic alliance. The two institutions have had their share of detractors in the past — and for good reason — yet the two had played a vital role in keeping world order after the demise of the cold war.

As far as the Arab world is concerned, there is still deep-rooted anger at and frustration with the world organisation, primarily for unfairly dividing Palestine and remaining impotent in implementing the countless resolutions it adopted in the past 50 years (in part thanks to big power machinations). Nevertheless, the role of the world organisation cannot be dismissed or denied since it has been the source of much-needed comfort and security to the smaller and newly independent nations of the Third World.

The failure of American (and British) diplomacy to win their case at the UN Security Council has been the low point of the administration of George W. Bush, almost halfway through his tenure at the White House. This prompted one New York Times columnist to call for the resignation of US Secretary of State Colin Powell because of the failure of his politics.

“The most important reason the secretary of state should go is that the president has chosen a course that repudiates much of what Mr Powell has stood for — notably his deep suspicion of arrogant idealism,” wrote Bill Keller. “I don't mean that Mr Bush is bent on a series of pre-emptive wars — surely the president would like to take the country into the election year at peace — but this is about how we throw our weight around at peacetime, too.”

He highlighted one case in point: “Perhaps the single saddest moment of the whole cynical prelude to war was Mr Bush's abrupt promise to take on the issue of Israel and Palestine, a paramount and long-awaited commitment that was demeaned by the crassness of timing. (Just in case anyone believed he was serious, the word quickly went out from the White House that it was all intended to buy Tony Blair some peace at home.)”

Moreover, the war in Iraq, that may take longer than expected (a month) should the Iraqi resistance expand, may pose an insurmountable hurdle for the first-ever Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, who must be eagerly counting on the publication and quick implementation of the “road map” that he, for some reason, believes will lead to renewed negotiations with the Israeli government of Ariel Sharon.

The American president had promised earlier this month to release the road map as soon as the Palestinian leader was confirmed. But in the meantime, the White House became concerned with the negative reaction, when Bush appeared to be calling for additional input from the Palestinians and Israelis. It quickly let it be known that the terms of the “road map” are not negotiable. This is undoubtedly soothing but, as we all know, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

However, the more worrisome problem that the Bush administration will be facing in the Middle East, should the occupation of Iraq go awry or should there be high casualties, is the continued rise of anti-Americanism. This was clearly evidenced in the just-released Zogby International poll which showed that Arabs in six key countries expect terrorism to increase as a consequence of the invasion.

Youssef Ibrahim, a former senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, also argued in an op-ed article in the Washington Post last Sunday that the change in the Middle East that Bush promised will follow the ouster of Saddam Hussein will be towards radical Islamic fundamentalism and not liberal, pro-Western democracy. “After all, the Islamic fundamentalist parties, grouped under the big tent of the Muslim Brotherhood, are the only forces with the organisation, capability and ambition to take power if democracy were to become an option in the Arab world.”

Adding to the rising tension evident in the relationship between the Bush administration and the Arab world was the unfortunate incident in which Al Jazeera, the popular Qatar-based satellite television station, has unwittingly rebroadcast Iraqi television footage of US soldiers in custody — a violation of the Geneva Conventions.

Senior American officials who decried the broadcast must have had a sudden lapse in memory. The United States had been criticised by the International Red Cross for violating the same provision when it released photographs of prisoners taken from Afghanistan to a US prison in Guant·namo Bay, Cuba, and failed, to date, to give these prisoners the prisoner-of-war status.

But nothing would be more shattering to the US and British governments than their continued failure to find the weapons of mass destruction allegedly in Iraq's possession — ostensibly the early cause for the invasion.

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