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What comes after the Iraq war?

Saad Mehio, the Daily Star, 3/31/03

Was it necessary to invade Iraq in order to lay the old world order to rest and replace it with a new one? According to all indications, this is indeed the case.
For the “democratic imperialism” advocated by American neo-conservatives and Christian fundamentalists could never find true expression without a war on the scale of “Operation Iraqi Freedom.”
Likewise, the European trend towards “imperialist independence” (the true meaning of the European Union) did not express itself fully in the ethnic wars of the Balkans, the confrontation over the Kyoto Protocol, or the “clash of civilizations” between the American and European varieties of globalism. It is being expressed in the meaning and justification of the Iraq war.
It was the diplomatic battle over Iraq that exposed the impotence of the United Nations in the post-Cold war world. Neither could the UN, which was born with the Cold war, manage to find democratic solutions to the power struggle between veto-wielding members of the Security Council, nor is the US, the sole superpower, prepared to give the UN what it failed to do when it was engaged with the former Soviet Union in a struggle for world supremacy.
In this context, the war on Iraq despite its significance militarily, strategically and where global energy is concerned was nothing but a trigger for developments that have been in the making since the end of the Cold war and the emergence of today’s unipolar world. These developments resemble birth pains accompanying the birth of a new world order. And, as is well known, the usual midwife for such births is war.
That was how the League of Nations was born after World War I, and how the UN was born after World War II. And that, most probably, is how a new world organization will see the light of day after the present “war on terror” is over.
The current argument raging between the major powers is the most conclusive proof that this is indeed the essence of the global struggle going on. Confrontations over the legality or otherwise of the Iraq war have ceased completely. The issue now is how Iraq is going to be ruled after the war and who is going to rule it.
French President Jacques Chirac was the first leader to bring up this issue. On March 20, Chirac said his country would “campaign through the UN to keep any American or British involvement in the running of post-war Iraq to a minimum.” France, he added, would not accept a dominant US and British role in such efforts.
Interestingly, France is not the only country to express concern that the US might appropriate Iraq’s oil resources. Even Britain, Washington’s staunch ally, has expressed such concerns.
British writers Guy Dinmore and Stephen Fidler of the Financial Times noted that Washington was planning to establish direct military rule in Iraq, and was not interested in more than a limited role for the UN in the reconstruction process.
Washington did not deny these accusations. Thomas Caruthers, senior associate and director of the Democracy and Rule of Law Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank, said the current US plan calls for something distinct: “This will be a different kind of occupation from what we have been used to seeing. It will be a military occupation rather than an international administration.”
The only explanation for these developments is that what is taking place right now is an open conflict between an American empire bent on unilateral world domination on the one hand, and other European and non-European powers trying to lay their hands on a piece of the cake on the other.
The stage chosen to play out this struggle is Iraq in particular and the Middle East generally.
It is in Iraq that the fates of such august international organizations as the UN and NATO will be determined, and so will the future of the Arab-Israeli conflict and many of the regimes now in power in the region.
The Middle East, in short, is set to inherit the role played by Europe for the last 50 years that of the main area for global confrontation.
Through the new doctrine of pre-emption it is trying out in Iraq, the United States will seek to alter regional balances of power to its advantage; other powers mainly Europe will resist this to the hilt, if only to avoid becoming American satellites.
But what about the Arabs, on whose land all this will be taking place?
Some Arab politicians who fear that wars of pre-emption and regime change might spread to their domains are seeking solace in the presumption that the US cannot shoulder the financial burdens involved in wars and reconstruction in the entire Middle East by itself. After all, the war on Iraq alone is estimated to cost upwards of $200 billion.
The US will therefore have to choose between: Making concessions to other powers, as well as to the UN, in order to persuade them to share the burdens of reconstruction, or giving up the principles of pre-emption and regime change altogether.
This logic seems plausible at first glance, but it is soon revealed to be extremely unlikely to occur because it fails to consider the fact that the United States intends to stay in the Middle East for decades. This has nothing to do with George W. Bush being re-elected or not; America will stay in the region whether it were ruled by a Republican or a Democrat. At stake are American national interests in the Middle East.
Another crucial point is that Bush has succeeded in involving the US in conflicts it cannot walk away from that easily unless it is prepared to abandon its role of global leadership.
Israel’s Haaretz newspaper described what is going on in the Middle East as an “earthquake” an apt description for an old world in its death throes and a new one about to come to light.

Saad Mehio is a Lebanese journalist and writer.

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