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THE
ROVING EYE
Shifting sands, shifting
alliances
By Pepe Escobar
AMMAN - Washington insists it is trying to win
the support of the Shi'ites in southern Iraq. At the
same time, it has warned largely Shi'ite Syria and
predominantly Shi'ite Iran not to interfere in its
invasion of Iraq. Understandably then, either from a
religious or a geopolitical point of view, Shi'ites
don't trust America's motives in Iraq.
The
populations of Arab Syria and Persian Iran are widely in
solidarity with the Iraqi people - while at the same
time their governments appear to be doing little about
the American presence on their doorstep. Iraq's deputy
prime minister, the multifaceted Chaldean Christian
Tariq Aziz, has sent his own message to Iran: "You're
next; you'd better prepare." US Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld has already threatened Syria and Iran on the
record. Israel is weighing in: "Iran is handling many
terrorist organizations," says former Israeli prime
minister Shimon Peres. Peres is suggesting "economic
sanctions and no forgiveness" towards Iran. For Israeli
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Iran is next in line in the
neoconservative's domino theory of "democracy by
bombing" in the Middle East. And Syria will be caught in
the crossfire.
The Bush administration's hawks
were counting on having Iran on its war side - sort of.
But once again this is a very complex situation where
there's no simple "you're with us or against us". The
Iraqi National Congress (INC), led by Rumsfeld, Paul
Wolfowitz and Richard Perle's very good and unctuous
friend Ahmed Chalabi, is Washington's pet Iraqi
opposition group. The INC is a big player in the
six-member interim council that is supposed to make
recommendations to the Americans in the immediate
post-Saddam Hussein era (they have already been excluded
outright from government by Washington).
Apart
from Chalabi's INC, the other five components of the
interim council are: Masoud Barzani's Kurdistan
Democratic Party (KDP); Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union
of Kurdistan (PUK); the Iraqi National Accord (INA) -
which to Washington's horror might be joined by a
cluster of Saddam's militias; a stillborn party led by
former Iraqi foreign minister Adnan Pachachi; and the
crucial Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in
Iraq (SCIRI), the powerful Shi'ite group based in
Tehran.
The pro-American INC has good relations
with the SCIRI - which is very close to many key
branches of Iranian intelligence. Chalabi until recently
lived in a lavish mansion in Tehran paid for by the
State Department. For months, Chalabi tirelessly
repeated that Iran would support the US with weapons and
soldiers in the event of an invasion of Iraq. Once
again, Chalabi has been discredited. Last week,
Chalabi's good friend Rumsfeld starkly warned Iranian
groups that there would be serious consequences if they
interfered with America's war, and also accused Syria of
sending military equipment to Saddam's regime. An
intelligence source tells Asia Times Online that this
was a Pentagon reaction to the fact that the "active
neutrality" policy towards the war by the Iranian
hardline leadership close to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is
in fact a green light for Shi'ite groups not to
collaborate with the coalition forces. A key example
concerns the Da'wa Party. This party - as well as the
Action Party and a collection of Shi'ite tribes - are
key components of the Iraqi Shi'ite opposition in exile.
Da'wa has been a fierce enemy of Saddam's regime for two
decades: their hatred of the regime increased
exponentially after the brutal suppression of the
Shi'ite uprising of early 1991. But this does not mean
that Da'wa would automatically align with America.
During the 2002 buildup towards war, the Bush
administration included Da'wa in the opposition basket
that would have a say in post-Saddam Iraq. But now,
according to intelligence sources, Da'wa in fact is
supporting Saddam's regime.
Arab support for
Iraq
Every day, more and more Arabs commit to
fight for Iraq - which historically has been the eastern
flank of the whole Arab nation. At the Iraqi embassy in
Amman, hundreds of Iraqis daily seek permits to return
to their homeland to fight the "foreign aggression". And
each day at the Iraqi embassy in Beirut, dozens of
Lebanese, Syrians, Egyptians and Palestinians also apply
for Iraqi visas for the same purpose.
A Lebanese
source tells Asia Times Online that these volunteers are
usually males between the ages of 25 to 50, married with
children, Sunni and Shi'ite alike. Some say that to go
to Baghdad now is like performing the hajj - the
pilgrimage to Mecca. Some are very poor. Some sport long
beards. But some come from the Lebanese middle class. An
Iraqi visa usually costs US$58. Now it's free. The
embassy takes care of their nine-hour bus journey from
Beirut to Baghdad. Since the beginning of the war, at
least five buses with a total of 250 people have crossed
the Lebanese-Syrian border, and then the Syrian-Iraqi
border. The latter border is a totally artificial
divide. Bedouins living on both sides of it share the
same outlook.
Jordan has closed its own border
with Iraq to anybody from the Arab world wanting to
cross and engage in "martyrdom operations". But the
border remained open for the more than 6,000 Iraqi
exiles who have already returned home.
Tariq
Aziz's comments once again are revealing. He said that
Jordan's position is "beyond mysterious". Saddam's
regime has accused Jordan of blocking shipments of food
and medicine to Baghdad. Jordan vehemently denies it.
Saddam's regime accuses Jordan of collaborating with the
US. Everybody in Amman knows that America has used
Jordan as a base for Special Forces operations inside
Iraq - although Jordanian ministers and even King
Abdullah himself have taken extraordinary pains to
stress that the American mission is only to defend
Jordan against Iraqi missile attacks.
The
American military base at Safawi, eastern Jordan, is off
limits to the media. The Jordanian government has
muzzled opposition to the war and has practically sealed
off the ultra-explosive southern city of Ma'an. A plot
has just been foiled concerning a bomb - allegedly
planted by Iraqi agents - at the Grand Hyatt hotel in
Amman, which is generally packed with American military,
diplomats and journalists.
Americans are
patrolling western Iraq. They have established
checkpoints on the highway from the border to Baghdad.
According to human shields recently arrived from
Baghdad, the Americans have even bombed a hospital in
Rutbah - killing and wounding civilians. They have used
the captured H2 and H3 airfields in western Iraq - the
military push came from Jordan - to parachute soldiers
into Iraqi Kurdistan.
The US may be helped by
the Kurdish Peshmergas in northern Iraq, but now it can
count on definitely no help from any Arabs - or any
Persians. And even the Kurds and the Turks are weary of
the American agenda. The PUK, for example, has an
influential office in Damascus, and it works closely
with Syrian intelligence. A Lebanese source confirms
that Syria has sent its number one man in Lebanon, Major
General Ghazi Kanaan, to Turkey to share intelligence
and to organize a three-way Syria-Turkey-Iran summit to
discuss what happens on their borders in the events that
the Kurds start entertaining independence ideas.
According to one of the latest reports from GRU
- Russian intelligence - America would be inclined to
accept a war lasting a maximum of three months, with no
more than 1,000 American casualties. Otherwise, states
GRU, a serious political crisis will engulf the US and
the world. The Arab world remains more divided than
ever.
Kuwait - a de facto American base - is on
the receiving end of Iraqi missiles. The United Arab
Emirates is just waiting for big business in post-Saddam
reconstruction contracts. Qatar hosts the Central
Command. Saudi Arabia still hopes that Saddam will just
go - into exile. Egypt cannot but let American ships
pass through the Suez canal, while Egyptian President
Hosni Mubarak, however, has warn of the emergence of "a
hundred Bin Ladens". Jordan sits on a perilous fence.
And Syria - along with Persian Iran - will do what it
takes not to help an American occupation of Iraq.
(©2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights
reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com
for information on our sales and syndication policies.)
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