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US and the
changing face of Iraq
By Syed Saleem
Shahzad
KARACHI - As the US-led Coalition
Provisional Authority struggles to restart business activity
in Iraq, it is coming increasingly clear that
as a matter of policy, most of the beneficiaries will be
US-led firms, while neighboring Arab countries look as
if they will be frozen out.
There is a strong belief in the
Arab world that post-Saddam Iraq was completely planned in
Washington as a country free to be shaped under
the US administration, culturally, politically and economically. Indeed, the shape
of the new governmental infrastructure is
a strong indication that traditional influences, whether of
the former Ba'athist regime or even from
opposition groups, will be kept at bay.
Likewise, in the field of commerce, the influence
of neighboring countries will not be permitted. The new
dominant influences are free trade and representative
democracy, which the Americans clearly expect to be
remarked upon in neighboring countries such as Saudi
Arabia, Kuwait and Syria.
The theme of the
new Iraq is thus very clear. It would be another outpost
of US interests in the region, or certainly another
US client state. The US obviously does not trust
local Iraqis who were bred and born under Saddam
Hussein. There is a feeling that the country was brainwashed
with Ba'athist theory. Ultimately more than 400,000
Iraqi civil servants have been sacked.
To replace the old
system, the Pentagon has developed an organization of
Iraqi exiles from the United States and Europe under the
rubric of the Iraqi Reconstruction Development Council
(IRDC). About 1,500 have returned to Iraq and are
assisting coalition authorities in running day-to-day
affairs in the ministries. They are helping the United
States to develop a new system more suited to Western
and US political philosophy.
For example, Hazim
Baker al-Suhail, previously in the Netherlands, came
back to Baghdad when the Saddam regime collapsed. He is
an adviser to the IRDC administration, working very
closely with the United States on various projects.
Speaking to Asia Times Online last Wednesday in Baghdad, Hazim
Baker agreed with the theory that US administration aims
to block neighboring countries' influence on
commerce.
"This is true, that the US aims to
promote its own companies' interests in Iraq and wants
to block the entry of neighboring countries in the
rebuilding process of Iraq," he said. "We see this
development as positive, as all Iraqi neighbors,
including Iran, Jordan and Syria, are only interested in
safeguarding their personal interests in Iraq. Countries
like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait always promote their
ideologies through their aid packages and NGOs
[non-governmental organizations]."
Obviously,
this US attitude toward the region has its drawbacks. A
Pakistani independent businessman who is associated with
US forces in the supply network maintained that the
prospects for clinching major business deals in Iraq are
clouded with uncertainty as Washington grapples with
governing the country without major regional influence.
"These notions have created bottlenecks in
contract awards and subsequently slowed down the process
of reconstruction," the businessman observed.
As
should probably be anticipated at this stage, most main
business activities concern contract awards to rebuild
the country. As a long-term priority, the northern
Kurdish region is being given a priority by the
coalition authority. According to the chief executive
officer of civilian affairs of the 404th Battalion of
the 101st Airborne Division, a team of engineers arrived
in Iraq about 10 days ago with plans to build an airport
in Sulemaniya as fast as possible. Once that is in
place, northern Iraq is expected to take a fairly good
share of Iraqi business activity.
However,
these developments apart, business activity is almost
entirely being planned by the coalition administration, led by
L Paul Bremer. A new legal framework has been
developed that critics complain would utterly discard any role
in reconstruction by Arab countries and keep
their influence at bay.
At a time when deals for
Iraqi business have just begun, the coalition authority
has begun to take steps that are a reflection of its bid
to block Middle Eastern economic influence. A contract
to build a mobile telephony system is the latest
example.
Under the auspices of
the US-led authority on July 31, a tender conference was
held in Amman for three Iraqi mobile-phone
licenses, potentially among the most lucrative contracts to be offered
in Iraq to date. One each is to be awarded for
Iraq's northern, central and southern regions. However, rules
laid down in the tender documents clearly suggest
that US authorities want no role for any Arab countries.
According to the tender documents, "No
government shall directly or indirectly own more than 5
percent of any single bidding company or single company
in the consortia." That single sentence bars all Arab
countries from the contract, because all of the
cellular-phone companies in the region are at least
partly owned by the governments of their respective
countries.
That paves the way to boot out such
companies as Kuwait MTC Vodafone, whose roaming services
also briefly worked in Baghdad and which was planning to
participate in the contract. The Kuwaiti government has
25 percent and thus would have to say goodbye to
Iraq.
Oil is a much more controversial issue. It
is generally perceived that the economic influx of the
oil-rich Middle Eastern countries is a sword over the
head of the US occupation because it automatically
brings in cultural and political considerations that
ultimately shot down the agenda of the colonial powers
in the region prior to World War II.
The US
presence and its hand on Iraq's oil resources were
already shocking news for such countries as Saudi Arabia
and Kuwait, which controlled the oil markets during the
period when Iraq was operating under sanctions.
News about the arrival of the first
crude-oil shipment to the United States from Iraq has
jolted Riyadh and Kuwait City. At present, Iraq's daily
oil output is only 1.1 million barrels, far below the
2.8 million barrels per day before the war. However,
the regional governments believe that as time passes, Iraq will
increase production and simply break the Arab states'
oil monopoly.
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online
Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for
information on our sales and syndication policies.)
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