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No US escape from Iraq
trap
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
KARACHI -
With every passing week, the situation in Afghanistan
and Iraq becomes more testing for the United States as
the respective guerrilla wars in those countries
escalate, yet Washington has very different approaches
to dealing with them.
In
Afghanistan, where the resurgent Taliban continue to
make gains, the US appears to be committed to an exit
strategy that would allow it to pull out its troops as
soon as possible, provided that it could do so without too
much loss of face. In Iraq, however, despite mounting
casualties, Washington shows no signs of a possible
retreat, whatever the cost in both lives and money.
Both Afghanistan and Iraq were attacked
to effect regime change. The Taliban, in the case of
Afghanistan, were targeted as they openly hosted and
supported Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda, responsible
for the September 11 attacks on the US and other terror
acts. In Iraq, meanwhile, it was seen as crucial to
remove Saddam Hussein and establish a pliant government
as part of a broader strategy of remodeling the Middle
East to US designs, the spurious charges of weapons of
mass destruction against Saddam notwithstanding.
And in both cases the US military was
spectacularly successful, quickly driving the targets
from power. And in both countries, the resistance
movement has proved far tougher than expected. Yet the
responses in Washington have been very different.
According to sources in the European
intelligence apparatus who spoke to Asia Times Online,
the US will continue its efforts to raise more foreign
troops to help out in Iraq, or send more of its own if
it has to. The target is to man every locality and
neighborhood with soldiers to literally squeeze out the
guerrillas, and at the same time mount blanket search
and seize operations to track down hidden arms caches.
This will continue until the "war" is finally won.
In Afghanistan, though, as far as the US is
concerned, the war has already been won. The Taliban
have been "punished" for harboring al-Qaeda, and that
network has now been severely disrupted. All that
remains is to get out, as the US has little interest in
what happens to the country next. As such, it is
actively engaged in discussions with so-called
"moderate" Taliban to involve them in the Kabul
government, as this could result in bringing stability
to the country, and allow the US to depart gracefully.
According to the latest information, former
Taliban minister Abdul Wakeel Mutawakil, with US
support, is preparing to establish a political party to
participate in mainstream national politics, and through
which the religious segment of the country's Pashtuns
would be given strong representation in the capital.
However, the Taliban do not appear to be about
to split in any major way. Indeed, they continue to
regroup and gain footholds in the country, which is a
first in the history of Afghanistan as all former rulers
have ended up slain or in exile. Taliban chief Mullah
Omar is very much alive and orchestrating the
resistance. This is what is stopping the US from getting
out at present, and it is not beyond the realms of
possibility that in the not too distant future the US
will have to cut a deal with Mullah Omar.
In
Iraq, though, the US's goals go far beyond simple regime
change. The US set its feet in Iraq for multiple
inter-linked reasons. These include oil - to break the
monopoly of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries as a tool to effect change in the economic and
political dynamics of the whole Middle East, forcing
monarchs and dictators to introduce democratic reforms
which in turn would help curb extremist trends and roll
back the Islamic revolution of Iran and the Ba'athist
doctrines of Syria.
However, perhaps the US did
not anticipate what a blend of Ba'athist doctrines and
bin Laden rhetoric has done to Iraqi and Syrian
societies in the post-September 11 environment. This
correspondent has personally witnessed the almost
indoctrination-like effect of the philosophies of
Michel Aflaq (a Syrian Christian - born 1910 - who
founded the Arab Ba'ath Party) on Iraqi society. Aflaq
introduced the idea of Arab resurgence and dominance in
which he emphasized that Islam should be the basis of
unification of Arab societies, and called the Jews the
number one enemy.
These theories were embraced
by Saddam and his Ba'ath Party in Iraq. Saddam in fact
was a favorite of Aflaq, who was instrumental in having
Saddam elevated in the party hierarchy, from where he
was able to take full power. Saddam consistently played
the anti-Jews and anti-communist cards, and promoted a
special brand of Islam that only represents Arabs.
After September 11, the Ba'athist societies of
Syria and Iraq saw the emergence of a truce between
Islamists and the Ba'athists, who had previously been
arch rivals. It was for this reason that this
correspondent predicted before the Iraqi war the
emergence of a third force in Iraq in the shape of the
Muslim Brotherhood (A 'third force' awaits US in
Iraq - March 1) once the Ba'ath regime was
eliminated. This has happened, in the form of the Hizbul
Islami al-Iraqi (Islamic Party of Iraq), which sprouted
in Mosul in the north and spread rapidly. Under Saddam,
all literature of the Muslim Brotherhood was banned,
even for reference purposes.
The Muslim
Brotherhood is the oldest Islamist group in the Arab
world, founded as a religious and political organization
in 1928 in Egypt by Hasan al-Banna in opposition to
secular tendencies in Islamic nations and in search of a
return to the original precepts of the Koran.
It
grew rapidly, establishing an educational, economic,
military and political infrastructure in Egypt and then
in other countries, such as Syria, Sudan and Arab
nations, where it exists largely as a clandestine but
militant group, marked by its rejection of Western
influences.
This new alliance of two theories -
Ba'athist and Islamist as voiced by the Muslim
Brotherhood - is the most powerful stumbling block to
the US occupation of Iraq, as well as its designs on the
region, where the US will meet resistance from Shi'ite
Iran, Salafi (Wahhabi) threats in Saudi Arabia and
Ba'athist and militant threats in Syria.
These
forces have the potential to grow side-by-side with US
influence in the region, and challenge its designs as
well as its strategic interests. It is for this reason
that the decision-makers in Washington are convinced
that they have to make Iraq a decisive battlefield,
while in Afghanistan they can afford to simply walk
away.
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd.
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