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Down the path of
confrontation
By Ehsan Ahrari
As
President George W Bush has renewed his
confrontational rhetoric toward Iran and Syria
during his State of the Union speech, four major
questions loom over the horizon of the Middle
East. Three of those questions are about Iraq's
near-term future, and the fourth one is about Iran
and Syria.
Thinking about Iraq's long-term
future is a fruitless exercise at this point.
Keeping that reality in mind, here are the three
questions. First, what kind of government will
come to power? Second, will that new government
ask the US to leave? Third, is there any organized
Sunni response to what is generally regarded as a
government dominated by Shi'ites? The fourth
question, and one which is uppermost in the
international community, is whether Iran and Syria
are likely to be targeted for the next round of
confrontation?
The United
Iraqi Alliance (UIA), an alliance of Shi'ite political
parties as well as independent Shi'ite candidates,
claimed on Wednesday that its slate had won more than 50%
of votes cast for the transitional National
Assembly. At the same time, it declared that it
would refrain from installing clerics in the new
government. This was an important gesture of the
UIA to reassure its Sunni counterparts - and
Kurds - as well as secular Shi'ites that it would
not use its electoral power to establish an
Islamic government that resembles the one in
neighboring Iran. The UIA's current position is
based on its reading of what Shi'ite leader Grand
Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has been saying all
along: he does not want to establish a theocracy
in Iraq.
Unless the UIA's electoral claim
is officially proved, all its gestures regarding
the actual nature of the new government are not
that significant. Even if it wins a majority of
votes, it is still premature to postulate whether
clerics will be part of the new cabinet, since the
prime minister will select the cabinet with the
assembly's approval. However, the UIA's attempt to
soothe the fears of the Sunnis is quite thoughtful
and is likely to be well received, at least by the
Kurds, if the UIA indeed emerges as the dominant
party.
But whether the new government
will be Islamic or whether it will have strong or
weak leanings toward Iran are variables that are
not likely to surface convincingly in the near
future. No one is more aware of that reality than the
US, as its ability to control or even manage events
in Iraq is becoming increasingly shaky. What
also troubles Washington is that no Iraqi leader
who wishes to be envisaged as legitimate by
his countrymen would want to do anything that
would create a strong image of his dependence
or diffidence toward the US. His position
toward Islam is also likely to become very much part
and parcel of that litmus test of independence.
That is one reason all future Shi'ite leaders are
ritualistically reiterating Sistani's position
toward the separation of religion and politics.
Even the longevity of Sistani's preference
regarding the separation of religion and politics
in Iraq is questionable. No one should forget that
powerful Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is still
around and has very different ideas about the
place of Islam in Iraq. In addition, no one knows
how effective Iran will become in materializing
its own preferences regarding the role of Islam in
Iraq. All these variables will take time to play
themselves out.
The continued presence of
US forces in Iraq has already become a topic of
major wrangling in the United States. Senator Ted Kennedy,
a major critic of the invasion of Iraq, sent the
ball rolling by urging the Bush administration to
begin troop withdrawal. He said, "The elections in
Iraq this weekend provide an opportunity for a
fresh and honest approach. We need a new plan that
sets fair and realistic goals for self-government
in Iraq, and works with the Iraqi government on a
specific timetable for the honorable homecoming of
our forces." Bush rejected that suggestion;
however, the issue of phased redeployment of US
troops is not likely to fade away.
Examining the redeployment
of US troops from the present ground realities in
Iraq, it is very difficult to draw
a clear-cut conclusion either way without getting
overwhelmed about the consequences. Those who suggest that
the US troops should get out of Iraq because
they have become part of the problem
related to heightened instability, may not be thinking
about what other force would take its place. Troops
wearing the UN helmet have not exactly established
a record of serving as a credible force
in Bosnia or Africa in the recent past. Only a
military that would not hesitate from using force
would be a credible one in Iraq; and no one but US
troops fill that bill, and maybe British troops.
However, British troops
have shown their effectiveness as a supplemental force,
not as a force that would supplant the US
military. The sad irony is that by invading Iraq, the US
has made it a place where nothing but the presence of
US troops will result in stabilization, but even
so, that stabilization would be highly tenuous.
No other country or group of countries would
be effective. One cannot think of combined Arab forces,
since it is not possible to use such forces
to establish democracy in Iraq. How can those forces be
used to institute democracy in Iraq when
they themselves are coming from a
highly anti-democratic environment? Thus the
ultimate alternative becomes the continued presence of US
forces. That means there is not likely to be an end
to insurgency there.
There is little doubt
that the Sunnis will oppose Shi'ite-dominated
democracy in Iraq. The unknown variable is how far
they will go in opposing it. Will they wage an
all-out war against it by continuing to support
the insurgents? Considering the already-palpable
willingness of the Shi'ite groups to include
Sunnis in the future governmental arrangement,
there is high hope that cooler heads will prevail
on the Sunni side. The wild card is the role of
the insurgents. They will continue to wage an
all-out war from Sunni areas, thereby making Iraq
a place resembling hell.
Iran and
Syria: Watching and waiting
Iran has been
the focus of America's confrontational approach
throughout the past year. Now Syria has also
become a visible target. In the context of Bush's
State of the Union speech, what seems to be
bugging him is the role of these two countries in
the region. Syria has not been too cooperative in
terms of clamping down hard on trans-border
insurgency in Iraq. In addition, it remains an
occupying force of Lebanon, where Hezbollah, a
group that Iran also actively supports, has
continued to confront Israel.
Regarding
Syria, Bush said, "To promote peace in the broader
Middle East, we must confront regimes that
continue to harbor terrorists and pursue weapons
of mass murder. Syria still allows its territory,
and parts of Lebanon, to be used by terrorists who
seek to destroy every chance of peace in the
region. You [US Congress] have passed, and we are
applying, the Syrian Accountability Act - and we
expect the Syrian government to end all support
for terror and open the door to freedom."
Regarding Iran, he said, "Today, Iran remains the
world's primary state sponsor of terror - pursuing
nuclear weapons while depriving its people of the
freedom they seek and deserve. We are working with
European allies to make clear to the Iranian
regime that it must give up its uranium enrichment
program and any plutonium reprocessing, and end
its support for terror. And to the Iranian people,
I say tonight: As you stand for your own liberty,
America stands with you."
What is the
meaning of this continued confrontational posture
toward Iran and Syria? Apparently, the immediate
purpose regarding Iran is the resolution of the
nuclear issue, with the Damocles' sword of US
preemptive action hanging over the heads of that
country's rulers. Syria may be given a longer
leash, with increased diplomatic pressure for its
withdrawal from Lebanon in the coming months. The
US expectation is that an unoccupied Lebanon might
be able to control Hezbollah. At least for now,
that appears to be a wrong conclusion.
The
Bush administration's agenda for its second term, at
least the way it was spelled out in the president's State
of the Union speech, gives no reason for optimism
for the Middle East. It appears that the US has
not learned one major lesson from its ongoing
Iraqi debacle: the lone superpower cannot impose
democracy or stability from without and make it
grow. Thus far, Iraq has been proving that point.
If Washington is getting ready for more military
adventurism in Iran and Syria, then the world has
a lot to worry about: increased instability and
turbulence in the Middle East for at least the
next four years.
For the full text of the
State of the Union address, click here.
Ehsan Ahrari, PhD, is an
Alexandria, Virginia, US-based independent
strategic analyst.
(Copyright 2005
Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us for information on sales, syndication and republishing.) |
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