Published in Maclean's Magazine, April 7, 2003 (edition date: April 14) London In the course of their assault on Iraq, U.S. and British commanders no doubt mulled over the old adage about winning the battle but losing the war. Their forebears proved this famously when they blasted away at each other at Bunker Hill in 1775. King George's redcoats defeated the uppity American colonists (an army of irregulars, history notes), but the British forces sustained heavy losses and looked vulnerable that day, presaging their ultimate defeat in the Revolutionary War at Yorktown six years later. Today in Iraq, the two former foes claim they're united in keeping their eyes on the immediate prize -- securing Iraq -- yet they seem blind to the threat of long term reverses, both political and military, in the region as a whole. Because despite having completely misread the volatile sympathies and allegiances of a predominantly Arab society trapped by war, the Bush administration (to the increasing dismay of its British ally) still plans to impose a U.S. military administration on the conquered land and its people. This 'Iraqi Interim Authority', under the ultimate command of General Tommy Franks, is to be led by a retired general, Jay Garner, who is a lightning rod of anti-American sentiment among Arabs and Muslims. In past, Garner has visited Jerusalem under the sponsorship of right-wing groups who believe the U.S. can project its power into the region by way of the Israeli state and military. Three years ago, he lent his name to a statement by the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs blaming Palestinians for the outbreak of violence in Israel. "In the context of the roadmap for peace," one British cabinet source told Maclean's this week, referring to the long-delayed Bush initiative on the Middle East, "the general represents a pretty substantial sleeping policeman (Britspeak for speed bump). The Prime Minister is determined not to let this kind of obstacle get in the way after the war." Which is why both Tony Blair and foreign secretary Jack Straw have spoken loudly and often, this past week, about the need to place the administration of post-war Iraq in the hands of Iraqis as soon as possible -- preferably under U.N. auspices from the start. Blair foresees a three stage approach, with a brief interim military authority followed swiftly by a transitional Iraqi body that would draft a constitution, making way, finally, for an elected Iraqi government. However soothing this may sound to western ears, to many Arabs and Muslims it smacks of arrogance and hegemony. The Bush administration turns a deaf ear to such criticism, insisting that the U.S. alone will be the overseer of the first stages of the process -- and for an unspecified period of time, possibly two years (though the White House has allowed that a U.N. "coordinator" may be added at some point, and granted limited, symbolic powers). There's no question, however, about who's to be the new boss of Baghdad: Jay Garner. "The whole idea -- people find it really hard to swallow," says Mustapha Karkouti, an elected council member of Britain's Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA). "I don't see how Garner can be accepted as a respected governor as far as the Arab people are concerned, particularly the Palestinians but also the Iraqis. People in the region won't just take this lying down. Certainly they will resist, they will defend, and this U.S. policy will end with tragedy throughout the Middle East." International affairs specialists, too, warn that even as the Bushites strengthen their military grasp on Iraq, Shi'ites and Sunnis from neighboring states -- and around the world -- are forging an unpredictable, and potentially very powerful, new unity. Says Prof. Paul Rogers of the University of Bradford's School of Peace Studies: "Essentially we're beginning to see a pan-Arab movement in support of the Iraqis, not in support of Saddam Hussein, but in the support of an Arab state, which is perceived to be under attack and soon to be subjected to foreign occupation. At root, the sanctions process and war have turned the Iraqi people against the Americans in particular. Yet they persist with Garner. It is unbelievable -- they're setting themselves up for 30 years of strife. That's how long the Gulf oil reserves are likely to provide security for the U.S. and other states." However grim, the prospect of war causing greater, not less, instability in the Gulf is not without precedent: this is, after all, Gulf War Two; it was the troubled aftermath of the 1991 conflict that condemned Iraq and its people to this bloody sequel. If that isn't enough to redflag the dangers of ignoring the realities of the land and its people, say strategic studies specialists, what about the experience of the past two weeks ? In particular the breathtaking underestimation by U.S. war planners of the Iraqi peoples' will to resist, or to turn a cold shoulder to their supposed "liberators." Tony Blair, for one, seems to be awakening to the dangers ahead, say his critics, but only after being drawn too far down a warpath mapped by doctrinal hawks in Washington. Says Rogers: "It's as though he did not really see the security neo-conservatives for what they are, coupled with a real desire to preserve the transatlantic relationship as an absolute key part of British foreign policy. But it also comes down to Tony Blair's almost messianic view of the world, which in some ways has very good points on issues like development and controlling climate change, but has severe weaknesses when he sees things in very simple terms of good and evil. One has to understand that the neo-conservatives are a very unusual breed. They have no real recognition that the majority world, and Arabs in particular, simply see things in a different way." And that's true of establishment, not just militant, Arabs. Dr. Fadhil Chalabi, director of the Centre for Global Energy Studies in London, was Saddam Hussein's acting oil minister in the 1970's, and went on to become the deputy head of OPEC for 11 years. Having quit Saddam's regime in 1991 and moved to Britain, he now says some elements of the American reconstruction plan hold merit. "Before this matter came to the fore," he told Maclean's, "I was supporting the idea that part of the Iraq oil industry should be privatized in order to bring in as much money and investment for the country and for the people as possible. Partial privatization could speed up expansion of the oil industry and reconstruction of the country, and I believe it will benefit the economy." But under Jay Garner's supervision ? Says Chalabi: "I can tell you one thing: Iraqis are very sensitive when it comes to being ruled by foreigners. Even those that are very much against Saddam would feel alienated if they were under the command of an American general. It is their (the Americans' and Britons') moral obligation to reconstruct the country, to help create a new society free of foreign domination and free of dictatorship. However, Iraqis hate to see the country occupied militarily, and I believe the Americans should understand this fact, and create conditions that don't make the Americans look like rulers." Given the labyrinthine complexities of Iraq's tribal and religious elites, it's not surprising that Dr. Chalabi, a one-time public servant of Saddam Hussein, and now a widely respected energy analyst, is also a distant cousin of the controversial opposition leader, Ahmed Chalabi. This latter Chalabi, of the Iraqi National Congress, is not only resented by many of his fellow citizens for lobbying to become the country's first post-Saddam Prime Minister, but is also at the centre of a battle between Donald Rumsfeld's neo-conservative hawks at the Pentagon and the more worldly officials of Colin Powell's State Department. Rumsfeld's camp wants a key role for Chalibi in Garner's regime, while the State department is resisting his inclusion, on the basis that less divisive figures would render the interim body more acceptable to the region and the wider world. To explain the U.S. plan, Secretary of State Colin Powell blitzed the conference halls of Brussels late last week, logging some 21 separate meetings with Russian, European Union and NATO foreign ministers. A number of European leaders openly acknowledged that their own fractured and ineffectual political union contributed to pre-war failures in consensus building at the United Nations. Almost to a nation, the ministers spoke of a desire to begin mending diplomatic fences. If there's one issue, however, that might frustrate those efforts even as they begin, it is the makeup of the post-war administration in Iraq. Germany's Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, for one, insists that the United Nations have a prominent role in shaping post-war Iraq. "How do you say 'Nein!' in Texan ?" quipped a British diplomat observing the Brussels talks. "Of course we, like the Germans and the French, will pound the table in the cause of international legitimacy, but it's American tanks making tracks into Baghdad. I doubt we'll make our presence felt for some time." Little wonder that there is no prospect yet for a Bonn-style U.N. summit to choose an Iraqi interim council, as in the case of Afghanistan in 2001. Instead, the Bush administration intends to promote up to 100 of it's own Iraqi candidates as advisers to Jay Garner's 23 American ministers. Secretary Rumsfeld is said to have demanded personal approval of each and every appointee; former C.I.A. director James Woolsey, another hawk, is tipped to become Iraq's new minister of information. This despite his advisory role with the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs -- a factor viewed as extremely provocative to Arabs. Says Mustapha Karkouti of the RIIA: "What the Americans are after is not to create democracies, but docilities. They want to set up docile governments, regimes that will say 'yes' to them and will not argue. There are people running the U.S. administration who really believe that they are part of the divine, God-given order -- they are the only people who can see the truth, nobody else." The Bush administration, meanwhile, points to the record-setting speed of it's armoured columns, and the humbling of once-vaunted Republican Guard divisions along the invasion routes, as proof that there are competent hands upon the wheel. But it will be the post-war world that will be the most telling test of U.S. strategies. And not just around the bargaining tables in Baghdad, Brussels or New York: defence analyst Rogers foresees an aggravated cycle of civil unrest in the Middle East -- and an upsurge in terrorism. "You can imagine that the Qaeda-type paramilitaries must be overjoyed. They no longer need to be going to America, because the Americans have come to them." |