Baghdad today is testament to the shattering of US illusions in the region, but indicative, also, of terrible storms and oceans ahead, writes Hassan Nafaa* This week marked the fourth anniversary of another catastrophe that hit the Arab world: the fall of Baghdad and the American military occupation of a major Arab country. Since the repercussions of that event and the events it set into motion are still taking their pernicious toll, the effects of which will take a long time to remedy given the necessary resolve and persistence to do so, conscientious forces have little alternative but to dry their tears, rise above their pain and set into motion a process of honest and objective reassessment. Only then will we derive the lessons that, hopefully, will enable us to avoid the types of mistakes that will expose the Arab world to new and even greater calamities. Four years down the road from its invasion and occupation of Iraq, the US appears not only incapable of achieving a conclusive victory but also incapable of remaining in Iraq long enough to achieve half of what it set out to do. The withdrawal of American forces is now but a matter of time, which some take to signal the beginning of the end of the US- Zionist enterprise in the region. Yet what matters here is not the beginning of the end, or even the actual end of this project, but the aftermath upon which is pinned the hope of the birth of a new Iraq robustly interconnected with the rest of its Arab environment. Because it is impossible to envision a strong Arab world without the presence of Iraq, rescuing that country from its current plight and safeguarding its territorial integrity and Arab identity are the first steps towards the establishment of an Arab-Islamic alternative to the American-Israeli regional venture. Unfortunately, however, although we are now just beginning to glimpse the end of the American occupation, it is still impossible to discern a single sign that Iraq will survive as a country capable of picking itself up again in one piece and making a healthy recovery. Moreover, the withdrawal of American forces may not necessarily mean that the American- Zionist project will have thrown in the towel. Withdrawal may be no more than a tactic, a chance to regroup and then lash out again using different means to accomplish the same ends but via different targets. They may well have resigned themselves to losing the battle but resolved to win the war. It is deeply disturbing that the forces in Iraq and elsewhere in the region that contributed directly or indirectly to breaking the back of the American occupation have no clear vision of what a new Iraq should look like and how it should order its regional and international alliances in the future. Nor can they control any of the factors that would safeguard the unity of Iraq and ensure its stability after withdrawal. Officials and patriotic forces in Iraq and elsewhere in the Arab world should, therefore, be on guard to the likelihood that the end of the American occupation will usher in a phase that could be equally -- if not more --dangerous in its repercussions, and they would be wise to begin, immediately, to develop a new mode of working together so that they can form alliances and take the appropriate and effective precautions to prevent the slide into new conflicts. An honest assessment of Iraq from the invasion to the present will help dispel a good many illusions, a whole set of which concern the US. Take, for example, that entire body of literature that insisted that democratic countries behave in a more civilised manner than others; that they acted more responsibly and in keeping with the law. This theory, often used to justify tolerating nuclear weapons in the hands of certain pro-Western nations as opposed to others, sank to its ignominious end in the Iraqi quagmire. The world has seen how a diabolical clique of thugs, like the neo- conservatives in the White House, seized upon a combination of events and international circumstances to commandeer the decision-making process in, ostensibly, the most democratic nation on earth, and then turned the enormous military and economic machinery of that nation towards the perpetration of one of the most horrendous crimes of humanity ever. The current American administration, controlled by a band of ideological zealots no less dangerous than the Nazis, displayed nothing but utter contempt for democracy, the rule of law and universally cherished humanitarian morals. It launched an unprovoked war against an independent nation, against the will of the international community and without a UN mandate, and it blatantly lied, forged documents and falsified information every step along the way. However poorly calculated it was, this was not so much war as it was an act of premeditated armed robbery of unprecedented magnitude and whose toll in innocent human lives and wounded and displaced persons ranges into the millions. Add to this Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and the illegal detentions and systematic torture practiced in other secret prisons and you realise how vast the distance is between the ideological rhetoric that trumpets democracy, the rule of law and respect for human rights and the actual practices of the administration that paraded beneath this rhetoric. If those who perpetrated these atrocities and crimes against humanity are not brought to account before the international criminal court, then why exactly was that court established? Another illusion that has not quite vanished yet, but probably will do so soon, has to do with the mutability of US foreign policy. Bush's bungling in Iraq was largely responsible for the defeat of the Republican Party in the mid-term congressional elections. Some take this as a sign of an immanent revolution in US foreign policy, and towards the Middle East in particular. I don't. The Democratic opponents to the policies of the current administration are motivated less by moral qualms than by electoral considerations. Opinion polls, in keeping with a culture that hates losers and cheers winners, have swung heavily against Bush. Nor should we forget that the recommendations of the Baker- Hamilton report that Bush so foolishly snubbed reflect a bipartisan consensus. Otherwise put the Democrats are running with a tide of opinion shaped primarily by the American money and lives that have been poured down the drain in Iraq (so far some 3,500 troops have died in this war, 25,000 were wounded and a total of three trillion dollars has been spent on the war). There will undoubtedly, therefore, be some change in US policy towards the Middle East but it is difficult to envision radical change. Whatever policy the Democrats advocate, it is bound to be pragmatic. For example, channels of dialogue with Syria and Iran may open up. Ultimately, however, US Middle East policy will run up against two obstacles: Israel's interests as marketed by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and the difficulty of the terrain due to the intricate interrelations between the situation in Iraq and the situations in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria and Iran. Because the horizon offers no prospect of a White House -- whether Democrat or Republican -- capable of handling such complex portfolio with the necessary adroitness, foresight and resolve, the chances are that the US, swayed by the pressures and manipulations of the Zionist lobby, will opt for a solution that for it would be lukewarm, such as withdrawal within the framework of a partitioned Iraq, but what would be for the Middle East a gateway to new and multiplying lines of confrontation. The illusions about Iraq that have burst in Iraq -- or for Iraq -- are too many to count. Here, I would like to focus on one: the illusion of "victory" claimed by some of the factions that have taken up arms against the occupation, each of which has its own plans for the future of Iraq. There is a big difference between defeating the occupier and ensuring that Iraq comes out the victor. Many factors made the defeat of the US possible. Foremost among them were the miscalculations and mistakes made by the Bush administration and the US armed forces on the ground. This by no means, of course, is intended to belittle the steadfastness of the resistance and the untold sacrifices of those who bore arms against the occupation and the many others who resisted the American project for Iraq by other means. However, it is one thing to direct one's energies at a common enemy, it is quite another to rally them around the goal of making Iraq whole and healthy after the enemy leaves. This is what is so difficult to envision when so many parties are working in accordance with their separate agendas. If Iraqis do not come to terms with the fact that the road ahead is extremely precarious and will require from them a common vision, a spirit of tolerance and a readiness to compromise, then they will not be able to transform the defeat of the occupier into a victory for Iraq. A victory for Iraq can only be achieved when the people dedicated to it agree upon a concept for a unified government -- federal if need be, but along geographic as opposed to ethnic or sectarian lines -- and a democratic order, but a democracy founded upon the concept of citizenship as opposed to a system of denominational quotas. Finally, other nations in the region have had their own illusions that bit the dust in Iraq. Here I would like to focus on that belief entertained by certain powers in the region that Iraq presented a historic opportunity to redraw the geopolitical map and tilt strategic balances in their favour. The Arab world currently appears caught between two regional projects, one Israeli, the other Iranian. They even share certain characteristics. Israel's undeclared but certain strategy is to fragment the region into petty sectarian entities that it hopes will confer on the Zionist enterprise the legitimacy it still seeks and that will elevate Israel to the cornerstone of a new regional order as the maestro in residence whose task it is to orchestrate developments and secure Western interests. The Iranian strategy, although the degree of unanimity behind it Tehran is uncertain, is to capitalise on the current situation in the Middle East in the hope of fulfilling the dream of reviving the Persian Empire, even if this drive derives its impetus and means from a blend of Islamic fundamentalism and specifically Shia beliefs. Both designs -- the one that is actually on the drawing board and the other that may not have made it to that phase yet -- are the concoctions of fantasy, but dangerous fantasies which could have the power to plunge the region into an endless morass of conflict and warfare. Already both are intent upon fanning sectarian tensions, the one by igniting fears of a "Shia crescent" led by Iran, and the other by raving against the "Sunni sea" led by Arabs in open or secret collusion with the Zionist project. This latter, which poses the greatest threat to the region, is poised to capitalise on all wedges driven into the Arab world, with its Muslims and Christians, and into the Islamic world, with its Muslims and Shia. Therefore, this is the historic juncture that calls not for further fantasy, but for reconciliation between Sunni and Shia, not in Iraq alone, but across the Islamic world. It is also time for reconciliation at the level of the Arab-Islamic world, in the hope of bringing Iran and Turkey and the Arab states together within the framework of a strategy to resist the Zionist project. * The writer is a professor of political science at Cairo University.
