The Democrats have promised to change the US policy in Iraq. But what will change on the ground and when, questions Ayman El-Amir* The Democrats have taken Washington by storm. As the newly-elected members of Congress savour victory, they now have to face up to the challenge of the morning after, which is what to do with the United States war in Iraq. Domestic issues and scandals aside, the mid-term congressional elections generally reflected overwhelming voter dissatisfaction with President George W Bush's handling of foreign policy. As the case in Vietnam was 34 years ago, the war in Iraq has become the principal foreign policy issue that turned into a national US nightmare. However, the exulting Democrats will also find out that the US's predicament reaches far beyond Iraq, and on to the wider Middle East that was destined to be reshaped by the Bush administration. After 43 months of defiance, the Bush administration has finally seen the light. Like Tennessee William's cat, it cannot stay on the Iraqi hot tin roof, nor can it jump off. Instead, it jettisoned Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld as a welcome concession to the Democrats. And, with the body-bags coming home from Iraq in increasing numbers, President Bush is willing to talk change of tactics. But the new majority of Democrats prefer a quick, preferably bi-partisan exit strategy. The rhetoric is no longer "staying the course", but it is not "cut and run" either, although all sides recognise that a phased withdrawal of the 150,000 US troops is inevitable. The question is how soon, and what can be done to contain the damage, not just in Iraq but in the wider Middle East. The US, its self-styled war on terror and its regional alliances thus face a daunting task. By now, the US public has forgotten the reasons given by the Bush administration for the invasion. Was it the search for weapons of mass destruction that Saddam Hussein had stockpiled? Was it the elimination of Saddam himself? Or was it to make Iraq the central front for the global war on terrorism? Most likely, it was to mould Iraq into a democratic model for the rest of Middle Eastern countries to emulate. Like the proverbial Phoenix, a new, democratic and pro-American Middle East was supposed to emerge from the fire of "constructive chaos" that the Evangelical neo-cons in Washington had ignited. Whatever it was, the invasion of Iraq has touched off a fire storm in the Middle East that will defy the best efforts and weapons of the US and its allies. The legacy of the US war in Iraq is dismal. For one thing, the country has turned from united secular autocracy into divided sectarian anarchy. From all sides, the taste of ethnic power and separatist economic interest has unleashed insatiable savagery. The government of Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki is incapable of controlling anything beyond its offices in the US-fortified Green Zone. An Iraq divided along sectarian lines and economic interests has emerged and will be hard to coalesce. With the Kurds eyeing a historical opportunity for virtual independence, and with Iran recognising the impact of its power politics, neither re- Baathification nor the reconstitution of the disbanded Iraqi army will restore law and order, even in a federated, let alone united, Iraq. The US has sown the seeds of tribalism and is reaping unabated violence. Islamic jihadists who had temporarily been disrupted in Afghanistan by the US bombing campaign five years ago, have now found a new home in Iraq. They are not only indistinguishable from the Iraqi national resistance against the US as an occupying power, but also have become more sophisticated and more lethal. This accounts for the rising US military toll in Iraq. Whatever tactics the US will use to camouflage its phased withdrawal from Iraq, whatever military arrangements it may leave behind in Iraq or in other countries of the region, the disparate forces of nationalist resistance and hardcore fundamentalists will not fail to laud a US defeat. Without abandoning the ongoing struggle in Iraq, they will move on to their next target: US surrogate regimes in the region. The latter will institute more draconian measures to curb the surge of terrorism, thus tightening the grip of their police states and compromising the democratic process that the US had trumpeted for the new Middle East. It did not take long for the tug-of-war to start between Bush and the newly-elected Democratic legislators. Leaders of the new majority that will assume power on Capitol Hill in January have made no secret of their intentions. These are comprised of a change of Iraq policy direction, and the phased withdrawal of US troops, due to begin in the next four to six months. President Bush has proclaimed no change of strategy and no timetable for withdrawal, at least not publicly, until the Iraqis are able to take charge of their own security. In the estimate of US field commanders, this would take between 12-18 months at best. It has been rightly noted by analysts that in dealing with the contentious Iraq war issue, both sides are posturing for the 2008 presidential elections, for which campaigning will start next year. The Republicans do not want to go to the elections as a party hobbled by sex scandals, corruption, failed social security, taxation and healthcare policies. All of these have been topped by the costly debacle in Iraq, and the war on terrorism. On the other hand, the Democrats, who will now hold the purse strings that could curtail the executive powers of the president, do not want to be painted by the Republicans as the party that pulled the plug on the men in uniform in Iraq by holding up military spending appropriations. So, a compromise policy that does not change the inevitable result may have to be worked out by the bi-partisan Iraq Study Group. The latter is co-chaired by former secretary of state James Baker III and former Congressman Lee Hamilton, and is scheduled to lay out its recommendations early next year. But all this is domestic politicking that has little bearing on the wider implications of a perceived US defeat in Iraq. Other world powers like Russia, China and France who watched from the sidelines as the US and Britain sank deeper into the quagmire, are now ready to fill in the vacuum with reconstruction aid and oil development projects for an energy hungry world. However, future US policy in the region, and those of its Arab allies that gave it logistical support, staging grounds, rights of passage and airspace to invade Iraq, will have little success if they do not acknowledge the leading role of Iran as a new power player in the region. Iran, the alleged historical inventor of chess, is ready for another game. It seems willing to work towards ensuring security and stability in Iraq, the Gulf and Middle East regions, but not under the thumb of US hegemony. Iran and other international power players are getting a foothold in the Middle East/Gulf because of oil and strategic interests. They will demand fair play and resist any US monopoly. To guarantee their interests they will seek security and stability, not disruptive policies or hot-beds of war. This will bring into sharper focus the crux of the matter: the need for a just and lasting settlement of the Palestinian- Israeli conflict. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert went to Washington to seek renewed guarantees from both the Bush administration and the elected Democrats that regional Israeli supremacy, as an extension of US hegemony, would continue unchallenged. He will demand that genocidal Israeli policies of ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians will continue to be viewed through the prism of the war against terrorism. He will also seek to energise a more belligerent opposition to Iran's nuclear ambitions, now that Rumsfeld, the chief architect of all wars, has been ousted. The Palestinian problem has been seriously eroded through Arab impotence and US blessing of Israeli policies that seek to turn the Palestinian people into another historical case of American Indians. Only a few days ago John Bolton, US ambassador to the United Nations and one of the last few dinosaurs of Bush's neo-cons, cast a veto in the Security Council to block a draft resolution condemning the Israeli murder of 19 Palestinian civilians in Beit Hanoun, in what Israeli Prime Minister Olmert called "a technical error." Of the 81 recorded US vetoes in the Security Council, 41 were cast to block criticism of Israeli actions that would qualify as war crimes under the Geneva Conventions. Many lessons about the limits of power will be learned from the botched up Anglo- American misadventure in Iraq. A fundamental review of US policy in the Middle East will need to be undertaken. Since there are new partners, players, allies and enemies, an international conference on the Middle East needs to be organised. International and regional powers, including Iran, the Arabs, the Israelis and the Palestinians will have to be represented on equal footing. At the tail- end of the Vietnam War, the US negotiated with North Vietnam and the Vietcong around the same table. At the twilight of that war, hundreds of rescue-seekers gathered on the rooftop of the US embassy in Saigon to get a foothold on the last helicopter taking off. Bush's neo-cons should not miss the same opportunity in Baghdad. * The writer is former Al-Ahram corespondent in Washington, DC. He also served as director of United Nations Radio and Television in New York.
