The United States fumbles on in Iraq while challenges to its ready-made plans mount, writes Nadia El-Shazly* The situation in Iraq raises more questions than answers and Iraq's future seems hard to predict. Now, the US military has become edgy. Troops are stretched to the limit there and in Afghanistan, reminiscent of the later Vietnam War years. Photographs of US troops abusing prisoners inflamed world opinion. The occupation of Iraq has not decreased violence in the Middle East as terrorist attacks in North Africa, Saudi Arabia and Turkey demonstrate. US targets are more at risk not less. World empathy with the US after 11 September has dissolved. Plans for the democratisation of the Middle East are doubtful. And George W Bush's capacity to impose order is not evident, while his ratings continue to fall. On 1 July, authority will be ceded to unelected Iraqis. Fundamental political and economic issues remain obscure. A tug-of-war has begun over how much democracy Iraqis can handle. Bush says he wants elections, but not right now. He envisions a controlled process that would produce pro- American Iraqi officials. Meanwhile, after stating that the UN was irrelevant and censuring other states for opposing the 2003 invasion, America has sought the support of the international community to set up a transitional government and elections by January 2005. Bush needs partnership with the UN to diffuse charges of unilateralism and to share the blame if the Iraqi experiment fails. So how did the US reach such a precarious situation? It's obvious to most that the Bush administration looked for excuses -- not reasons -- for its war on Iraq. There was a conscious deception by a group of highly organised individuals who hijacked the American administration and put it on a collision course with the rest of the world. They manipulated the American public, its government and the media. This process involved "reverse engineering"; namely, working backwards towards their agenda -- the invasion of Iraq -- and finding the appropriate formula to justify the pre-agreed objective. The real reasons behind America's occupation of Iraq were first, to fulfil its imperial vision, project its military power around the oil-rich Gulf and Caspian basin by installing 120 bases from which to flex US muscle with Syria, Iran and others; second, position itself for the eventual fall of the Gulf sheikhdoms; and third, maintain OPEC on a dollar track. A second order of reasons lay in the promotion of the agenda of Israel, sometimes in conflict with US policy. Pro-Zionists, and ultimately the State of Israel, have great influence on America's economy, media and politics. US objectives in Iraq served Israel's strategic interests firstly in terms of controlling the exploration, production and export of oil by awarding contracts to companies with links to Israel and to members of the Bush administration; secondly, by weakening Iraq's military capability by replacing its armed forces with an impotent one; thirdly in establishing a new Arab base for the possible assimilation of 1948 Palestinians; fourthly, by re-designing Iraq's foreign policy, especially its relations with Israel; and finally, in helping Israel become the regional military and economic super-state. The intellectual architect of the war on Iraq was Paul Wolfowitz, whom the Israeli newspaper The Jerusalem Post recently named its "man of the year". Re-configuring the geopolitics of the Middle East entails what could be called "strategic engineering". It means the fragmenting of soft-target, strategically important states. Iraq represents an example par excellence, having been an economically, socially and militarily weakened pariah state. But it is one of the dominant regional actors, by virtue of its geo-strategic location, its human resources and its potential as an economic power. Iraq's oil reserves will enable it to become a powerful player in global energy markets. Iraq is complex ethnic and sectarian mosaic. With few exceptions, ethnic and religious identities are strongly felt by Iraqis. They think of themselves first as Arab or Kurd, Sunni or Shia, and members of this tribe or that clan -- then only as Iraqis. That is why the political vacuum in post- invasion Iraq was filled by religious leaders and tribal chiefs. With the excessive use of force by the occupation army, sectarian resentment has grown, as Falluja in April demonstrated. But the resistance is not united. The Sunni projected an image of a community fighting alone against a powerful, non-Muslim occupier -- which won them support among Arabs and Muslims. Most Kurds are represented by the Kurdistan Democratic Party or the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan; a division supported by a history of deadly feuds. Three Shia clerics contest leadership of their community: Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Husseini Al- Sistani, the most prominent religious figure for Iraqi Shia; Abdul-Aziz Al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and former member of the Interim Governing Council; and Moqtada Al-Sadr's, a young Shia leader whose following consists of the most deprived, mainly in Al-Sadr City, a Baghdad slum. Al-Sistani and Al-Hakim have not disapproved of the invasion. They hoped that Washington would establish a democratic government that would turn the Shia numerical majority into political power. Al-Sistani opposes the US political blueprint, and has demanded that Iraqis choose who will govern them. Al-Sadr is firmly anti-American, although his rhetoric had not widened his support until recently when Bremer -- oblivious of the political and military fallout -- banned his newspaper and arrested his aide. According to one observer, "no one could have hoped to plan so precisely alienating so many Iraqis, so fast, so deeply." A year ago, the coalition demobilised the army and police, leaving Iraq's borders unguarded, in turn allowing the infiltration of insurgents from neighbouring countries. Officials who were members of the Baath Party were dismissed. This created mass unemployment. A few weeks ago, both policies were reversed, and the coalition reinstated some Baath members and military personnel. Bremer had to back down on having caucuses in Iraq's 18 provinces to choose delegates from among themselves. Al- Sistani had insisted delegates be elected, thus putting the world's self-appointed "leading" democracy in a sticky position. To give the pretense of sovereignty and democracy, a US- picked Interim Governing Council (IGC) and a US- appointed cabinet were created, both of which were overruled by Bremer's veto. He had total executive, legislative and judicial powers. Courts of justice have not been independent, the human rights of Iraqis disrespected. What has been happening in "post-Saddam Iraq" cannot be described as democratisation. A leaked memo from Britain's Foreign Office blasts "heavy handed tactics" by the US military in Iraq and soldiers' abuse of prisoners. Far from serving as a model, the occupation of Iraq has led to widespread anti-American anger in the Arab and Muslim worlds, threatening regional stability. Iraq, overrun by the British in 1916, was controlled by Britain under a League of Nations mandate for the first half of the 20th century. With their eyes on oil, the British needed stability in the Gulf. Ruling the territories themselves was costly in terms of manpower and resources, so a new state was created in 1921. Given independence in 1932, it had limited sovereignty as British troops did not withdraw until 1955. Is history now being repeated? In 1922, Britain's political officer in Iraq wrote to the Foreign Office saying that Iraq was "ungovernable". Has US Chief Civil Administrator in Iraq L Paul Bremer fared any better? Will US Ambassador-designate to Iraq John Negroponte be any better? The Middle East is in a period of profound change and must adapt to internal and external challenges. US ambitions are now global. Its martial, political and economic power is unchallenged. But it has failed so far in imposing its culture. As America tries to impose Western-style democracy in Iraq and elsewhere, it may discover yet that homegrown ideologies, like Arab nationalism or political Islam, remain entrenched among the masses. Democratisation in Iraq could, ironically, breathe new life into them. * The writer is professor of political science at the American University in Cairo
