Though the Arab resistance must continue to challenge occupation, it would do well to reassess its tactics, writes Amr Elchoubaki* The Americans will not be leaving Iraq tomorrow or anywhere in the foreseeable future. It is also clear that the resistance to the occupation will continue, whether through force or dialogue, until the Iraqi people obtain their independence. It is further apparent that the US occupation will have repercussions on the entire region. Washington is currently seeking to secure its hold on Iraq in a manner that will obviate direct confrontation between the US presence and the Iraqi people. The creation of an interim council endowed with certain administrative powers represents such an attempt -- one that was clearly motivated by the rise of the Iraqi resistance. Simultaneously, the US administration has attempted to link it to supporters of Saddam Hussein so as to debilitate and undermine the legitimacy of the resistance. And, instead of hunting down the leaders of the mysterious clique, as it did with Mullah Omar and Bin Laden in Afghanistan, it feels it more expedient to leave them at large so as to be able to unleash the spectre of Saddam in order to keep the rancour against the occupation in check. If it is difficult to pin the entire resistance movement on Saddam, it is nevertheless possible to establish a link between some guerrilla operations and some vestiges of the former regime. It is this reality that the US has been confronting by withdrawing from some Iraqi cities after putting in place local administrations to run them. While this tactic may succeed in defeating Saddam loyalists who are still active underground, it will not defeat the peaceful resistance being waged by broad sectors of the Iraqi people, who have begun to feel that their problems are still not being solved and that they are being excluded from having a say in the shape of their government. Peaceful resistance presents by far the most formidable danger to US occupation of Iraq. The movement has no connection to the former regime. It does, however, express the growing rancour against the occupation authority and it has the potential to evolve into an armed movement of massive proportions in the event that the demands of the Iraqi people remain unanswered. Perhaps the only way this tide will recede is if Washington initiates a new "political project" that Iraqis view as legitimate. So far there is no such project. Indeed, it is doubtful that thinking in the White House had ever seriously looked beyond the policy of warfare to consider the post-war phase. What the US does have for Iraq, however, is a plan to set the political stage so as to be able to determine who the legitimate players are. Consequently, the US, which considers Islamists, Arab nationalists and a goodly segment of liberals out of the game, will remain incapable of promoting a viable democratic project for Iraq, as that would risk bringing to power forces not only hostile to the US presence in Iraq but to US policy, in general, and its schemes for the Arab world in the aftermath of 11 September. The US dilemma in Iraq is that it cannot leave until it has eliminated or neutralised all opposing trends and ideologies. As such a task is impossible, the longer it pursues it, the more it will antagonise popular resistance. Moreover, it appears that the US has compounded its dilemma by deferring inclusion of its allies from the former Iraqi opposition in the political game, until such time that it can arrange a special "playground" in which these forces will be better poised to follow through on instructions from Washington. Washington's unwillingness to hand Iraq over to its Iraqi allies stems from the belief that they would be unable to stand up to the challenges they would confront domestically and in the Arab world. These may be ideal allies, in that they believe that Iraq should embark on normalisation with Israel and a strong alliance with the US, and in that they reject the ideology of Arabism and favour the ideology of economic, before political, liberalism. However, they stand little chance of gaining legitimacy among the Iraqi public as long as that public does not perceive progress in Palestine. In view of Washington's complicity with the extremist government of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, it is doubtful whether the US will be able to engineer the birth of a pro-American elite that enjoys a modicum of popularity in Iraq. Nevertheless, the US, however dismal its schemes for the region, has in its favour the fact that it attempts to be dynamic and has the flexibility to change its policies and tactics. The same, unfortunately, cannot be said of the Arab resistance which, albeit motivated by some very worthwhile goals, is very narrow and rigid in its tactical outlook, relying, in general, on the most violent forms of resistance. Washington, today, is working to pave the way for the eventual rise to power in Iraq of its pre-selected elite by changing the face of the Palestinian situation and by improving day-to-day conditions for the Iraqi people. If the Iraqi double resistance to Saddam Hussein and to foreign occupation, which represents the outlook of the majority of the Iraqi people, is to succeed, it must develop a modern political programme capable of ensuring its assimilation into the Iraqi polity, in spite of Washington's exclusivist desires, and dynamic enough to promote an agenda for a new democratic Arab Iraq through peaceful means. Above all, it should develop means of peaceful resistance towards these ends, and bear it firmly in mind that armed resistance should remain a last resort to be tapped in the event the US occupation continues, rather than an aim in itself. * The writer is a political analyst at the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies.
