Ayman El-Amir examines the implications of the US's victory over Saddam Hussein The battle for the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, as US President George W Bush has put it, seems to be over, having demonstrated America's military might but a doubtful political victory. Bands of Iraqis in Basra and Baghdad celebrated the Anglo- American victory by going on a looting rampage. If this marks a temporary breakdown of law and order on the street, it is probably a precursor to the chaotic international situation that will prevail in the aftermath of the war on Iraq, with serious consequences for the Middle East region. Few people in Iraq or the Arab region will pine over the downfall of Saddam Hussein and his regime, as the toppling of his imposing statue in central Baghdad symbolised yesterday. However, the anti-war protests that swept the world prior to and during the military campaign were not so much in support of the Iraqi ruler as in opposition to the use of force to unseat regimes that are unpopular to the US. For a world that pledged to abandon the threat or the use of force to achieve political ends, and enshrined that principle in the Charter of the United Nations, this is an ominous turn of events. The Anglo-American campaign against Iraq is a leaf out of the Bush doctrine's book of launching preemptive strikes against countries that are believed to be a threat to the US, as it was enunciated in the autumn of last year. Before its adoption, the doctrine was first tested in Afghanistan in 2001, following the suicidal attack on the twin towers of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon building on 11 September. The successful campaign against Afghanistan was tempting and that model is now being applied in Iraq, where the Bush administration might eventually install an "interim administration" headed by Ahmed Chalabi -- an Iraqi National Congress leader with close ties to the Pentagon. The campaign against Iraq may soon be over, but resistance will continue, not out of love for Saddam Hussein, but because the Anglo-American war machine will always be perceived as one of invaders, not liberators. That is why the British, more than the US administration, seem to be anxious to get out of Iraq sooner than later. What the American condition has confirmed is that might is right simply because it is more effective in achieving political objectives. That is why the US's Vice-President Dick Cheney and the warlords at the Pentagon considered the pursuit of diplomacy through the United Nations a waste of time. After all, the objective was not to prove or disprove that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, but to change the regime and establish a springboard for gradual control of the unruly Middle East region. But in a world where the balance of power is lop- sided in favour of one superpower that is guided by its own myopic interests, terrorism becomes the equaliser. So, for those who see in American hegemony a threat to their national identity or value systems, and where there is no recourse to international law or the enfeebled United Nations, terrorism becomes the defensive shield of the weak. It will be exercised accordingly. The US's view of the world is still 'embedded' in the Reagan administration's definition of allies and rogue states. After 11 September, this was further enhanced by the anti-terrorism doctrine of, "if you are not with us, you are against us." This question was put to Syria like a Democlean sword by Secretary of State Colin Powell, because of its expressed sympathy with the plight of the Iraqi people. Terrorism is still the stamp the US administration has put on Palestinian resistance against the Israeli occupation. Halfway through the military campaign against the Iraqi president, Bush, at the behest of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, reiterated his commitment to the so-called "roadmap" that is purported to be the panacea for the settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The problem is that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is reluctant to allow the Palestinians to have anything close to a token state of their own. He is supported unconditionally by key officials in the Bush administration. If the Palestinians do not accept the minuscule state that would be offered to them, and find in armed resistance the only recourse to justice, they will be branded as terrorists, which throws the whole issue back to square one. The Palestinian problem would then be in danger of changing from the right to a viable state to another fight against terrorism. Israel is poised to be the key ally, the umpire and the US's viceroy in the Arab region. A number of Arab states will breathe a sigh of relief that Saddam Hussein's regime, if not his person, will soon be gone. They have thrown their lot in with US policy, and offered their territories as staging grounds for the US's onslaught on Iraq, in the hope of gaining a most-favoured-ally status that would keep their regimes in power. They misjudge an American policy that does not mix friendship with interests. The US still believes that unpopular and oppressive regimes in the Arab world are one of the causes of 11 September. The invasion of Iraq, the human cost and the destruction have put the writing on the wall for every regime in the region. The US may have won the war against Saddam Hussein, but it has opened up a Pandora's box that will spawn more problems than the ones it has set out to solve.
