The Status of the United
States in the Arab World after the Third Gulf War
Raphael Israeli
At first glance, the end of the third Gulf
War is not in sight. (The first was the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War and the second –
the 1990-1991 Kuwait War.) It seems as if the hopes of world public opinion
regarding the realization of the declared objectives of the war, the luster of
the gloried heroes who sparked and guided it to the apex of its success has
waned ever since, apparently, the mountain has become a molehill and the
anticipated results were not achieved. It is not only the prophets of doom, who
from the beginning adamantly opposed the American war initiative, and are, no
doubt, contentedly smiling at the sight of the vanquished Americans licking
their wounds, but even some of those erstwhile resolute supporters – are
penitent in hindsight, as if in a hurry to admit their failure and fall into
line with the blinded pessimists who predicted failure and defeat.
However, both are relying on the declared
objectives of the war, objectives, which have never ceased to change and
redefine themselves as the war effort became more and more complicated, as if we
were dealing with some enjoyable picnic rather than an expensive and cumbersome
bloody war. With the exception of some rather simplistic pipe dreams that with
the ouster of the Iraqi dictator, an exemplary democracy would be established in
Babylon, a complicated system of weighty and momentous considerations was at
hand here, which if they had been even partially realized, they would have
transformed the face of the entire Middle East.
These considerations related to a number of
areas: The first: Oil, upon whose uninterrupted supply the United States, like
the rest of its Western allies, is dependent in order to sustain its military,
economic and cultural hegemony over the global world; the second, the matter of
weapons of mass destruction, which was the primary pretext for the war; the
third, the issue of world terrorism, which the United States set out to combat
after September 11, 2001; and another issue is the strategic standing of the
United States and its allies in the contemporary Middle East.
A condition for dealing with all these was
the liquidation of Saddam Hussein’s three-decade old dictatorial regime. Below
we will examine these issues one by one, based on the author’s just published
book on this topic.1
The Oil Factor
It is well known that the primitive Saudi
monarchy was the beneficiary of an indulgent attitude on the part of the Western
powers, who dared not protest its oppression of its citizens in general and the
women in particular; they dared not embarrass it for the dissemination of Wahabi
fundamentalism throughout the world by its emissaries and through its funding;
they averted their glance from its generous support of terrorist organizations
like Hamas, which has wreaked havoc upon us, until that terrorism struck the
West directly. Then talk of baseless and hopeless “reforms” began, which could
ostensibly alleviate those strikes. And all this is due to the concern, the
terror, actually, of a threat against the stability of the oil-rich kingdom,
which, if threatened, heaven forbid, is liable to halt production of the black
gold in its belly. This kingdom, which belongs to a corrupt cadre of princes and
relies on Wahabi clerics and does not draw its power from popular legitimacy -
is only able to perpetuate its fragile existence due to the United States’
military presence there and its willingness, as in 1990, to transport a half a
million soldiers around the world in order to save that irreplaceable source of
oil.
However, meanwhile the outbreak of
fundamentalist Islam transpired, which is partially the protégé of the United
States from the days of the Cold War and the war in Afghanistan (1979-1989) in
which it was vital for the United States to erode the power of the Soviet rival
there, to the extent that they ignored the fact that with the demise of world
communism, fundamentalist Islam developed into the latest threat to the West.
The frequent attacks on the remaining American bases in Saudi Arabia after the
withdrawal of its Salvation Army from the 1991 war, increasingly convinced the
American government that Saudi Arabia is an unreliable ally and that it is
feasible that over time the cost of defending it and the increased danger
involved in doing so, will exceed the benefit derived from it. In the entire
oil-rich Gulf region, only Iraq can be considered an alternative source of black
gold. Although due to the adversity of war, corruption and UN sanctions, Iraq
has reached only approximately half of its potential production. However, with
American management, overhaul of production equipment and investment in the
development of new wells, especially in the Rumeilleh fields in the south, Iraqi
production will double and approach Saudi capacity.
Along with the other troubles, which befell
the American agenda vis-à-vis Iraq, which after the war’s successful
offensive stage (March-April 2004) we are witness to the repeated detonation of
oil pipelines by the Saddam-loyalist rebels or external Islamic elements and the
cessation of the production and export of Iraqi oil under American supervision.
The rebels aspire to obstruct the realization of the United States’
agenda in Iraq, which includes funding the fantastic sums, estimated to be in
the tens of billions of dollars, required to cover the cost of the war, the
occupation the rebuilding and the development. It is also no wonder that a large
number of those obstructers are tied directly to Islamic fundamentals at the
behest of al Qa`idah or independent of it, which strive to oust the
United States and its allies from both Saudi Arabia and from the Iraqi
alternative, which the Americans are attempting to construct. America has no
ready alternative other than neighboring Iran, which because of its cultivation
of its nuclear power is becoming a strategic threat to the United States and
Israel, which we will discuss below. Therefore, the United States will do
everything it can to remain in Iraq, in control of the oilfields even after they
are forced to lower their public profile in the Iraqi cities after the January
2005 elections and the transfer of nominal rule to the Iraqis.
Weapons of Mass Destruction
This matter was no empty pretext when the
Americans went to war over it. Although everyone is “celebrating” the failure of
the United States to clearly display it as primary evidence of its existence,
which would justify its intervention a posteriori, there is no
doubt that the basis was valid and the lack of its apprehension does not prove
its lack of existence. In any court of law, a criminal would be convicted based
on the murdered corpses, traces of blood, circumstantial evidence, witness
testimony, shell casings, even if the guns, which fired “disappeared” from the
arena or were intentionally concealed by the murderer or his accomplices and
mercenaries. The proof is abundant for anyone who bothers to look into the
findings, piece them together and present them as a whole, even if we don’t have
a smoking gun. It is as if one would claim that since a nuclear bomb was not
found in the streets of Hiroshima, there is no proof that it was dropped on the
city.
This is a key conclusion to understanding
the whole process of the United States’ entanglement in the war and the huge
responsibility, which it took upon itself in terms of the region and in terms of
history – to defuse the ticking time bomb in time, for if they were to fail to
do so everything was liable to go up in smoke and cost us our existence.
First of all, we were aware of the tyrant’s
intention, which he proudly declared repeatedly – to develop nuclear, biological
and chemical weapons, which had already been tested and used to destroy 8,000
unfortunate Kurds and countless other Iranian citizens in the horrific conflict
of the first Gulf War; in addition the fear of Saddam Hussein’s declaration that
he would burn half of the State of Israel with that weaponry affected us, unless
one might claim that he was only kidding or that the Kurds and the Iranians were
incinerated and asphyxiated by perfume fumes, or that the Iraqi reactor
destroyed by Israel in June 1980 was a phony plant. The only remaining question
is, what did happen to all of the materials, which he had in his possession and
did not manage to utilize them, and therefore UN demanded an answer for a decade
and he evaded giving that answer, and in 1988 he even expelled the observers
when they approached the answer on their own. It is strange to be afraid to open
empty warehouses or to simply respond that the materials were destroyed, where,
when and by whom, if they were indeed destroyed.
Secondly, the UN observers, and especially
their heads – first the Swedish Eckaus and then the Australian Butler –
remained, even in the midst of the war, firm in their belief that Saddam
assembled for himself stockpiles upon stockpiles of prohibited weapons, and
miraculously concealed them. Only after the war was imminent and the danger of
disclosure was genuine, did the dictator order to destroy that which could be
destroyed without leaving a trace, to conceal that which could be concealed and
to transfer the rest to neighboring and more distant countries, until the danger
passed. Movement of trucks and ships was spotted and identified in the months
preceding the war, and afterward, subterranean stockpiles of suspicious
materials were revealed. If assets like a MIG-29 could be hidden in the sands of
the Iraqi desert – consider what else could have been concealed there and yet to
have been discovered. In the area of the city Karbala alone, a secret storehouse
was found with an area of many square kilometers, which contained hundreds of
deep bunkers with hydraulic doors of steel, to which even generals testified
that they were denied access. These bunkers were discovered totally empty of
people and objects. Does any reasonable person really imagine that that
billion-dollar investment was for naught or in order to conceal the tyrant’s
harems?
And thirdly, barrels of chemical materials
as well as mobile laboratories for the production of chemical and biological
materials were discovered buried at hundreds of sites. True, those materials can
be utilized for other, civilian and harmless, purposes such as fertilizers and
raw materials for industry. However, if that was their purpose, why were they
concealed? Why prevent the UN observers from tracing them if they are beyond
reproach? And why were the fertilizer plants active throughout the week, while
on weekends the production lines were changed for the production of lethal
chemical poison, from the same materials, from which fertilizers were produced
during the week? UN researchers pointed out this duality, which the Iraqis
turned into an art form, in order to conceal the prohibited production under the
innocent guise of civilian production. Add to that the incomplete records of
dangerous materials, which had gone missing – these are all ongoing suspicious
patterns of action for a decade, and their revelation by those responsible for
production who were taken captive – and there are clear indications, direct and
indirect, which attest to the existence of the materials from which weapons of
mass destruction were, or at least could have been produced and placed under the
command of a cruel ruler who did not hesitate to make use of them even against
his own citizens and all the more so against others.
World Terrorism
Weapons of mass destruction and world
terrorism were two of the obvious causes, which concerned the United States to
the degree that they saw no alternative to war. A less obvious cause was
Israel’s concern over the years, due both to Saddam’s direct support of the
Palestinian terrorist organizations, which included, among other things,
generous payments to the families of the Islamikazes2
and due to the fact that, in his madness, he sent the citizens of Israel to
their bomb shelters on more than one occasion, to don their grotesque gas masks
on their faces. The confluence of interests between Israel and its great ally
was so complete that in certain circles around the world, the suspicion arose
that it was Israel, which pressed the United States to go to war. In other
words, if the United States was the only country, which shared Israel’s concern
over the ghastly weapons in Saddam’s possession ever since the 1991 Gulf War,
after the United States was forced, against its will, into a defensive position
vis-à-vis world terrorism in the wake of September 2001, its total
identity of objectives with Israel became a fait accompli. Thus it was also the
intelligence and strategic cooperation, which developed at the time and the
vigorous American patronage over us, which led to joint, detailed political
planning, for better and for worse, including the matter of disengagement.
Obviously, beyond the Israeli interest in
Middle Eastern terrorist organizations, which pose a direct threat to us, the
United States is also concerned about global terrorist organizations, which are
considered threats to its security. And it had plenty of reasons to be
concerned: Ties between Iraqi intelligence and bin Laden’s organization, which
included clandestine meetings in various European and Arab capitals, the refuge,
which many notorious terrorists, Arab and others, found in Baghdad and the
generous funding from Saddam’s coffers for terrorist organizations, which
challenged both Israel and the United States.
However, most of all, the United States was
troubled by the operational presence of various terrorist organizations
throughout Iraq, like the international training camp located south of Baghdad
in which there was a model of a jumbo jet in which terrorists trained in the
hijacking of planes and above all – the base of Ansar al-Islam, a small,
dangerous band, which drew its roots and philosophy from al Qai`dah and
was situated on the Iran-Iraq border, adjacent to the Kurdish region in the
north, from which they could escape to either side of the border in times of
trouble. According to information, which accumulated, chemical and biological
weapons were experimented on animals and appalling videotapes, which could not
have met the approval of the ASPCA, were distributed. Therefore, immediately at
the start of the war, the American air force completely destroyed that enclave
and in a joint ground offensive with the Kurds, stormed its remains and
confiscated much incriminating documentation.
When the primary stage of the war
concluded, terrorism remained the primary obstacle to achieving its objectives,
and an ultimate test of American determination. Officially the claim cannot be
made that the continuing acts of hostility against American soldiers are
terrorist acts as long as they are directed against coalition soldiers who
constitute a legitimate target during the continued fighting. However, the
organizations, which persist in stubborn combat, whether consisting of the
vestiges of Saddam’s forces or of infiltrators from outside of Iraq with a
different agenda than that of the Americans, are spreading terror and panic
among Iraqi citizens, who constitute most of their victims, and have
legitimately earned the appellation “terrorists”. The terrorism problem – which
means that the Americans and their minions cannot rule as they would like –
places the entire strategy upon which the war was based in doubt and displays
for all to see that even if the United States crushed the Iraqi army, with
enormous power and lightning speed, and won the battle uncontested – the
continued shedding of its blood and the questions, which it raises, shifts one’s
focus to the question, who, ultimately won the war. In other words, anything
short of a great and decisive American victory will, in the long term, undermine
the war on world terrorism.
The Strategic Place of the United States
In the American war calculations, Iraq was
not only supposed to replace Saudi Arabia as an oil supplier in the long term,
and in any case to minimize Saudi leverage by means of its control over the
alternative Iraqi reserves, but it was also supposed to improve the strategic
positions of the United States. The presence of four elite combat divisions,
with enormous air and sea support in the heart of Iraq, provides America with
several extreme advantages in the region all at once, beyond securing its own
direct interests. The very deployment of those forces on the continent
guarantees the immediacy of American intervention if the need arises, without
the exhausting delays involved in collecting the forces, which was its plight in
the previous Gulf War as well as before the invasion of Iraq. The upshot is that
from now on the American Central Command, located in Qatar, can deploy forces
for battle immediately, and their presence nearby is enough to render their
deployment unnecessary. Ironically, Qatar is also the place where the great
leader of fundamental Islam, which conspires against the West, the august sheik,
revered by all radical Islamic circles – Yusuf Kardawi.
These forces provide the United States a
hegemonic advantage in all of the surrounding fronts.
-
On the Saudi front the Americans
achieve an advantage in that they are no longer dependent on the mercy of
Saudi Arabia to enable them to utilize bases for deployment of their forces,
due to their concerns of their fragile ally, lest others say that they
assisted invaders of a sister country. However, it is primarily in revolt
against the United States’ dependence on the Saudis, which in the past,
allowed them to extort prices as they pleased in the Palestinian and
inter-Arab chess game.
-
On the Kuwaiti front – This
country has become an American protectorate, for all intents and purposes,
both because of its oil reserves and due to its total subservience to American
needs during the war, when it enabled the concentration of all invasion forces
in its territory. And since no Arab country will forget Kuwait’s treachery, it
will require American guarantees and protection for the foreseeable future.
The proximate presence of American forces is the clearest indication that woe
unto anyone who dares touch Kuwait.
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The Syrian Front is very
problematic and multifaceted: On the one hand even after the collapse of the
Iraqi Ba`ath Party, the ultra-nationalist Syrian Ba`ath Party remains the next
American rival in the region. It is aware of this, and therefore is careful to
avoid provocations. In addition, the long, easily crossed, desert border
between it and Iraq, enabled the emergency evacuation of the weapons of mass
destruction from Iraq in time and also aided the flight of Iraqi personalities
and capital outside the borders of Iraq during the fall and also enables the
massive penetration of Islamic infiltrators, who are streaming from all over
the world for the opportunity to confront the American occupation forces in
the overheated Iraqi arena. America has a long account to settle with Syria:
Its continued support of terrorist organizations based in Damascus, rejection
of American settlement proposals, which almost culminated with the evacuation
of the Golan during the Barak administration and its double dealing –
supporting the Hezbullah in Lebanon on the one hand and declarations of
“fighting terrorism” on the other. Syria is aware of the fact that it is
liable to be chosen as the next link in the strategic, American anti-terrorist
game, proof of which is the law, which was passed in Congress, which is
prepared to implement commercial and other sanctions against Damascus if it
doesn’t change its ways. Therefore, Syria has been prepared for this for a
while, because they are aware of the fact that they are guilty of terrorism.
Thus, its unwanted American neighbors in Iraq, clearly transmit the message
that the threat against its regime is no longer theoretical and distant, but
rather it is immediate and nearby.
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Jordan, the small, weak neighbor,
which was prepared to absorb the war refugees in its territory, emerged as the
real loser from the struggle as thanks to the cheap oil, which the tyrant from
Baghdad supplied it in exchange for use of the port of Aqaba, this poor,
convulsive country was able to manage. America repaid it handsomely for its
support for the policy of the allies, and Jordan views with more than a little
trepidation what the future holds, especially if the United States is cast out
of the region in humiliation.
-
Iran is also no small problem.
Iran is the closest to the Iraqi situation, especially among the Shi`ites who
were exiled there under its patronage during Saddam’s regime. It is so
involved in Iraqi affairs, especially the internal battles between the various
factions, that it is always on the brink of an open confrontation with the
United States, its new neighbor to the west, which overlooks it without much
joy. Iran is also developing nuclear weapons and it is close to confrontation
with the entire western world over it, therefore the proximity of the United
States army to its borders is an annoyance. Above all, its membership in the
“Club of Villainy”, where it was placed by President Bush, cannot help but to
cause them to lose sleep as one of the certain candidates to be on the
receiving end of the next American anti-terrorist strike. It does not want to
see the end of its dream of Gulf hegemony, now that its rival Iraq has been
defeated and crushed and a stronger, larger more threatening power arose
instead.
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Turkey, too, the unchallenged ally
for 50 years, which was the central pillar and primary land and air base in
the previous war, sees itself suddenly marginalized and threatened.
Marginalized – because, as opposed to the planning of the war, which
envisioned the opening of an invasion front north of the Turkish border, which
would force Saddam to
divide his forces, the new, Islamic, Adroyan government refused to
permit the landing and passage of American forces in its territory. If Saudi
Arabia was able to do so and get away with it, why not Turkey? Thus the
Americans were forced to completely change their war plans, with the active
involvement of the Kurds, who this time saw an opportunity to transform their
treaty with the Americans into an impetus to achieve independence, or at least
broad autonomy. And threatened – because there is nothing that causes the
Turks to shudder more than symbols of Kurdish independence.
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And finally – Israel, the only one
to derive total enjoyment, with no dangers and threats, with no price and no
cost, from the great changes engendered by the war. Because the substantial,
immediate danger posed by the power of the Iraqi dictator has dissipated for a
long time, as any government, which will arise in its wake will not dare to
place weapons of mass destruction at the top of its list of priorities for the
foreseeable future. American presence in the region also deters the other
nations seeking to harm Israel, like Syria and Iran, even if at times the
Jewish State will be forced to walk to the beat of the American drummer and
capitulate to American policy, which strives to display balance without
favoritism.
The Liquidation of the Tyrant’s Regime
The removal of Saddam, which was a
necessary precondition for all of the other upheavals to transpire, will
undoubtedly remain the primary accomplishment of the war, whatever the final
resolution turns out to be. It will also be the longest lasting accomplishment,
which everyone will celebrate, each for his own reason. The continued conduct of
the United States and its determined stance, despite the terrorism and the cost,
which is rising daily, will determine the fate of the war and whether or not it
was worthwhile. The opportunity/danger that the Bush regime will be replaced in
the coming elections is liable to provide a “respectable” way out of the war,
whose significance is not always appreciated by public opinion. However, then
America is liable to pay, in the long run, a strategic price if it does not
sustain the accomplishments, which it has achieved to date. Not only will its
credibility and its ability to enforce policy be compromised, but also the war
on world terrorism, which will pursue it to its doorstep. Israel cannot avoid
being negatively affected by that frightening development, because it will once
again stand alone in the wide-ranging conflict with the region’s bullies, who
will no longer be intimidated by the United States.
Endnotes
|
1 |
Raphael
Israeli: The Iraq War: Hidden agendas and Babyponian Intrigue, Sussex
Academic Press, 2004. |
|
2 |
The term “Islamikaze” was coined by thus author (a combination of
Islam and the Japanese kamikaze of World War II in order to point to the
conceptual inappropriateness of the commonly used “suicide bombers”). See:
Raphael Israeli, Islamikaze: Manifestations of Islamic Martyrology,
Frank Cass, London, 2003. |
