re Bush's new stance: hey zonder, five'll get you ten we don't hear any of that again after Bush gets his UNSC resolution.
Good analysis as usual from Barry Rubin:
The peril of promises you can't keep BY BARRY RUBIN
Whether or not the United States ever actually invades Iraq, threatening to do so has proven a very successful policy.
While Bush has been ridiculed in the European press and attacked in much of the Arab media, the level of support he has gained for his strategy in the Middle East has been phenomenal.
Every Gulf Arab kingdom, except Saudi Arabia, has moved to a closer military relationship with the US. Together with Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman have all participated in joint maneuvers with the US and this despite the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In Kuwait, there is considerable, though not universal, enthusiasm for attacking Iraq and putting an end to Saddam's threat forever. Even Yemen, in recent years Iraq's most reliable Arab ally, has succumbed to US aid offers to fight terrorism and train its army.
Abdullah al-Asnaj, an adviser to Yemen's president, has just written an article listing the many disastrous deeds done by Saddam and calling on him to resign.
Equally remarkable is the position taken by Iran, which would like to see the US eliminate its greatest enemy, though not strengthen its power in the area. At any rate, Iranian officials have stated that if American planes were to overfly Iran by accident during an anti-Iraq operation, they would accept it.
This is as close as Teheran is going to come to endorsing a US attack on its neighbor.
The Saudi attitude is more cautious. As even the US Council on Foreign Relations publishes a report showing past Saudi contributions to Osama bin Laden's operation, Saudis are still claiming the only reason Americans are angry at them is because of misleading Zionist propaganda. There is clearly a still-unresolved debate within the Saudi royal family on whether to cooperate with the US effort.
One new idea that might soften Saudi opposition: Once Saddam is gone they can request a withdrawal of most US forces from the area, thus turning a US attack into a way of arguably strengthening rather than undermining Arab sovereignty.
At present the Saudis' stance is that they will participate only if there is a UN resolution accepting military action. But such a resolution seems closer to realization than might have been thought possible six months ago.
There are negotiations over every detail of UN policy, with France, Russia, and China still trying to minimize the pressure on Iraq. Already there is agreement on renewing inspections, amid hints that Iraq will try to sabotage them again. If the US maneuvers well, Saddam might help Bush's case by alienating his own Western allies and furnishing a pretext for war.
Already, then, the Bush strategy has scored significant successes. It has again brought the Iraq issue to center-stage, prompted the toughest UN stance in several years, and brought a level of Gulf Arab support that would have been unthinkable a year ago.
Even if American troops never go to fight in Iraq one might think especially if they don't Bush's initiative has brought a considerable gain at very little cost so far.
This is still another proof of a set of lessons Western Middle East experts and journalists seem to reject without examining the evidence. These include the need to be willing to engage in tough action if one is going to have any influence in the Middle East. Equally, the only way to establish a coalition is if the UN is ready to take on tough leaderships.
Arab governments assess their interests and then act accordingly rather than wait to be ordered around by the "Arab street." The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is no barrier for Arab governments in taking actions they deem necessary.
WHAT GIVES cause for concern, however, is that administration officials seem to favor a long-term, post-Saddam US presence in Iraq in order to ensure the emergence of a stable and democratic state. In the long term, such an approach might turn a military victory into a political defeat.
After all, a clear US victory would be achieved if the US could overturn Saddam, get rid of weapons of mass destruction, uncover documents showing its charges against Iraq's regime are accurate, put into place a more representative government, and then get out. Under these circumstances all Arab states would have to deal with Iraq's new government and none could charge it was a US puppet.
Other Arabs, and Iranians as well, would see how the US helped Iraq's people and wonder whether more democracy and struggles against local dictatorships might better their lot as well.
In contrast, a long-term American presence would involve the US in all sorts of local, factional, communal and personal quarrels. Every time it took one side, another side would get angry. Those whom the US did not support would use demagoguery, Arab nationalism, Islamism, and anti-Americanism to promote their cause. If America promised too much or stayed too long, it could once again snatch political defeat from the jaws of military victory.
The truth is that such a pattern has emerged in Afghanistan, arguably a much harder country to govern than Iraq. The regime established when the US overthrew the Taliban has become increasingly isolated in terms of political support and geographical reach. To cite one example, if the US helps the warlords, it becomes responsible for their depredations; but if it opposes them, they will treat it as an enemy.
By pledging to bring democracy and prosperity to Afghanistan, the US is making promises it cannot keep.
Hopefully, it will not pay a heavy price for such failings in future.
jpost.com |
