Many countries have a strong sense of the risks involved if Washington continues to go solo in Iraq without a clear plan of action.
Civil war in Iraq?; pressure on U.S. to alter post-Saddam scenario; 'Photojournalism is dead. Long live photojournalism!'; and more.
Edward M. Gomez, special to SF Gate Thursday, September 4, 2003
American commentators aren't the only ones who regard last Friday's explosion outside a mosque in Najaf, which killed more than 80 people, including Shiite cleric Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, as a hugely destabilizing threat to the U.S. occupying forces' already shaky administration of Iraq.
"[A] few years from now, we may look back on the bombing that killed Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim as a pivotal event that tipped the balance towards civil war and the disintegration of Iraq," British journalist Brian Whitaker wrote in The Guardian. Whitaker had met the ayatollah in person last October in Iran, where the religious leader had lived in exile for more than 20 years before returning to Iraq in May.
Noting that Baqir al-Hakim had long served, in exile, as head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the leading Shiite political organization, Whitaker added, "The killing of Ayatollah al-Hakim, the country's most prominent Shia cleric, has been likened to murdering the pope, but it's more serious than that, because popes these days have little real influence. A better comparison would be the murder of the Austrian archduke that sparked the First World War."
On Sunday, more than 300,000 Shiite Muslims gathered in Baghdad to kick off a 124-mile march to Najaf to attend funeral services for the slain cleric. The ayatollah's brother, Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, himself an imam, told the crowd, "The occupation troops that have taken this country by force are responsible for security and for all the blood that has been shed in Najaf, Baghdad, Mossoul and all the Iraqi provinces." (Le Monde)
While that kind of rhetoric sounds like fuel for further discord, the good news for the Americans has been that, just before they set up Iraq's "interim government," Baqir al-Hakim "permitted the Supreme Islamic Revolutionary Council's participation [in it]. His murder, it seems, will not alter the group's decision to participate in [it]." (Ha'aretz) However, his assassination "and the attempt to kill his uncle, Mohammed Sa'id al-Hakim, and the murder of Abed al-Majid Al-Huawi (an important Shia figure who returned from exile in London in May), threaten Iraq with a bloody civil war." (Ha'aretz)
The situation in Iraq has become "similar to that in Palestine," the Beirut-based Revue du Liban editorialized. "The Bush administration has made moderate forces fall to the advantage of extremist and fundamentalist forces." Recent bloody attacks in Iraq, the Lebanese newspaper said, "have thrown into relief the big responsibility of the American occupation [forces], which cannot be disguised by poorly timed statements issued by President Bush from his ranch or by his defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld." Sweeping across history and geography, it warned that "a situation has emerged progressively [in Iraq] that is similar to that of Vietnam."
In the region, Saudi Arabia's King Fahd tried to soothe tempers by reaffirming that his country "is keen on preaching the great values of Islam through enabling mosques to advocate values of justice, tolerance and cooperation among the people." (Albawaba)
Similarly, the Arab News, based in Saudi Arabia, warned rumor mongers who have suggested that recent violence in Iraq might be linked to the kingdom to "put up or shut up."
On Tuesday, as hundreds of thousands of mourners were gathering in Najaf for Baqir al-Hakim's funeral services, another bombing damaged the offices of the U.S.-backed police force in Baghdad. (The Age) About the escalating violence and fractiousness, which the Americans appeared unable to prevent or contain, The Guardian's Brian Whitaker observed, "The danger here is not just that Iraq will plunge into civil war, but that the warring elements will find sponsorship from neighboring countries, with all the attendant risks of a region-wide conflict."
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Given the quagmire Iraq has become for the United States, loud calls are now being heard overseas for a new approach to the ever-worsening post-Saddam scenario. So far, no government or organization has put forth a comprehensive plan to deal with the chaos, but some central themes are emerging in what could be called alternative approaches to the Iraq problem.
Lebanon's Daily Star called on Washington to display a more collaborative spirit. "The world is hesitant to help the United States police an occupied Iraq and achieve elusive 'security,'" the paper editorialized. "But that same world is also anxious to work with the U.S. and all Iraqis to bring about a condition where the rule of law provides the foundation for normal political and economic life."
It warned, though, that Washington's "long-term aims and short-term methods to administer Iraq are more ambiguous than they need to be." The Lebanese daily chastised Bush's men for "say[ing] one moment that they wish only for the Iraqi people to determine their own government system and leaders," then turning around and emphasizing that "some Iraqis cannot participate in this process." The risk? That the United States "will remain both a favorite and an available whipping boy that will be blamed for everything that goes wrong in the country. The Najaf bombing tragically confirms this point."
Conservative columnist Daniel Pipes (Jerusalem Post, registration required) said the time has come for countries serious about fighting terrorism "to acknowledge the ideology of militant Islam" as a core component of international terrorism today. To ignore it, he said, only "makes it harder to prosecute the war" against terrorism. This realization must be kept in mind with regard to Iraq, Pipes argued, because, "[p]aradoxically, [for militant Islamic terrorists,] their biggest loss was in Afghanistan and their biggest gain [has been] in Iraq. In Afghanistan, they lost the Taliban regime and the safe haven it provided. In Iraq, the fall of Saddam Hussein and the new presence of 200,000 Westerners in a situation of semi-anarchy offers unwanted opportunities to establish a militant Islamic order."
Commentator Gamil Mattar (Al-Ahram, Egypt) recalled that many Arabs regard the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian war as central to any understanding of unrest in the Middle East and to possible motives for radical-Islamic violence. Thus, "hawks in the U.S. government, who take decisions or encourage the president to take decisions that are humiliating to the Arabs and Muslims," should realize that such policies "reinforce the significance of the why-do-they-hate-us question" that nags so many Americans. Mattar's message (and another factor for Washington to consider in dealing with Iraq): that "Arabs are not asking America to love them, but just to give them enough time to prove that, if fairly treated, they are likely to reciprocate."
Similarly, a Gulf News editorial (United Arab Emirates) strongly recommended that "more authority should go to the Iraqis with immediate effect, and the American forces should give way as soon as possible to an international force run by the United Nations, even if it includes U.S. forces."
French President Jacques Chirac called for the same action. "The transfer of power and sovereignty to Iraqis themselves is the only realistic option," he said late last week. (Reuters/Jordan Times) A plan French government officials are drawing up probably "goes beyond what Washington seems ready to accept," though. "Hardest to swallow could be its implicit conclusion that U.S. policy until now has been a failure."
Recognizing the value of other players in post-Saddam Iraq, commentator Hassan Tahsin (Arab News, Kuwait) wrote that the United States, as a "single superpower steering the world, is very dangerous and will create many conflicts as a result of [its] bias toward Israel and double dealing in regional issues. What is happening today is evidence of this. Peace in the Middle East has been elusive because of America's bias toward Israel and the threats directed at all Arab regimes, as well as Iran and Pakistan."
Many countries have a strong sense of the risks involved if Washington continues to go solo in Iraq without a clear plan of action. "Europeans will also lose if the Americans fail," Die Zeit predicted. "For in Iraq, more is at stake than the injured vanity of the go-it-aloners. The world's rascals, small and large, are looking eagerly to Baghdad." The way things stand now, the paper said, "[a] disaster there would be their triumph, and only America would be left to deal with the aftermath."
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