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CounterPunch
October
28, 2002
Remapping the
Middle East
Whose War Is It This Time?
by NASEER ARURI
DEMONS AND
THREATS THROUGHOUT HISTORY
As the Bush Administration beats the war trumpets
against Iraq, a remarkable similarity can be discerned between
the Middle East today and eighty years ago. The important question
is whether the United States is likely to succeed in reshaping
the strategic landscape in this troubled region more than did
the British. There is a legacy of imperial domination, trickery,
un-kept promises, and double-speak, all of which have combined
to undermine the notion that any progress or healthy transformation,
could ever emanate from dealing with the West, be that at the
military, diplomatic, or economic levels.
Arab lands have been conquered military
and through diplomatic means under presumed peace conditions.
Military campaigns were disguised as humanitarian missions designed
to bring democracy and human rights to supposedly un-enlightened
and backward societies. In fact, during the past two centuries,
Western empires have mapped and re-mapped the Middle East repeatedly.
They appointed, promoted, demoted, and dethroned local leaders
to suit their strategic interests. One thing remained consistent
and was omnipresent in their successive attempts to readjust
borders and consolidate hegemonies: the availability of local
demons to justify the frequent strategic reshaping and remapping.
One hundred and seventy years ago, Mohamed
Ali of Egypt was declared a threat to free trade and was overthrown
in favor of weak successors. Four decades later, Ahmed Urabi
was removed from office and Egypt became a British occupied country
(1882). A long line of successors, who pursued an independent
course, provided the empire the necessary pretext to intervene.
All the way from Sa'ad Zaghlul during the First World War period,
to Saddam Hussein, with Rashid Ali Kilani, Nasser, Ben Bella,
and Qaddafi, in between, a sense of threat kept the West busy
fine tuning the empire to insure the perpetual dependency of
the natives. Irrespective of their level of rationality, the
Arab demons were declared a threat either to their own people,
to their neighbors, to regional; stability, to America's standard
of living or even to US national security, if not to the heart
of American cities. Nasser was declared a mad man bent on wanting
to throw the Jews in the sea. Reagan described Qaddafi as a mad
dog, a terrorist and a looney tune. George W. Bush described
Saddam Hussein as a "nuclear holy warrior."
The present build- up against Iraq can
be understood against the background of this imperial legacy.
It is time to reshape the empire, to reallocate power, including
"ending states," in the words of Paul Wolfowitz, and
not only to create "regime change." If the people of
the Arab world are incapable of effecting a circulation of elites,
we will do it for them. Never mind the tyrants, whom we created,
sponsored or kept in power to look after western interests-all
the way from Nuri al-Said in monarchical Iraq, to the Saudi dynasty,
the Hashemites, the Shah of Iran, Sadat and Mubarak. We treated
them just as we treated Marcos, Mobutu, Suharto, Pinochet and
the Vietnam generals. And we are prepared to depose them just
as we deposed Noriega, Diem and are now threatening to depose
Saddam. It may even be time to bring about a regime change in
our favorite countries such as Saudi Arabia and may be Egypt,
since their leaders are no longer presumed to be assets and became
liabilities. These two countries are likely to be destabilized
in the event of a war against Iraq.
EIGHT DECADES
OF IMPERIAL RE-SHUFFLING:
Fighting a war in Iraq has nothing to
do with weapons of mass destruction, but it has everything to
do with re-drawing maps and reallocating resources. It is not
untypical of the imperial reshuffling which has taken place
over the past eight decades. Let us review briefly eight principal
episodes during the past eight decades:
1. After World War I, the old empires-Britain
and France- carved up the region into spheres of influence in
blatant contradiction of solemn promises to grant the natives
independence. Instead of sovereignty, the Arab people were subjected
to a protectorate status or League of Nations mandates. Moreover,
the post-war re-mapping bestowed legitimacy on a colonial settler
movement, depriving the indigenous Palestinians of their right
to their land and their ancestral home.
2. The Second World War arrangements
brought additional suffering to the region as the destiny of
its people was linked to the competition between the two new
superpowers. Meanwhile, the new map showed the disappearance
of Palestine and the creation of Israel in its place, with immediate
blessings by the superpowers.
3. Less than a decade later, the old
empires challenged the new geo-political realities and tried
to reassert their hegemony. Britain and France, together with
Israel, invaded Egypt in 1956 trying to defeat Nasserism, which
promised the unity and independence, which eluded the Arabs after
WWI. They were ordered out of Egypt by the new superpower, not
out of love for Nasserism, or out of respect for Arab aspirations
for independence, but as an assertion of America's imperial role.
4. What Israel had failed to do, with
Anglo-French collusion in 1956, it was able to achieve eleven
years later, when it changed the maps of Egypt, Syria, Jordan
and Palestine in but six days. What had remained of Palestine
outside Israeli control in 1948 was conquered in 1967, making
the entire area laying between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean
an exclusively Jewish colonial state. Meanwhile, the 15 year-
old achievements of Nasserism would be undermined in accordance
with US wishes. The three components including Arab unity, Arab
socialism and non-alignment, seen as a threat by Washington,
were largely removed from the agenda by Israel's proxy war, which
anticipated the Nixon doctrine: "We (US) provide the hose
and water, while they (our Vietnamese, Iranian and Israeli surrogates)
provide the firemen."
The problem with that strategy was the inability of the Iranian
surrogate to carry out its duties or to even survive. With the
demise of the Shah, the US concluded that its empire-building
in the Middle East requires direct intervention to augment the
proxy role.
5. The 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon
was a typical proxy action coordinated with the US, as Carter
had revealed. The mutual goals were: A) to redraw the political
map of Lebanon. B) to pre-empt a Palestinian state-in-formation.
C) to reduce Syria to manageable proportions. Two of these goals
were foiled by a determined Lebanese resistance, while the third
relating to the Palestinians, had resulted in shifting the center
of gravity to the inside, hence the 1987 Intifada.
Meanwhile, Saddam's Iraq was aspiring
to become a US surrogate when it invaded America's nemesis, Iran,
and was rewarded with generous agricultural credit and a delivery
of biological material by none other than Rumsfeld. Ironically,
we have to rely on new friends such as Robert Novak and Senator
Byrd for such privileged information.
Much to his surprise, the gullible Iraqi
tyrant was not able to meet America's requirements for proxies.
His ill-fated attack on Kuwait was to bring about a painful
reminder that an ambitious third world leader cannot possibly
be accepted by the lone super power as a pace setter in the strategic
gulf.
6. Hence, America's strategy to deal
such a crippling blow to Iraq and its potential, irrespective
of its leadership, in order not only to reassert its imperial
role in the region vis a vis Arabs and Muslims, but to convey
to Israel that the serious business of collective security in
the region belongs to the superpower. Political talks and the
future remapping can only take place at an international conference
where even Israel would have to come to terms with its 1967 occupation,
despite their strategic alliance.
7. The Bush I strategy was discarded
when his successor Clinton adopted the two-pronged policy of
pursuing the Oslo charade in Palestine, and containment in Iraq,
which, to-gather, turned out to be nothing more than an interlude
awaiting the second Bush.
8. With Bush II in power, the father's
strategy was abandoned in Iraq and Palestine. The Oslo process
was allowed to die, while containment and coalition became passé.
Instead, Sharon, the war criminal "cum man of peace"
boards the Bush train of anti-terror, while Sharon's allies in
Washington's think tanks and the civilian defense establishment
begin to plan the next war and the next remapping. The lone voice
in the Bush I administration for coalition, Colin Powell, has
been silenced. Harry Belafonte described him as the slave whose
privilege of living in the master's house is dependent on good
behavior; otherwise he would be banished to the plantation.
BUSH'S WORLD
VIEW AND THE REAL AIMS OF HIS WAR:
Bush I's concept of coalition and the
semblance of multilateralism has become a relic of the past in
the White House of Bush I, whose neo-conservative/Zionist mentors
have the greatest contempt for such constraints. When the threat
was finally real on 9/11, the what- to- do became easier to justify
and undertake. The fear and danger associated with it seem to
have elevated pre-emption into a moral principle.
Containment now belongs to a by-gone
era. It is passé for the Wolfowitzs and Perles of the
world. Their world and that of their "boss" is a Hobbesian
world, where the landscape is rough and evil all around, calling
for a strong hand. Thus you do not wait for evil-doers to attack;
you attack first. This is the new national security doctrine
for the 21st century-the Bush doctrine, apparently inspired by
the very little reading that has been done by George Bush. From
Robert Kaplan, author of Eastward to Tartary, the President
received an on-the-job-training at the White House, adding pseudo-
intellectual content to his gut feeling and unstructured inclinations.
This world view of the world has given Bush an incontestable
sense of mission, which has been reinforced by the influence
of former professor Paul Wolfowitz, who postulated that that
there is no need "for proof beyond reasonable doubt."
The emphasis must be on "intentions" and "capability,"
says Wolfowitz as he beats the drum of the Iraq war. There is
no need for the "proof," if we know the "intentions"
and capability." You anticipate and act, since "this
is closer to a state of war than to a judicial proceeding. Such
is the Wolfowitz configuration of the calculus of warfare and
the cost benefit analysis, which has become acceptable to
a hawkish circle, none of whose members has fought in a war,
but seems to be ready to commit millions of the underclass to
war.
Unlike 1991, Israel is not expected to
remain in the closet. Bush has already reaffirmed a right of
"self defense" for Israel upon meeting Sharon on his
seventh visit (October 16). In fact, Israel has been pushing
for this war in order to accomplish what it had failed to accomplish
in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1978, 1982, and throughout the seven years
of Oslo. For Israel, the war on Iraq constitutes a post-Oslo
strategy. As Bush II tries to complete what his father left unfinished,
Israel will be revisiting 1982 all over again. That is why when
the Anglo-American Invasion of Iraq occurs, it will not only
be a continuation of the same war, which began in 19901991,
but a war whose broader agenda includes reshaping the strategic
landscape in the Middle East and Central Asia. It will be the
war of the civilian hawks in the Pentagon and of their allies
in a number of right-wing and pro-Israel think tanks, such as
the Hudson Institute, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI),
and the Jewish Institute for National Security (JINSA), among
others. It would be a war to create a pro-American regime in
Iraq and enable Washington to redraw the Middle East maps of
both the First and Second World wars periods. The adventure would
aim to deprive Saudi Arabia of leverage over oil prices, intimidate
Syria, and manipulate the domestic balance in Iran, with the
purpose of eventually dismantling the Islamic Revolution. Its
intent further is to settle the Arab-Israeli conflict on terms
wholly agreeable to General Sharon, who remains indicted in his
own country for the massacres of thousands of Palestinians in
Lebanon, exactly twenty years ago.
THE ISRAELI
CONNECTION:
None of these objectives has anything
to do with President Bush's declared concerns about a threat
to the security of the United States. Israel's supporters in
the administration, think tanks, media, and Congress, who beat
the trumpets of war, view it as providing cover for Israel to
expel the Palestinians (called "transfer" in Israel),
which is why the political-military elite in Israel want it and
why the parrots from pro-Israel institutions in the administration
are pushing so hard for it.
The Israeli connection was recently exposed in the Israeli press
by a number of respected Israeli analysts. One such person is
Meron Benvinisti, the former deputy mayor of Jerusalem, who made
the link last month in the daily newspaper Ha'aretz between
Israel's advocacy of an American war against Iraq and Israel's
overall objective of ethnic cleansing in the West Bank. Israeli
Major Gen. Yitzhak Eitan hinted at the strong connection between
a war in Iraq and the war against the Palestinians when he said
that such a war would enable Israel to "execute the old
Jordanian option - expelling hundreds of thousands of Palestinians
across the Jordan River." Moreover, attitudes of the Israeli
leadership were underscored by Israeli public opinion: a survey
in the largest-circulation Israeli daily Maariv, conducted
in August 2002, revealed that 57 percent of Israelis were in
favor of an American attack on Iraq to unseat Saddam Hussein.
The leading war advocates in this country
include Richard Perle, head of the Defense Advisory Board and
resident fellow of the AEI, his close friend and political ally
at AEI, David Wurmser of the Hudson Institute. Mr Wurmser's
wife, Meyrav, is co-founder, along with Colonel Yigal Carmon,
formerly of Israeli military intelligence of
the Middle East Media Research Institute (Memri), which translates
and distributes articles that specialize in Arab bashing. Bush's
advisors pushing this war also include Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy
Defense Secretary, Douglas Feith, another Deputy Defense Secretary,
Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Chief of Staff of Vice President
Cheney's Office, Michael Rubin, a specialist on Iran, Iraq and
Afghanistan, who recently arrived from yet another pro-Israel
lobby, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and many
others who cannot be included here due to space limitations.
Administration hawks pushing this war such as Vice President,
Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and National
Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, are all on record supporting
Sharon's draconian measures in the occupied territories. Rumsfeld
is the first senior US public official who used the phrase "the
so-called occupied territories" in describing the West Bank
and the Gaza Strip. Rice defended the Israeli strategy of pre-emption
instead of deterrence or containment, and she considers that
policy worthy of duplication in Iraq and on a global scale.
As the US and UK maintains almost daily
bombing of Iraq, and amidst the constant reports about an imminent
full-scale war, the message is clear: new rules of international
conduct are being drafted. The proposed and forthcoming war
on Iraq, the aerial bombardment of Yugoslavia in 1999, and the
full-scale invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 illustrate that the
theater of operations for the US military is now world- wide.
A single war in these theatres, such as in Iraq, would cost
according to the White House economic advisor an estimated $100-200
billion plus additional billions for reconstruction and would
place the post-World War II international system in great jeopardy.
It is absolutely not true that Iraq constitutes a clear and
present danger to the security of the United States. It would
be important to ask: whose war this really is?
CONCLUSION:
It would be important to ask whether
the US and its principal gendarme would prove more successful
than previous ventures of colonization and re-colonization since
World War I. It will be prudent to ask whether Bush's "war
on terror" will eliminate or rather generate terror, chaos
and destruction. Is it not time for America to review its priorities?
Is it not time to re-examine the root causes of the present blowback?
Is it not time to let people all over the world to live in freedom
and dignity? To organize their lives and societies in accordance
with their needs and not to suit the strategic proclivities of
major powers? It is certainly time to repair our own inner cities,
to improve health, education, public transportation, and to develop
real conservation instead of using war as a policy of conservation?
Is it not time for regime change-- here in Washington?
Naseer Aruri
is Chancellor Professor (Emeritus) at the University of Massachusetts
Dartmouth; Co-author of Iraq
Under Siege, South End Press, 2000 and author of the
forthcoming book Dishonest broker: America's Role in Israel
and Palestine. South End Press, Jan 2003. Aruri can be reached
at: Naruri@aol.com
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