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CounterPunch
October
14, 2002
One Big Hizballah
by URI AVNERY
OK, so we are going to kill Saddan Hussein. America
wants it. And if America wants something, we want it, too. Right?
After all, there can be no doubt. The
last time, Saddam threw Scuds at us, just in order to win popularity
in the Arab world. (At that time somebody invented the story
that "the Palestinians are dancing on their roofs"'
and Yossi Sarid wrote his article "From now on, the Palestinians
can search for me".)
Now all this has become topical again.
George Bush Jr. wants to start a war, the same war that George
Bush Sr. stopped in the middle. The son wants to finish the
job begun by the father. How touching.
Also urgent. Bush Jr. is deeply involved
in the financial scandal that is exciting the American public,
and his Vice President (Vice is the right  word) is involved even more. In times
of government scandals, there is always a tendency to start
a little war. A war makes people forget everything else and
rally around the leader.
So we are going to have a war. America
leading, we following in step, listening to the same drummer.
In spite of everything, I suggest that
we think about it for a moment. True, Saddam is abominable,
and so is his regime. But will killing Saddam and overthrowing
his regime be good for Israel?
Let's pose another question first: why
did Father Bush stop that war? The Iraqi army was beaten, the
way to Baghdad open. So why did Bush order his army to stop?
To solve this riddle, one has to know
a little more about the country called Iraq.
It is an artificial state, created by
the British for their own ends. In practice it is a nearly accidental
conglomeration of three different states, merged into one by
a distant empire.
Schematically, one can divide Iraq into
three components: north, middle and south.
In the north there are the Kurds, who
are different from the Arabs in every respect, except religion.
They have their own language and their own culture. Their homeland
is Kurdistan, a country arbitrarily cut up and divided between
Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. They are oppressed by all of them.
From time to time they rebel, at one time in one state, another
time in another.
In Iraq the Kurds constitute something
like a quarter of the population. They are Sunni Muslims and
religion plays a big role in their lives. One of the greatest
warriors of Islam, Salah-al-Din (Saladin), who liberated Jerusalem
from the Crusaders, was a Kurd.
The Iraqi Kurds dream of independence
and the unification of all Kurdistan. When they rose up under
Mustafa al-Barzani, the Israeli army sent officers and equipment
to assist them. For the time being they enjoy some sort of autonomy
under the protection of the American air force, which prevents
Saddam's from getting near them.
If the Iraqi State falls apart, the Kurds
in the north will declare their independence. That may kindle
the fire of Kurdish irredentism in Turkey, too. That's why the
Turks asked Bush Sr. to stop the war.
In the south there are the Shiites. They
are Arabs in every respect, but religion divides them from their
brothers in the north and connects them with neighboring non-Arab
Iran.
The Shiite version of Islam was born
in Iraq, where the dramatic events of its inception took place.
There the holiest places of the Shia are located. There, generations
of Shiite scholars and revolutionaries were brought up - including
the Ayatolla Khumeini, the father of present-day Iran.
The Shiites are not a small minority.
They make up something like half the population of Iraq.
Between the Kurds in the north and the
Shiites in the south there are the Arab Sunnis. They are a minority
in their country, but they control practically everything. Baghdad
is their city, the army is their army. Saddam Hussein, who is,
of course, a Sunni Arab, has manned many of the key position
with people from his home town, Takrit. (Since all of these,
like himself, bear the family name al-Takriti, Saddam has forbidden
the use of family names in Iraq, on the grounds that this is
a Western habit.)
Even the Americans admit that in Iraq
they have no local opposition worth its name. Unlike Afghanistan,
where they used local forces to their good advantage, there
are no such forces to assist them and to keep a unified Iraq
intact after the fall of Saddam.
Therefore, upon the elimination of the
tyrant, one of two things will happen:
Either - Iraq will break up into three
components. In the north, a Kurdish state will emerge, in the
center a Sunni-Arab statelet, and the south will join Iran,
opening before it the whole Middle East. Iran will become the
dominant state in the region, directly threatening the Gulf
states, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.
Or - Iraq will continue to exist as a
unified country but will turn, in reality, into an Iranian protectorate,
with the same results.
Both cases will pose an existential danger
to the Arab states. A rekindled, fanatical fundamentalist fervor
will engulf them. That is why the Arab rulers panicked at the
time and cried SOS. Bush the Father, who is an intelligent
person (and a former intelligence chief to boot) called the
war off. But Bush the Son is not known for his exceptional intelligence,
and his advisers have other agendas. They don't really care.
But we should care. From the point of
view of our national interest, this is an existential danger:
the whole region may turn into one gigantic Hizballah.
Uri Avnery
has closely followed the career of Sharon for four decades. Over
the years, he has written three extensive biographical essays
about him, two (1973, 1981) with his cooperation. Avnery is featured
in the new book, The
Other Israel: Voices of Refusal and Dissent.
Yesterday's
Features
Alexander Cockburn
Vindication
Through Violence:
Jimmy Carter and the DC Sniper
Robert Jensen
The American
Political Paradox:
More Freedom, Less Democracy
Ben Tripp
Congratulations! It's a War!
Susan Davis
Proverbial
Wisdom:
Red!
David Krieger
A Bleak Day for America
Anis Shivani
George W. in Therapy
Ken Paff
Where Do Hoffa's Tactics Belong in a Mob-Free Teamsters?
Carol Norris
The Politics of Fear
Elaine Cassel
The Lynne Stewart Case:
When Representing an Accused Terrorist Can Land a Lawyer in Jail
Musa AlShaer
Scenes
from an Occupied Wedding
Anthony Gancarski
Concerned Citizen: a serialized
novel (Episode 3)
M. Shahid Alam
I Will Fight Your Enemies
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