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The murderous chaos which transformed Iraq into a quagmire now risks engulfing Lebanon, the Palestinian territories and the East horn of Africa. In his analysis JAMES DEBONO explores the dynamics of the new order in the Middle East and asks who has an interest in fomenting chaos
2006 ended with poverty-stricken Ethiopia invading neighbouring Somalia to topple the Islamic courts which had restored a semblance of order in a country torn by conflict between rival warlords. Blessed by Washington, the Ethiopian invasion risks turning Somalia into a new battleground pitting Al Qaeda against a foreign Christian invader. The end result could be more Somali refugees crossing the Sahara desert and into the Mediterranean as they escape from the menacing chaos.
In the meantime instead of participating in the brave new Iraqi democracy, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are voting with their feet fleeing to authoritarian but stable Syria, just as many Lebanese did in July when their country was the target of Israeli bombers.
Just as unilateral military action in Iraq paved the way for a bloody sectarian civil war, unilateral Israeli attacks on Lebanon and Gaza have destabilised Lebanon and the Palestinian National Authority.
Bolstered by its successful resistance to Israeli aggression, Hizbollah has initiated a campaign to oust the democratically elected pro-Western and anti-Syrian Lebanese government. Gone are the hopes of a stable and democratic Lebanon which animated the Cedar revolution in 2005. These hopes faded away with the Israeli bombardment of Beirut, following the abduction of three Israeli soldiers by the Party of God. Yet instead of destroying Hizbollah, the disproportionate Israeli response only served to bolster the fundamentalist party.
As Hizbollah was marching into the streets to force the resignation of the Siniora government, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas proceeded to call for early election and oust the democratically elected pro-Iranian Hamas government to get the Palestinians back to the elusive roadmap.
Tony Blair’s response to the crisis exposed the double standards of the west. While condemning the mass protests aimed at bringing down the elected Lebanese government, he has supported Abbas’s attempt to bring down the Hamas government. In the shadows lurked a restless Iran torn between a yearning for modernity among Iranians born after the 1979 revolution, and the regime’s aspiration to become a regional nuclear power.
With US troops on its eastern border in Afghanistan and on its western border in Iraq, the regime reacted by promoting a Shiite arch of extremism in neighbouring Iraq and Lebanon, emerging as a major stakeholder in fomenting chaos. A fratricidal civil war in Iraq and ensuing chaos in Lebanon reminds common Iranians that the only alternative to their semblance of Islamic democracy is murderous chaos. So does Syria.
But is Iran the only stakeholder in the ensuing chaos?
While Iran and Syria stoked the flames in the region, the American occupation of Iraq and the Israeli bombardment of Lebanon unleashed an even greater bedlam. Which begs the question – is the madness engulfing the region simply a collateral and unforeseen result of a misguided US policy or is it a deliberate calculation?
Revelations by Carne Ross, a senior British official in the days preceding the invasion, give some direction. Ross told the 2004 Butler inquiry that British and US officials knew very well that Saddam Hussein had no WMDs and that bringing him down would lead to chaos.
“I remember on several occasions the UK team stating this view in terms during our discussions with the US (who agreed),” he said, adding: “At the same time, we would frequently argue, when the US raised the subject, that ‘regime change’ was inadvisable, primarily on the grounds that Iraq would collapse into chaos.”
Before the advent of George Bush junior, the prevailing US policy doctrine in the Middle East was to install or support strongmen, containing them or replacing them when they fell out of favour. So why the incomprehensible shift in policy?
Why allow Yasser Arafat’s humiliation in the occupied territories? Why repeat the same mistake with Mahmoud Abbas? Both politicians could have easily been cultivated as strongmen had they been given the tools they were implicitly promised by the Oslo process: a state, the pomp of office and the coercive means to impose their will on rival groups like Hamas.
With almost nothing to show for years of concessions to Israel, both looked to the Palestinian public more like lapdogs rather than rottweilers. When given the chance, the Palestinians reacted by choosing Hamas as their democratically elected leaders.
And why invade Iraq on the hollow pretext of locating WMDs and then dislodge its dictator, Saddam Hussein, who for decades had been armed and supported by the US and had very effectively, if ruthlessly, held Iraq together? Surely one shudders at the prospect of dealing with strongmen whose human rights record is abysmal, but that’s exactly what the west has been doing with medieval regimes in oil rich Arabia.
Failed states consumed by genocidal civil wars seem less dangerous to US and Israeli interests than Arab strongmen who from time to time stoke the fires of the restless Arab streets against the US and Israel to deflect popular anger from domestic issues.
Whether the Republican setback in congressional elections in November and the subsequent ousting of Donald Rumsfeld will see George Bush junior returning to his father’s footsteps stands to be seen. Recommendations by George Bush senior’s Secretary of State James Baker on the war in Iraq go a long way on that road by proposing dialogue with strongmen in Syria and Iran. After all, Bashir Assad’s father was deemed a useful ally by Bush’s father during the first gulf war.
Interlocutors like Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad’s rival and power broker Rafsanjani could easily serve this purpose. But by now even the US President could have lost control on the various stakeholders in what is increasingly taking the semblance of an uncontrollable mess.
jdebono@mediatoday.com.mt
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