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IRAQ: U.S. Pyrrhic Victory Should be a Humbling Experience
Commentary - By Mushahid Hussain
ISLAMABAD, Apr 14 (IPS) - The United States' war on Iraq, notwithstanding
its predictable military outcome, should serve as a humbling experience for
the sole superpower.
Decimating a dilapidated army of ragtag soldiers by the world's most
powerful military machine, and that too after the most massive air strikes
in recent memory, is not something that Pentagon planners can proudly claim
to be their finest hour.
On Apr. 13, 72 hours after Baghdad's 'liberation', the first
spontaneous anti-U.S. protests erupted in the Iraqi capital with
denunciations of 'Down with Bush & American imperialism', reinforced by
the U.S. military's failure to preserve law and order.
In fact, if anything, the war exposed the limitations of U.S. power -
military, media, political and diplomatic. An army that did not last for
more than 100 hours of ground combat the last time around in 1991 survived
and sustained brutal bombing for 21 days before folding up. And what of the
aftermath, since many feel the United States may have bitten more than it
can chew?
The Middle East is today a more destabilised, polarised and volatile
region, with U.S. interests and even Israel more vulnerable. Both face
greater animosity, and rumblings of 'Who's Next?' are reverberating through
the region.
Iraq's adversarial neighbours who were deemed to be U.S. allies -
Saudi Arabia and Turkey - refused to play ball. Istanbul was even willing
to forego billions in bounty because the Turkish Establishment felt that
Turkey's national interests must take precedence over the U.S. national
interest.
The invasion and occupation of Iraq has fanned the flames of anti-U.S.
sentiment all over the world, particularly in the West and the Muslim
countries. And unlike the 1991 Gulf War, which had U.N. sanction, this time
around, the United States acted in defiance of the world body.
The United States' diplomatic isolation is so pronounced that U.S.
President George W Bush has been forced to cancel a scheduled May 5 visit
to neighbouring Canada, because of divergent perspectives on the Iraq war.
Interestingly, the conflict within the American Establishment seems to
have been accentuated in the aftermath of the Iraq war.
The hawks like deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Pentagon
guru Richard Perle, who are apparently in a triumphalist mode, still seem
to be in a mindset of settling scores, and are keen to revive the
'made-in-Israel' hit-list of Muslim countries like Iran and Syria.
Conversely, the more sobering, somewhat dovish tendency seems to
realise that the U.S. invasion has drawn a regional backlash, and people
like Powell are already backtracking from earlier threats against Iran and
Syria, saying in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp on Apr. 12
that the United States has ''no plans to invade any other country''.
Other actions would strengthen this view that handling Iraq, and even
Afghanistan for that matter, means that the United States has its hands
full in the region trying to stabilise countries that remain under its
military control. Going after other countries in the manner they took on
Afghanistan and Iraq now seems increasingly unlikely, more so in a
politically hostile geopolitical environment.
Some relevant developments that corroborate this view:
On North Korea, another of the U.S.-certified rogue states, China,
Russia and South Korea support a U.S. dialogue with Pyongyang and oppose
any U.S. military action, even opposing the U.S. sponsored resolution in
the U.N. Security Council.
Central Command chief, Gen Tommy Franks, despite his preoccupation with
Iraq, air-dashed to Kabul on Apr. 11 because the situation in Afghanistan
remains unsettled. The U.S. military commander there, Lt Gen Dan MacNeill,
himself publicly stated in a media interview he had been ''frustrated'' at
the lack of ''bold actions on Afghanistan by the West''.
The anti-U.S. troika - France, Germany and Russia - in their summit
at St Petersburg on Apr. 11, stated that on Iraq their ''views have not
changed'', and that they oppose any ''new colonialism'' being imposed there.
For a change, even the Arab League secretary general, Amir Moussa,
warned on Apr. 12 that targeting other states would be ''adding fuel to the
fire and it would be the end of the Middle East and all that is connected
to the Middle East''.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's remarkable U-turn on Jewish
settlements, which he told 'Haaretz' newspaper on Apr. 13 he is willing to
forego in return for a durable peace on Palestine, marks a softening of
stance reflecting ground realities.
U.S. policymakers thus face three major challenges in the post-Iraq
scenario.
First, the dichotomy in the United States' regional strategy in the
Middle East and South Asia. In the Middle East, the United States is a
power keen to change the status quo, as it did in Iraq, but in South Asia,
it seeks to preserve the status quo, particularly on contentious conflicts
like Kashmir.
Second, there is greater fear among Muslim regimes, particularly the
autocrats. Fear of the United States and fear of their own people, who
yearn for democratic change, and the need to restore confidence among the
Muslim world given the U.S. crisis of credibility.
Third, now that regional conflicts like Korea, Palestine and Kashmir,
are again on the global radar screen after Iraq, the United States'
principal challenge is to develop a credible strategy based on bidding
goodbye to unilateralism.
One diplomatic fallout of the Iraq war is the U.S. desire to present a
more even-handed perspective on Pakistan and India.
Powell has publicly committed to tackling Kashmir ''after Iraq''. He
has, for the first time, snubbed Indian Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha's
attempt to link pre-emption on Iraq with a pre-emptive strike against Pakistan.
Powell stated that ''the attempts to draw a parallel between the Iraq
and Kashmir situations are wrong and overwhelmed by differences between
them''.
However, Iraq would prove a Pyrrhic victory, if the peace was lost just
because U.S. troops are unable to preserve law and order in Baghdad,
restore civic amenities and ensure speedy medical assistance to hundreds of
wounded civilians, as television sights of Baghdad hospitals testify.
Giving precedence to military matters and ignoring the human aspects
will only aggravate the divide, spawned by U.S. efforts to occupy Iraq
under U.S. generals and bureaucrats.
This would only reinforce suspicions among Muslim conspiracy theorists
that Iraq was all about Israel and oil, not weapons of mass destruction,
none of which have been discovered anyway to date.
(END/2003)
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