What Is at Stake in Iraq: The Future of American Authority—
And of Prospects for Peace and Progress in the Middle East
September 18, 2003
AJC Special Report on Middle Eastern Affairs
Dr. Eran Lerman
Director, Israel/Middle East Office
American Jewish Committee
The recent dramatic developments and the ever-changing landscape of twists and turns in the Israeli-Palestinian struggle—amid the mounting wreckage left by Arafat’s “Palestinian War of Attrition”—can easily obscure the key issue in the Middle East.
The future of the region does not hinge on the outcome of petty personal squabbling in Ramallah: It has come to depend, above all, upon the future of American authority and power. Nothing—neither the prospects for the Road Map, poor as they may already be, nor the hopes for a more democratic political dynamic in the Arab world, nor again the ability to restrain the Iranian nuclear program—would survive another Beirut or Mogadishu, i.e., a hasty American retreat in the face of murderous violence. At stake is nothing less than the well-being, perhaps even the survival, of all of us in the Middle East for years and maybe decades to come. All this now largely depends upon the success of the American soldiers and administrators in Iraq and of the (many) brave Iraqis who now work with them, while a much less brave “Arab world”—the very term has become somewhat ridiculous in recent months—looks on from the sidelines.
The goal is a more or less stable Iraqi civil society, gradually becoming self-governing and politically organized to reflect pluralistic values and a balanced structure of ethnic, regional, and religious representation. Talk about instant democracy as we know it is premature and simplistic, and dangerously obscures real progress. This would offer an entirely new direction to a region that badly needs it.
On the other hand, an American withdrawal and collapse in the face of the present Ba’athist terror campaign—a campaign aimed at regaining power for one man, one party, and the few percent of the Iraqi people belonging to it, who in April 2003 lost their “right” to kill, rape, and pillage the rest of the Iraqi population—would throw not only Iraq but the entire region back into the abyss of totalitarianism from which it has barely begun to climb.
As a “side effect,” it would extinguish all hope of progress toward Arab-Israeli peace, and in all likelihood would expose Israel to new, far-reaching dangers and even force it to take as yet unheard-of preventive and deterrent measures in what will become an extremist and extremely dangerous region.
Moreover, great attention is paid by key players in the region to every nuance of U.S. policy, a sensitivity which curiously coexists side by side with a profound ignorance and misunderstanding of how the American system really works. This places great responsibility upon those engaged in debating the issue in the American public and political domain to understand that their sharp (and legitimate) divisions on the past—and the future—of the Iraqi campaign cannot take place in a vacuum. A paradox is at work: For the United States to succeed in its twin missions of recovery in Iraq and supporting the peace process, it is necessary for the American leadership—which does bear the ultimate burden, whether there are others willing to share it or not—to be perceived, above all by the Iraqis (and the Palestinians) themselves, as absolutely determined to stay the course and succeed. This may seem like a bit of circular reasoning or, worse, a vicious circle, but it is a simple reflection of some basic verities, which flow step by step:
·
Wars can be won by one side—and indeed, the Allied victory in Iraq stands out as one of the most remarkable in modern history. So did the Israeli victory of 1967. Nation-building or a peace process, on the other hand, requires the cooperation of at least some credible local players, willing to join in and find a role for themselves within the new power structure.·
Such players willing to step up to the plate are expected to do so in an environment in which real enemies, from Saddam Hussein to Hamas—who have a vested interest in destroying any constructive effort—almost literally lurk just around the corner. They threaten not only Israelis and Americans, but also any Palestinian or (even more so) any Iraqi who proves willing and able to work within the new framework. Such threats are to some extent supported or assisted from the outside—Iran and Syria are presently playing a very negative role—while ambivalent and two-faced leaders, from Arafat to the Saudis, are no help in this situation and often exacerbate it by gambling simultaneously on both sides.·
Thus, a sense of uncertainty as to whether the Americans “are here to stay” and doubt about the balance ever decidedly shifting to the new forces become real obstacles to success. As long as such doubts linger, the new players have reason to fear that their good work will be “rewarded” by murderous repression—on the part of resurgent Saddam Ba’athists or victorious Islamists or other enemies of the American effort.
This threat of cruel retribution is particularly vivid when it comes to the question of “tips” about the enemy, provided by many Iraqis who feel they have a stake in preventing Saddam’s return to power. In professional language, this is referred to as the “HUMINT” (human-source intelligence) vital to the war against terrorism and similar types of murderous insurgency. Tanks can be detected and destroyed through visual intelligence; large military formations are given away by their electronic traffic; but small cells of terror activists (and easily hidden vials of biological weapons) can only be brought to light by human sources—agents—willing to report what they know. For them to do so in a country like Iraq, they must feel, indeed must know with some degree of certainty, that the Americans they now speak to will still be there tomorrow, and the day after, to reward and protect them.
Here history plays an active and painful role. The scars of the 1991 abandonment of the Shi’i uprising in southern Iraq will not heal quickly; the scars of another abandonment will deface the entire region for a long time to come. If ever there were a time when wisdom and patience were crucial, this is it.
But does not history “teach” us that the American mission is doomed anyway? Should we not recall the “lessons of Vietnam”—a shadowy, hopeless struggle against a local force, which was bound from the beginning to end in painful failure? The similarities are already surfacing in the public debate, as may well have been expected (and as they did in the Israeli public debate over Lebanon), but a case can also be made against the comparison and even against the false impression it conveys to attentive ears in the Middle East.
Indeed, it can well be argued—and the regional players should be told so—that the differences are decisive. Iraq may not yet be Germany of 1945 (if for no other reason than it has not been laid to waste, and a Russian invader is not standing at the gate), but neither is it Vietnam of 1968. A great majority of Iraqis—the Shi’ites alone are 60 percent, the Kurds another 20 percent, and many Sunnis feel the same—are being offered not a corrupt, U.S.-backed military dictatorship, but their first-ever taste of real participatory politics at the grassroots level, and a stake in the future of the country as a whole. Remarkably, this sense of a future seems to have survived even the horrific attack in Najaf, which could have triggered a bloodbath—indeed, was meant to do so—but did not. Moreover, the Ba’athists, fighting for the right to throw Iraq back into darkness, are in no way like the Vietcong in terms of how they are perceived by their own society. Even if they were (and again, they are not), it should be recalled that by the time the Tet Offensive of 1968 was over, the bravery and professionalism of U.S. soldiers in the field had in effect put an end to the Vietcong as a fighting force. The war went on and ended as it did because a large external force—General Vo Nguyen Giap’s divisions pouring in—was able to continue attacking U.S. forces, whereas the United States had resolved not to invade North Vietnam.
No such force is in sight in Iraq. Syria does not have what it takes; Iran does, but does not want to unleash a conflict that could ruin its internally hated “revolution.” The war to eradicate the Ba’athist terror campaign is thus winnable at the end of the day (which admittedly is not yet quite near) in a way that the Vietnam War, fought by a much less professionalized American army against a much larger enemy, with sanctuary across the border, never was.
Once U.S. operations come to rely on good (one should say better) intelligence; once the intense investment in the welfare of the majority of Iraqis begins to change the dynamics of resentment on the ground in Baghdad and beyond (as conditions in the Kurdish areas already prove can be done); assuming a degree of patience and good judgment by all (admittedly a tall order in an election year); and given some support, when possible, from NATO and like-minded elements of the international community—these factors, pulled together, can become the tools of the future, in Iraq as on other fronts of the war against totalitarianism. The region needs the United States to be given an opportunity to succeed in this effort.