Arab Responses to the Fighting in Iraq:
Friends, Foes, and Faithless Fair-Weather "Allies"
A Weekly Briefing on Israeli and Middle Eastern Affairs
November 11, 2003

Dr. Eran Lerman
Director Israel/Middle East Office
The American Jewish Committee

The war in Iraq is not over. Only now are the consequences of the Turkish debacle-the Turkish parliament's refusal in March 2003 to let the U.S. Fourth Infantry Division sweep south-being felt in full; it was this disruption of the original combat plans that enabled Saddam Hussein's loyal guardsmen to pull away suddenly from the gates of Baghdad and melt into the Sunni triangle west of the city rather than to be caught in an effective pincer movement.

Places such as Tikrit and Falluja, where many resent the vision of a representative government in Iraq (which would perforce have a Shi'i majority), thus became focal points for a murderous, ruthless Sunni and Ba'athist "resistance," which does not balk at the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians and humanitarian workers, side by side with Iraqi police and U.S. troops. Add to this the ingathering of anti-American radicals from across the Arab world and beyond-some, but not all, with links to Al-Qa'ida-who seek their moment of jihadi glory by killing Americans (never mind that they are also killing the legitimate hopes of most Iraqis for a better future). The battle will be neither short nor easy, and its outcome will ultimately be decided by the quality of "actionable intelligence" available to the coalition (which, in turn, will depend upon potential informers feeling sure that the U.S. will stay and reward them).

Where is the Arab world in all this? Some commentators-such as the Israeli scholar Asher Susser, director of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern Studies of Tel Aviv University, one of the shrewdest observers of the present Arab scene- have been arguing that the very term "Arab world" has become a bitter joke. What Fouad Ajami had once called The Arab Predicament has been made even worse in the decades since his book (by that name) was published. No commonality of action, no real ability to effect outcomes (other than massive, but meaningless pro-Arab votes in the UN General Assembly), no unity, no leadership, no vision, not even a shadow of the Arab glories of yesteryear. No wonder some Arabs who should know better now wax nostalgic about Egypt's late dictator, Gamal Abd al-Nasser: Yes, he sold his fellow Arabs an illusion-or worse, a dangerous delusion-but it was sweet while it lasted.

As in the past, this disarray has created a three-way division among Arab political players, a division likely to be made deeper and more bitter than ever as the Arab political classes digest the profound implications of President George W. Bush's Reaganite program for the region, forcefully restated in his speech of November 6 at the National Endowment for Democracy. ("The advance of freedom is the calling of our time; it is the calling of our country.") In the new landscape, there are (a few) true friends, a number of ambitious enemies, and a group of countries and players from whom the United States should have been entitled to expect much greater loyalty, given the price, in blood and money, paid to protect and feed them over the years.

Among the friends, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan stands out-in stark contrast to its stance in 1991-as a consistently loyal ally. In a sense, this is an indirect Israeli contribution to the coalition effort, since it has been the firm security cooperation and, in effect, the strategic umbrella offered by Israel after the 1994 peace treaty that enabled the first King Hussein and now his even bolder son to move away from the iron grip of Iraqi and radical Arab politics and to find stability and relative prosperity within the new order. This week, a group of Jordanian officers are attending a newly established forum called the Israel Zionist Congress-a dramatic departure-at the invitation of its president, former National Security Adviser Uzi Dayan, who in his years in the IDF helped forge strong links with the Jordanian military.

Equally resolute in support of the American effort, for all too obvious reasons, is Kuwait, where President Bush's vision was welcomed in some editorials-again in sharp contrast with the dominant political climate in Arab intellectual circles. Most of the other small Gulf countries are also keeping their fingers crossed-more quietly-for the success of American arms. They know that otherwise they will soon face a highly volatile and hostile environment, whether because Saddam's shadow will be cast again over the region or because factional warfare (particularly intra-Shi'i divisions) will spill over Iraqi borders. For less acute reasons, the U.S. position gets at least a polite hearing in parts of the Maghreb-the "West," the Arab term for North Africa-where some experimentation with civil society and multiparty systems has been going on for a while.

At the other end of the spectrum of attitudes toward the American-led effort in Iraq stand countries such as Syria and Iran (or more specifically, the present regime, as the majority of free-thinking Iranians probably see it differently) who openly yearn to see the attacks multiply and U.S. forces driven out in humiliation. The Syrians, after all, have gone this way before, finding Muslim radicals who did their bidding in Lebanon, leading to the murderous attacks on the Marine barracks and the French headquarters, resulting in the reassertion of Syrian predominance in Beirut. For the mullahs' regime in Iran, the stakes may be even higher: A moderate, pro-American Shi'i political model in Iraq, the historical birthplace of their branch of the Islamic faith, could rapidly undermine the Khomeini version that has strangled Iranian society since 1979.

Even more troubling, in a sense, are the positions staked out by Arab countries-above all, Egypt-that have been regarded over the years as U.S. allies, and have been sustained through massive American help through foreign aid budgets, which in the case of Egypt paid for a massive military, which was not there when it was most needed. (Instead, it has been deployed, equipped, trained, and indoctrinated with the IDF as the threat of reference). Or, as in the case of Saudi Arabia, the help has come in terms of an American military presence. True, the actions of these fair-weather friends are often helpful on specific issues: There has been a remarkable degree of intelligence cooperation; the peace treaty with Egypt has held, despite the strains.

Yet when it comes to the public domain, even official Egyptian radio stations (such as Sawt al-Arab, "Voice of the Arabs," the station that is Egypt's main propaganda tool in the Arab world), let alone the semi-official and opposition papers, are as virulent in their denunciation of the American occupation and their implied glorification of the Iraqi "resistance" as any of the real radicals. Much the same is true about the Palestinian Authority, which does not prevent Yasir Arafat from claiming, in his typical conspiracy-infested rhetoric, that Israel murdered the three Americans in Gaza in order to disrupt the budding U.S.-Palestinian love affair.

In essence, the Egyptian position and that of others like it reflect three basic calculations:

• Maybe the Americans will succumb and go away (as they have done elsewhere). If so, it is better to contradict them now-they will not punish you anyway-than to risk Saddam's vengeance later.
• Is a democratic experiment, in a country with a Shi'i majority, a help or a threat? The president's recent speech probably confirmed for Hosni Mubarak and his likes their assumption that U.S. policy might end up destabilizing their regimes.
• Finally, never pass up a good opportunity to press the U.S. and Europe over Israel-as if any sort of Israeli concessions whatsoever could possibly persuade the Sunnis of Falluja and Tikrit to acquiesce in the demise of the Ba'ath and the rise of a Shi'i majority rule.

Thus, the challenge for U.S. policy, side by side with turning the tide on the ground in Iraq, is to change the balance of perceptions in the Arab world: amply rewarding friends, exacting a price from foes, and reminding fair-weather allies that it is about time they made up their minds which side they are on.