NEWSPAPER COLUMNS
 ¶ Most Recent
¶ Miscellany
|
COMMENTARY
October 12, 2002
Occupying Iraq
With the U.S. Senate's approval early yesterday morning of President Bush's "war resolution" on Iraq by an even wider proportional margin than it enjoyed in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives the lights are green to Baghdad. Well there is still a yellow caution flashing at the United Nations but it's the only light they have. The Congressional resolution has the effect of informing the Security Council that there is no point in resisting Mr. Bush's will. My information is that the French are to be rewarded for having their heart only a little to the left of the right place and that the Americans have now amended their draft U.N. resolution to make it more sphinx-like in their honour. This will allow all five veto powers to sign on to wording that could be interpreted to mean anything at all. The yellow caution will continue flashing and the U.S. Air Force may proceed. As usual those who imagine Mr. Bush does not have his ducks in order have neglected to notice him lining them up. Apart from the question Which will be the night of nights? -- and I should think the Yankees are happy to loiter a little longer for appearance's sake if not for a couple more ready-aye-readies -- interest must now focus on the shape of post-Saddam Iraq. The media have as is their wont been making much noise to suggest the Bush administration hadn't thought of this. As of yesterday with the Congressional resolutions behind them White House and State Department officials were talking semi-on-the-record about post-Saddamite arrangements. Conflating from several reports and the answers to a few queries of my own it seems they have considered and rejected the "Afghan model" in which the Bush administration simply chose Hamid Karzai as the most plausible of potential local rulers: the one most sincerely committed to democratic governance and therefore also most inclined to be pro-Western. Moreover Mr. Karzai was the person Mr. Bush himself and his most trusted advisers judged to have the most personal courage integrity and intelligence; for to be plain having the right opinions doesn't quite do the job. On this model their choice for Iraq would almost certainly have been Ahmed Chalabi the Shia leader and co-ordinator of the exiled Iraqi National Congress who has himself been living in London. But as the Americans have learned in Afghanistan in the conditions that pertain after the fall of a totalitarian regime in the present-day Middle East it is not possible for any single faction leader no matter how pure his intentions to command the support of a whole country. Like Afghanistan Iraq is an artificial fusion of several distinct "nations" or ethnic linguistic and cultural regions which often warmly detest one another. None may be allowed to leave the union; and meddlesome neighbours must be deterred from entering; or there will be total anarchy. This means biting the bullet. The United States will have to occupy Iraq for a period of several years. The model will be General Douglas MacArthur and Japan. A general such as Tommy Franks will be put in charge of a military administration in Baghdad. It will be a little different from Tokyo 1945 not only because this is 2002 but because Japan was no trouble to hold together and after Hiroshima and Nagasaki the Japanese knew they were beaten. Yet it is because of Iraq's propensity to fall apart and the threat from such neighbours as Iran and Syria that American occupation is necessary. At first Sunni and Shia Arabs Kurds Turkmen and others will be fairly glad to see them; with time they will become less glad. With luck the Americans will be able to put a viable democratic system in place before they have worn out their welcome. They will moreover be quite busy not only deconstructing Saddam's totalitarian system and installing the skeleton of a Western-style democracy (local elections first national later) but also searching for and destroying Saddam's frightful weapons. Chaos cannot be allowed for in chaotic conditions such weapons might be spirited directly into the hands of Islamist terrorists. The country is moreover quite large: a lot of searching to do and a lot of military presence to establish: it will be an expensive operation. (Even should Saddam fall to an assassin the Americans will have to go in to keep order and secure the weapons sites.) Luckily enough Iraq sits over one-ninth of the world's proven oil reserves. The present oil-for-food programme of the United Nations can be expanded to cover many of the expenses of reconstruction. U.S. occupation of Iraq can also provide the security to attract new international investment into the Iraqi economy generally and into its oil patch particularly promising substantial increases of production and thus a continuing long-term decline in oil prices (something neither the oil-rich Saudi Arabians nor alas the getting-oil-rich Russians much appreciate). Given the war premium already built into world oil prices the reader would be advised to hedge his own oil positions. No plans are ever final until they are in operation but the fact Bush administration officials are talking rather openly about post-Saddam Iraq suggests the main points are clear. And why are they talking? According to one source: "To give assurances to Turkey and other regional allies that we are prepared to do what it takes to hold Iraq together; and to give regional enemies the message that they needn't even think about advancing their horses in a post-war free-for-all." What he did not add I shall put in my own words. As I have previously written I believe we have a grand strategy here emanating from President Bush himself to democratize the Arab and Persian world as much as possible as the only alternative to allowing the spread of Islamist political fanaticism and thus the terrorist threat to world order. Iraq is central to this project. The U.S. may not only use Iraqi facilities as a platform to exert great power throughout the region but use the country to effectively teach by example. There has never been a functioning Arab constitutional democracy. Iraq by the necessity of events must be the first. It is an experiment that cannot be allowed to fail and by imposing democratic institutions by main force the U.S. has its best chance to make them work against difficult odds. In the course of which George W. Bush may well prove the best friend the Arabs ever had. There was a time when no one thought the Germans or the Japanese could be made into constitutional democrats or traders peacefully getting rich. But where there's a will there's a way; and in my judgement Mr. Bush has the will. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
|
Top