A Pyrrhic Victory

The Americans have  valid reasons for anger against President Saddam Hussein of Iraq, to whomPresident Bush has issued a 48-hour ultimatum to quit or face military action.

Not because he had clandestinely acquired weapons of mass destruction (WMD) for use against the US andIsrael.  Despite all their fabricated evidence, so diplomatically  and so embarrassingly exposed bythe UN inspectors for what it was, they have not been able to prove that he had.  However, there is astrong possibility that the American Special Forces would plant in Iraq chemical and biological weapons fromUS stocks so that they could  ostensibly recover them during the forthcoming military operations and tellthe world they were right and the rest of the international community was wrong.  The Americans could beunprincipled when it comes to ways of proving their point.

Not because he was hand in glove with bin Laden and his Al Qaeda.  He was not Even a schoolboy in oneof the lower forms would have told them of the hatred which bin Laden had always nourished against SaddamHussein until last month when he came out in support of him for the sake of Islamic solidarity.

But because he funded  the  acts of suicide terrorism against Israel and failed to grieve overthe deaths of thousands of Americans and others on 9/11.  In their view, as in the view of Israel, aresumed march towards a political solution to the Palestine question would not be possible so long as hisregime continued in power and so long as the Government of Iran continued with its support of the suicidebombers of the Hizbollah and the Hamas.  They think that the war in Iraq would ultimately herald thebeginning of peace in Palestine, send a strong message to Teheran to mend its ways and moderate the equallyoppressive regimes in other parts of West Asia.

From their perspective, they are justified in wishing to see the end of his regime in Baghdad.  To befair to Bush, it has to be underlined, as it has not been by many analysts, that it was not he who initiallythought of  the change of regime as the objective of US policy in Iraq.  Large sections of theAmerican people and the Congress have been calling for it since the 1990s.

Many forget that it was the Congress which had called for the overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime byenacting the Iraq Liberation Act, signed by the then President Bill Clinton  on October 31, 1998, andallocating US $ 97 million for this purpose.

Article 3 of this Act laid down the aim of American Iraqi policy as the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and UShelp in setting up a democratic regime in Baghdad.  Article 4  called for US support to anti-SaddamHussein opposition groups for this purpose in the form of training by US Army instructors, supply of arms andammunition and propaganda material.

On January 16, 1999, seven Iraqi opposition groups - out of about 80 - were selected for US assistance---the Iraqi National Accord (INA), the Iraqi National Congress (INC), the Islamic Movement of Kurdistan, theMovement for Constitutional Monarchy, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the Patriotic Unionof Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP).  Only the last three  have roots in Iraq.  The rest were unknown to the Iraqi people till the US embraced them and started projectingthem, unconvincingly, to the world as the standard-bearers of democracy in Iraq.

On January 21, 1999, Mrs. Madeleine Albright, the then Secretary of State, designated   ForeignService Officer Francis Ricciardone as "Special Representative for Transition in Iraq" toco-ordinate the implementation of US policies to bring about a regime change.

The covert means initially adopted under the Clinton Administration failed to produce results because of USfailure to come to terms with certain ground realities.  The most important of these ground realities wasthat  the Shias constituted the majority in Iraq, forming 51 per cent of the total population as against46 per cent Sunnis.  Introducing democracy in Iraq meant helping the Shias to come to power and rule thecountry. The Americans wanted to use the Shias as surrogates in their operations to have Saddam Husseinoverthrown, but were not prepared to support their rule of the country lest it spread shivers across thespines of the pro-American rulers  of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain.

It was an act of hypocrisy to proclaim the US policy objective as democracy in Iraq if one was not preparedto tolerate the majority community acquire the reins of power in its hands.  Even though the presenthotch-potch of anti-Saddam Hussein coalition backed by the US has Shia personalities in important positions,it is doubtful whether the US would let them emerge on the driving seat in Baghdad once Saddam Hussein eitherquits or is driven out.

What the US advocated and continues to advocate for Iraq is not democracy as perceived by the majority ofthe Iraqi people, but democracy as designed in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that would serve USnational interests.  If one were to argue from the US angle, what the situation called for was to examinewhy the covert operations failed to produce results and to introduce the necessary correctives. Continuedcovert operations would have had the advantage of promoting US policy objectives, though more slowly thanovert invasion, without adding to the Islamic anger against the US in the world today.

The Islamic anger against the US is another ground reality, the implications of which have not beenadequately analysed and understood by US policy-makers.  It was this anger post-1991, which spawned thelikes of bin Laden, Ramzi Yousef, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and their ilk and led to their irrational acts ofterrorism---initially against the USA and subsequently against anybody else whom they perceived as enemies ofIslam.

The US has certainly made progress in the war against international jihadi terrorism. India, the mostsuffering victim of pan-Islamic jihadi terrorism in the world today, has reasons   to be gratifiedover the US success in its operations.  Even though these operations are designed to protect Americanlives and interests and not those of India, there is likely to be a beneficial fall-out for India too, but ona limited scale.

But, the way these operations have been carried out not only in Afghanistan and elsewhere, but also in theUS itself has added to the Islamic anger against the US at a time when an equally important US policyobjective should have been to reduce this anger.  The increase in this anger has already led to astrengthening of the political influence of the Islamic fundamentalist and jihadi forces in Pakistan and couldcause an anti-Hamid Karzai backlash in Afghanistan.  India cannot hope to remain insulated for long fromthe impact of this anger on its own Muslim community, the second largest in the world after Indonesia's, whichhas so far treated bin Laden and his ilk with disdain.

If Saddam Hussein refuses to quit, the triumph of the inevitable US military action should not be  indoubt.  The question is not whether the US would win, but how soon.  But it would be a Pyrrhicvictory, which would not contribute to enhanced peace and security for the US, Israel and the rest of theinternational community.

The world has nearly a billion Muslims. No world leader can afford to be insensitive to their feelings ofhurt and anger. Ultimately, whether the world is spared the consequences of their anger is not going to dependon the autocratic rulers of the Islamic world on whose support the US is counting for removing anotherautocratic ruler from power. It is going to depend on the perceptions and feelings of rage of the ordinaryMuslims in the streets, mosques and madrasas.

They perceive the USA's war on Iraq not as a war to liberate the Iraqi people from an autocratic ruler andgive them the fruits of democracy, but as a continuation of a war on Islam being waged by the"crusaders" and the Jewish people.  The aggravation of their anger consequent upon the USmilitary action would not bode well for peace and security. 

The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, and, presently,Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Convenor, Advisory Committee, Observer ResearchFoundation, Chennai