If U.S. President George W. Bush continues on the same tract, the showdown with Iraq will send tremors across the world early this year, shaking particularly the rules of Saudi Arabia and Egypt, who will be isolated by diminishing American support and frightened by the fury of their own population.
Currently the world is on edge with some leaders crossing their fingers hoping that Saddam Hussein in Iraq will give the United States and the U.N. Security Council what they want – disarming Iraq of weapons of mass destruction. Iraq claims it has no such weapons.
There is little doubt that the relations between the United States and some Arab countries will deteriorate further. If the showdown with Iraq intensifies, foreigners in mid-east kingdoms will feel insecure. Attacks against them will become more frequent.
The Saudi Royal Family will face its most critical test, as it fears being abandoned by the United States and by its own people. Jordan, stuck between Iraq and the West Bank, will seek to keep a lid on its seething population, angered by American policies in Iraq as much as by the plight of Palestinians. Heightened fears of Israeli expulsions of Palestinians and of domestic attacks by al-Qaeda cells will keep the Hashemite monarchy in a constant state of anxiety. In Jordan, as elsewhere, governments will tighten the ban on demonstrations and set up repression, making violence more likely. Most dangerous to the West will be the perception that the disarmament of Iraq is part of a global war against Islam, not an anti-terror campaign.
According to an article in the Economist, in 2003 North Africa is the corner of the Arab World that will be least affected by Iraq, although Morocco will have some of the largest outbursts of anti-war fever.
Across the Arab world, the voices of liberalism will rise to say that the moment has come for change.
The writer Roula Khalaf states: “Though part of the chorus will come from western-educated Arabs, the most telling voices will be from reform-minded Islamists. They will have to wait for the dust to settle on Iraq before being heard. For now, their voices will be drowned in the cacophony of anti-Americanism. The United States may be calling for democracy in the Arab world but it has lost the moral authority for its words to be taken at face value.
“Israel will feel secure in its alliance with America. But entering the year, the Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, will feel secure about his own people. They will be increasingly convinced that his policies are leading Israel to disaster. An election might tell him so. One thing is sure: there will be no end to violence in the country in 2003,” says Khalaf.
America’s agenda is to prevent the spread of nuclear and biological weapons of mass destruction into the hands of alarmingly unpredictable dictators or roaming ideological fanatics: the anti-apocalypse campaign. To cope with these two problems, the United States is building a new alliance that reaches far beyond its alliances with the European democracies.
In the argument about attacking Iraq for non-compliance, most Europeans have agreed with America in wanting a disarmed Saddam, and in believing that Iraq would be a far happier country without him; their hesitations have been about how to do it, and the cost of doing it: about means, not ends.
Dudley Fishburn stating his perspective says: “The rhetoric and violence that will emanate over the year from Iraq and its neighbours will be interpreted in the West as chaos. President George Bush will be rounded on as a man who meddled with things beyond his control: American and European citizens will themselves flounder as the violence is brought by terrorists to their own doorsteps. But for the people of the Middle East, it will all be a welcome change, a long overdue start to more fitting systems of government, and an end to present stagnation.
“Even if one or two nations, improbably, make a break for Muslim fundamentalist government, the result would be more legitimate and less dangerous than arbitrary and murderous dictatorship.”
Whether America will be able to control or even channel these winds of change is, of course, open to doubt. Certainly it will get no thanks from its Arab allies; the Saudi and Egyptian regimes, not least, would much prefer things to stay as they are.
Insight, The Bahama Journal
