-
Americans moving in next door
By Saad Mehio
The Daily Star, 2/25/03
-
For the first time in the history of their
relationship, Americans and Arabs are about to become next-door neighbors.
For the first time since the US became the dominant power in the Middle
East (in the aftermath of the 1956 Suez campaign), it will be physically
present in this rich-poor region.
This historic turn of events will come about because of the imminent
transformation of Iraq into an American protectorate, just like Germany
and Japan were at the end of World War II.
But how will relations between these new neighbors develop?
According to all available indications, Washington has enough cards in its
hands to turn its occupation of the ancient Islamic capital city of
Baghdad into a process of liberation:
It can as it did in Germany and Japan see to it that Iraq turns into
a democratic state that would become a prototype for the Arab and Muslim
worlds.
It can assist Iraq in catching up with the information age by helping it
develop a capitalist economic system. Iraq could then become a model that
all Middle Eastern states would wish to emulate.
From its headquarters in post-Saddam Iraq, the US would then be in a
position to reshape the entire Middle East in a way that consolidates
American interests according to Secretary of State Colin Powell.
All this would be possible. Moreover, these steps would change Arab,
Muslim, and even European, perceptions of America. There would be no more
suspicions; instead, hope would be rekindled. But wait a minute. Aren’t
we forgetting something?
Indeed we are. Ariel Sharon Israel’s prime minister, who is riding on
the shoulder of the American giant and is whispering in its ear.
For Sharon is capable of turning all these American opportunities into
hazards; he can destroy the foundations of the new Pax Americana in the
Middle East.
Robert Wright, a visiting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, wrote
in an article earlier this month: “It’s not the reaction to an
invasion I’m concerned about. It’s the reaction in the Muslim world.
Various terrorist groups and not just the Al-Qaeda will try to use the war
to boost recruiting, and I’d like to make their job as hard as
possible.”
Well and good. But Wright failed to mention in his article titled “Road
to ‘regime change,’” why the Islamic world would become a breeding
ground for terrorism. Far from being in Iraq, the cause actually resides
in Palestine.
Gerald Steinberg, a professor of political science at Bar Ilan University
in Israel, recently expressed his belief that Sharon has so far been
carrying out a successful strategy based on three complementary elements:
national unity, cooperation with the US and judicious use of armed force.
Was Steinberg correct in his assessment? No.
In spite of the fact that Sharon has managed to control the domestic
situation in Israel, avoiding exposure in the outside world, this did not
happen because of Steinberg’s three factors. Sharon succeeded only
because of blind American support for his policies.
Had Washington not been supportive of Sharon, many of his ministers would
have abandoned him long ago.
Had it not been for the green light he received from the White House,
Sharon could never have conquered the West Bank and killed off the Oslo
process.
Had it not been for Washington’s staunch support, Sharon, his Defense
Minister Shaul Mofaz and other Israeli leaders would have now been behind
bars in The Hague for the horrendous war crimes they committed in Jenin
and elsewhere.
It is therefore clear that the American factor has been the most crucial
in allowing Sharon’s program to stand on relatively solid ground.
But why has America been such a wholehearted Sharon backer? There have
been many explanations for this.
Some say Washington decided to back Sharon because of the confusion in
American minds between the suicide operations mounted by Hamas and Islamic
Jihad on the one hand and the terrorist acts perpetrated by Al-Qaeda on
the other. Others say support for Sharon is part of the American war
against Islamic fundamentalist groups in the Arab world and elsewhere.
Still others believe it’s all part of the clash between Western
civilization and Islam that began on Sept. 11.
These are all plausible reasons. But they’re not enough to explain the
extremely close coordination between Washington and Tel Aviv vis-a-vis the
bloody crisis in Palestine.
This, at least, was the conclusion of University of San Francisco
Professor Steven Zunes, who in an article in Foreign Policy in Focus,
mentioned the following basic facts:
l Despite the importance of the moral and psychological links between the
US and Israel, the most crucial factor driving American espousal of
Israeli policies have been America’s strategic interests.
l Over the last 50 years, a new rule has come into being. It says American
support for Israel increases the stronger Israel becomes, and not the
other way round because Israeli military power serves America’s economic
and strategic interests.
l The current “war on terror” will make America rely even more on
Israeli bases, facilities, information and military forces. This will
especially be the case when the next phase of this war (in Iraq, Syria,
Lebanon and perhaps Iran) begins.
Yet even if the Bush administration, because of its emotional ties to
Israel finds it is difficult to distinguish between the Taleban, Al-Qaeda
and Hamas, it can still do something else at least: not turn Sharon and
his genocidal, ethnic-cleansing cohorts from the terrorists they are into
heroes in the struggle against terrorism.
Is there anyone in the US who doesn’t know that Sharon is not merely
targeting Hamas and Islamic Jihad, but is actually out to destroy the
Palestinians’ hope of an independent state?
Is it possible that Pentagon hard-liners are ignorant of the fact that the
Likud and its extremist allies intend to destroy the very foundations of
the peace process, demolish the Al-Aqsa, “transfer” the population of
the West Bank and Gaza Strip and plunge the entire Middle East into
another century of war and strife?
Bush and Powell have already said they realize it would be impossible to
achieve a solution through security means and that only a political
settlement has any hope of success.
Yet even a child would know that people like Sharon, Effi Eitam, Benjamin
Netanyahu, the Likud, the National Religious Party, Yisrael Beiteinu and
Gesher only see politics as a fulfillment of Jehovah’s will to destroy
Israel’s neighbors and enslave their peoples.
What kind of peace can be achieved with these “heroes of the
anti-terrorist struggle?” How can any Arab official or otherwise believe
the US is serious in its peacemaking efforts if Sharon and his cronies are
the tools to carry them through? How can peace be achieved in Palestine
while conservative American politicians insist on looking at Palestine
through Likud-tinted glasses?
The Pentagon has been completely overwhelmed by hard-liners. While the
Defense Department has been busy planning an invasion of Iraq, Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was sparing no efforts trying to find evidence
linking Yasser Arafat to “rogue” states such as Syria, Iraq, and Iran.
These American positions coincide completely with Sharon’s calls for
using raw military power to crush the Palestinian intifada whose goal is
to end Israeli occupation and achieve independence. They also coincide
with the ideas expounded by Netanyahu:
There is no chance for negotiations or a peaceful settlement with the
Arafat regime. The Palestinian Authority must be dismantled forthwith, and
Arafat expelled. Palestinian towns and cities must be surrounded and
cleansed of terrorists. Israel’s sole option is to win the war
decisively. The Palestinian territories must be isolated so that the
Israeli army can enter at will while preventing Palestinian terrorists
from entering Israel.
Can the US continue to support such a destructive Israeli plan without
endangering its interests in Iraq, the Middle East and the entire Muslim
world? Highly unlikely.
A lot of water has passed under the bridge since Sept. 11. It is high time
the United States abandoned its monochromatic view of the Arab world.
It is time the US regain the ability to distinguish between an
18-year-old Arab girl blowing herself up for a just cause, and an ugly
septuagenarian Israeli Army general trying to blow up an entire people for
the sake of unjust myths.
Unless, of course, the Bush administration values the lives of Israeli
occupiers more than it does its own soldiers, who will soon become
next-door neighbors with more than 300 million Arabs.
Saad Mehio is a Beirut-based Lebanese
journalist and writer.