MGG Pillai Commentary View

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Is the Iraqi Invasion a harbinger of worse to come?

IN THIS COLONIAL WAR the United States fought in Iraq, invading it to rearrange the political map of the Middle East, Washington presumed that only one worldview is accepted: its own. It would not allow any opposition, amongst its citizens or international bodies like the United Nations, not for the weapons of mass destruction it claimed Iraq had, but to overthrow the Saddam Hussein regime. The United States has a long history of destroying its clients when they get to act independently of Washington's dictates. And Saddam Hussein was once a client, as Osama bin Laden was, and many a third world dictator it now finds would not continue to dance to its tune.

What is frightening at this colonial invasion of Iraq is how out of touch with reality the United States is. In embarking on it, Washingtonn was certain the majority Shia community would welcome it with open arms, and as one commentator noted, its most difficult problem would be how to deal with the floral tributes the grateful Shia community, long repressed under Saddam Hussein, would welcome them. Today, the most potent organised opposition is that very same Shia community. It miscalculated and misjudged every step in this invasion. What was to have been a quick surgical operation is now messy, that the very men in the Pentagon who promised a quick, sharp, easy victory now think they would be in Iraq for "at least five years", perhaps more. Every hopeful expectation is forgotten, as the invading army turns into an occupation army.

The Anglo-American destruction of Baghdad is as bad, if not worse, than Hulegu Khan's in 1258. Then the Tigris waters turned black with the ink of its priceless libraries; today the skies of Baghdad are dark with the smoke from the burning libraries. It is this that will be remembered long after the United States has gone on to pacify other inconvenient states. It now appears there was a deliberate pattern in the looting, the destroy the past so the present could be rebuilt anew, so Iraq would be a culture without a past, like the United States, and thereby create a culture in Washington's likeness. Cultural destruction will remain in the people's mind long after the event that led to it is forgotten. In England, it is the destruction of the monasteries, and the destruction of its priceless treasures, is remembered than King Henry VIII, who ordered it. We have forgotten Hulegu Khan, not what he did. In fact, the worse destruction came later the 13th century, when his cousin, Timur the Lame, Tamerlene in the West, sacked Baghdad, but that is all but forgotten.

It now comes clear the Anglo-American aim was to destroy the Saddam Hussein regime, not the weapons of mass destruction it claimed the regime had. It found nothing. Even it does now, would it be Iraq's, or something put there after the fact to prove the point of the war? But in destroying the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, it did not plan how to restore the peace. All it was interested in was to rearrange Iraq in an American image, with colonial governors and potentates telling a proud people that they are not learned in how to run their own governments, and they must be tutored from the basics.

That had, in other words, to destroy Iraq in order to save it. It had done that twice in the past: in Japan and in Afghanistan. In Japan, the United States wisely worked with the existing regime, the changes made acceptabed because of the ingrained Buddhist belief in bowing down to the victor. That helped the US along but that is changing. The Japan today is more confident and assertive now because the policy makers, born after the San Francisco Treaty in 1953, which formally ended the war with Japan, have no mental baggage of Buddhist subservience to the United States. In Afghanistan, it went in to destroy the government led by its proteges, the Taliban, bombed the country with such bombs that decades after, children would be destroyed by it, put a puppet administration in place, and left. In Iraq, it would have to stay, whether it likes to or not, and face constant antagonism from the people.

The 24-hour Western TV stations reported the Iraq invasion from the usual hype of American military commanders those who heard it in Sagin would recognise. No attempt was made to see how their perception of the war is received on the ground. Indeed, when the Arab TV channels, Al Jazeera being only one ot them, showed the human casualties of the precision bombs that went astray, Washington moved heaven and earth to have then not broadcast. In this war, Washington would admit to no casualties it would not admit. But this monocular view is what puts it in the quagmire it is in.

For here is another view, from a senior Iraqi official, close to Saddam Hussein, who was in London in business, telling a senior Malaysian politician, with whom he went to school, as the invasion began. Two years ago, Saddam Hussein decided the US would attack him, said Iraq lost 125,000 dead in the first Gulf War, 1.5 million in the sanctions regime that followed, and decided to break up his fighting forces into guerrilla groups. Two months before the invasion, he ordered the dispersal of his front line troops, replaced them with volunteers and soldiers from other formations. This was done. This obviously was unknown to the Americans, who while claiming the Republican Guards have been routed, have produced few guns. A force of 300,000 would have, at the very least, 300,000 weapons of choice, either an M16 or an AK47. For an army that has been reduced to surrender, precious few ammunition is recovered.

If this is true, and there is no reason why could not, this is a far more dangerous threat than the Shiite demonstrations would suggest. If these guerilla groups have melted into the crowds, waiting for the day they could cause their havoc, the US is in for a far stickier time than they could imagine. For with political protests above grounds, and the guerilla bands roaming across the deserts, and the US supply lines with Baghdad as tenuous, with the pressure of Christian fundamentalist groups out to Christianise Muslim Iraq, its repercussion would be most severe beyond its borders. If Washington's main accusation against the Saddam Hussein regime is that the minority Sunni leaders browbeat the majority Shia, then by the same gambit it must act against President Bashir Assad, for he represents the minority Shia community browbeating a Sunni majority into submission. This it cannot do, for that would add to its problems in Iraq and more pressure from Iran.

If the US aim was to help Israel by destroying its most potent military threat, Iraq, it cannot now be sure. For what the Iraq invasion has done is to unite the Muslims in the Middle East, Shia and Sunni, that Israel and the United States would face opposition from them for a long time to come. The US cannot leave Iraq except in defeat, and the Muslims would unite to that end. It would not happen today, but I fear the longer the US remains in Iraq, the more nebulous the gains it had hoped for in deciding to destroy the Saddam Hussein regime. It could well be Israel that would rue the day the Anglo-American force marched into Iraq. There is, if what is talked of in the Arab street is true, a surfeit of Muslim gallants prepared to sacrifice themselves, in the name of Islam, to rid the Middle East of the likes of the United States. Suddenly, the United States has opened up more fronts than it can deal with.

[I wrote this for my column in Seruan KeADILan in its latest issue, out this week]

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@mgg.pc.my