The fifth anniversary of the United States-led intervention in Iraq has coincided with an uprising of the Mahdist forces particularly in Basra, spreading to other zones. Ironically, in the run up to this anniversary American official sources had been suggesting that conditions in Iraq were moving in favour of the Iraqi Government, and therefore in favour of the US position there. The surge was doing its work, we were told, and the strategy of creating links with Sunni forces was beginning to neutralize the efforts of Sunni insurgents, as well as those of forces like the Mahdists.
But in spite of President Bush’s assurances that the US stood behind the Government’s offensive, and even, in the course of the offensive, American air support, the result has been a stalemate and an agreement with the Mahdist leader Moktada to pull back his forces. And now we are told that the withdrawal has come after mediation by the Iranian government between the Mahdists and the Government.
In reviewing these events, some observers have concluded that the Government forces still do not have the strength that was being attributed to them, and that they raise doubts about the Government’s strategy itself. This interpretation suggests that the recent outbreak of conflict has really been an effort of the substantially Shiite government to outmanoeuvre other Shiite forces particularly those of Moktada, in order to strengthen the position of the governing group which, on all accounts is less popular among the Iraqi masses than the Mahdists in particular. So the conflict is not seen as an effort of furthering national stabilization, but an attempt at seeking factional advantage.
The conclusion drawn even, it seems, by some persons within the American administration itself, is that in such a setting, the objective of gradual but persistent withdrawal of US forces in a schedule that takes account of the coming United States elections, may not be capable of achievement. And it has now been observed that the British withdrawal from active functioning in Basra, on the grounds that the situation there had achieved a reasonable degree of stability, is shown to have been premature.
What the Americans will be seriously scrutinizing, however, is the fact that the ending of the conflict at this time has required the mediation of the Iranians, widely perceived by the US to be prone to incitement rather than peaceful resolution of disputes. This, coming so soon after a highly publicised visit by the Iranian President to Iraq, raises the question of whether, in spite of American hesitations, the Iraqi situation requires the participation of Iran in an effort to seek a wider regional or multilateral mediation if it is to be resolved in the foreseeable future.
This is not a question that the American government particularly wishes to have raised at a time when the Republican presidential contender, Senator McCain, has assured the public that the United States should be prepared to stay in Iraq for a hundred years if necessary. McCain was trying to compare the need for a long term American presence in Iraq, and therefore in the Middle East in general, with the prolonged post-Second World war American military presence in both Germany and Japan.
But McCain’s almost simultaneous declaration that the NATO intervention in Afghanistan must be continued on a multilateral basis suggests not only a need to appease the American public in some way, it may also reflect his sense, and that of the American Government, that first, the European side of NATO, is increasingly unwilling to send combat forces to Afghanistan, and secondly that a new government in Pakistan, may be less hesitant to go all the way with the US in its approach.
What all this is raising is whether the United States any longer has the strength, in particular the diplomatic strength, and therefore the required legitimacy, to continued its essentially unilateralist approach to the resolution of affairs in the Middle East in general, Iraq being, when its extensive oil reserves are taken into account, something of a pivotal entity in that region.
During the first Gulf War involving American-led intervention to rescue Kuwait from Iraq, the first President Bush, strongly influenced no doubt by the views of General Colin Powell and his National Security Adviser, General Brent Scowcroft, resisted pressure to intervene in Iraq directly to “take out” President Hussein once and for all. Specialists in the area well recognized that Iraq was a fragile entity, constructed by departing European powers after the First World War, made up of separate entities created around the Tigris and the Euphrates, and given to fractious ethnic polarization.
In addition, the first President Bush was acutely aware that the US, after the Iranian revolution, had supported President Hussein, against Iran, during that country’s war with Iraq. This reflected a certain realism about the need for some form of balance of power in the Middle East even though they were dominated by authoritarian regimes.
It is these kinds of geopolitical perceptions, and the anti-interventionist advice implicit in them, that the second Bush ignored in throwing caution to the wind and intervening to “take out” Hussein. That he got the support of the British, induced him to ignore the widespread resistance to the idea from the major countries of continental Europe, and of course, the objections of Russia, then seen as weak and largely irrelevant to the resolution of Middle Eastern problems.
Today, the Europeans, giving de facto lukewarm support to the American military presence in Afghanistan, and increasingly resistant to her unilateralist efforts at resolution of global problems, would surely want to see a more political approach to the Iraqi issue, perceiving this as a prerequisite to the resolution of both the situation in Lebanon and the Palestine question. Such a solution would recognise Russian influence in the Middle East as well as Iranian influence, in spite of continuing efforts on the part of the powers, including Russia, to take Iran off the path of nuclear capability preparations.
In other words, there is an increasing recognition that while the US remains the so-called “indispensable power” in contemporary international relations, there is an increasing trend towards a certain multipolarity that recognizes a more globalist or multilateral approach to the resolution of problems.
The current relative entrapment of the United States in Iraq – for that is what it is – encourages such a turn towards multilateralism. For in today’s Middle East in particular, five years after “shock and awe”, Middle Eastern countries – and add to them Turkey – no matter how anti-Saddam and anti-Iran, would hardly wish to see the remaining suggestion evolving in American circles become a reality. This is for a unilateralist solution, permitting an American escape through the partitioning of Iraq into at least three separate states.
