The 2005 Elections In Iraq And Beyond
By Robert Klein Engler (12/30/04)
A new year may find President Bush caught between Iraq and a hard place. The President's dilemma is highlighted in a recent article by Thomas E. Ricks in the "Washington Post." Ricks quotes retired Marine Lt. Col. Jay Stout who is no longer confident about what the U. S. strategy in Iraq should be. Stout says, "We have few choices: We can maintain the status quo while trying to build an Iraqi government that will survive, we can get the hell out now and leave them to kill themselves, or we can adopt a more brutal and repressive stance."
This is an keen observation from a man with a distinguished military career. Yet in his comments, Lt. Col. Stout does not mention just how the war in Iraq relates to the larger U. S. strategy for the Mideast or our global destiny in this growing conflict. The three options Lt. Col. Stout presents would make more sense if we see our presence in Iraq not so much as part of a war on terror, but as part of an extended, conventional war with Islam.
Let's assume a clash between civilizations, like the type that Samuel B. Huntington would describe, intensified on 9/11. Now, Islam and the West, especially Islam and the U. S. are at war. The vanguard army in this war is al-Queda, but al-Queda is not the whole story. This clash of civilizations is the inevitable result of many historical developments, chief among them the fact that Islam has always been an aggressive and proselytizing religion at odds with Europe. Islam is only now waking up to the New World.
Some of our political leaders know the aggressive history of Islam, but they dare not mention it. Economic and political interests prevent them from doing so. The Western economy needs oil and Western politicians need to give lip service to liberalism. Oil supplies and the ideology of liberalism would be thrown into confusion if the West and Islam were to spend 100 years in violent, religious conflict.
Even though civilizations are clashing in the way that professor Huntington would explain them, few have imagined a new military strategy to help the U. S. emerge victorious in this confrontation. Instead, the U. S. has fallen back on what it knows works: defeat nation states by conventional warfare and prevent the rise of a pan-Islamic force. To do this, the war against Islam was given a new name: it was called "the war on terror."
The so-called war on terror supposes a mercuric enemy. This is an enemy that defies national borders and uses electronic means to coordinate its activities. The enemy in the war on terror also recruits soldiers from the disenchanted young in the Islamic world. This definition of the enemy means that a new strategy for conflict must be developed by our military, or so we are told.
After the attacks of 9/11, the Bush administration had to respond in some way. The old way of seeing terrorism as a "nuisance" or as a criminal act was not working. The new way of viewing terrorism as a war with Islam had to be kept quiet. The moderate response was to go after the nations states that harbored the pan-Islamic, terrorist movement encouraged by Osama bin Laden. Afghanistan was first to fall, then Iraq. So far, to the credit of the Bush administration and our military, we have been successful in this old style warfare with a new name. There has not been another attack on the U. S. mainland since the attack on 9/11.
A look at the world map shows that Islamic states stretch in a band from North Africa to Indonesia. If all the Islamic nation states were to unite in a pan-Islamic force, the way Nazism aspired to a pan-Germanic empire, then that would be troublesome for both the U. S. and Europe. To prevent a pan-Islamic movement from succeeding, U. S. foreign and military policy has to direct its efforts at those Islamic states that most likely want to organize such a movement or threaten the flow of oil.
After Sadam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait and his flaunting of U. N. resolutions, it was clear to the Bush administration that he had to be removed from power. Iraq could not become a base for pan-Islamic forces or seriously interrupt the flow of oil. That nation has now been militarily defeated. At the end of January, there will be elections in Iraq, in spite of religiously motivated insurgents. We can hope for the best, and expect a secular government to take control of the country.
The January elections in Iraq will not solve all the problems in that area of the world. For one thing, if a secular democracy comes to power in Iraq, then democratic movements in Saudi Arabia and Jordan are going to ask why democracy is not also backed by the U. S. in those countries that still have royal families and monarchs. Then, too, we can expect the number of nation states involved in the conflict between civilizations to increase in 2005.
Syria, and Turkey will certainly exert an influence in Islamic affairs. Syria will make more trouble for the U. S. in Iraq, and the European Union will have to deal with the request of Turkey to join it. Furthermore, al-Queda will continue it's recruitment and propaganda for a pan-Islamic movement to force infidels from the sacred lands of the Muslims, while Saudi Arabia continues to export Wahabism and oil.
President Bush is correct in wanting to neutralize the threat of a pan-Islamic movement by bringing "democracy" to Iraq. Yet, there may be historical and cultural reasons that make this democratic transition impossible. If that is the case, then it is in the interest of the U. S. to keep the Islamic nation states in confusion and away from each other and the influence of China.
Finally, caught like a diamond in a vice is Israel. Israel certainly has no intention of seeing a pan-Islamic empire rise up around it. Also watching and waiting for events to unfold is Iran, who may soon have long range missiles with nuclear capability. Iran also hopes to catch up with Pakistan, who already has an atomic bomb and continues to threaten India. Given these realities, it is in the interest of the U. S. into the foreseeable future to play one Islamic state against another, either by diplomacy or war
Next year promises to be a difficult year for the U. S. and its allies. It would be beneficial if the U. S. could, in the words of Lt. Col. Stout, "...maintain the status quo while trying to build an Iraqi government that will survive." But regardless of the elections in Iraq, it looks like there is yet no effective military strategy against a 21st century clash of civilizations except a conventional 20th century war against nation states. What remains in question is whether or not a new U. S. military of reduced numbers but increased technology, mobility and force can win the peace after a militant, Islamic nation is defeated and its government removed. Without that peace, a clash of civilizations will throw wide open the portals to an abyss.
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