Issue No. 598
Opinion
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8 - 14 August 2002 Issue No. 598 Opinion |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Recommend this page | ||
Bush's war plans on hold?
Is the Bush administration beginning to seriously reconsider the idea of an attack on Iraq, asks Mohamed Sid-Ahmed
The Bush administration's attempt to whip up war fever against Iraq has run into unexpected difficulties. Voices are being raised in both the military and business establishments warning against the risks of a full-scale military campaign. Many senior officers believe that the United States should continue to pursue its largely successful policy of containment rather than invade Iraq to force a change of leadership in Baghdad. A large-scale invasion could involve as many as 250,000 troops and entail a significant military mobilisation and a call-up of reserves. It could also embroil America in a Vietnam-style conflict with unforeseen consequences.
Economists fear that the costs of such a war will exacerbate the already expanding budget deficit and force cutbacks in domestic programmes. And, if consumer and investor confidence remains fragile, military action will have profound psychological effects on the financial market, retail spending, business investment, travel and other key sectors of the economy. Of course, these warnings will not stop Bush if he is determined to attack Iraq, as seems to be the case. Many of his top aides contend that the Iraqi leader is still acting aggressively, intimidating his neighbours and engaged in producing weapons of mass destruction. Notwithstanding their skepticism, the military will have no choice but to toe the line drawn for them by their commander-in- chief. As one White House aide put it: "If the president decides this is going to happen, they'll go along with it."
The military's objections indicate that while the US government is united about wanting Saddam out of power, it remains deeply divided about how to achieve that goal. The military's support of containment, and its concern about the negative consequences of attacking Iraq are shared by senior officials at the State Department and the CIA. Over the last decade, the military have grown more comfortable with the policy of restraining Iraq through "no fly zones", naval enforcement of sanctions, and the continuous presence of about 20,000 military personnel near the Iraqi borders. Senior officers believe the policy has been more effective than generally recognised.
Economic considerations figure prominently in the anti-war arguments being put forward. Eleven years ago, the Gulf War cost the United States and its allies $61 billion and helped set off an economic recession caused in part by a spike in oil prices. For that war, the former President Bush's allies picked up almost 80 per cent of the bill. Today, his son's administration is confronting the likelihood that it will have to foot the entire bill itself.
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Japan shared the cost of the 1991 war with the United States, but today none has offered to assist with financing a new military campaign. "Just look at a map," said a member of the Kuwaiti royal family. "Afghanistan is in turmoil, the Middle East is in flames and you want to open a third front in the region? That would truly turn into a war of civilisations."
A conflict of similar dimensions today would cost $79.9 billion. Is America ready to carry such a burden, with its present deteriorating economic condition? With no surplus in the budget from which the cost could be paid, there will be trade-offs, making initiatives like Medicare harder to carry through and resulting in deeper deficits and more debt.
Senior administration officials say Bush and his top advisers have not begun to consider the cost of war because they have yet to decide what kind of military operation might be necessary. And, if oil supplies are disrupted as they were during the 1991 war, forcing a sharp rise in prices, the economic backlash would be keenly felt in the United States and around the world. This could present a complicated political problem for Bush, both in the congressional mid-term elections in November and in his re-election campaign in 2004.
Ironically, criticism of the war option has come mostly from the Right. The Right has vigorously challenged the administration's military policies while the Left has been rather quiescent. Abroad, the Left has been vociferous in its criticism of Bush's policies, but the attacks of 11 September, which left more than 3000 people dead, produced a consensus across the political spectrum inside America. Hence the American Left's uncharacteristically passive stance on the issue of the impending war.
Even if war does not materialise, an enlarged American presence in the region can be expected. A leaked document seems to confirm this hypothesis. The document states that what it describes as terrorism will require a continuous American presence to convince the Arab peoples that the United States is serious about waging an effective war against terrorism, and that this effective war will have a long arm capable of penetrating inside the Middle East countries in the aim of eradicating terrorist groups, curtailing their activities and drying up their financial sources.
In the context of this new American strategy, US embassies will be provided with teams from the CIA and the FBI, as well as with operators in different areas of expertise, who will be assigned the task of studying specific files, analysing their contents and cooperating with local security agencies to unmask persons suspected of participating in terrorist activities.
According to the document, these measures should not be seen by friendly states as aimed at undermining their national sovereignty or interfering in their internal security affairs, but as enhancing security cooperation between countries for the common good. Countries that refuse to cooperate with the United States will be regarded by the US administration as supporting terrorist activities and will be penalised accordingly, if need be through military means. The document also proposes the creation and consolidation of pressure groups supportive of American policy in a number of Arab countries whose activities would include combatting fanaticism, religious extremism and any form of organised terrorism.
So far, there has been no official US comment on the document, which was published in the issue before last of the Egyptian weekly, Al-Osbou'. If it does prove to be authentic, the Middle East is facing a period of increased tensions as America embarks on a "liberal, imperial role in the world" as advocated by the conservative Weekly Standard magazine. Even if Bush opts for containment over military intervention, the document provides a blueprint for other no less dangerous forms of US intervention in Middle East affairs. The hands-on involvement of US security agencies in the internal affairs of sovereign states in the region can only antagonise Arab public opinion and further destabilise an already precarious and shaky situation.
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