Houses of cards
Mohamed Hakki laments the return of status quo politics in the region and the failure of all those concerned to learn from the lessons of the past
The most troubling development since the US's invasion and military occupation of Iraq is a return to the status quo in US-Arab relations. It's back to business as usual, and it is as if neither the US nor the Arabs have learned anything since the events of 11 September 2001. Forget about the fact that tens of thousands of US and British soldiers have not found a single shred of evidence to justify the invasion: neither chemical nor biological weapons. No nuclear weapons, no mustard gas, no VX, no anthrax, not even one vial. They haven't even managed to find the evil dictator they went in to "liberate" the Iraqis from. It is true, however, that US forces, after diligently searching for weapons of mass destruction, found some very worrying things: they found fertiliser, vacuum cleaners, gas masks and a mobile trailer that could have been used to produce biological weapons. They did not find anything that substantiated President George W Bush's 17 March claims that, "intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraqi regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised." Nor anything to back up what Secretary of State Colin Powell pompously declared to the UN, "This is evidence, not conjecture. This is true. This is well documented...our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tonnes of chemical-weapons agent. That is enough to fill 16,000 battlefield rockets. Saddam Hussein has chemical weapons...and we have sources who tell us that he recently authorised his field commanders to use them."
Where have all these weapons gone? All of those administration officials and their apologists who are now saying: "So what if we haven't found anything?" are missing a very important point that touches not only on America's integrity but also its very honour: that the US administration lied to the world. It deceived the American people and world public opinion.
There was a time, and I am sure it is still true today, when, if asked to write a letter of recommendation for a student applying to a military academy, the first question would be: "If this student commits an error, would he be willing to admit it or would he deny it and continue to lie about it?" This question was asked because this was the real test of leadership. Unfortunately, the Bush administration has failed this simple test. Yet, I don't hear any outcry in the US media.
Only one honourable voice has been raised in Congress, that of Senator Robert Byrd, who is transforming himself into a monumental figure. On 21 May he said, "the truth will emerge". He added that truth has a way of asserting itself despite all attempts to obscure it. Distortion only serves to derail it for a time. No matter to what length we humans may go to obfuscate facts or delude our fellows, truth has a way of squeezing out through the cracks eventually.
The problem with going back to status quo politics is that it means that neither the US nor the Arabs have absorbed the meaning of what has unfolded so far. All reports coming out of Iraq indicate that Iraqis are not faring much better under their American "liberators" than they did under Saddam Hussein. They talk about how water is scarce, electricity unreliable, food is in short supply, and hospitals are over-crowded with the wounded and maimed. Forget about looting of the country's historic treasures -- which the US forces once described as "not that significant", now claiming that most of it has been returned -- what is more unsettling is that after two months of liberation there is still no central government, not even an interim one. Factional strife threatens to get out of hand and the basic dilemma of the occupying forces is whether to allow the Iraqis to democratise and Shi'ite majority rule or allow another dictator -- albeit more pro-American -- to take over. In order to divert attention from the number of Iraqi civilians that have been killed or maimed they are digging up the mass graves that are a legacy of Saddam's regime. One of the more balanced reports is by Steve Negus in The Nation. In a description of life in post-war Baghdad he says, "There is one hour of power all night, salaries are unpaid, gangs hijack cars at night on the roads and gas is in such short supply that frustrated drivers pull pistols on each other at service stations." A schoolteacher told him, "It is very difficult without a government, very difficult." Another resident said "Americans came here saying they wanted to help the Iraqi people, and we helped them defeat Saddam Hussein. Well, we [are] going to organise popular resistance against the Americans, like the Palestinian Intifada, if they don't give us some help."
Patrick Cockburn, writing in Counterpunch talks about how the US has largely wasted any political capital it gained with the Iraqis for overthrowing Saddam Hussein. Iraqis remember that, after the Gulf War in 1991, the Iraqi administration, vicious though it was, did a better job than the US in restoring electricity and water.
In fact, some of my Iraqi friends who are no supporters of Saddam speak about how, after the 1991 war, he rebuilt all the damaged and totally destroyed bridges in an incredibly short period of time. But no one in Washington is ready to listen to that. Cockburn talks about Western oilmen who are nervous that it is becoming more and more dangerous to be an American, or Westerner, anywhere in the Middle East. Another conservative friend, Jon Utley, told me jokingly, "Isn't it ironic that the strongest navy ever built by man, with a dozen aircraft carriers, does not have enough ports where American sailors can feel safe?"
In order to placate the Arabs the Bush administration is doing two things: it is switching its menacing and threatening posture against Syria and turning it against Iran. And, it has started talking about the so-called "roadmap" to settle the Israeli-Palestinian problem.
Unfortunately, its modus operandi with respect to both these issues is very similar to the way it behaved in Iraq: with arrogance and ignorance against Iran and giving in to Israel's demands from the very beginning.
With Iran, you don't even need to put your ear to the ground to hear the rumbling of the anti-Iran chatter. The gathering storm is readily apparent. In official statements and numerous articles, interviews and talk shows, the accusations are the same: Iran is harboring Al-Qa'eda operatives and Tehran may be closer to building a nuclear weapon than previously thought. Sound familiar? Even the rhetoric is the same, "the US should adopt both overt and covert measures to undermine the Islamic regime in Tehran ... The military option is never off the table ... [the US] should launch a limited air-strike on Iran's nuclear weapons."
At the same time, the US talks about evolutionary changes in patterns of transportation and access in Israel. There are new roads for Israeli settlers, aimed at facilitating safe travel to and from Israel and encouraging economic development. In contrast, the dynamic for Palestinians is just the opposite -- an ever-increasing network of barricades, obstacles, patrol roads, and prohibitions that isolate them from settlements, each other, and from places of work. This compromises their ability to lead normal lives and impoverishes an entire national community.
Yet, instead of visiting the West Bank and Gaza, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice revealed her pro-Israeli bias by declaring that the "security of Israel is the key to [the] security of the world". Rice also freely talked about her deep religious affinity to Israel saying that when she visited Israel in 2000, she felt she was "returning home". "I am the daughter of a Presbyterian minister, brought up on the very moving stories of the Holy Land. They mean a lot to me."
I confess that despite the fact that I have spent my whole adult life talking, discussing, listening, and arguing about the Palestinian-Israeli issue, I wept when I watched the living conditions of the Palestinians for the first time in a movie. The film was a comedy. It tells the story of a wedding in Ramallah. But seeing the horrors that the Palestinians have to go through on a daily basis is unbelievable, unreal and unforgivable. I wish Rice would watch it, better still -- allow it to be shown on one of the US's major networks.
I was struck by a sentence in Senator Byrd's article. He says: "Mark my words, the calculated intimidation which we see so often of late by the 'powers that be' will only keep the loyal opposition quiet for just so long. Because eventually, like it always does, the truth will emerge. And when it does, this house of cards built on deceit will fall."
By the same token, the Arabs are living in denial. Every country is saying: America will never turn against me. They only hate Palestinians and will only turn against the others. But the rising anger and humiliation is coming from everywhere and hitting everyone. America may be going through one of the most dangerous periods in its history. No one knows how long it will last. The present administration is driven by a shortsighted, narrow-minded, bigoted group of religious zealots and members of a cabal, a group of neo-conservatives who almost all belong to the same tribe, as Thomas Friedman calls them. If the Arabs do not wake up to this danger and begin to broaden the base of their people's political participation and free expression, then their houses of cards will also collapse. Equally, if the majority of Americans do not begin to open their windows and their media to some fresh voices, the backlash will be just as damaging. We all live in a world as fragile as the house of cards we each live in.
