At crossroads
Mohamed Sid-Ahmed wonders whether the shackles of occupation are being removed in the Middle East or, rather, strengthened?
Foreign military occupation is a phenomenon with which our part of the world is all too familiar. Even after the former colonies and protectorates were liberated, occupation remained part of the collective consciousness of the peoples of the Middle East, a dark chapter in our history that we never thought would be reopened. But the situation in both Iraq and Palestine has brought the issue of occupation back to the forefront of our concerns, and raises a number of questions of paramount importance. One such question is whether the occupation of territory in the Middle East is decreasing or increasing. Which of the two processes currently unfolding is more salient: the reduction of Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory, or the tendency of the Anglo-American military presence in Iraq to acquire the character of an occupation force, rather than the liberation force it purports to be?
One crisis situation is cooling down, with some signs of progress in implementing the roadmap; the other is hotting up, with coalition allied troops getting more and more entangled in skirmishes that cannot be attributed to Saddam loyalists only. It has been argued that the victory scored by the United States in Iraq allows it to play a key role in resolving the Palestinian problem by sponsoring the establishment of a Palestinian state living in peace and security side by side with Israel. But the question remains: can the roadmap guarantee a peaceful solution of both critical issues at the same time, or are the difficulties now facing the Iraqi problem placing still greater obstacles in the way of solving the Palestinian problem?
President Bush described his invasion of Iraq as a war of liberation aimed at delivering the country from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein and claimed that the Iraqi people would welcome him with open arms. Conveniently forgetting that he himself had not been elected to office by a majority of American citizens, Bush accused Saddam of usurping power and regarded his authority as head of state as akin to an illegal occupation by an alien power! But his expectation that the Iraqis would receive American troops as liberators did not materialise. True, they were only too happy to see the back of Saddam Hussein, as evidenced by the dramatic television footage of his statues being pulled down and trampled underfoot by jubilant Iraqis. But this did not mean they were happy to see their land invaded by foreign forces. Conversely, opposition to the presence of allied troops does not imply nostalgia for the rule of Saddam. There is no such thing as a benign occupation. To occupy is to subjugate, and the normal reaction of people under occupation is to resent and resist this state of affairs.
That is the situation in Iraq today, where, in addition to the abstract humiliation of foreign occupation, there is the humiliation visited on ordinary Iraqis every day, who are routinely rounded up, blindfolded and shackled by nervous coalition forces. The more harshly the coalition troops deal with ordinary Iraqis, the more they reveal themselves to be a hostile power, an army of occupation, not liberating force interested only in ending the suffering of the Iraqi people and restoring their rights and dignity.
Thus the Iraqi people have had to contend with two evils simultaneously: a harsh dictatorship with a bloody record of oppression, persecution and intimidation and a full-scale war launched against their country under the pretext that the Iraqi regime was secretly harbouring weapons of mass destruction. The war has come and gone and still the alleged arsenal has not been found. In other words, the war was waged under false pretences. How can anyone, least of all the Iraqis, consider such a war to be legitimate? And why would they consider the war and the devastation it has brought to be a lesser evil than the suffering they endured under Saddam Hussein?
The behaviour of the coalition forces on the ground belies the American administration's claim that their presence in Iraq is a friendly presence, and has prompted Iraqis to question whether their situation under the rule of Saddam Hussein was any worse than what they are now suffering under direct American military rule, without Iraqi participation, even in a consultative capacity, and with no end in sight. The confrontation between the bulk of the Iraqi people on the one hand and the US-led coalition on the other passed through several stages. At an early stage, before the invasion, people were fatalistically resigned to the inevitability of war. Resistance was coloured by two considerations: facing up to the aggression by foreign invaders on the one hand and the despotic arbitrary manner Saddam chose to fight the war on the other.
Then came the battle for Baghdad, which was expected to be the bloodiest and hardest battle of the entire campaign. But the coalition forces faced practically no resistance as they marched into the capital. To this day, the reasons for the fall of Baghdad without a military showdown remains a mystery. While versions of the event differ from one source to another, what is certain is that Saddam was no longer capable of leading a resistance movement on a national scale. Still, after some time, unexpected forms of resistance to foreign intervention have emerged. There is no conclusive evidence that Saddam is still alive. But it is significant that the reward offered for his capture, dead or alive, has been raised to 25 million dollars. Although he has vanished from the scene, Saddam remains a central figure in determining the future of Iraqi resistance.
In any case, the uncertainty over Saddam's whereabouts has encouraged Bush to pay more attention to the Palestinian problem, to go back to the roadmap and revive the issue of the Palestinian state. The campaign for the coming US presidential elections is getting closer and not one of the foreign policy issues the incumbent US president has addressed can be said to have been totally resolved, whether Afghanistan, Iraq, or Palestine. This led Bush to visit the Middle East and to personally participate in the Sharm-El-Sheikh and Aqaba summits. He also sent his National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice to personally supervise the first steps towards implementing the roadmap.
A recorded message allegedly issued by Saddam in mid-June claimed that the overthrown Iraqi president was still alive and that he had sacrificed his presidency and refused an American offer to surrender in exchange for keeping his seat. The message contends that the losses suffered by the coalition forces are greater than the official figures, called on the Iraqi people to protect resistance fighters and threatened to punish whoever betrayed them. If the message is genuine, this means that the deposed Iraqi president is still alive and active. This possibility is not being dismissed out of hand, as evidenced by the fact that the reward offered for his capture has been raised and that coalition leaders are now talking of staying in Iraq for several years, not the two years they had originally estimated.
With the situation in Iraq showing no signs of improving in the foreseeable future, Bush has every interest in ensuring that his efforts to defuse the other Middle East crisis are crowned with success. But the roadmap on which all hopes for a resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict are now pinned does not offer an overall picture of a final settlement of the Palestinian problem. The roadmap covers three phases, a first which includes a network of mutual commitments to be implemented in succession and which are to be crowned at the end of Phase I with the announcement of the creation of a Palestinian state within provisional borders. Then come Phases II and III which extend until the end of 2005, that is, beyond the US presidential elections. These two phases do not provide for mutually binding commitments as in the case for Phase I, and their timeframes could eventually be extended. In principle, they should solve all the intricate problems that Clinton failed to solve at his Camp David meeting with Arafat and Barak, such as the issues of Jerusalem, final borders, the Palestinian right of return, etc. One is left with the impression that the momentum given by the roadmap to the peace process will go no further than Phase I, which will end with the creation of a Palestinian state with limited attributes of sovereignty! Other than that, the situation will not be very different form where matters stood when Clinton left the White House and the peace process was proclaimed dead.
It is true that negotiations have been resumed between Sharon and Abu Mazen, but the process is very vulnerable and threatened at any moment by setbacks that undisciplined elements on either side could provoke. As far as Syria and Lebanon are concerned, the roadmap mentions them only briefly, but gives no detail on how these tracks will proceed. This prompted French President Jacques Chirac to come forward with the idea of a roadmap to settle the outstanding issues between these countries and Israel. Meanwhile, in his capacity as head of the European Union up till the end of 2003, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has proposed that Sicily play host to an international conference on the Middle East along the lines of the Madrid Conference. But Berlusconi's credentials as a statesman and aspiring peacemaker have been severely damaged by his recent gaffe before the European Parliament, which he is still refusing to apologise for.
