DUBAI – The world’s feared doomsday scenario in the oil-producing Gulf region is not yet here —but in Iraq and Saudi Arabia we may have our first peek at what it looks like and how it is developing. Beyond the waters northwest of Dubai, Iraq is a tempest of occupation, resistance, terror and insecurity. Beyond the desert lands to the west, nearby Saudi Arabia is slowly being transformed into a killing ground. In one of the powerhouses of the Arab world, Saudi terrorists attack the oil industry, and methodically hunt down Americans and Britons, butchering them in cold blood.
The spectacle of widespread, organized violence and unstable conditions in these two oil-producing giants brings fear and worry to most of the world. Reactions in recent days include oil prices of over $40 a barrel. Most frightening for the Arab world is seeing two of its most powerful and influential countries offering the world almost daily scenes of terror, organized political criminality, and widespread fear.
Three main actors help explain the tragic trends in Iraq and Saudi Arabia:
• the local Arab governing elites,
• indigenous Islamist radicals, and
• the United States military presence.
The relationship among these three parties has resulted in some ugly consequences to date —and these are still early days. The bewildering prospect is that the dysfunctional and destructive combination of American military might and indigenous Arab power elites are repeating in Iraq the same divisive policy that has brought Saudi Arabia to fomenting homegrown terror.
For over a decade, one of Osama bin Laden’s main accusations against the Saudi ruling establishment has been the presence of American bases and troops on sacred lands. Too late, the US finally got the point and moved its main regional military facility from Saudi Arabia to Qatar. The anti-regime anger of bin Laden acolytes in Saudi Arabia had already been unleashed in the form of systematic attacks against the Saudi security establishment and foreign workers, especially in the oil and defense sectors.
If the United States goes ahead, as reported, and builds long-term military bases for its troops inside Iraq, we are likely to see the same sort of resentment against the US develop in Iraq as it has among Saudis. We have already seen how Iraqis who were grateful for the regime change in Iraq quickly became resentful of American forces and occupation officials dictating policy to them. The backlash in Iraq was swift and widespread, and the Americans got the message quicker in Iraq.
The biggest mistake they could make now is to fake their departure from Iraq and continue to rule the country indirectly.
Events in Saudi Arabia are deeply worrisome. Most frightening are the common reports and assumptions that some Saudi security personnel sympathize with, and even assist, the terrorists who now routinely attack targets in the kingdom. Evidence for such a charge has not been forthcoming, but the charge itself will not go away. This is the most dangerous consequence of foreign troops overstaying their welcome.
A somewhat parallel situation developed in Iraq. In April and May, when Iraqi and American troops and police fought against insurgents in Fallujah and Najaf, and elsewhere, many Iraqi policemen and soldiers deserted their units. Some even joined the insurgents fighting against the US and Iraqi troops. Thus, in two of the richest, most powerful and influential Arab countries, the large-scale presence of US troops acts as a major stimulant to resentment, then to resistance and terror and, perhaps, breakdown of native security systems.
If the United States maintains 140,000 troops in Iraq for a long time; if it builds permanent military bases; if it staffs a 1000-strong embassy that indirectly controls Iraq’s economy and security from behind the scenes; then, Iraq is likely to generate the same sort of anti-US resentment that has driven bin Laden and Al-Qaeda for the past decade and more.
American noble intentions and pure motives would not matter in this case, because American policies on the ground would be the determining factor. If the United States armed forces were in Iraq to deliver only freedom and Tootsie Rolls, their long-term presence would still be seen by most Arabs as bad news.
You’d think that someone in Washington beyond the hallucinogenic spell of the neoconservative radicals would have studied the last decade in Saudi Arabia and come to the obvious conclusion that a large Western military presence is not a recipe for happy Arabian nights or days. Yet Washington insists that its military is needed in Iraq to ensure security.
Say what?
The evidence suggests that it does precisely the opposite: it stimulates terror against Americans and against Arabs. That’s why two of the world’s most important oil producers are exporting images of death, bombing and burning these days, almost as regularly as they export energy.
From the Arab perspective, the full tragedy is not only the distress and suffering in these two Arab lands, not even the role of the United States per se. It is that these are not unique cases.
Many other modern Arab countries have suffered similar episodes of occupation, rampant violence, terror against the state, or terror by the state. My generation has watched assorted aspects of this ugly drama play itself out in Lebanon, Algeria, Syria, Sudan, Palestine, Jordan, Somalia, Yemen, Egypt, Kuwait, and other places. Iraq and Saudi Arabia are only the latest landscapes of Arab political intemperance and violence.
Rami G. Khouri is executive editor of the Beirut-based Daily Star newspaper, published throughout the Middle East with the International Herald Tribune.
Copyright © 2004 Rami G. Khouri
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Released: 16 June 2004
Word Count: 903
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