A rchive Date
[ 27-02-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ U.S ]
|
[http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/mansur_toronto.html
A domino theory for the Mideast
By SALIM MANSUR - For the Toronto Sun
February 27, 2003
LONDON, Ont. - As the war against Saddam Hussein's regime approaches, there is a frantic search to draw lessons from the making of modern Iraq by the victorious great powers of World War I. Lessons that will stand as a warning to the United States on the limits of redesigning the politics of a distant country, or effecting a regime change there.
The fact is that all modern Middle Eastern states between the Suez and the Euphrates, including Israel and the emirates of the Persian Gulf, are the handiwork of Britain and France. The region was nominally part of the Ottoman Empire and, for good or ill, its future was shaped by men meeting in Paris in 1919.
An examination of the decisions made then indicates there are no guarantees in nation building, or the eventual outcome, irrespective of design or the cast of characters selected to run the place.
But there is an argument to be made that if Britain had had the time and resources necessary to plant more deeply its political traditions in Iraq, as it did in India, a very different nation might have evolved.
But Britain didn't have the time or the resources, and the League of Nations' mandate over Iraq was as much a matter of convenience as it was a fiction.
Then, as now, Iraq, unlike Egypt, was made up of disparate parts of ethnicities and sects cobbled and held together by an artificial force, lacking legitimacy.
Britain's influential moment in the Middle East ended with the Suez crisis of 1956 which marked the beginning of its withdrawal from the Mideast and the rise of American power and influence in the region.
The astute Harold Macmillan, succeeding the discredited Anthony Eden as British prime minister, believed that henceforth it would be Britain's role to play the part of the Greeks in a new Roman Empire, directed by the U.S.
The Times of London, in reporting Eden's death in 1977, noted wryly, of both the man and the country he served: "He was the last prime minister to believe Britain was a great power and the first to confront a crisis which proved she was not."
Of the Suez crisis, Donald Neff, an American historian, observed it was "a hinge point in history," marking "the end of western colonialism and the entry of America as the major power in the Middle East."
Remember, too, that 1956 was also the year of the Hungarian crisis, when the Red Army of the Soviet Union ruthlessly crushed the uprising in Budapest with the number of dead and wounded exceeding 50,000.
The lessons of 1956 and after may be more pertinent than those of 1919, as American military might is positioned around Iraq, poised to use force to disarm Saddam and install a new regime in Baghdad.
THE ONLY SUPERPOWER
In contrast to Britain's misadventure in the Suez, American deployment comes at a time when its status as the world's only superpower is uncontested.
Its will to use military might in pursuit of security and the maintenance of the world order, in which the ideals of freedom and democracy may find greater promise of spreading now and in the future, is primarily constrained only by its own domestic politics.
In 1956, the world was well into the first decade of the Cold War. American entry into the Middle East did not go unchallenged by the Soviet Union.
Several decades of Cold War rivalry, which often turned hot, had its malevolent effect on the region.
In addition, the expectations of freedom, development and non-alignment that 1956 symbolized for Arab nationalists, went up in smoke, fuelled by radical rhetoric and the politics of accelerating brutality.
Oil is the axiom of power politics in the Middle East, and the American priority during the Cold War decades was to keep the oil-producing areas of the region within its purview, diplomatically and militarily secure.
It did not succeed entirely. Iran under the shah was lost in 1979, and Iraq under Saddam became a rogue state.
But Arab oil producers also had a responsibility to protect their resources, which are of such vital importance to the world economy, and to secure the well-being of their people, without threatening others.
And in that they have failed spectacularly. Sept. 11, 2001 was the explosive proof.
Regime change in Iraq means America will be tested in the Middle East as it has not been since 1956.
A HOLDING OPERATION
For the past half century, America's role was basically that of a holding operation, keeping secure the vital oil resource of the world's economy, while paying insufficient attention to nation-building. In a post-Saddam Iraq, America will have to pay the price for what it has secured in the region.
But a sustained American presence in Iraq, whatever the arrangements, can have positive results, as we have previously seen in South Korea and Taiwan.
The cumulative effect of rebuilding Iraq and supporting its people, given their native talents, could have a domino effect across the Mideast, if Iraqis opt for a democratic future. This is not simply a matter of faith, for there is historical precedent.
India is a far more diverse country, ethnically and religiously, than Iraq, and a nightmare of poverty and historical grievances. And yet India's democracy, the most valuable legacy of Britain's long presence in the subcontinent, has taken root and continues to grow stronger with each passing year.
America's presence - with Britain as a partner - in ancient Mesopotamia at the beginning of the 21st century can be of equal, if not greater, significance than what was achieved in the land of the ancient Indus civilization.
Salim Mansur is a professor of political science at the University of Western Ontario. His column appears alternate Thursdays. He can be reached at smansurca@yahoo.ca Letters to the editor should be sent to editor@sunpub.com
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
|