Pan-Arabism Zeroed In On in Iraq

The support of the war within the U.S. population continues to drop in such a way that Republicans have already begun to show signs of concern ahead of the parliamentary elections to be held in 2006, by mid-term of presidential office. The loss of confidence of George W. Bush’s supporters in a victorious outcome of Iraq has alarmed neo-conservative analyst and Weekly Standard’s director William Kristol, who has launched a call in his publication in favor of a new mobilization. This was followed, in turn, by the Spanish conservative daily ABC. Kristol proclaims that we should trust the White House actions and support a total war in the region, send additional troops to Iraq as requested by Senator John McCain and bomb Syrian cities which could shelter Iraqi insurgents – a program very much like a bloody rush of the process.

At the same time, those U.S. elite members who wished another form of “war against terrorism” are back on stage. Professor Francis Fukuyama has shown concern for the way things are turning in Iraq in a widely spread and published column in the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, Clarín, El Mundo and Le Monde, before other publications may probably do it. In his opinion, this war has been waged in the name of a neo-conservative ideology, which this time associated to nationalist and isolationist groups, forming a fragile alliance that may fall to pieces in case the Iraqi conflict lasts longer than predicted. If this coalition of interests broke, there would no longer be a majority to support the intervention and Washington could be forced to a shameful retreat. ‘However - said the writer of the “End of History” – ‘another policy could have been applied, such as that of creating a great alliance of western democracies. This would have allowed imposing an imperialist policy through diplomatic and economic pressures’. Francis Fukuyama has therefore expressed his nostalgia for the Clinton’s administration foreign policy, also defended currently by those close to George Soros.
In an interview granted to the German daily Die Welt, former Clinton administration Secretary of State praised that form of imperialism. In this regard, she compared the Kosovo war to that of Iraq. The first was waged with the western world support and brought U.S. traditional allies together around Washington. The second has isolated this country. While strongly criticizing the Bush administration pretexts to justify the attack on Iraq, she defended the “defense duty” – a new, more consensual name for “right to interfere” – developed by the International Crisis Group.
Let’s not forget that Francis Fukuyama is the administrator of NED/CIA and that Madeleine Albright is the president of the democratic branch of this organization. Both points of view can then be interpreted as an attempt of the organization to promote its methods instead of brutal action. Let’s also clarify that John McCain, whose positions are praised by William Kristol, is the president of the republican branch of NED. Therefore, the controversy is limited to the Washington elites over the means to be used and not over the objectives. This internal debate is not intended in the least to stop the progress of the Middle East restructuring plan. They all in Washington agree that the Iraq constitution project is a way to start the division of Iraq. But beyond Iraq’s division, the Arab world fears the death of the Arab nationalism.
According to the former director of the Political Planning Department with Egypt’s Foreign Ministry Abdallah Al-Ashaal, the purpose of the Iraqi constitution is to destroy Arab nationalism under the pretext of removing the Baha’ist. In the Egyptian national daily Al Ahram, he denounced the hypocrisy of the fight against the Baha’is Party. Compared to Nazism or Japanese militarism, this party has been charged with all the evils of Iraq. Has it already been forgotten that it was fully supported by Washington for a long time? And that this process of removal of the Baha’ist is now a way to undermine the foundations of the Iraqi Central State? Right now, the Arab identity of Iraq is threatened to be divided into three states based on ethnic and religious factions. In Abdallah Al-Ashaal’s opinion, such entities would neither be viable and would soon be annexed by their neighbors.
Abdel Bari Atouan – editor-in-chief of the Palestinian daily Al qods Al arabi – also showed his concern in Arabrenewal for the situation in Iraq. He began by attacking the Kurdish President in Iraq Jalal Talabani, whom he accused of wishing to destroy the Arab identity of the country before making it blow up. On the occasion of the death of more than one thousand Shiite pilgrims, Talabani criticized the attitude of the Arab countries for the lack of assistance to the victims and for the Arab States refusal to send ambassadors. Though the Palestinian editorialist agreed with the first point, he kept denouncing the second: no ambassador is sent to a country without sovereignty. Today, the purpose of the government policy is to divide Iraq and not the country’s sovereignty. In Le Figaro, Lebanese atlantist and analyst Antoine Basbous seems to corroborate the analysis in the Arab press. In Basbous’s opinion, the Arab nationalism is the main responsible for the current situation in the Middle East. The media expert is sorry about the way things have developed in Iraq. According to him, the U.S. invasion set free dormant forces till then by triggering Islamism and extremists of all kinds. He said that Iraq’s division is inevitable, not because it was a war objective of the U.S. but because all communities are willing to face each other from now on. He also predicted that this tendency would grow on in the whole region. But in his view, whether this situation is attributable to the U.S., it is a lot more attributable to the Arab nationalism, which was only able to beget a stagnant political order the consequences of which are now visible.
This way, Basbous confirmed that the Pan-Arabic movement is one of the top priority targets of the “war of ideas” that the Bush administration claims to have triggered in the Middle East. In the face of these concerns, the U.S. ambassador/proconsul in Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad tries hard to show himself reassuring in the Washington Post. The Iraq constitution does not divide Iraq; it only enables the reunification of a country that was already divided before the invasion. It gives Iraqis many rights. The trading process will create bridges among the communities. An idealized vision of the situation that is not likely to persuade many.