The new end-game in the region is ‘regime
change’
Saad Mehio
According to Henry Kissinger, the present does not replicate the past, but it may resemble
it and foreshadow the future; but it is the job of historians to find the points of
similarity and difference between the past, the present, and the future.
It is May 1953. The airplane carrying US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles has just
landed in Cairo, introducing a new era of global rivalry in the Middle East.
Dulles’ visit to Egypt failed to achieve all that Washington had expected. At the end
of his stay, the secretary of state declared himself astounded that “the Egyptians
seemed to fear Zionism more than communism.”
But the visit nevertheless ignited a spark that would soon engulf the entire region in
flames.
The spark in question was the beginning of America’s attempts to inherit the security
system in the Middle East that was first established by the British and the French through
their Sykes-Picot Treaty at the dawn of the 20th century.
The flames were the result of the collision between emerging Arab nationalism and rapidly
expanding American nationalism. Both were engaged in establishing their respective
legitimacies and leaderships in the region. And both had within them the seeds of
inevitable confrontation and collision with the other because of their profoundly
different strategic, ideological and political outlooks on the one hand, and the fact that
the Middle East could not tolerate two different leaderships at the same time on the
other.
Nasserite Arab nationalism, for its part, was engaged in tearing down the existing
European-built order, and replacing it with a new Arab order, independent of both East and
West. By pursuing this goal, Nasser’s Egypt was turning into a revisionist state in
the region.
The United States, in turn, was only just beginning to exercise its grip on the Middle
East, because of the bankruptcy of both Britain and France in World War II.
Given the intense nationalist sentiment then at play in the US, the Americans viewed any
attempt to obstruct their attempts to wrest control of the region as a war that had to be
won.
Washington had already rejected offers by London and Paris to cooperate and coexist in the
Middle East. It was inevitable that Washington would reject the attempts by less developed
regional states to assert their own independence and thus undermine America’s pursuit
of supremacy.
That was how Arab-American relations looked in the not too distant past.
History is not supposed to repeat itself, especially if a major participant in the events
of the past Arab nationalism no longer exists. Also, the US no longer has a rival
for its dominance: Both Nasserism and the Soviet Union are now history.
But some aspects of the present do indeed resemble the past, especially as far as
America’s own conduct is concerned.
After the Sept. 11 attacks, America once again adopted a revisionist stance, and
began trying to actively change the map of the Middle East to suit its own interests and
national security. Footprints of this new American
pursuit are seen everywhere: in Afghanistan, in the “security belts” they set up
in Central Asia and Pakistan, in supporting Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s war
against Palestine, in the feverish preparations being made to bomb Iraq, and in the
changes Washington is intending to introduce in many Arab regimes, especially the
Palestinian Authority (PA).
Let’s look closely at what US President George W. Bush said recently (in a joint
press conference with Sharon on May 7):
“One of the things that I think is important is for us to immediately begin to
help rebuild a security force in Palestine that will fight terror, that will bring some
stability to the region. I think it’s very important that there be a unified security
force; that, at the same time, we need to work for other institutions a constitution,
for example, a framework for development of a state that can help bring security and hope
to the Palestinian people and the Israelis.
“We must provide a framework for growth of a potential Palestinian state.
There’s got to be the framework for education and health and economic development, as
well as security. And all parties have got responsibilities in the region to see to do
their part.”
And of course, Bush didn’t neglect to mention something that has become de rigueur in
any reference to the Middle East: “I have been disappointed in Chairman Arafat. I
think he’s let the Palestinian people down. I think he’s had an opportunity to
lead to peace and he hasn’t done so.”
The only way these words can be interpreted is that they were an open call for a
Palestinian coup, after which a process of nation-building can proceed in the West Bank
and Gaza.
As far as Sharon is concerned, this process can only begin once Palestinian leader Yasser
Arafat has been dethroned. But the Bush administration still hopes that Arafat can act as
a legitimate cover for the coup. If Arafat succeeds in going along with the
“reforms” being readied by the Europeans, some Arabs, and the Israelis, then he
can conceivably retain his post at the helm of the PA.
If he fails, however, then he would be consigned to the position of figurehead with no
powers or else leave the scene altogether.
This, in a nutshell, is the deal now being proposed for Palestine. It is a very serious
deal, not only because Washington believes that it will lead to stability by creating a
new PA that would undertake to fight the “terrorist” Palestinian resistance, but
also because it conforms to the strategic changes the Bush administration intends to
introduce to the very structure of the Middle East order and its component regimes.
While the Bush administration has stated over and over again (both before and after it
came to power) that it would have nothing to do with nation-building, in fact it has done
nothing else since Sept. 11.
In Afghanistan, the US defeated the Taleban then asked the UN and the international
community to help build a new Afghan nation.
In Pakistan, Washington didn’t change the regime, but changed its policies. Pakistani
strongman Pervez Musharraf suddenly realized that he didn’t quite like Islamist
movements after all, and that Islam should be kept out of politics.
In Palestine, therefore, and if everything goes according to plan, there will soon appear
a new regime with or without Arafat.
This scenario is set to be repeated in many an Arab state, a possibility noticed very
early on by former US Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk, who said: “After Sept. 11,
economic, political and cultural reform in Arab states has become an American national
security objective.”
But what will the Arab peoples think of these American coups?
Most probably, they will judge them by their results. If the Arab peoples conclude that
these “reforms” are only intended to propagate American-Israeli strategic
control over the region, then it would not be long before radical and fundamentalist
movements witness their second big rebirth in less than 40 years.
If Israel turns out to be the point of reference for Arab reformists and democrats, then
there will be no chance for any sort of legitimacy in the region.
The Arab peoples are not prepared to substitute colonialism for oppression and
dictatorship, even if the former were embroidered with the trappings of democracy, the
rule of law and transparency.
Bush doesn’t seem to have understood this, if the agreements he made with Sharon are
anything to go by.
So where is all this leading us?
To one conclusion: That the tools used to analyze Arab-American relations before Sept. 11
are completely useless now.
Thanks to Osama bin-Laden, American policy in the Middle East has gone back 50 years, to
the time when Robert Louis Stevenson’s proverbial Banquet of Consequences was the
only dish being cooked up in America’s Middle Eastern kitchens.
While the aromas rising from those kitchens today are not exactly similar to those of half
a century ago, they still smell awfully familiar.
Saad Mehio is a Lebanese journalist and writer. He
wrote this commentary for The Daily Star
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