As yet another leaked Pentagon “plan” for an invasion of Iraq hits the headlines, a number of commentators in the Arab press remark that the players directly concerned with the country’s future are playing their cards suspiciously close to their chests. Virtually none of them are saying what they truly think of the prospect of an American blitz targeting President Saddam Hussein’s regime, or what kind of post-Saddam Iraq they want to see emerge, Lebanese commentator Samir Atallah writes in the leading pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat.
The US itself has been sending out contradictory signals. First, it leaks word that it is planning for an attack in the fall. Then, other leaks inform us that this is deliberate disinformation intended to mislead Baghdad about the real timing of the assault, after which sources reveal that no decision has actually been made yet. The Europeans and Russians, for their part, declare where they stand in tones suggesting they are “not confident that what they are saying is what they really want to say.”
In turn, the Iraqi Kurds ­ split into two rival factions and many sub-factions ­ hedge their bets. They do not want to burn their bridges with either Washington or Baghdad, while concurrently seeking and fearing independence, and denying they want their own state even as they build it on the ground. “Having been taught by history not to trust anyone, and to fear everyone, they are in an eternal state of emergency and on permanent alert.”
As for the Arabs, “they are in agreement on one thing ­ denial,” writes Atallah. “Some of them deny that they support military action against the regime, others deny the denial, while the rest confirm the denial of the denial. And the majority of them are afraid of the thing that they want, because what they want is known, but what might actually happen is unknown.”
Then there is Turkey, which wants the benefits of siding with Washington without losing its relationship with Baghdad, according to Atallah. Ankara supports the Iraqi Kurds for its own reasons but does not want them to get too strong lest that cause it domestic problems, and wants Iraq to survive as a country but to be weak and free of Iranian influence.
The Iranians, for their part, want the regime in Baghdad deposed, but not by the Americans, or with Kurdish or Turkish help. They “dream” of a shakeup in Iraq working to their advantage, while fearing it could backfire against them.
And the numerous components of the offshore Iraqi opposition ­ some adopting an explicitly sectarian agenda that suggests their “enemy” is not so much the regime as the country’s demographic structure ­ have begun “bickering over how to divide the cake before they have even got to it.”
As a result, says Atallah, no one knows where the “new Iraq” will be heading, or what strategic fallouts on the region will ensue if the US opts for war. “No one knows if there will be war or not, and no one knows where the nations and forces directly concerned with Iraq’s present and future truly stand.”
Further confusion was caused by Jordanian Prince Hassan’s arrival at the London conference of Iraqi military defectors this month, says Atallah. It fueled “fears, speculation and criticism” throu-ghout the Arab world, where it was seen as an attempt to secure the restoration of the Hashemite monarchy in Iraq, triggering a further bout of hedged denials.
Thus one leading Jordanian commentator stated that a Hashemite comeback was out of the question because it would be opposed by regional states for a variety of reasons, “even though it would constitute the most reasonable way of extricating Iraq from its present crisis.” The “even though” smacks of tacit confirmation, Atallah suggests.
Many Arab newspapers highlight a remark by Jordan’s King Abdullah during an interview with The Times of London, in which he rebuked his uncle for flirting with the Iraqi opposition and reviving speculation about Hashemite ambitions. “Prince Hassan blundered into something that he did not realize he was getting into, and we’re all picking up the pieces,” he told the London daily.
For the moment, pan-Arab Al-Quds al-Arabi reports that the Military Council formed at the meeting attended by Prince Hassan ­ with the declared aim of filling any “political vacuum” that arises ­ has already split, with three of its members resigning in protest at the “undemocratic” way it is run.
The newspaper also says that a rival organization is being put together by prominent Iraqi exiles, including two former army generals who boycotted the London gathering. The 24-member group, tentatively called the Higher Council for National Salvation, also comprises former senior government and ruling party officials, plus political figures from different parts of the country and members of leading clans. They hope to be able to use their influence to persuade leading figures in the regime to force President Saddam Hussein to step down, and thus spare Iraq an American mauling, the paper says.
Asharq al-Awsat’s Saudi editor in chief, Abderrahman al-Rashed, says the opposition’s fractiousness and lack of popular backing inside Iraq raises the prospect of a dangerous power struggle in the country if and when Saddam is removed. He urges Iraq’s neighbors to do more to prepare for the eventuality of US military action, not least by bracing to cope with an influx of “millions of refugees” who might flee the country and saddle them with a humanitarian problem of immense proportions.
But Rashed argues that the Arab states can do nothing to prevent the Americans from going to war if that is what they opt for. Only Baghdad itself can do that, and it remains within its capacity to “extinguish the fuse at the last moment,” he maintains. But Baghdad is clearly preparing for war, at least on the information front. “It is poised to launch a propaganda campaign to defend its position and embarrass the Arab sides that participate in the US attack against it, in the belief that popular pressure will intimidate the Arab regimes and prompt the American government to scale down its operation and objectives,” he says.
“These contingencies are all based on the grave assumption that within a few months, we will witness a process of momentous change in the region, which threatens great dangers, above all struggles for power within Iraq, now that the opposition has proven its inability to build popular support foundations inside the country,” Rashed says.
“The fear is not of the regime falling, but of a vacuum leading to civil war. This is a nightmare we began talking about with genuine trepidation 17 years ago, when the tables turned in Iraq’s war with Iran. We used to say: What will happen if the regime falls? Since then, we have not received convincing evidence that the overthrow or weakening of the regime is something that can be contained to ensure the wellbeing of the country and the region,” he says.
Qatari commentator Mohammed al-Misfer, who interviewed Saddam in Baghdad this month, warns that a US attack on Iraq could lead to fragmentation along ethnic and sectarian lines, and argues that if that happens, Saudi Arabia could be next in line. He suggests in Al-Quds al-Arabi that this is the “forethought” the intelligence agencies of the US, Britain and Israel have of Iraq’s future “following its wholesale destruction,” and in the longer term of the future of the Arab world as a whole.
They have been trying to nurture rival Iraqi opposition groups to that end, as was noticeable at the recent London conference, where the Kurdish, Turcoman, Assyrian, Shiite and Sunni participants quarreled over the future of post-Saddam Iraq and their respective stakes, he says. Turkey has meanwhile been trying to do deals about the future of northern Iraq with Washington, accepting “assurances” over the fate of the Kurdish district in exchange for the US agreeing to arm its Turcoman surrogates and “hand over” Mosul and Kirkuk.
The stage is seemingly being set for a carve-up of Iraq, “and I swear that if America manages to overthrow the regime in Baghdad, the danger will extend to the kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” Misfer writes. There have been hints that Washington would like to see Saudi Arabia break up into three or more enclaves, according to Misfer. In any case, he says, the kingdom’s strategic weight would be greatly diminished by an American client regime in Baghdad that places the country’s vast resources at Washington’s disposal and does Israel’s bidding.
In the UAE daily Al-Khaleej, Saad Mehio suggests that Iran and the US might come to an understanding about Iraq’s future, despite the renewed war of words that is raging between them ­ with the Bush administration berating Teh-ran’s human rights record, and the latter riling at American “expansionism.”
Mehio states that ever since the Islamic revolution in 1979, the true state of relations between the two sides has been “a mystery within a mystery.” While outwardly displaying deep mutual loathing, they have regularly set aside their ostensibly “ideological” animosity to strike eminently “pragmatic” deals behind the scenes. But Iranians felt they were denied a say in the post-Taleban dispensation, and went on to try to assert their influence by other methods. This is one reason why there has not been another “temporary marriage” between the two sides over US action against Iraq, says Mehio.
Another is that they do not appear to have reached an understanding on a post-Saddam regime. Iran publicly declares it rejects “American hegemony” in Iraq, and privately intimates that it refuses to be put through a repeat of the Afghan experience there. Mehio suggests the current war of words between Tehran and Washington is a “negotiation over a new geopolitical understanding.” With the US poised for the most far-reaching strategic coup in the Middle East since the 1950s, “it would be highly surprising if such an understanding were not born in the near future.”

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