Posted on 09/17/2003 12:20:24 PM PDT by Ex-Dem
Pan-Arabism, dead in Baghdad’s streets
It is now likely that a United Nations force will join Spanish and Polish troops to take some of the responsibility for policing Iraq from the workhorses of the “coalition of the willing” Britain and the United States. After more than four months of liberation duty, British and American troops need some relief from the day-to-day grind. In the midst of all of this, the choice made by many Arab countries to not participate in the US-led invasion still frustrates, particularly in light of the quick end to the conflict.
The political decision taken by Arab leaders to deny the US their public support for the war has so far left Iraq with no Arab help in the post-war period. In effect, the Arab world has sidelined itself with respect to playing a role in a future Iraq, which is being reshaped by the Anglo-American coalition. The gradual opening up of Iraq to a UN role, triggered by an apparent change of policy in Washington, could lead to Arab nations finally getting involved.
On the face of it, wouldn’t it have been better from the beginning to have Arabic-speaking soldiers in Iraq, who could relate to the local culture in a way Westerners could only dream of? How much easier would it have been for the Coalition Provisional Authority to win hearts and minds if it had had more Arabs delivering its message? Having Muslim troops stationed in a Muslim country made sense, didn’t it? A Saudi officer or a Jordanian soldier would have been much easier to trust than one with the stars and stripes on his uniform, right?
Wrong. Evidence on the ground in Iraq suggests that the population does not actually regard the absence of Arab involvement as a bad thing at all. The truth is that most Iraqis would prefer to have a US-dominated force in their country, over an Arab one. The grim reality, one particularly hard to hear for those Arabs who felt they were supporting their Iraqi brethren when demonstrating against war, is that most Iraqis don’t want to have anything to do with them.
On the walls of Mosul University, one of Iraq’s oldest, warning signs are clearly displayed: “No Jordanians, No Palestinians.” Iraqis are clearly still upset that other Arabs were able to study in Iraq, effectively on former President Saddam Hussein’s payroll. Iraqis have had enough of seeing their own lives compromised for the benefit of Arabs from neighbouring countries. Saddam played the Palestinian card for all it was worth. Iraqis widely believe that the support, both vocal and financial, he gave to families of Palestinian suicide bombers was the reason behind the wrath of the “Zionists” in Israel and America.
Whether that is true or not is beside the point Iraqis saw other Arabs benefit from the Baath regime, while they were left to suffer. In contrast, the US spilled the blood of its soldiers to liberate them from Saddam’s tyranny. No matter how bad things are in Iraq, friends, colleagues and relatives assure me that with the pressure of living under the old regime gone, life is 100 percent better.
The illicit oil deals between Saddam’s regime and countries like Syria and Jordan, which were affectionately known as “memorandums of understanding,” irked the population. Even now, in a country that has the world’s second-largest reserves of crude oil, Iraqis must go begging to Syria, Turkey and Jordan for fuel imports to meet domestic consumption. It’s not an easy pill for the average Iraqi to swallow.
Stories are doing the rounds telling of how even Kuwaitis profited from Saddam after 1991. Iraqis are incensed that people from a country supposed to be their enemy were treated better by their leader than they were. “Foreigners had more rights in Iraq than Iraqis did under Saddam,” is not an uncommon complaint heard in Baghdad. There is a lot of animosity toward those countries that managed to gain from the former regime’s thirst for international recognition and popularity. In this light, the bombing of the Jordanian Embassy in August is not difficult to comprehend. It was even more tragic and disgusting an act when considering that it was mainly Iraqis who died in the blast.
Pan-Arab nationalists will find that their dreams have died in the dusty streets of Baghdad and in the narrow lanes of Fallujah. Iraqis just aren’t interested. They have enough problems of their own and want to get back on an even keel, to enjoy their country as they were always supposed to. In Jordan, King Abdullah champions his “Jordan First” campaign, struggling to get the message out to his people. Iraqis have learned their lessons Iraq comes first; there is no second place.
Mustafa Alrawi is managing editor of the Baghdad-based and Iraqi-staffed independent weekly Iraq Today (www.iraq-today.com), Iraq’s first English-language newspaper. He wrote this commentary for THE DAILY STAR
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