Failed Arab States, The Iraqi Pie, Fundies and Outed CIA Agents

Middle East Analysis

The reactions to recent proposals to establish autonomous regions within Iraq (e.g. Biden-Gelb) have been negative on the Arab level. That is to be expected in view of the Arab proclivity for the traditional strong centralized authoritarian rule. In the Arab World, a domineering central government is mistaken for a strong state. As long as the capital, with its ruling elites and its environs, is considered livable and manageable, so is the rest of the country. Unfortunately, the opposite is often true. (Would it make a difference if DC were to float away into the Atlantic? While Congress is in recess, of course.)
Speaking of which, the recent report by Foreign Policy (King’s College, London) (www.foreignpolicy.com) and the Fund For Peace(www.fundforpeace.org) on Failed States is loaded with Arab, Moslem, and African states. Five of the worst ten are Moslem countries. Three of these are members of the Arab League. 17 of the worst twenty are either African or Moslem. Egypt, the largest Arab country, is one of the worst 40 states. Looks like Latin America has improved noticeably.
The emphasis in the Arab media has shifted now to Iranian influence in Iraq. Some Iraqi Sunni commentators in the offshore Arab media, those based in London, are now, in true Ba’athist fashion that clearly is still in fashion among them, disputing the Iraqi national credentials of some of the new leaders. Ironically, the ancestors of many of these current leaders were the ones who opposed the long Turkish occupation, and fought the British invasion- see about the Siege of Najaf (1919), and the Great Iraqi Rebellion (1920)- and they were the ones who forced the creation of the Iraqi state.

Now for the haggling in Iraq: It looks like the Kurds will insist on keeping the Foreign Ministry, so all the Arab League meetings will have to accept a Kurd as an equal. Sunni Arab attempts at establishing a new ministry for inter-Arab affairs to deal with the Arab League are not likely to succeed. It aims at keeping a direct line between Iraq’s Sunni minority and the (mostly Sunni) Arab World that is clearly hostile to the democratic experiment in Iraq. In other words, its aim is to have the Sunni Arabs basically run Iraq’s relations with other Arab countries, which in itself is unconstitutional, flagrantly sectarian and encroaches on the country’s sovereignty.

It also looks certain, as predicted, that a Shi’a will keep the Interior Ministry, which is responsible for the security services. The Sunnis now want the Ministries of Education and Defense, among others. They will probably get Defense, but Education is a touchy subject and they are not likely to get it, especially in view of the recent drive at cleansing the curriculum from its chauvinistic and heavily fascist-inspired slant that was imposed by the Ba'ath Party.

The past week or two have been a strange period of time, perhaps a watershed. During the period, Osama Bin Laden, Al-Zawahiri, and al-Zarqawi all did their bit to compete with the likes of Oprah, Springer, O’Reilly, and perhaps anybody else who has a new book coming out in the United States, including several former sworn-to-secrecy CIA operatives and agents (of both the outed and non-outed varieties). Add to them a new twist, the reappearance, also on videotape, of Hikmatyar, a nasty and opportunistic Afghan warlord who was part of the Moujahideen fight against the Soviet occupation in the 1980’s but then went on to almost single-handedly destroy Kabul after it had thrived during the war years. Now he claims his loyalty to al-Qaida. I am not sure it makes a difference to anyone, but it is odd, all this competition by the shaggy Salafi fundamentalists for the cameras.
The Al-Jazeera was gushing all over the recent al-Zarqawi tape, trying to discern and divine a new approach by the Jordanian leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, but that was before the US military released the longer Keystone-Cops version of it yesterday.
Cheers
Mohammed