MIDDLE EAST NOTES
I recently came across an interesting article by Tariq Ali titled “Mid-Point in The Middle East?" originally published in the New Left Review.
As is his usual style, it deals broadly with various corners of the Middle East. It makes for interesting, and often educational, reading. But I have a few issues with some aspects of the article, especially regarding Iraq.
The 'resistance' in Iraq is not a national liberation movement a la the 1960s. It is actually more a 'Sunni Sectarian' movement which seeks a return to the authoritarian minority system that was set up by the British in 1921, whereby at first the Turkish-groomed grandees of the Baghdad area then, after 1958, the military juntas of the Tikrit-Samarra-Falluja region ruled the country.
I know, I can hear Tariq Ali saying: so what, the Fidelistas were a small minority in the mid-1950s, as were the Bolsheviks throughout 1917. The difference is that those two movements did not represent narrow and chauvenistic ethnic and sectarian interests- they could expand to encompass a majority. Whether they did is debatable, because I have seen no voting data about that.
The British, in my view, were obliged to enter the fray in 2003 once it was clear that the die was cast. After all they had to go in to finish the job they had botched earlier when they imported and installed Faisal I on the throne and, according to Gertrude Bell (from the horse's mouth) favored the minority Sunnis of the central region to rule over the Shi'as and the Kurds. Perhaps they felt, being British and proper, that it was worthwhile to take a shot at making another mistake in order to correct an earlier one.
Still, one must notice that this recent intervention, or adventure, in iraq has in fact changed the situation in the Middle East- it has mixed and reshuffled the cards, something that was needed in that stagnant region. After all, there are riots in Cairo now!! And the Egyptian people are normally among the most complacent and most patient sufferers in the world. Even the hereditary oil potentates of the Persian Gulf and their oligarchies are mouthing phrases about elections and reform. True, the few open elections in the Middle East have resulted in a 'rightward' move toward Islamic fundamentalism that is unfortunate. But then again, perhaps that has been the only realistic alternative to a corrupt 'center'. That corrupt center- and I use center here cautiously only to distinguish it from the religious or fundamentalist 'right'- includes the Arab regimes.
True, as Tariq Ali claims, the mainstream Shi'as in Iraq threw in their lot, at least tacitly, with the occupation, in the sense that hey did not resist it. Not that they had much of a choice: you could not expect them to actually fight for Saddam and his Ba’ath regime now did you? That would be almost like expecting German or Polish Jews to fight the advancing American or Soviet armies in 1945, and complain if they declined the honor. We must also remember that the Shi'as did rebel and resist that earlier occupation of Iraq after World War I while the others collaborated with the occupiers- those others were handed the power and the Shi'as paid a heavy political price for it over many decades.
For many years, those who are now leading the insurgency/terrorism in Iraq were quite happy to throw in their lot openly with the West, and with the absolute monarchies of the region, when they faced the human wave assaults and the fall of the Fao Peninsula during the Iran-Iraq of the 1980s, when their own power was threatened. It is foolish for some European dreamers to equate these Ba’athists and Salafi bombers to the Viet Cong of the 1960s. The Ba’ath is a fascist party that was inspired by the Nazis and Fascists of Europe, and it later adopted some of the slogans of the European Left even while it was slaughtering the Communists in Iraq. To claim that “The Anglo-American armies need to be driven out of the country, bag and baggage, for Iraq to have any future” is to turn a blind eye to the sectarian disaster that could erupt if that withdrawal is precipitous and immediate.
The rule of thumb, as far as judging various regimes around the world goes, should be simple: do I, my lucky free self, moi, want to live under such a regime? Otherwise I should not promote it for others- they might deserve better even if they are Third-World types who might have known no better.
These retro-dreamers in Europe and the United States should remember that the Viet Cong never had a known policy of systematically blowing up their own civilian populations, not even in the name of national liberation.
Cheers
Mohammed
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